Article

Broadband puts the flash in the box

Speaking broadly, kiosks are going to need broadband. But what kind?

March 24, 2002

Kiosks are becoming important to the business plans of many companies. To meet the demand for new features, kiosks will display rich media such as full motion video, graphics and music. Updating kiosk information in large networks by having staff don their sneakers and run from one kiosk to the other to load new files, as in a "sneakernet," just won't work.

Companies using rich media need broadband networks. With a broadband network, staff can update all the files quickly, to all kiosks at once, using a central server. But which broadband solution is best?

Broadband refers generally to any network with the capacity to handle large amounts of data. Kiosks that display rich media require the high bandwidth, high-speed broadband connections that technologies like Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), cable, frame relay, satellite and dedicated lines can provide (see box for definitions).

A broadband connection is to a dialup telephone connection as a high capacity water main is to a garden hose that someone is stepping on. When a company needs, for example, to run commercials from a broadcast advertising campaign on a kiosk screen, it will need large pipe, broadband network connectivity to get those videos to the kiosk.

Cabling the car shop

Autopulse Inc. creates kiosks for automotive retailers such as Jiffylube. Autopulse networks its kiosks using DSL and cable modems, depending on what service is available at its kiosk locations.

The Autopulse kiosks are designed for customers waiting for repairs. For no charge, customers can surf the Web, read e-mail, shop, and enter contests. The kiosks also display information about the retailer. A recent Jiffylube promotion offered customers the chance to drive a PT Cruiser for one year.

Steve Conway, president of Autopulse, said, "I wouldn't personally put a kiosk in a retail environment that wasn't broadband-connected. The dialup modem strategy is just too old. It's too slow--it's not going to make it."

According to Conway, fewer than .5 percent of the 25,000 automobile retail locations in the U.S. are connected via broadband. This isn't enough pulse for Autopulse's business to work well. Autopulse offers to find broadband service providers to connect to the customers' locations. Beyond Jiffy Lube, Autopulse is targeting Pep Boys, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Midas Muffler, Merchants Tire and other aftermarket retailers for its kiosk networks.

Conway had considered VSAT satellite, a network available at many retailers used for point of sale (POS) applications, but VSAT's small bandwidth available for sending data from the kiosk (the system's maximum is a modem's top speed) made it impractical for the Autopulse kiosks.

DSL delays

There are obstacles to consider when selecting the appropriate broadband connection for a kiosk system. Phone lines that could deliver DSL might be nearby, but may also be old copper wires that aren't adequate for the new broadband digital signals. Both Conway and Apunix vice president Sylvia Berens pointed out that even where facilities are available, installation delays of weeks, even months, are common.

To set up a single DSL installation at a single location, several different organizations may be required. This includes one to physically hook up the wires, another to connect them to the phone company and possibly a third for billing. For national networks, kiosk companies will not be able to find one company to provide blanket DSL service.

Apunix's Fun Finder kiosk network, which provides car rental customers with maps, directions, weather and hospitality information at Alamo Rent-A-Car, uses a mix of dialup and DSL connections. Berens said that monitoring systems with dialup is a hassle. The always-on feature of DSL makes it a more attractive solution for the Fun Finder networks.

"We're trying to replace dialup and get DSL in all cities, but it isn't available yet in some locations," she said.

Cable inconsistencies

Cable television companies, such as Time Warner with its Road Runner service, have begun offering broadband Internet access. Although the technical requirement for wide, high-speed pipes is met, installation could be a problem. Cable may not be available in the kiosk location. Bandwidth can't always be guaranteed either. Since cable access is shared among subscribers, speed decreases as the number of users increases. Speeds very anywhere from as fast as a dedicated broadband line to nearly as slow as dialup.

Satellite smarts

Fritz Stolzenbach, marketing director of Spacenet Inc., a supplier of satellite data transmission services used by convenience stores and banks, said, "The smart money's on satellite. The people who run Fortune 500 companies just don't have the time to dink around with DSL because they have mission-critical applications they want to put in the ground, now, today."

Satellite network systems other than VSAT can be very fast. Spacenet satellite network customers include Rite Aid Corp, U.S. Postal Service, Deere & Company, Goodyear, Boston Market Corp. and Hollywood Video. Large business networks such as these companies run work well using satellite.

"Large companies want just one network service provider, nationwide," Stolzenbach said. "They want a transparent network so they can identify problems all the way from the headquarters out to the remote site; they don't want to have to go through any third parties."

Greg Hurt, sales and marketing director at satellite services provider Microspace, said that networks of hundreds of kiosks that are based on ad revenue require the timely, frequent distribution of digital media files that can be downloaded in a single satellite broadcast to all the kiosks. Satellite technology lets each kiosk have a unique network address, making it easy to use one satellite transmission to change all the ads on kiosks in one region, but not in another.

Frame Relay

TravelCenters of America already had a network in place when its 160 Mile Marker kiosks were installed recently at its truck stops across the U.S. It uses a frame relay network to send point of sale information between the truck stops and headquarters. Depending on the size of a company, network and technical need, frame relay is one network alternative to expensive, high speed dedicated lines.

Kiosk project manager David Hanzal said that the system, created to give a face-lift to a ten-year old truckers loyalty program, is updated, 20 Mile Marker kiosks at a time, in about half an hour for all locations coast to coast.

Apunix, builder of the Mile Marker system, had explored satellite networking but found that using satellite for real time information at kiosks may be slow; there can be a delay between the time the user touches the screen and when the screen changes, called latency.

"You need to be careful with satellite that you're getting what you think," Berens said. "Users expect speed and won't wait, even a few seconds, for satellite network screen updates."

Leveraging systems

Many networks are already in place and are candidates for kiosk connectivity. Most rooftop satellite dishes such as those at many gas stations and banks are only used to send a tiny portion of the available bandwidth for credit card verifications or sales polling. The capacity for broadband (up to 40 megabits per second) is there if needed. Goodyear, for example, recently purchased in-store equipment that included a video card in anticipation of delivering POS video to its retail tire stores.

Spacenet recently announced a co-marketing agreement with retailing software provider XcelleNet Inc. XcelleNet's RemoteWare product is used to transmit daily sales, payroll and price files to customers such as The Limited Inc., Albertson's Inc., The Kroger Co. and Blockbuster Inc. video stores. XcelleNet customers are beginning to look at kiosks as a way to leverage their established bricks and mortar presence and investments Web and IT.

Watch for bankruptcies

When deciding on a broadband network provider, it's important to look at a company's stability. Radio Shack Corp.'s MSN kiosks recently went dark when Microsoft's DSL supplier NorthPoint filed for bankruptcy. Struggling DSL providers may be a shaky foundation for kiosk networks that ae an important channel for delivering critical marketing and other company information. 

Although a variety of broadband networking strategies exist, it's important to use caution when making a decision. No single broadband type is perfect for all situations. What works best for the company and what makes the most technical and economic sense needs to be carefully evaluated so that kiosks can reach their business goals.