Slashdot Mirror
Cometa WiFi Hotspot Network To Shut Down
Glenn Fleishman writes "The folks who announced in Dec. 2002 that they would install 20,000 for-fee Wi-Fi hotspots across the U.S. within two years ago reached several hundred locations in 18 months before shutting down today. Cometa Networks was funded partly by Intel Capital, and had AT&T and IBM's involvement in building the network. The firm resold access to its network, and urged partners to charge low rates, like $3 to $5 per day or $12 per month for unlimited access. Cometa lost its best chance for a big network last month, when McDonald's picked Wayport to build out over 12,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in the U.S." There's now an official press release up, with the CEO noting: "We do not think this reflects on the strength of the Wi-Fi industry or value proposition."
1. Spend millions install WiFi hardware at thousands of hotspots ....
2. Give away free Internet access at these sites
3.
4. Profit!
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Well, as much as I love WiFi hotspots and being able to walk into a coffee shop with my laptop, handing out free WiFi probably isn't the best business model. Especially relatively unregulated like this. Imagine if someone had actually abused it!
I'm selling my K5 acct.
This is no different then free web space, free storage, or free internet. All of these glorious ideas have fallen by the wayside when people realized they could not be profitable.
Welcome, WAP, to this cruel cruel world.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
Will make ya, or break ya. Sometimes profit is based on pure luck.
Life is not for the lazy.
No, fee is different than free. Even the /. write-up said "that they would install 20,000 for-fee Wi-Fi hotspots across the U.S. within two years". I think the real issue with the business plan was that they expected people to pay too much for too little.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Everybody just read this dweeb's suggestion in yesterday's article!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
1) Educate folks to build free community wireless netowrks
2) Help them build it
3) Tie them togther
4) Enjoy
Personal Telco Project
"Making tomorrows today yesterday"
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
This is no different then free web space, free storage, or free internet. All of these glorious ideas have fallen by the wayside when people realized they could not be profitable.
Welcome, WAP, to this cruel cruel world.
Fee, Fee Fee Foe Foe Foe....After rereading said post and getting some language lessons, I would like to strike my previous post from the record.
Good thing the story wasn't about applesauce and pork chops or I would have really been screwed.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
Before even more people point out the flaws in their buisness plan, at least properly read the Slashdot post. It says for-fee, not for-free.
One problem we're going to have to deal with is that unless all hotspots are united under one brand, it's going to get kind of annoying to have to pay subscription fees to each different place you want to use, ie: $15 a month to Starbucks, $15 a month to McD's, $15 a month to Candlestick park. I'm against monopolization of any industry, but I'd take it here over having to subscribe to a different place everywhere I went.
in bed.
There are services that cost money to provide that are given away and the cost recouped either indirectly or as a markup in the overl price of other goods and services being offered.
With Free Community Wireless Networking the cost of backhaul and Equipment to cover a small area (commercial frontage, public use space, dwelling) can often be either recovered by increased biz or absorbed as the cost of being a good neighbor.
Just as Movie Theaters saw dramtic increases in summer time viewers with the inclusion of Air Conditioning so too are some biz and public spaces finding an increase base of use withthe draw of Free Wireless.
Living in Portland OR and being a part of the Personal Telco Project I can say this as a proven fact and not simply as some slashrot debate point. The places where we have nodes are seeing marked increases in their customer base. Several places we have put nodes in have become social centers for nomad laptop workers.
The problem with the Fee plans are that they simply will not wake up to the fact that customers will not pay for something that will quickly be seen on par with Lighting, AC, a glass of water, background music and those cool drink umbrellas.
Wake up Biz People....The writting is not only on the wall its on your bottom line.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Maybe if these places charged, for example $3/month or something it wouldn't be a big deal, but $12/mo for access to just one hotspot? Seems a little off to me, I mean sure buying access for one starbucks probably gives you access to all, but other starbucks employees, who's going to care?
What we need is some sort of profit sharing system, similar to how the cellphone system works. And it should be an open system, so that anyone can sign up to be a part. It would also be great in that anyone could make money simply by signing up and setting up WAPs, without worrying about how they are going to bill people.
And let me apologize, I don't have access to a spellchecker right now.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
...who usually have policies against this kind of thing. See Comcast's here (look at item ix). (If you were thinking of having them get some kind of business-quality connection that would allow that, remember that someone has to pay the bills for that. Maybe I'm being too cynical here, but the idea just doesn't seem very feasible.
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.
We've just recently received FREE wifi via cometa at our local Barnes and Noble (ultra left-liberal book sellers). They've got a setup where they lease an IP to any MAC address for 2 hours per day. Great for sketchy p2p sessions w/ 1.8Mbit uploads.
i have to say that last summer, I was in NYC for MacWorld, and stopped in at a McDonalds to try out their new WiFi and stuff, got my value meal and a little card with a scratch off area and a access code under it, and went upstairs. I sat down, ate, and pulled out my PowerBook. It saw the AP no problem, connected right up, and when I launched Safari, it went right to my home page. no login or anything.
Now I know that it was a trial location, and this was possibly one of the reasons that McDs went with the other company, but I'm not so sure I'm sad that a company whose security on their APs was so lax to go out of business.
I mean, open APs are nice, but its really not in the public good, becuase they would have ended up getting abused for spammers and warez and such.
(and yes, it was Cometa, because the little card has their logo on it)
oh well...my $0.02
e to the pi i plus one equals zero
We see that free free free does not work unless there is some viable way to make money money money.
I think their problem was that people kept seeing "for-fee" and thinking it said "for-free", and so they never got paid.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Now tell me what the competative advantage to having 3 sites with an average of 12 people in a location. I have never understood the advantage of building hugely distributed teams - I've worked in them... I have also worked on very localized teams (everyone on the same part of the same floor of the same building) - I have yet to see a distributed team that can match a localized team
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Several cometes hosting rebel troops governed by evil and rebelious law were fretted by an unusual hungry BigMac. The 250 hotspots were digested within less than a second. BigMac's first comment: 'This was fun! Where exactly did you say that cluster of beowulfs is located? Buuurghrp.' The BigMac is now heading for McDonald's Plaza in Oak Brook, IL and dying to see Birdie. The extra-terrestial fresh quality of the Cometa, the main ingredient of McDonald's most popular burger, the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Bacon and Eggs and Cometa, is a result of a unique process and BigMac's ability to eat the Cometa directly after catching.
Interesting to compare these guys to Truckstop.net. Currently have rolled out 420 or so hotspots in 5 months, with plans to get around 3000 locations. Of course, their typical customers are truck drivers (hence the name), but anyone with with wireless and proximity to a location can sign up. Also, they charge the user directly, instead of charging the location. Still, once you sign up you can use any Truckstop hotspot at all, which can be pretty useful if you are travelling.
You can get to a nifty map on their page that shows all current and planned locations.
I wouldn't be surprised but would be disappointed if Cometa's network was bought up by Wayport and T-Mobile. After using both services I've been left with a bad taste in my mouth for fee-based WiFi access. Both groups charge exorbitant amounts of money for access. Wayport charges $6.95 at most airports for unlimited access from the time you purchase until midnight, T-Mobile wants $9.95 for 24 continuous hours of connectivity. For month-to-month access Wayport charges $49.95 and T-Mobile charges $39.95.
If you bought access for a large group of travelers or were somehow able to use the hotspots for all of your high-speed access needs the prices might not be so bad. For me and I'd assume a lot of other people that is way too much damn money. I might be willing to pay $12 a month for unlimited access but there is no way I'd fork over more than $20 a month. I've got WiFi access at my house with a faster connection than most hotspots I've come across.
I'd sign up for a month-to-month contract is a heartbeat if it offered wide coverage and a low monthly cost. As it is I rarely use WiFi hotspots because of the price and inconvenience. It is really nice to be able to use WiFi internet access but I'm fine just listening to shared iTunes playlists.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
From a business perspective, here are the problems I see with Wi-Fi:
i. Too many competing WAPs (i.e. wireless providers) basically means that you can't roam. This problem exists in the cellphone world as well but they are trying some things to overcome. For Wi-Fi to take off, it would be desirable for people to roam between stores without paying for each one. Note: I am only talking about non-free (possibly low cost) Wi-Fi here. Obviously if it is free, this isn't an issue.
ii. The second thing, which is probably the biggest, is that the number of people using Wi-Fi has to increase. In other words, more people need to be carrying around notebook computers, (future) PDAs, etc. Right now, I don't think enough people have portable computers for this to really matter. Granted, professionals and IT people, along with some computer-savvy people, may carry their notebooks all the time, but most don't. At best, wi-fi will only be a small market for now. Until more people starting using portable computers with wi-fi capabilities, it won't take off. The fact that McDonald's is rolling this out will have little impact IMO since most of their customers don't carry notebooks around. Lastly, if only a few people benefit from wi-fi, then the cost will always be too high--critical mass won't be reached.
Having said all this, I am NOT saying wi-fi won't take off. I do expect it to become popular in 5 years or so, especially when wi-fi is a standard for home networking and workplace too. All I'm saying is that whoever that uses wi-fi now will not make any money. Those in the market will probably lose money for years but will definitely get some technical advantage.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Sometime in the last 2 years they started offering the service free. Guess what, a lot of people came in with their laptops, like me, and used it and purchased coffee. I might even stay a couple hours while doing work and then purchase lunch. And I would go to this coffee house over a couple others because of the free access. They probably paid half their BW bill a month from me alone purchasing additional goods.
Now there are several other coffee houses that offer the same free service. So I pick based on which is closest. Same with Hotels. Its a cheap way to offer high speed access to many guests. I know its something I look for in business travel.
But none of these services give away the service or get revenue directly from the wifi access, however they do get additional customer loyality and usage because its there.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.