Patent ID: 6862496

Claim:
A laundry system comprising laundry equipment which comprises a plurality of laundry machines, a laundry managing server for managing the laundry equipment, and a carrier server capable of communicating with the laundry managing server wherein: the laundry equipment comes into an operable state by receiving a signal for permitting operation thereof from the laundry managing server, and transmits operational information to the laundry managing server in response to operation of the laundry equipment which has become operable; the laundry managing server comprises means for confirming validity of customer identification data when receiving the customer identification data along with specific information for identifying laundry equipment that the customer desires to use from a portable communication tool of the customer and transmitting a signal to the laundry equipment that has been identified by the specific information so as to permit operation of the laundry equipment, and means for receiving the operational information from the laundry equipment and creating bill data for charging the customer based on the customer identification data and the operational information; and the carrier server comprises: a customer file for storing customer information; means for writing a communication charge caused by the portable communication tool in the customer file each time when the portable communication tool transmits information; means for writing bill data transmitted from the laundry managing server in the customer file as a laundry equipment usage rate; and means for issuing a bill to the customer, the bill claiming a sum of the communication charge and the laundry equipment usage rate.