You said "Does it matter whether it's 3G or Ricochet ? How badly is it needed ?"
Answer #1: yes it matters.
Answer #2a: yes, it is needed badly by the business community.
Answer #2b: no, consumers don't want to use their cellphones for wireless data, and that's what the survey was really discovering. Not a surprise there. But this is not what MCOM offers them, so that is where your intimated question is ill-posed.
The telcos will charge by the bit, and the buyers would be taking those bits into their cellphones. Not much market for that right now, and it would take a while to develope that niche with content.
Metricom allows wireless access NOW at speeds from 100 to 250kbps (average speeds around 170 kbps, but it depends upon your location within the network; max speeds over 300kbps possible for current deployment. All this for flat-rate pricing.
There is a huge corporate market that only Ricochet can serve, and you will see evidence of that over the course of this year.
Remember that what WCOM is selling the corps is IP VPN. Very important for the corps to have security. Also, WCOM only began reselling the markets whose networks were tuned and had coverage gaps filled in, because WCOM offers guarantees of quality of service.
Finally, only the high tech junkies wanted to bother with the original external modems. The IT buyers for the corps were waiting for the PC card modems to become available, which only occurred in volume a week ago or so (see the GOAM and WCOM and WWC PRs).
Also know the difference between GPRS/EDGE offerings coming down the pike and what MCOM is selling NOW.
Results will not be immediately visible, but they will most decidedly be there. This is apart from broader consumer understanding and use of the product, which will come later. Not over a cellphone, but pda/laptops. JMHO. |
