Wi-Fi Week: Should all hot spots be free?
Published: 27 Jan 2004 15:10 GMT
Platt says that another chain of eateries took up the "virtually free" model from Broadscape, but then changed their minds and insisted on charging customers for their Wi-Fi. The result, Platt says, was a plunge in take-up.
"Once they started charging £4 per hour for Wi-Fi access, they got almost ten times less usage," Platt told ZDNet UK. "Where Benugo's was getting 10 Wi-Fi users every day, this company, which has very similar sites, was getting just one".
According to Platt, there are a certain number of premium sites where charging for Wi-Fi will work, such as airports and some hotels. However, the UK has only a limited supply of such places, with most already grabbed by an operator. This means that Wi-Fi providers have had to cast their net wider.
"BT has a roaming deal with The Cloud, which gives them a lot of pub hot spots. They're not ideal sites for commercial Wi-Fi. I think that eventually someone's going to take a look at BT's figures and say 'oops'," Platt predicts.
"We'd love to see the figures of other Wi-Fi operators, but based on our own numbers, I'm not convinced that the pay market works."
Last year, Forrester Research claimed that most of the money being spent on commercial Wi-Fi networks was being wasted, as there simply won't be enough users in the future for operators to make their money back.
Platt, too, believes that many of the predictions made by Wi-Fi's supporters were wrong, admitting that his own company is less bullish about future prospects than it was a year ago.
"A lot of people expected Wi-Fi to become a mass-market product, but it's still largely just a business market," explained Platt.
Wi-Fi could become the air-conditioning of the 21st century -- something you expect to find but wouldn't dream of paying extra for. Howerver, if it isn't a money spinner, then some operators could soon start taking the dot-com road to oblivion. And, while a future of free hot spots is great news for users, if companies don't think they can make money by offering wireless access, they probably won't bother.
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