Method for providing kiosk service offerings in a personal area network

A method for delivering electronic services in a wireless personal area network (PAN) comprising:

• retrofitting an existing, publicly-located, and fixed positioned kiosk with a host computing device for selectively retrieving electronic services from remote servers over an existing physical communications link to an existing communications network and a short-range frequency communications system for delivering selected electronic services over a short-range frequency communications link to wireless devices in a personal area network PAN, wherein the electronic services include data and applications;
• maintaining a list of available electronic services provided by the kiosk, wherein a portion of the available electronic services are stored locally within the kiosk, and wherein a different portion of the available electronic services are retrievable by the kiosk from the remote servers of the existing communications network via the existing physical communications link;
• establishing the PAN in a publicly traversable area;
• in response to a subscriber query received from the wireless device, generating a subscriber-specific list of available services by selecting among the list of all available services, wherein the selection is based upon at least one of a subscriber prioritization, a predetermined value assigned to the subscriber, advertising revenues associated with each available service, and communication resources of the wireless device;
• conveying the subscriber-specific list to the wireless device for presentment to the subscriber;
• receiving from the wireless device a request for at least one of the available electronic services included in the subscriber-specific list;
• determining whether the requested electronic services wholly reside in the kiosk and whether components of the requested electronic services reside in the kiosk;
• if it is determined that the requested electronic services wholly reside in the kiosk, delivering the requested electronic services to the wireless device in the PAN without retrieving the requested electronic services over the existing physical communications link;
• if it is determined that certain components of the requested electronic services reside in the kiosk, delivering the certain components to the wireless device while retrieving remaining components of requested electronic services over the existing physical communications link;
• and
• if it is determined that none of the requested electronic services resides in the kiosk, retrieving the requested electronic services over the existing physical communications link and delivering the retrieved electronic services to the wireless device in the PAN.

A method for providing electronic services to a wireless device, the method comprising:

• configuring a kiosk with wireless communication capabilities to provide electronic services over short-range radio communications links to wireless devices in a personal area network (PAN), said kiosk also being configured to communicate over a physical communications link with an existing communications network for selectively retrieving electronic services from remote servers;
• establishing a short-range radio communications link with a wireless device in said PAN;
• in response to a subscriber query received from the wireless device, generating a subscriber-specific list of available electronic services by selecting among a list of all available electronic services, wherein the selection is based upon at least one of a subscriber prioritization, a predetermined value assigned to the subscriber, advertising revenues associated with each available service, and communication resources of the wireless device;
• conveying the subscriber-specific list to the wireless device for presentment to the subscriber;
• receiving at the kiosk a request for at least one of the available electronic services included in the subscriber-specific list, the request being received from the wireless device;
• determining whether the requested electronic services wholly reside in the kiosk and whether components of the requested electronic services reside in the kiosk;
• if it is determined that the requested electronic services wholly reside in the kiosk, delivering the requested electronic services to the wireless device in the PAN without retrieving the requested electronic services over the existing physical communications link;
• if it is determined that certain components of the requested electronic services reside in the kiosk, delivering the certain components to the wireless device while retrieving remaining components of requested electronic services over the existing physical communications link;
• and
• if it is determined that none of the requested electronic services resides in the kiosk, retrieving the requested electronic services over the existing physical communications link and delivering the retrieved electronic services to the wireless device in the PAN;
• wherein the requested electronic services are configured for execution in said wireless device.