Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Pushing Municipal Wi-Fi
PreacherTom writes "Microsoft is moving to be the latest player to bring its formidable weight to bear in the growing Wi-Fi market. The software giant's recent deal to provide content and services through partnership with municipal Wi-Fi operator MetroFi in Portland, Ore., will intensify the battle between Google, Yahoo!, and MSN for online traffic. Why the focus? Content providers who capture the growing municipal Wi-Fi market will be in a better position to enjoy higher traffic to their sites and greater customer loyalty — and, as a result, grab a greater share of the $16 billion of expected online advertising dollars this year, according to consultancy eMarketer. 'It's a battle for eyeballs,' says Matt Rosoff, an analyst with the consultancy firm 'Directions on Microsoft'."
Much as I'm loathe to say anything good about Microsoft, I'd probably install Vista on my right eye if Microsoft could get me some decent municipal wifi in the cities I frequent. Anything which brings about more free wifi is a good thing in my book.
"Isn't that the sweetest little well-balanced undergraduate-level philosophy of life."
The range on a single AP is not that great, even with a high power, high sensitivity AP, it would seem like you would want one on every other street light, and that's not cheap. In my experience, a mesh isn't very good at making a stable connection, and wiring every fourth AP doesn't sound very cheap either.
It seems Microsoft has been doing a lot of following and not much leading. Google really lead the way with the whole free public WiFi and now Microsoft is jumping in the ring. Apple revolutionizes the digital music scene, so Microsoft answers (years later mind you) with the Zune. Google launches a hosted word processor and spreadsheet app. and Microsoft just announced that they too will be releasing such apps with Office Live. Now I understand that Microsoft needs to either get on board or get left behind, but we hardly ever see Microsoft actually lead the way. To me it seems odd that the largest software company in the world relies on other companies ideas. You would think with their size and their cash, they would have more fresh, industry leading ideas coming out of their R&D department. I'm not too shocked though, because this has been the model Microsoft has taken since the beginning of their existence. MS-DOS was a ripoff of CP/M or (insert DOS-like OS here) and the idea of the mouse driven GUI was ripped off from Apple.
Does anyone have an example of a truly original idea that came out of Microsoft AND was successful industry leader?
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
The whole municipal wifi thing sounds great on paper, but the reality of the service it delivers is sorely lacking. I stayed in a hotel in Mountain View which was covered by Google's municipal wifi. The connection was flakey, slow and unreliable. Indeed, in retrospect, I find it almost comical that local cable companies and ISPs are screaming against this sort of thing as being anticompetitive. The fact of the matter is that it sort of works, but not very well. Get a few users on it, and a few meters of walls, trees, whatever, through in some RFI, and it makes for a really crappy internet access experience.
I suspect they care nothing at all about the WiFi business itself; but rather need whatever ways to lock-in Windows OS use (with the possible exception for other Microsoft IP-royalty paying OS's like Apple and SuSE).
I can promise you for "security" reasons, Microsoft WiFi will require Microsoft DRM which will require a Microsoft IP patent license which will no tbe compatable with F/OSS no matter what Novell would like you to think.
This has nothing to do with providing a nice service / and everything to do with trying to get patented IP into the common infrastructure to inhance Windows lockin. And will the DOJ care from a monopoly point of view? Not if Microsoft's willing to license their WiFi security IP to Apple and Novell under RAND terms even if it is not GPL compatable.
If they allow SSH I can simply tunnel through a proxy and skip all the ads.
If they don't allow SSH, it's a crippled connection (port 80 only?) that will also break other network services people expect (VPN, etc.).
Municipal WiFi should be provided as a service (free or otherwise) and should not be limited.
Bigtime Consulting - "We're the best because we cost the most"
There are a number of comments here talking about the current problems with municipal WiFi. Ok, this is obvious. But as wireless router power boosts, a greater variety of bandwidth opens for such use and so on, it seems reasonable to assume that municipal WiFi will become the primary way of accessing the internet for most internet users. With the amount of portable technologies exploiting wifi spreading (Nintendo's DS, Zune, etc.) city-dwellers will begin to expect such a service from someone in the way we now expect electricity or water. What Microsoft, Google, et al. are doing is jumping into the ring early in order to exploit it as a business advantage, which we can only hope works, because this may prevent wifi from becoming a utility in the classical sense.
FTA:
Or perhaps, in order to use the wireless network, install "client" software that forces the changes in the search preferences or home page.
This may be true for John Q. Public who installs that "essential" Roadrunner CD that gives them a branded IE and Roadrunner homepage. For many of these users, they just don't know any better. They are the ones who always use a search engine to go to the same web site over and over again as opposed to typing in the URL or setting a bookmark. I consider a wireless connection just that; a CONNECTION. It's a connection to go where *I* want to go, and to use the search engine *I* want to use. If I have to use a particular client to use a wireless connection, I'll find another connection.
So for users like myself, this argument doesn't work.
Didn't cable TV start like this? You pay a subscription fee every month, and you get these wonderful cable channels that don't have advertising; they are supported by your subscription fees. I'm canceling cable because I don't like paying for channels to advertise to me; heck, late-night cable channels are nothing BUT "infomercials" and there's no way I'm paying for THAT.
The next question that would arise is: how long before the Wi-Fi access becomes ad-subsidized, in order to keep the "low low price of $19.95 per month"? A paid subscripting reduces the number of ads, but doesn't eliminate them. I mean, who has the deeper pockets, the public who would use this set-up or Madison Avenue?
I would like to see a study like this: what brings more revenue, a ad-supported model or subscription-based model.
It depends on how you ask the question.
Q1: "Would you be willing to sign up for FREE wireless service in your area?"
Q2: "Would you be willing to view ads in exchange for free wireless service in your area?"
Regarding what Mr. Haas says about the fee-based vs. ad-based sign-up rates: if a user is signing up for a free service, but not the paid service, how long do you think that user will put up with the ads shown? How long will that user be an active user? How often will that user actually use the service? If something is free, it's easier to walk away from it, as you have lost nothing. If you pay for the service, it's because it's important enough to have it and you're less likely to walk away from it. Sure, "free" might get you "orders of magnitude" more subscribers, but 2-to-20 is just as much an "order of magnitude" jump as 10,000-to-100,000. Real, actual numbers would be more telling.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
The real way to get net neutrality is with municipal broadband. Projects like UTOPIA give consumers multiple ISP choices, so if somebody charges or blocks something they don't like, they switch. The fiber is there. MS and google both like net neutrality, and this is probably a cheaper way to get it than lobbying for b0rk legislation.