Homeless People Used As Hotspots At SXSW

Attendees of this year’s South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Conference in Austin have been able to keep connected to Wi-Fi thanks to 4G hotspots in the form of homeless people.

Advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s BBH Labs are offering 4G network access through the homeless, who sported “I’m [insert name here], a 4G hotspot” t-shirts as they wandered around SXSW with MiFi devices.

Those wanting to connect to the 4G network could pay what they desired to the homeless person offering it, in cash or through a PayPal link on the Homeless Hotspots website, according to a Huffington Post article.

According to BBH Labs’ director of innovation, Saneel Radia, Homeless Hotspots are a modern take on yesterday’s “street newspapers,” or “print publications created and sold by homeless populations as a form of entrepreneurial employment.”

Read the full article here.