Digital Signage Blog

Aaron Wycoff of Red Mobility wrote an excellent article on connectivity for the Digital Signage Magazine back in June. It's a best practices article outlining satellite, DSL, and cellular connectivity for digital signage networks. Aaron speaks about the pros and cons of connectivity between the three solutions. He also speaks of the necessity of good connectivity:

Networked digital signage is also able to leverage burgeoning interactive technologies such as in-store text messaging to promote a sale or special offers while the consumer is on the sales floor and Bluetooth-based coupons that are delivered directly to the consumer's cell phone to influence their buying behavior at the point of purchase.

Aaron and I spoke over lunch while at InfoComm about connectivity. It interested me because in a former life, I sold and distributed Clearwire, a cellular based connectivity solution. Interestingly, Clearwire is currently being used by Seattle Digital Signage for their taxi cab digital signage network in downtown Seattle. The Clearwire solution is suprisingly less expensive than some other forms of cellular connectivity, albeit limited to specific geographic regions.

My discussion with Aaron led to Xohm (another company whose name is based off an available four letter domain name). Xohm is a WAN joint venture between Clearwire and Sprint. Their tagline is "Imagine a Hot Spot the Size of a City."

This is the type of stuff that excites me. It reminds of Google's free WIFI connectivity to San Francisco. Not everything should be free, but I believe information-at least most of it-should be. Xohm will offer a great solution not only for digital signage connectivity but also for consumer connectivity in general-something for which we should all give props to.

For more information on Xhom as a connectivity vehicle, just do a simple web search for it.