Using ATMs as wifi hotspot

Wirebase was a concept created in 2001 before broadbrand, wired or wireless was widely available.

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The concept was shopped around to a bunch of Vancouver area VC’s and potential investors ultimately got lost in the dot.com bubble crash.

The idea was to create ‘wirebases’ that were a modular component integrated into an automated banking machine or deployed as a stand-alone unit in a public area.

At the time I was contracting with a western Canadian credit union banking services bureau who was in the process of building its first national automated banking machine switching system so we were privy to the details of ATMs and banking machine switching. Automated banking machines have computers inside. At the time they were regular PC’s and could have peripherals connected just like any ordinary PC eg internal slots, etc.

The Wirebase set-up is illustrated in diagram below.

overview diagram

The Wirebase module is connected to the internet via a proprietary network solution that is similar to that used by the global ABM network.

A mobile device (Palm Pilot [LOL, remember this was 2001!!], digital camera, portable MP3 player, portable computer, etc) can connect to the Wirebase.

A copy of the website (long since gone) is maintained at the Internet Archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010227065841/http://wirebase.com/

Our business plan and presentation can be downloaded below:

WireBase Biz Plan Slideshow

WireBase Short Biz Plan

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