Wi-fi wants to be free
As if we didn’t know already, Mike Elgan tells us wi-fi wants to be free, about the Starbuck’s deal with AT&T:
“Wi-Fi used to be a resource for rent, now it’s the new toaster. This week, a kind of “tipping point” has been reached, and now — instead of being rented for a fee — Wi-Fi will increasingly be given away to motivate customers to buy other goods and services.”
The thing is, wi-fi is kind of hard to contain within four walls. In case of Starbucks, you’ll need a Starbucks card though, which would give you 2 hours of free wi-fi access a day. Can’t wait for them to introduce this over here (if ever). Since there’s dozens of them in the city, it would add a dozen of free access points (if you’re willing to get a Starbucks card)…
The coming years pressure will be on for all sorts of businesses to expand their service into offering free wi-fi: alternative coffee shops, food courts, department stores, shopping malls… A shopping mall for example could have one gateway Meraki connected to a single DSL line, and have Meraki repeaters dotted around the mall (and especially at coffee shops or their food court), with minimal investment. The cost for the internet connection should not be seen as an option, as a nice to have, but as a common utility, like electricity, water and gas. And given time, I think it will.
Now if only alternative ISPs would jump on this, like iiNet, and offer free wi-fi around town, branded with their logo, and I’d be happy to have it throttled (over time free wi-fi would compete on its available speed). To be fair, iiNet kind of already does something with Tomizone, giving its customers 100Mb per month on these wi-fi access points.
Nah, guess we’ll have to do it ourselves…