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Is WiFi Access Worth $10/hour?
Roland Piquepaille writes "This special report from CNET News.com carries an eloquent subtitle: 'Wireless expectations rose in 2003, but growth was hobbled by security concerns and unproven business models.' It's much worse than you think and I'm going to tell you why Wi-Fi will still not be broadly used in 2004 in this column. Technology columnists are usually looking at their own part of the world, in Silicon Valley or on the East Coast of the U.S. And obviously, their opinions are largely biased. Our world is much bigger than that. My arguments are based on real-world examples, both in Greece and in Paris. They're also based on costs of access. Paying $10 an hour for Wi-Fi access is almost twice as you pay for a movie. Would you pay $20 to see a movie? Probably not. So will you pay $10 to use a Wi-Fi connection for one hour? Certainly not."
I don't see where they're getting these figures. If you drive around slowly enough, all you need for an hour of WiFi access is gas, at most $5
If the RIAA can say that each "illegal" download costs them a zillion dollars... then surely WiFi ISPs can value their services for $10 an hour.
If you can download tens of songs per hour, a $10 investment in anonymous access is a steal! You can download hundreds of zillions worth of songs for that $10!
1) get rid of most customers with high prices
2) increase prices to cover DSL costs;
3) remaining customers leave to competition
4) ???
5) profit.
"WiFi is certainly not worth $10 an hour."
It is when I'm on a business trip.
"Derp de derp."
While we're at it, I need a place to stay next month when I'll be in your town. I probably won't get drunk and punch holes in your walls, pee in your sink, and puke in your sock drawer.
There is an off chance I'll leave some herione and child porn wedged in your dresser, but I'm sure the cops will beleive you when you tell them it was me.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
... so the actual thrust of your complaint has to deal with the fact that, in places that aren't the United States, WiFi is traditionally charged for?
:'-(
Traditionally? That's preposterous. The last of the traditional WiFi clans were wiped out in the 1300s by the Black Plague, leaving the world without free wireless Internet access for nearly seven centuries. Truly those were dark times.
The practice of charging for WiFi access dates back to the early 15th century, as Genoese and Venetian merchants took to the seas with wireless NICs and Access Points, handcrafted in northern Italy.
It has been speculated that Napoleon's European campaigns were in fact motivated by his deep and abiding anger at the poor WiFi reception he got in Parisian coffee shops, due to his diminutive height.
He took his armies all over Europe, looking for that one sweet hotspot where he could sit quietly and download porn.
The British picked up on this, and set up a giant Access Point to lure the would-be conqueror to Waterloo, a strategem invented by General Lu Meng during the Wu dynasty. The rest, as they say, is history.
Very true, and the same applies to employees. This is a great example of how the market continually refines itself to the needs of customers and employees, in addition to business owners. No force (government) was necessary to make this happen -- the business owners simply determined that it was in their best interest to cater to the needs of customers and employees.
It's Starbucks, not StarBucks, you damn Java coder.
Out here in the UK, BT charges 15/hour for an hour of 802.11b connectivity for their "OpenZone" service. They cite Microsoft Windows as a system requirement but you can get connectivity in Linux using IP-over-DNS, with the added benefit that it's absolutely free. I'd probably have willing to pay a reasonable amount for their service, but as long as they refuse to support Linux, people are just going to continue to freeload with IP-over-DNS.
IP-over-DNS? What's that, something like TCP/IP over bongo drums or TCP/IP over pigeons? Do you mean DHCP?
How do they make you pay with windows and not with linux?