Yadda yadda yadda hype yadda dotcom yadda yadda Wi-Fi: Another sort of tedious mainstream article that looks at the present state of Wi-Fi hot spots and extrapolates that no additional users will ever increase the pool of money, and disregards the piles of evidence I found in a Seattle Times article a few weeks ago that venues are seeing an increase in business.
The bottom line in this piece is that it uses two reports to predict the future, and then looks at current numbers to explain why hot spots will fail. The Gartner report covered Europe and I think is ridiculously pessimistic. A hot spot CEO and I were talking the other day and he agreed with a statement I made: how many people have a Wi-Fi adapter in their laptop and don't use it? It begs to be used. Likewise, the scattered expensive hot spot market across Europe discourages high use, even though roaming is somewhat more prevalent than in the US.
The reporter also cites John Yunker's report about the future of per-user revenue for hot spots versus other telecommunications' flavors. Yes, the report makes sense, but what the reporter ignores is that in his model there are a substantial number of users. The per-user revenue is driven down in part because the cost of providing service becomes lower and more models of offering service will flourish.
I remember all the articles in 1997 timeframe that predicted the dotcom crash -- but for the wrong reason. They assumed that it was a fad and that no one would buy books from Amazon.com. In fact, the problem was basic business management and understanding how to scale to a profit with low margins, a fact that most ecommerce companies didn't understand. But the problem wasn't usage, interest, or (in many cases) actual revenue.
No one knows whether any of the current models for Wi-Fi hot spots will pan out. But it's obvious that we're still at the very beginning of the curve: if the crash happens, it will happen big, with 10,000s of hot spots installed worldwide. If success happens, it will be equally large, with tens of millions of monthly subscribers worldwide. But we just won't know for at least three or four years what the end of this story is.
this is not a bubble. The reason has nothing to do with technology or greedy VCs in silicon valley. Its got to do with human nature. Wifi stands for the very basic human need and requirment - freedom. In a decade we'll be surprised that we had a wireline world once.
The writer of this article is another below average writer who didnt want to spend the time look into the new standards, protocols or applications, just mention the word tech bubble and sure to get few pairs of eyeballs.
People who graduate with an English major should not write about technology to begin with. This is the kind of article fuelled the bubble in the 90s anyway.
Newsweek getting future improvements in technology right. That will be the day........might as well read Rintintin to figure out the cure to cancer........hahahahahaha
morons......
Thanks
Anyone who tries forming a business model around charging for cafe Hot Spot access in 2003 is an idioten!
A $70 business DSL line and a $90 Linksys router/radio from Best Buy and you are a hot spot operator.
Focus on the coffee, consider the free Wi-Fi, toilet seat protectors and dog-eared eclectic reading material to be a free amenities.
Cheers Nigel