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Pizza Without Wires 73

Posted by michael from the borderless-pepperoni dept.
a2gsg was one of several to submit this story about a pizza chain in Malaysia building a high-speed wireless broadband network -- so its customers can order pizza and connect to the net. Pinoygrams, anyone?
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Pizza Without Wires More

Pizza Without Wires

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  • That's a myth. Either that or it's a fairly recent phenomenon. I was at the Beijing McDonald's around lunchtime for about twenty minutes one day in 1994 and the place was damn near empty. So was the one on the other side of Tian'an'men square the next day.

    On the other hand, it is kind of a one-of-a-kind experience to see fifteen Buddhist monks in full garb sit down to eat across from you at McDonald's. What ever happened to the idea of Mu?

  • C++ (extra cheese)

  • I tried to place an order ... (Score:3)

    by PopStar ( 15436 ) on Thursday August 02, 2001 @04:29PM (#2175564) Homepage
    I tried to place an order, but it turns out I was in violation of the DMCA ... Delivery Man Can't find Address Wow ... that was bad ... I will shut up now.
  • I was thinking the same thing. I also prefer my pizza without rocks, mucous, feces or urine, among other toppings.

    --
  • Works fairly well, with three small nitpicks:

    They don't take plastic via the webpage.

    They don't add tax onto your order on the webpage. You find out the REAL total upon delivery.

    Their page doesn't seem to like to work with Opera. Sure, you can figure the tax pretty easy, but it has caught me out a couple of times. Papa John's tells you the total w/tax on phone orders, so I know having taxes NOT figured for me isn't what I expect.

    Those are relatively small, and it is a heck of a lot nicer than sitting on hold for 10-15 minutes. Using plastic would make it a lot nicer, though.

    --

  • Buy a pizza for $500, get broadband access free

    Let's not give Microsoft any ideas ("You can get any toppings you want, as long as one of them is an MSN CD")
  • 2 inch pizza??

    What kind of bulltacky is that? A world where a regular pizza is 2 inches in diameter isn't worth living in!

    "Give the anarchist a cigarette"
  • Yes, but can you download it?
  • ...And they are using an unexpected route to get technology into an area where it might otherwise not be available, and it is a fairly small leap to see that there is a possibility that once the tech is deployed for this purpose, it might be used for something else, as in Cryptonomicon. Thus the reference.

    Please try to assume the opposite of ignorance, as it makes for a better outlook on life.

  • 4G? (Score:1)

    by sundae ( 21532 )
    Even though we're more or less stuck with 2.5G while making the move to 3G right now, I don't recall SMG/ETSI coming up with 4G in the near future.

    Hate it when marketing people says "Oh, the current standard is 3G/MP3. Let's just call our technology 4G/MP4 just to trick clueless people to think ours is a whole generation ahead!"

  • Check out www.pizzacast.com for details
  • Once they develop the transporter they will!
  • It may not have been put very tactfully, but the above comment is true. A Pinoy is a Filipino overseas worker. The pinoygrams described in Cryptonomicon weren't wireless either - they depended on a huge cable.
    It looks like the only reason the word 'pinoygram' was used, was that both countries are in South East Asia and Cryptonomicon is also set there.
    dave
  • Around here if you order yours PCMCIA you get Pizza with Cheese, Mushrooms, Capers, Italian sausage, and Anchovies.

    Mmmmm, boy does that sound good.
  • I really like Dominoe's thin crust pepperoni pizzas. The rest is pretty much garbage, but I like the crispy crust it has.

  • except, there hasnt been for a while, cause most people have pizza deliverd by calling up the pizza place...

    although, i guess since you arent a "nerd" you wouldnt know about something as technologically innovative as a telephone...

    that was pointless, oh well

  • out of curriousity, and cause im too lazy to look it up, what does RM stand for (other than "the malaysian currency" cause im not a dumbass) and about how many us dollars (plus any other currency you feel like adding)is it worth?

  • USB: Uncooked, Soggy Bottom (the restaurant is overloaded with orders and didn't have time to cook it fully)
  • DHCP: Deliveryperson Had Car Problem (30 minutes late and stone cold) DNS: Did Not Slice (got a knife?)
  • Pappa John's lets you do that already here... It works pretty well... I only had a problem with it once and that was about 8 months ago... Beats sitting on hold!!! However, I don't think that you can use coupons, but they usually have their national specials up...
  • yes, another gratuitous stevenson reference
  • How hard is it to pick up the telephone and order a pizza? My God. You might begin to think we've been communicating via heralds on horseback until the last year or so.

    This sounds like another obtuse dotcom business strategy. Is there something in the dial tone I'm not hearing? And I thought I was anti-telephone (don't have a cell phone).

  • What, like webvan.com? Maybe you're being sarcastic; I couldn't tell.

  • ... I usually prefer pepperoni or sausage on my pizza, not wires... but to each [his|her] own, I suppose. They eat some weird things in Malaysia...


    Zaphod B
  • This is singapore. The spectrum isn't regulated the same way, and 1 tower with a couple well placed repeaters is all it takes.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I love Pappa Johns online ordering system. I first tried it a year ago, and you couldn't use coupons, but now they list all their coupons/specials and it's very convienent and I've never had a problem with it.

    But the main reason I didn't use the online service was not because I couldn't use coupons, it was because I couldn't use 'coupons'. After we figured out they didn't check coupons, we just started making up our own based on what we wanted. So if we wanted two larges with two toppings, we'd call them up and say we had a coupon for two large two topping for say 12.99. We kept dropping the price a dollar (we started with 15.99), but 12.99 was as far as we got, since we got busted at 11.99 :). Oh well, I have since moved and got a higher paying job so I don't mind as much using normal coupons.


    --BEGIN SIG BLOCK--
    I'd rather be trolling for goatse.cx [slashdot.org].
  • I wonder what other of Neal's visions will come to pass

    I was wondering the same thing when I read Snow Crash. I was thinking that it all sounded like a bleak, but possible, future for the Internet. Then, by chance, I looked at the copyright (1989, iirc) and was immediately struck dumb by how much he did have right already, considering. Even if he had been using the 'net in the late 80's, the book is still pretty visionary about where it's going/went.
  • No evidence whatsover that radio causes cancer, microwave or no. The famous cell-phone-causes-cancer bull started with a lawyer who "just supposed" the idea into existence. Hm. Client's husband with brain cancer, dead + used cell phone == cell phone caused cancer.

    I believe the jury didn't buy it, but it now is part of the national folklore. How would you test this, tape tiny cell phones to the ears of white rats?

    Anything can be supposed. It isn't science's job to disprove harm whenever someone dreams up an idea like microwave=death, it's the proponent's job to provide evidence to even consider researching the topic. What if the plastic on the cell phone caused the brain cancer? How about his shoulder position? The angle of his neck while using the thing? Maybe the tinny sound of the phone somehow triggers a genetic flaw that causes cancer cells to multiply in the brain; and on and on and on...

    Point: you'll be dead in 50 years anyway, don't sweat the small stuff.

  • Yup, I use it exclusively. Works great in Durham, NC.
  • If only my pizza would be brought by a Deliverator, now ... and within 30 minutes, please!

  • Re:Pinoy (Score:3)

    by No Such Agency ( 136681 ) <abmackay@@@gmail...com> on Thursday August 02, 2001 @01:43PM (#2175594)
    It was a reference to Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon [cryptonomicon.com], if I'm not mistaken. In the book, "Pinoygrams" were the short video-greeting-cards that Filipinos overseas could send home to family, to be viewable for a small fee at convenience stores with terminals. It was set up to finance the construction of a data haven IIRC.
  • Great, now I'm hungry for a pizza. Thanks so much... ;-)
  • Does wireless pizza require the same FDA approval as the swallowable, wireless [slashdot.org] camera?
  • You forgot...
    • SNMP: Simple, No Meat Pizza
  • Genre: Thriller / Action (more)

    Tagline: Her driver's license. Her credit cards. Her bank accounts. Her identity. DELETED.

    her pizza. ORDERED ONLINE.

    haha and remember the digital fireplace/fishtank? that was some lame shit.
  • ..I hope thats not something you have to ask for specifically.. Can I get the pizza *without* wires? They're really hard on my digestive system.

  • Ok, so several people have mentioned that you can order Papa John's over the web (though it really isn't the focus of the article)... Pizza Hut does too, in many areas, as do several others. The larger issue is, of course, that Papa John's is a meager step up from Dominos (which doesn't even qualify as real pizza most of the time). Now if they offered free broadband at Ray's... that would be something - real good pizza, and fast access.
  • DHCP: Deliveryperson Had Car Problem (30 minutes late and stone cold)

    Delivery guy Helps Choose Pizza (change your phone number every 30 minutes)


    DNS: Did Not Slice (got a knife?)

    Deliver to No Slum (everybody got a knife.)

  • I think its great to see companies and small businesses helping out otherwise internet-lacking communities like this. If only more companies would stop just trying to make a profit, and realise that you can occasionally improve the quality of life.. while still making a profit.

  • Also:

    PPP: Petite Personal Pizza
    IPSEC: Individual Pizza: Sausage, Eggplant, and Cheese
    PCMCIA: Pizza with Cheese: Mozzarella, Camembert, Iberico, and Asiago

    and so on...

  • Slick (Score:4)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) on Thursday August 02, 2001 @12:28PM (#2175604) Journal
    I like how 802.11 is being called "4G". Think of how much egg the telcos will get on their face for spending $Bs on 3G licenses - and then being upstaged by something as simple as ethernet!

    More seriously, this is a good idea. By the way, SBUX has a few locations now with 802.11 in the cafe for surfing with your laptop - not quite the same scale, but similar in that they are filling in the coverage gaps where other carriers fear to tread (or go bankrupt - e.g. Ricochet).

  • out of curriousity, and cause im too lazy to look it up, what does RM stand for (other than "the malaysian currency" cause im not a dumbass) and about how many us dollars (plus any other currency you feel like adding)is it worth?

    I just did a quick search on google and the first likely page I found: http://www.qsl.net/seanet2001/m'sia_currency.htm [qsl.net] says the exchange rate in April 2001 was:

    US$1.00 = 3.80 RM (Ringgit).
    (I have no idea how the abbreviation for "Riggit" is "RM".)

    Thinking further about the setup they are proposing, it may not cost them all that much for the physical infrastructure; especially in comparison to the cost of a wired broadband setup. They still would have the fixed costs of installing the antenna(s) and connecting them to whatever routers and internet pipes. They'd also have the monthly costs of the bandwidth. I'm still wondering how they can make a profit considering how much bandwidth could be consumed in a month (unless they have a bandwidth cap? There was no mention of it in the article, but I'd sure expect they would institute one before long. Otherwise, their advertisement is effectively saying: "Buy a pizza, and be able to spam / webhost / etc. for free."

    Another thought: how long is one entitled to free access for the price of that pizza? Could well be that it would be just one week's worth... what a nice synergy! "Honey? Our internet connection just got shut off again... could you please order a pizza?" :*)

  • Putting it all together (Score:4)

    by martyb ( 196687 ) on Thursday August 02, 2001 @12:37PM (#2175606)

    From the article: (my emphasis)

    • The company, Pizza Station, is dishing out an offer which promises to whet the appetite of all pizza lovers and then some: "Buy a pizza and get free wireless broadband".
    • And the clincher is it will cost less than RM3 million to roll out just such a solution...
    • "Roughly, I see revenues of RM4 million this year, RM12 million next year and RM20-RM30 million the following year...

    So it looks like they are expecting to recoup their expenses pretty quickly. Which begs the question, just HOW MUCH do one of these pizzas cost?

    Possible advertisement? Buy a pizza for $500, get broadband access free!
    :*)

  • Yeah, I need a large pepperoni, a couple of cokes, and whatever Metallica MP3's you've got....
  • I'm sure by the time I post this, someone else will have already pointed out that "Pinoy" describes people from the Phillipines, not Malaysia.

    At least everyone I've ever met that called themself "pinoy" was Filipino.

  • When researching to start a local community run wireless LAN, the main problem I found (apart from lack of licencing information for the UK), was where to host base stations in view of everyone.

    If the community was to create a site, or set it as the default homepage, for a store for local things like pizza and other shopping, then I can see that store chipping in enough for a base station, and the transmitter too!
  • Being a recent college graduate, I consider myself an expert on the local varieties of available pizza.

    After 4 years of hard-pressed study of the topic, an incidentally getting a BS in comp. sci., I think Papa John's is pretty high at the top of the national-brand rankings. Garlic butter sauce... mmmm...

    I'll concede, though, that local is almost always better than mass-produced national (microbreweries, for example - www.newbelgium.com, vs. Coors Light).

  • Besides the fact that this is an interesting way to sell more pizza, and develop broadband infrastructure, this is a really interesting combination of ideas which could only exist in our current technological and economic state! This company is combining the development of infrastructure with the specific intentions of selling more pizza and making a commission from other retailers they will sell 'storefront' space to.

    They also have very vague intentions which include general economic, technological, and possibly social advancement. This entire idea could not even be conceived of 10 years ago, and holds great promise for the role technology will play in future economic and social development.

  • I ordered a pizza from Papa John's (via Food.com) a while back. I figured that since I do most everything online, it only made sense to give it a try.

    It turns out that Food.com, based in some other state (I forget where exactly), places a long distance call to my local Papa John's and places the order. I had assumed they'd get a fax/printout/email, but no, a human places the order via phone.

    Naturally, given my luck, they botched the address. Papa John's explained the process to me when I called 2 hours later asking about my order... and ever since, I decided it was just so much easier to call.

    Of course Papa John's doesn't use Food.com anymore (last I checked anyway)...

    - Jman
  • For your information, RM3 million is about $780,000, cheap by any standards. The revenue stream is to be had by charging corporate customers for service on a transaction basis.

    This is a model I've been long awaiting... charge the businesses, provide it to individual consumers for free.

    This is also the only model that has any prayer of competing with traditional telco -- it's too expensive to lay competing cable or to try to have your government convince your telcos to "share" (Bell cough cough).

    I want this pizza place in North America.

    --brian

  • "Your order will be processed and transmitted to the Pizza Station kiosk nearest to you where the order can be picked up."

    there are going to be lots of people who dont pick up their pizzas, because thats not what they really paid for. there is going to be lots of free pizza sitting around conveniently placed kiosks. that is going to be one great city!

  • Yes, but is Papa John's offering you free BROADBAND WIRELESS internet access? I doubt it. That's what the big story is here. For years pizza chains have allowed you to order online. Other fast food restaraunts too. But what the interesting piece of information here is is that you can order your pizza online, and they are going to give away free broadband access. It may just be a pipe dream though. From what I've noticed, companies that give away free internet access don't do well. But maybe in Malaysia things work differently.

    [Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
  • Yes, and so does Domino Link here [quikorder.com] and Pizza Hut (in some markets) through http://www.quikorder.com . You've been able to order pizza online for years. It used to be though that you would order it, but then have to get offline (unless you had two phone lines or broadband) because they would call you to confirm. I think I remember ordering Pizza online over two or three years ago. It's just becoming mainstream now. But the big deal here is not the ordering pizza online, but the give-away and construction of a wireless network to consumers of the pizza. However, how often do free internet companies succeed?

    [Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
  • The problem with the focus on 802.11 as it stands is that the "4G" services becomes "0G" service if too many people fire up their nifty 2.4gHz cordless phones. My range for 11mb extends to about 50' in my apartment complex because of it.

    /* ---- */
    // Agent Green (Ian / IU7)

  • I tried that system once, ordering from Wings Over Storrs...after an hour they still hadn't called to confirm.

    A good old-fashioned phone call revealed that the orders are actually faxed to the restaurant...whether anyone checks the machine is all a matter of luck.

    Although I try to use the Net whenever possible, I like to make damn sure I get my wings ;)

    -=simon=-

  • No problems so far... Didn't try for delivery though yet, only for pickup...
  • Pinoy [google.com] (and Pinay) means Filipino, not Malaysian. Rather different [cia.gov] countries.
  • Which begs the question, just HOW MUCH do one of these pizzas cost?

    Not very much, I wouldn't think. The most expensive meal I ever ate in Malaysia was at Pizza Hut in Penang (it was after a long ferry ride across the straits of Malacca and my stomach was too queasy for anything but ultra-bland food). A large pizza and a pitcher of soda, which two of us split, came to a total of $7.

    Other than that, I've never had a meal in Malaysia (despite eating an awful lot of meals there) come in at over $2. The country is a paradise of cheap and fabulous food. Which begs a very different question: Aside from seasick foreigners, who there would want to eat pizza of all things?

  • Papa John's [papajohns.com] allows you to order pizza over the net now. Has anyone tried it?
  • Personally, I would return any pizza with wires in it
    --

  • Yeah, but they use proprietary protocols... (Score:5)

    by Eryq ( 313869 ) on Thursday August 02, 2001 @12:42PM (#2175624) Homepage
    • FTP: Forget The Pepperoni (faster transfer)
    • HTTP: Heated Thermal Transportation Package (bulky but very popular)
    • SMTP: Small Meatless Thin-crust, Please (lightweight but very popular)
    • UDP: Unreliable Delivery Person (cheap, but may not get there at all)
    • TCP: Terrifying Cascade of Pizzas (we send your order every 30 minutes until you tell us to stop)
    • GOPHER: Go Out to Pizza Hut, Eat, Return (not used much these days, but real nice once in a while)
  • - 1 USD = RM3.80
    - Malaysia population = 22 million
    - Malaysian average annual income = RM12,000(USD3,000)
    - 60% of Malaysian live in the city
    - Malaysia Programmer pay can be range from RM1700-RM8000(USD459-USD2000)
    - BMW 318i cost RM300,000/USD79K, imported japanese car will cost around RM60k-RM100k
    - "Kampung" is a Malay word, it means village.
    - A take away pizza set, with 2 regular pizza (2 inch diameter), 1 coke, 1 garlic bread cost around RM39.00.
    - Malaysia now having 4 major mobile phone service provider.(Previously 6)
    - All mobile phone company are now under heavy debt.
  • pizza emailed within 10 minutes or it's free!

  • pizza? (Score:3)

    by manifested2 ( 413781 ) on Thursday August 02, 2001 @12:21PM (#2175627) Homepage
    I can see the headlines already:

    Get pizza fast. Surf for pr0n faster.
  • I haven't ordered a pizza by calling on the phone in 3 years. Papa John's pizza, among others, does a lot of business here in Austin online.

    I'm rather partial to the wirelss coffee house idea, myself, if only I could afford a laptop and wireless modem.
  • ...are they going to recoup their losses? I don't care how much pizza they sell, broadband is expensive. I just don't see how this can work.
    USA Intellectual Property Laws: 5 monkeys, 1 hour.
  • Pinoygrams is a reference to Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon [amazon.com]. Scary that something like this would actually come true. I wonder what other of Neal's visions will come to pass...

  • This is actually interesting. (Score:5)

    by phoenix_orb ( 469019 ) on Thursday August 02, 2001 @12:38PM (#2175631)
    Finally, a company that gets it. 3G is so expensive... why do you think companies have scaled back large deployment of it? And here is a company (that isn't even a telco..) that is using 2.4ghz and 5.7ghz band (which is unlicenced, and therefore, free..) to have higher speed connectivity. This is similar to Apple's airport in design, since it is going to be using the 802.11 standard.... but Airport uses only the 2.4 ghz band.

    I will be interested in knowing how this Pizza company will implement security. The free wireless networks in place in Seattle and San Francisco still do not have great security, as there isn't great security inherent in the protocol. I would hate to have someone snagging my email or telnet sessions out of the air.. (and yes, I do use PGP and SSH.. but many people do not...)

    I do happen to find it interesting about this company... A pizza company no less. I work for a CLEC, and I see all kinds of executives here who still don't get broadband... (as crazy as that sounds, it is true..) I honestly hope that this company can implement this.

    This reminds me of companies who designed broadband connectivity that went through power lines... and had an impossible time trying to convince the Power companies. They simply didn't understand the resources that they had. Now, we are entering an age where in fact wires can be made obsolete ( for the most part...) and we can send out high speed data though the air. Now, if we can just get the security down, and make sure that they don't cause cancer.. and microwave towers can...

  • Hmm..thanks for the idea, I'm going to be involved in a new internet cafe (as blase as that sounds, nowadays) here in waterford CT, i should suggest we impliment a wireless hub for our customers with laptops and the appropriate hardware (or we could even loan it to them).
  • well, id rather go with radio wireless rather than infra-red, my MSCE instructor uses some sort of radio-based transmission for his laptop, and that way it's less dependant on line-of-sight.

  • Paradigm Shift (Score:3)

    by Nihilanth ( 470467 ) <chaoswave2@[ ].com ['aol' in gap]> on Thursday August 02, 2001 @12:20PM (#2175634)
    I know at Uconn and a few other college campuses, some of the restauraunts that do lots of business with the students have implimented forms where you can place your orders online, and receive a call when the food's ready (it caught on really well at Uconn, possibly partially because of the broadband internet connections that are pretty standard in college dorms nowadays). They usually band together and pay a third party to operate and maintain the internet service. All of the experiences i've had with the combination of food service with the internet have been fairly pleasant, it should be interesting to see how a more concrete co-mingling of the services will pan out.

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