Image Base International helps develop wireless plan

A Reno company is playing a key role in development of a system that will combine city-wide wireless service with digital signage and kiosks that deliver very specific local information tonight's specials at Italian restaurants within two blocks, for instance.

Image Base International of Reno is bringing its expertise in digital signage and marketing to the project under development by LastMile Communications, a British company.

LastMile, which has tested the system in England, now is looking for a larger test in a community in the tech-savvy Silicon Valley of California.

Technologically, LastMile's system is centered on nodes installed around a community. Data much of it very localized is downloaded to the nodes. That speeds operation of the overall system and allows bandwidth-hogging material such as music or video to be customized to a specific location.

Image Base International's job has involved figuring out how to make all this work with consumers on American streets, says Catherine Oaks, president of the Reno firm.

One key change suggested by Oaks and Tony Trowbridge, the IBI vice president of worldwide sales, is the addition of pedestrian kiosks where consumers can access local information.

Whether the information is downloaded to a personal digital assistant, viewed on streetside video screens or accessed through a kiosk, it will be "hyper-local," Oaks said. Messages can be customized for location and time of day, for instance, or developed for digital display or downloaded to handheld devices.

Retailers could advertise on the system, for instance, knowing that their target consumers were within a block or two of the store at the time they received the message.

Fresh content on community news, entertainment or public transportation also could be delivered on a hyper-local basis.

Image Base International developed the initial brand identity for the system dubbing it "CitySpot." From there, the Reno firm developed promotional materials that include the Web site cityspotnetwork.com and began assembling a team to sell advertising for the Silicon Valley test.

In all, says Trowbridge, the work accounted for more than a third of the recent revenues of Image Base International.

The next big step after LastMile nails down a contract with a city for a test location is developing content. That will be challenging, Oaks says, because content needs to work with every type of handheld digital device as well as digital signage and interactive kiosks.

LastMile hopes to follow the test in a single city with rollout into 41 Bay Area cities.