« A Sign of SMS Addiction from iJustine |
Main
| Insight Racing's DARPA Urban Challenge Vehicle »
WiFi Networks Floundering
BusinessWeek is reporting that municipal WiFi initiatives aimed at providing free or nearly free Internet access are not meeting expectations:
Why Wi-Fi Networks Are Floundering
These potholes in the nation's wireless rollout of civic ambition—criticized by many as an improper use of tax dollars—are hardly the exception. For the road is getting bumpier for cities and the companies they have partnered with in a bid to blanket their streets with high-speed Internet access at little or no cost to users.
Minneapolis is currently in the middle of a roll-out of citywide WiFi based on a pay model. As I understand it, the city contracted with a local ISP to build the network, and will buy all of the city's bandwidth from that supplier. Beyond that, the network is available to the public for daily or monthly fees.
While they may make a few bucks off one-off daily usage by travelers, it doesn't seem competitive price-wise with cable or DSL to me. I can't imagine people will drop their faster wired connections for a wireless one.
If that's the case, the market opportunity is limited to people currently using dial-up or no Internet connection. Those are two very tough groups to market to.
In Minneapolis' case, I believe the network is supported through the city's own spending. That's a different model from the direct-to-consumer models BusinessWeek suggests are floundering.
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.technologyevangelist.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.fcgi/1110
2. Posted by: Ed Kohler on August 15, 2007 1:06 PM:
Interesting concept, Tom. I suppose that would be either dial-up or DSL users. Personally, I'm been cell-only for 6 or so years and use cable for my Internet connection.
3. Posted by: Tom Egan on August 15, 2007 2:42 PM:
Historically, the Twin Cities area has one of the lowest cable penetration rates in the country. That leaves a large portion of the population ( I believe something over 40 percent, although; I don't have the current figures ) who don't have cable and might benefit from the cost savings of dumping a land line. In St. Paul, I'm paying over $70 per month for phone/DSL service from Qwest -- no long distance and only one special feature (caller ID).
4. Posted by: Brad V. on August 15, 2007 5:50 PM:
I certainly support the use of public access wi-fi in urban areas, and I have my own high speed at home. But when I'm out and about with my laptop, it'd be nice to spread out in a park on a nice day and take care of business on the internet.
We probably will just have to wait for the technology to improve and the price to come down even more.
5. Posted by: Davis Freeberg on August 16, 2007 12:51 AM:
Two years ago, Google and Earthlink were willing to build this in San Francisco for free, but because of the petty politics, the citizens now have to vote on whether or not we want to let someone give away free internet. With this business model clearly being suspect, I think San Francisco may have pushed things too far and may end up with no free wifi for anyone. I can't blame Earthlink from wanting to walk away from this business model.
6. Posted by: Ed R. on August 21, 2007 9:25 PM:
Another thing government screws up at. Let the free market find the solution. By the time all of these Wi-Fi networks are up, another technology will come along that's better.
7. Posted by: Ed Kohler on August 21, 2007 9:50 PM:
Ed R., I believe the networks built to date have been built by private companies such as Earthlink, Google, and US Internet.
| 
1. Posted by: Tom Egan on August 15, 2007 11:57 AM:
There is one other market -- people who wish to drop land lines entirely and want their cell phone to be their one and only phone. In other words, the costs of both a dropped landline phone and a wired Internet connection should be credited against the cost of a new wireless Internet connection. That math works much better.