It's a huge amount of 'free' bandwidth, and a one-way WAN connection can still be useful.
It is only at the stage of a gimmick, or a proof of concept, but if the broadcast service could be relied upon long term, then it might greatly reduce the bandwidth and connectivity costs for simple Bitcoin-enabled devices.
It's misleading to think of it as only a one-way connection, because a user naturally creates a two-way channel.
Imagine a situation where a user sends a payment to the blockchain, via mobile internet, which is then picked up by the device. That is a de facto two-way connection. The user's phone (or whatever) would communicate with the device by a local area connection, such as Wifi, QR code, Bluetooth, even a typed code etc.
Obviously, devices could also have a low bandwidth uplink connection, such as 3g, but it's interesting to think about how it might still be useful with only a 1-way connection. It depends somewhat on the rate and structure of the blockchain data transmission.
It is only at the stage of a gimmick, or a proof of concept, but if the broadcast service could be relied upon long term, then it might greatly reduce the bandwidth and connectivity costs for simple Bitcoin-enabled devices.
It's misleading to think of it as only a one-way connection, because a user naturally creates a two-way channel.
Imagine a situation where a user sends a payment to the blockchain, via mobile internet, which is then picked up by the device. That is a de facto two-way connection. The user's phone (or whatever) would communicate with the device by a local area connection, such as Wifi, QR code, Bluetooth, even a typed code etc.
Obviously, devices could also have a low bandwidth uplink connection, such as 3g, but it's interesting to think about how it might still be useful with only a 1-way connection. It depends somewhat on the rate and structure of the blockchain data transmission.