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WiFi Hotspots to Cost Wireless Carriers $12B
j.e. writes "Commercial WiFi hotspots and open WiFi networks will take about $12 billion out of wireless carrier revenue pie, says Starategy Analytics. With high prices of mobile data services from wireless carriers, the users are more prone to use a cheap WiFi connection, if one is available."
things cost money...
No smoking sigs indoors.
I used the EDGE from Cingular wireless data plan. $80 (0x50 dollars) a month! It worked decent but the worst part was the latency. I was getting 1-2 second latencies. Do not try to game with it at all. Yet I'd still like a single everywhere-network rather than dealing with lots of accounts with various wi-fi hotspots. If they could just get the latency down and improve reception (if your cell is showing half power don't even bother with trying data).
Transcend Humanity. Please.
This sounds like crap statistics if I've ever heard them. Cost $12 billion is a little different than "Won't make $12 billion because the services are overpriced."
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
"With all these free radio stations people won't buy our records."
"With all these free movies on TV people won't go to the movies."
Having said that, cellphone service is nowhere near what it should be in terms of reliability and quality. How many of the main carriers allow you to do what you want with your phone (e.g. bluetooth restrictions in many phones) and your service (forward messages & voicemail via email, etc)?
Damien
Get a better business model. Or better yet, just go away. Just because people want something, doesn't mean they have to pay YOU to get it. More and more, they may not have to pay at all (open WiFi access points, Linux, etc).
I won't buy wireless service from a provider and this has nothing to do with wi-fi hotspots. I've never even used a wi-fi hotspot. The main reason that I won't buy wireless service from a provider is because of the insane price. I'm sure most people are in my boat.
They shouldn't have bought all those hotspots if they're going to complain about the price! It's amazing how stupid some people can be.
Step 2 is getting laws against free WiFi accessed passed in Congress.
Hey, it worked for the RIAA!!!
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Poster forgot some words, it should read:
With the artificially inflated exorbitantly high prices of mobile data services from wireless carriers, the users are more prone to use a cheap WiFi connection, if one is available.
No sympathy for wireless carriers here, now they get to suffer for their own bad pricing plans...
"Wireless carriers will not earn $12B because better options exist."
Note: you can't lose what you don't yet have.
Interesting fact: you are not entitled to a profit. If your business model sucks, or if your product is too costly, it will fail. See also: airphones. Remember them? All gone now, because using cell phones (which everyone already has) before and after the flight is good enough.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I'm getting the sudden urge to go wardriving...
There are some places in the world were gprs is a cheaper option to dialup. For my girlfriend in jakarta, the dialup option charges her for how much time she spends online. While she can get unlimted access via gprs for about $20-$30 per month from indosat. Other than some major latency and connection issues to a couple sites, she can get dialup speeds pretty easily.
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
I've already lost trillions on my canned-air venture this year alone. I figured that, as vital as breathing air is, people would be willing to pay my reasonable rate of $200 per cubic foot.
Apparently there's a free alternative that people are taking advantage of, driving my company out of business. How can I undersell free? Better label those free-breathers out there as "air pirates" and start a "get the facts" campaign about the total-cost-of-breathing.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
This should be +5 insightful, not funny. It is only a matter of time before some "media friendly" senator attaches a rider to an education package that bans open WiFi access. Or more likely, a Homeland Security bill because Terroists might use open WiFi links in an attack.
Where would we be if Wheel had hid her round rock in a cave instead of showing everyone how it rolls?
Should read, "WiFi to save wireless users $12B", or "WiFi to get up to $12B slice of wireless pie".
Not making as much revenue as predicted is not a "cost".
I'll believe wireless carriers lose $12 billion when I see their gross revenue actually drop by $12 billion. As our massive experience with file downloads and other things has shown, many if not most of the people who use a free service either wouldn't use it if it weren't free, or are already paying for the same service from someone else anyway.
I wish wireless carriers and others would grow up and quit whining when people figure out that their products and services can be had for free.
I spent $10 on a bottle of wine. So should the headline read "Wine purchase costs banana growers $10"?
It's the same logic the RIAA and MPAA use, and it's fallacious.
It's not their money. It's not being taken from them. It's not costing them shit. It's just diverting money they think should be theirs to other, more worthwhile. uses. But there's no real evidence that it ever would have been spent on what they have to sell, rather than saved, or spent on any other thing in the world that can be bought.
These people's sense of entitlement to what they haven't earned is sickening. Bunch of corporate welfare scroungers. Next they'll go whining for the government to seize the money for them.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty