Imagine a customer service rep on every shelf. MediaTile could be making that a very real possibility.

MediaTile is showcasing the newest, smallest version of its HumanKiosk digital signage solutions at this year's Customer Engagement Technology World show in San Francisco.

The HumanKiosk is basically a digital signage kiosk that, in addition to providing the preprogrammed and prescheduled video and interactive capabilities of most digital signs, also allows consumers to connect with brand customer service experts via live two-way video calling. MediaTile is showcasing a smaller, 19-inch version that is more shelf-friendly and portable than the previous, freestanding kiosk version.

The HumanKiosk also leverages existing 4G wireless networks from major carriers to make the two-way calls and to network the kiosks, meaning it just needs power to work from the start.

MediaTile CEO Simon Wilson said the HumanKiosk could enable brands, banks or other agencies to deploy them in stores or locations so that customers could get expert feedback in those times when they can't find a human customer service representative – or to deploy them in rural or remote locations that it might not be cost-effective to staff.

"This solves real-world problems, and it does so very cost-effectively," Wilson said on the show floor.

MediaTile's MediaCast software is a cloud-based SaaS subscription service that runs on commercially-available interactive touchscreen displays, so the hardware and software costs are kept down.

"The ROI on these things is months," Wilson said.

The cellular connectivity of the solution makes it a network-free solution, so deployers really can "hang it and bang it and plug it in," he said. Someone else (read: Verizon or Sprint) has already spent all the money developing the broadband cellular network infrastructure for deployers to use, he said.

It's independent of a network for two reasons, Wilson said: The management app that controls the content is an on-demand SaaS application in the cloud; and deployers don't need to rely on local network infrastructure for LAN or Wi-Fi connectivity because they're using cellular to network the kiosks.

"So for both of those reasons, it's a true end-to-end cloud solution," he said. "You literally just need to add power to make it function, so it's very easy to deploy."

The HumanKiosk 19s are on the verge of being rolled out, with preproduction units available for pilots and the company in discussions about early deployments, according to Wilson. MediaTile is getting ready to upgrade the software and do a full general availability release later this summer, he said.

A problem with Verizon's network yesterday, while it made displaying all the kiosk's functionality difficult, also highlighted another benefit to the HumanKiosk, Wilson said.

While Verizon feverishly worked on getting its network back up, the sign was still usable as a normal digital sign, and – again – someone else was doing all the work to get the network back up.

"That's the great thing about using cellular networks," Wilson said. "When something goes wrong they've got a lot of people working on it very hard, very quickly, and that's more than you can say for most digital signage networks."