With speeds 4x as fast as 3G in virtually every corner of Baltimore, CLEAR is designed with the internet in mind. The blazing 4G network gives your laptops and desktops the speed and access they need to really deliver. That’s why it’s the ultimate connection.

How is it different from what I have?
How isn’t it different? Today’s 3G networks were built for making phone calls. But Clear was created for the internet. That means you’ll have loads of 4G bandwidth wherever you are. So whether you’re downloading movies, uploading videos or streaming games, you can do it all ridiculously fast.

What can I do with it
Everything you’ve always dreamed about doing on the internet that the slow drip of 3G makes so painful. Watch live soccer from Europe, from your kids soccer game in Seattle. Email ginormous presentations from the road in seconds without having to pay for a mega-grande just to get a connection. Download a video of that conference you couldn’t attend in the middle of a trainload of commuters. With this kind of speed you can do it all.

What does it cost?
The name is CLEAR and so is the pricing. As an authorized agent we offer combined mobile and home plans, home only plans, and voice plans starting at $30 a month. There are no tricks and no surprises. All you get is a connection 4x the speed of 3G* for the same price as a ball and chain connection from your phone or cable company.

Where can I use CLEAR?
When you have CLEAR, you have a connection wherever you are in your city. Use it at home. Fire it up on the road. No more searching for wi-fi hotspots where you’re fighting with 20 other people for bandwidth. CLEAR goes places wi-fi can’t get close to.

But the company’s NTC line of kiosks signals a shift in the charging kiosk business model. By incorporating touchscreens, digital signage and Internet connectivity, the kiosks are expanding the range of applications — and potential revenue sources — for this type of self-service kiosk.

NV3 managing partner Scott Calhoun explains that the company started out with a simple, service-driven model. Customers would plug in their phones and receive a 15-minute quick charge for a fee. When the company began manufacturing its own kiosks to improve ROI, he says it discovered a different, more flexible business model.

“The charger is really drawing the customer in and holding them there for 15 minutes,” he said.

Therein lies what NV3 sees as the future for device-charging kiosks. Customers with phones connected to a kiosk for several minutes offer a semi-captive audience for deployer messages.

And the additions to NV3’s product line, such as touchscreens and digital signage, create a number of possibilities for clients to connect with customers and employees.

Calhoun and managing partner Ryan Doak say the possible uses for this deployment model are extremely diverse. A hospital could equip a charger with a patient-information touchscreen, helping patients’ families stay in contact and informed during emergencies. An airline could deploy digital-signage-equipped kiosks in its employee lounges, saving the headache of disseminating paper- or e-mail-based HR information on a global scale.

“Once we were putting everything together, we found out it wasn’t to hard to customize [the kiosk] depending on what the customer needs it to do,” Calhoun said.

In a recent deployment, NV3 installed a series of mall-based kiosks to present interactive information from Toyota. Customers at the kiosks encounter digital signage about the brand, and a touchscreen interface that allows them to contact Toyota and purchase products online. With customers held at the kiosks while their phones charge, Toyota is able to present deeper, more complex messages, and can conduct more sophisticated transactions than might be possible at a kiosk with nothing there to hold the client in place.

Calhoun says a series of upgrades will soon add more capability to the charging kiosks. The company is retrofitting charging hardware so that it can track the types of phones charged, the number of times a user returns to the kiosk and other demographic information that could paint a very precise market picture for phone manufacturers, advertisers and kiosk deployers.

How this new tracking information will affect future device-charging kiosk deployments remains to be seen — the technology is only just beginning to come online. But the expansion in possibilities offered by digital signage, interactive features and enhanced connectivity show that the once-simple device-charging kiosk is becoming a powerful, versatile tool in deployers’ arsenals.

Matt Cunningham is the editor of KioskMarketplace.com. To comment on this story, send comments to editor@digitalsignagetoday.com.

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For 14 years, KioskCom & The Digital Signage Show have delivered strategic, marketing and technical business solutions for organizations focused on enhancing their customer engagement programs through digital media such as kiosks, digital signage, self-service, digital out-of-home/place based media and other customer-facing technologies.