The Austin Wireless City Project is touting the fact that it now has built 36 free Wi-Fi locations, with 75 venues on the waiting list, while T-Mobile has 34 Austin hotspots: Rich MacKinnon, president and chairman of Austin Wireless City, does some segmenting of the market here, something that some analysts have been trying to do. MacKinnon considers that some business travelers might be attracted to T-Mobile hotspots as those locations dispel the uncertainties of trying an unknown venue in an unfamiliar city. But local people, especially those who typically seek out locally owned venues for coffee or meals, may be more likely to try out the free services offered by folks like Austin Wireless City, which are located in independent establishments.
Sarah Kim, Yankee Group analyst, said she and other analysts have looked at segmenting the market for Wi-Fi users, a challenging task at this stage in the market's development. But it seems that more organizations are leaving the business traveler market to the T-Mobiles of the world and instead targeting local users. Telerama, the Pittsburgh ISP and hotspot provider, recently launched in Seattle with the express goal of targeting local Wi-Fi users rather than visitors to town. The free Austin locations or the Telerama spots, which aren't free, could be ideal locations for people who run businesses out of their homes or the telecommuters, Kim said.
MacKinnon also points out that T-Mobile is sending mixed messages. While it is targeting the business user, it has made some offerings such as access to music or exclusive interviews with artists to hotspot visitors that seem more appropriate for the mass market than the business user.
Using figures published by Wi-Fi Networking News about T-Mobile subscriber growth, MacKinnon suggests that Austin Wireless City is growing quite a bit faster than T-Mobile. Austin Wireless City adds 60 users per day and those customers use the network 30 percent to 35 percent more every two weeks.