Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Wireless hotspots: hot or not?

Ericsson's marketing manager Johan Bergendahl predicts that wireless hotspots will be the telephone booths of the broadband age, i.e. something that will soon be hard to find. Instead he believes in mobile broadband.

For those that need access to broadband absolutely anywhere there isn't much to choose from apart from telephony-based broadband. I think, however, that wireless hotspots will be around for a long time yet.

The important difference, and the reason that Ericsson have the opinion that they do, is that mobile broadband always costs money for the one using it. A wireless hotspot doesn't have to be free either, but it can be. My take on this is that it will be more and more common for stores, cafes, malls and other places that people come to will offer wireless connections to everyone in range. I would be surprised if it isn't soon considered rude if a store doesn't offer network connectivity to people in it. Likewise, services like Fon will offer wireless connectivity to people in exchange for them offering their own connectivity to others.

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