Cometa's Brilliant (now a VP) says 50M users of Wi-Fi services by 2008: Brilliant also publicly reset the Cometa build-out clock: 5,000 access points by Feb. 2004, or about 125 a week between now and then; 20,000 by 2005.
Let's all put our fists in the air and pump them to the tune of this dead-on remark. Memorize it as your mantra: Brilliant said the industry is only in its initial phase, and he expects consolidation to occur in the next phase as the technology becomes more mainstream and companies gain a better understanding of how consumers and businesses want to use it.
All of these industry hotshots making these predictions about what the world will look like 4 and 5 years from now are talking nonsense. Anyone who's been in this industry more than 2 years knows that you can't predict anything more than 12 months out, 18 if you're lucky. I would like to ask any of these geniuses to show me their predictions from 4 or 5 years AGO that have since been proven true -- there are none. Four years ago, WiFi was not on anyone's radar, until Apple shipped it in volume with the original iBook/AirPort, and then it took off. How can anyone say what the world will look like four years from now when, in fact, NONE of the WiFi explosion was predicted by ANYONE even four years ago? They are only going to be made to look the fool as the unpredictable nature of innovation and the industry has shown time and time and time again.
Stay wireless,
Mike
It's just the Analyst report template. "The X Industry will be Y big in Z years". It's meaningless but the financial analysts and institutional shareholders seem to like it.
If Cometa are building out 125 hotspots a month, where are they? And where's the equivalent big deals like BT and The Cloud?