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Biggest franchisers in the US: Frank Boosman and I were corresponding via a mailing list and then directly about how Cometa could even find partners of the scale that would allow them to roll out 5,000 and then 20,000 hot spots.
Frank provided an interesting list of some of the top franchisees in the US:
- Subway: 13,247 (as of 12/01)
- McDonald's: 13,099 (as of 12/01)
- Burger King: 8,146 (as of 6/02)
- Boston Market: 650 (as of 2/03)
- Barnes & Noble: 628 (as of 2/03)
- Panera Bread: 478 (as of 12/02)
- Borders: 400 (as of 2/03); already signed by T-Mobile
My question, of course, is that with the exception of Barnes & Noble, which of those outlets is really a place that has appropriate seating and shall we say ambiance to allow the customers that Cometa wants to work? Many food outlets have barely comfortable seating and even 30-minute occupation limits!
Of course, of the 30-million-odd business travelers (out of 40M) total that are estimated to have laptops, I'm sure a very large percentage frequent the above outlets many many times in their trips. I'm just being elitist, since I patronize some, but not all, of those locations as well.
T-Mobile's Erratic Math
T-Mobile charges more for prepay minutes than pay-as-you-go: I did my math wrong a couple of days ago. T-Mobile's new rate plan charges $6.00 per hour (10 cents per minute) for pay-as-you-go service, but it has a mininum $6.00 (one hour) charge. If you prepay for 300 minutes at $50, you're buying time at $8.33 an hour, but they only bill you for $1.40 (10 minutes) minimum.
This is the first time I've ever heard of having to make a Hobson's choice for hot spot pricing. This is practically as bad as those dial-around plans that advertise $1 for 20 minutes: yes, it's a $1, but if you get voicemail or an answering machine and hang up, you've paid a $1 for one minute.
The tradeoff here is complicated. If you pay per visit, you're paying at least $6. If you know you'll be there for more than an hour, it's a better deal than prepaying. If you thought you could game the system, however, by prepaying and using different accounts based on what you needed at the moment, your prepay minutes expire 120 days from purchase.
I bought $50 worth of minutes back in December in West Hartford, Connecticut, visiting my in-laws, and used about an hour of it. If I don't get to a Starbucks soon, I've donated $41.66 to T-Mobile coffers. Paging Mr. Hobson, Mr. Hobson please come to the white courtesy stable...
Microsoft and Wi-Fi Usability
Microsoft recruiting Wi-Fi usability at Starbucks: In the latest example in a series of millions of how it's hard to do anything without being noticed, my friend Jeff Carlson just shot me email from a downtown Seattle Starbucks where he was working on his Apple Titanium PowerBook:
A guy who works for Microsoft asked me if I had a WiFi card, and I had to explain that this is a Mac and it's built-in. He said he was looking for someone with a PC laptop and a WiFi PC card to participate in some usability study.
Microsoft's XP support for Wi-Fi is good in many ways, although it can be funky, especially with closed networks and with WEP keys. It doesn't offer a profile management interface to make it easier to switch among networks. It doesn't offer encrypted key storage that could be accessed, often requiring key re-entry.