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| Wi-Fi: the future of mobile communication or a lot of industry hype |
September 11, 2005 |
By Peter Wolchak
The voice from over my shoulder came two seconds too late, and because of that I gave Telus $40 I didn’t have to.
The location was a coffee shop in Mississauga, Ont. The occasion was a recent move to that city which left me temporarily without Internet access in my office. Being a modern guy working in a modern industry I need the ’net, so I trekked over to my parents’ house and used their access to scope out the local cafés. I found one nearby that sported a Telus hotspot. Off I went.
I ordered a dark roast and booted up. If you’ve never used a hotspot before, getting started is easy. The laptop found the network, I clicked Connect and then launched Firefox, my browser of choice. Up came the Telus pitch page. I reviewed my options. One hour cost $10, 24 hours went for $15, seven days would have set me back $25, and a full month cost $40. I decided to put up the $40, so I filled out the form — new user name and password, address, credit card information — and then clicked on the Buy button.
I got the screen confirming the purchase, and within seconds I heard, “Sir, sir, excuse me!” The café’s owner had seen me put my credit card back in my wallet.
“Sir, the hotspot is free. You didn’t just pay, did you?”
Yes, I had. When I first booted up, the laptop actually found two networks. One was called “Telus” and the other looked like a person’s name. Because I knew Telus operated the hotspot I had selected that network.
But it turns out the shop’s owner had decided to add free access, because he believes the Internet is a value add for his customers and that giving it away will increase his business.
He came over to apologize for not telling me about the freebie and then proceeded to explain that his regular customers used to spend an hour in his café, and now many hang out for three or four hours—and buy a lot more coffee and muffins.
Which reflects exactly the experience and opinions expressed in our last issue: free Wi-Fi creates incremental revenue, and expecting to make money from access fees misses the point. And we got a lot of letters on that opinion; some readers said we were right on, others argue the whole Wi-Fi movement—free or paid—is all just empty hype. Flip over to the Letters page to see a selection of the opinions we received.
One more note on the last issue: I wrote in the editorial “I will make a public promise: any pub or coffee shop that installs a free Wi-Fi hotspot near me will make money from me.”
I’ve kept my promise. I am hitting that café every day, spending at least $4 and sometimes a lot more. Without its hotspot I never would have even walked in the door. And every time I go there at least one other person is typing on a laptop and drinking coffee. The incremental-revenue argument is certainly alive and well in that café.
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