Kentucky town shaves 97 percent of Wi-Fi network cost: The town of Prestonsburg, Kent., thought a city-wide Wi-Fi network could help attract tourists and businesses, while expanding remote access for telemedicine and other purposes. But Government Technology reports that the first estimates for building a network were from $48,000 to $248,000. They opted to use Meraki's mesh gear and spent $8,500 instead, covering just a 2-mi stretch of their downtown. About 2/3rds was for the equipment, the rest for DSL connections and marketing. The service is free and has no ads at present.
Portfolio critiques crazy hotel Wi-Fi pricing: The travel guru that is Joe Brancatelli turns a steely eye to $15 per night charges at fancy hotels for Internet access, noting that cheaper hotels include such service at no cost. The higher-end hotels won't talk for attribution, but they say that a "fraction" of guests use Internet, so why bundle it into the room rate? Pshaw. At $15 per night, four to six users pay the entire cost, while the hotel or its operator accepts a fraction of that rate as settlement from Boingo and iPass and other aggregators. So it's nonsense. They charge because business travelers will expense it and be reimbursed.
We support dozens of hotels from Seattle to Denver - those that are mostly business typically have 40-50% of their occupants on-line concurrently. Those with mostly leisure travel run 15-25%.
1/4 and 1/2 *are* fractions, but as the pay-to-play properties start losing 3/4 of their customers, they need to rethink how important a fraction can be.
Do you have any idea of how many DSL links are being used on the Prestonsburg, Kent. 2 Mile network? What kind of simultaneous load and thruput they are getting?