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January 28, 2004

Free vs. Fee in the UK

By Nancy Gohring

This story is largely another take on the free vs. fee debate: The general conclusion is that venues will find they won’t make any money by charging for Wi-Fi because no one is willing to pay and if they can’t make any money they won’t bother offering Wi-Fi access for free. One angle this writer neglects to consider is the increased business that Wi-Fi can lead to for some businesses such as cafes. A lot of venue owners say they see increased visits during traditionally slow hours by Wi-Fi users, who even though they don’t pay for access do pay for food or coffee.

One business owner in the story is quoted as saying that people expected Wi-Fi to become a mass market product but it’s still mostly for business users. It’ll remain that way unless there are applications running on the networks that the mass market finds worth using.

Posted by nancyg at January 28, 2004 9:23 AM

Categories: Hot Spot

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