TechDirt briefly dissects Associated Press story that points out no one (that they talked to) is profitable in the hotspot business: We try not to be defenders of the flame here at Wi-Fi Networking News, but examine news stories and company announcements as well as hardware and software with some degree of objectivity tempered by experience. The AP article isn't inaccurate, but we'd rather point to TechDirt's brief dissection of it than the original story because the premise is flawed.
It's abundantly clear after the events of the last couple of months--not to mention years--that there is no such thing as a standalone Wi-Fi hotspot business. I'll beat the drum that Sky Dayton first stretched the deer hide over back in Dec. 2001: the business of selling hotspot access is a different business than signing contacts with venues and installing hardware and running a network.
Wayport's ongoing transformation from 2000 to present from a customer-facing organization into a customer and reseller-facing group into a pure wholesale managed services and network operator demonstrates most clearly that standalone hotspot operators are and were a temporary phenomenon.
The networks that remain will eventually derive the majority of their income from either roaming users from their reseller partners, from managed services for venues that want to handle their own billing or be part of a larger network, or from the per-venue/per-month fees that Wayport is promoting as the model to build larger audiences.
The AP story is prescient in that the idea of there being a "Wi-Fi hotspot business" has practically become passé already. Mass-market companies like cell operators, cable system owners, telcos, warehouse membership clubs, and other groups with millions of customers will be most people's experience with hotspot service in the future.