Is Wi-Fi shedding its blue jeans for pin stripes as 802.11 looks to go commercial?
Analysts and those in the trenches of fee-based hotspots see an inevitable trend
as Wi-Fi availability goes nationwide.
When T-Mobile, previously known as VoiceStream, recently announced they planned
to rollout commercial
Wi-Fi service in some 2,000 Starbucks coffee shops, part of the pricing
arrangement called for closing the network to everyone but their subscribers.
It costs subscribers either $30 per month for unlimited connections or $2.99
for the first minute and 25 cents for each additional minute for customers walking
into a Wi-Fi enabled Starbucks.
Analysts, like Isaac Ro of the Aberdeen
Group, believe Wi-Fi providers must open their networks to each other, allowing
users to "roam" between systems.
"It makes sense for hotspot providers to partner and allow for interregional
roaming," says Ro. "That’s the only way to justify monthly bills comparable
to cell phones/landline ISPs," says the analyst.
After at first being competitors, cell phone providers and Wi-Fi operators
are noticing a synergy — a connection not lost on some of the nation’s major
wireless carriers.
A recent study of the impact of Wi-Fi on new third-generation (3G)
cellular phone networks concluded that 802.11 would complement, not compete,
with cellular carriers.
VoiceStream/T-Mobile was the first to realize giving cell phone subscribers
the ability to logon to Wi-Fi networks would solve both the problem of dropped
calls while also taking part in a growing technology. Other carriers were not
far behind.
Christian Gunning, Director, Product Management for Boingo
Wireless of Santa Monica, CA, says while free public Wi-Fi networks still
exist, for-profit fee-based hotspots are a growing segment of the 802.11 market.
Sprint has invested $15 million in Boingo. Users pay anywhere from $7.95 for
24 hours of unlimited access to $74.95 for a month of unlimited access to Boingo’s
network.
Ro believes for Boingo to survive, Sprint’s involvement must go beyond the
investor stage.
"It’s unlikely that Boingo will be able to sustain a nationwide network
over time without partnering with a nationwide voice carrier," says Ro,
giving competitor T-Mobile an advantage.
Dan Lowden, Marketing Director for Wayport,
says Boingo subscribers roam on its Wi-Fi network composed of 100,000 rooms
at 470 hotels. Wayport is among some 1,200 members of PassOne, a group created
in 2001 to decide how Wi-Fi networks should allow roaming.
"Wayport is 70 percent to 80 percent of the Boingo footprint," says
Lowden. Wayport charges $29.95 for a month of Wi-Fi access.
Commercial WLAN hot spot operators increasingly find themselves stepping on
the toes of more traditional community-based Wi-Fi providers.
As T-Mobile was about to announce their nationwide rollout of Wi-Fi, the company
had to install Cisco software at all their APs to prevent their signals from
being stepping on other nearby wireless networks. When two Wi-Fi signals interfere
with each other, the result is the usual 300-foot range drops to 100 or 150
feet. Plus, computers searching for a Wi-Fi connection become confused when
finding two closely located networks.
Boingo Wireless, just one of the Wi-Fi operators seeking to add ISPs to their
mix of networks, sparked an angry reply when it sought to include free public
hot spots. Saying the company would not offer node operators free access to
Boingo’s network, community groups, such as NYCWireless.net
and Personal
Telco Project of Portland, OR, recommended their members turn down the offer.
