Wi-Fi Hotspots: Am I hot or not?

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 11 Jul 2003 at 11:48

Allied Business Intelligence (ABI) predicts that WiFi hotspots will grow globally to more than 160,000 locations by 2007, from approximately 28,000 this year.

It's good news all round according to ABI, despite issues yet to be tackled such as the finer points of billing and fixing up roaming agreements: 'There are some terrific opportunities for operators to start bundling services, offering consumers a more data intensive usage model, as well as a more compelling package of benefits and value,' says Tim Shelton, ABI's Director of Wireless Research.

The report: 'Wi-Fi Public Hotspots - Business Case Analysis through Deployment and Subscriber Forecasts' claims that 'there is tremendous momentum building, but this should not be mistaken for over-hype, as many players in the market are facing the reality of commercial deployments'.

However, this is in direct contrast with recent research from Forrester that foresees the WiFi bubble bursting as quickly as that of the dotcoms, and those players facing the reality of commercial deployments now, could be facing a business model in tatters in years to come.

Forrester Senior Analyst Lars Godell said: 'We believe that much of the money being poured into public WLAN today to enable access - from places as diverse as bars, marinas, hotels, and airports, as well as train, bus, and metro stations - is being wasted.

Shelton admits that there is much marketing still to be done to make such services successful: 'In order for this industry to continue its growth, it has to more clearly communicate the technology's benefits to end-users, in order to generate wide scale adoption,' he says. The report suggests tie-ups with other offerings, such as mobile phone services, will stimulate demand for hot-spot use.

Again Forrester claims that mobile phone operators will be far from supportive of public WiFi services and the potential they offer for customers to make cheap IP calls anywhere in the world, directly eating into their cash cow.

In fact the company predicts mobile phone manufacturers will be persuaded to offer wireless networking via Bluetooth for phones, with WLAN chips present in only 2 per cent of them.

See also:

WiFi hot-spot bubble set to burst