WiFi for the Enterprise ...
mQ,
<< I fail to see a business case for a carrier or for anyone else for that matter, other than campuses, hotels, airports, and residences. ... People will have WiFi anyway, for speed, in their office and at home. >>
Enterprises will demand it. They are demanding it not only in the industry standard Centrino and Bluetooth enabled notebooks they issue to eligible headquarters stationed road warriors and corridor warriors and field stationed road warriors, but in converged mobile devices they are planning to subsidize and creating (or buying) tailored HFA software for.
Regardless how fuzzy business models for carriers are, they are moving forward but business models for enterprise solutions providers like IBM, HP, Nokia, Checkpoint, Oracle, Microsoft, and SAP are not the least bit fuzzy.
The conference rooms, cafeterias and public areas of corporate campuses are increasingly becoming unwired. Tens of millions of miles of CAT-5 will go idle this year. Road warriors breakfast or take a break at McDonald's and Starbucks (and submit their unreciepted per diem on the expense report with their substantiated connection charge if there is one). They stay at hotels where WiFi is available and use WiFi in airport lounges. When off campus meetings are held domestically or internationally WiFi connectivity is a requisite for the meeting room and this includes EVERY 3GPP2 meeting because 1xEV-DO is one heck of a long way from being ubiquitous and considerably less prevalent than WiFi where low latency high data rates are requisite. Internationally 1xEV-DO will never be as prevalent as WiFi which will be supplemented one way or another with over-hyped WiMax.
You'se guys down under are pioneering high speed with low latency OFDM transmission technologies just like you pioneered the set aside of 3G IMT-2000 spectrum in 2.1 GHz for what was then known as FLP, now known as IMT-2000 3G by arranging WARC-1992. Whoosh!
Different (best) strokes for different folks, and as Sly and his family Stone once sagely sang .. "... and so on and so on and scooby dooby dooby."
CDMA technology and its variants are fine technology but they do not cure arthritis, the common cold, or solve all man's wireless needs.
As currently delivering, available 'cdma' or CDM/TDM solutions here in the USA where cdma as applied to a mobile environment was 'invented' 15 years ago, and where 1xRTT has been hyped as 3G by its mobile WAN inventors, its trade association, and its PR agency, Bock Communications--to the everlasting shame of the Jacobs' family. Perry LaForge, and those of us that hold QCOM shares--just doesn't cut the enterprise mustard (and neither will WCDMA in the near term for that matter).
Just one year after our obstreperous but persevering and enthusiastic leader Dr. Irwin Mark Jacobs made headline at CTIA for his statement that he doubted that EDGE would "ever see the light of day." he was back at CTIA and the headlines read "Qualcomm CEO Trashes WiFi."
Enough of that conversation about the futurist and corporate leader that has found an acorn or two along the way while making a fortune for himself and family (and out some coins in our pockets) ...
... and let us instead lift our hats once again to Samsung for obtaining FCC certification on the first converged 1xEV-D0/OFDM enabled WiFi device, even though HP. Motorola, and Nokia beat em to the punch on the GSM GPRS or EDGE side.
There are many variations of this WiFi business model (or lack of same) subject in my e-mail inbox today. Just a few of many here:
>> WiFi Will Increase Its Presence in The Enterprise
The enterprise sector will move toward a more wholehearted (or, perhaps more accurately, the less ambivalent) adoption of WLANs. Enterprise WLAN adoption may not (yet) eclipse the robust growth of WLANs in the consumer sector, or the buzz accompanying hotspots; but it will, in short order, exceed them in volume as millions of new enterprises introduce -- or expand and augment -- their wireless networks. Improvements in security, management, and QoS, and enhancements such as multi-site systems, are making it easy for businesses to say "yes" to WiFi.
The rapidly growing popularity of VoIP may provide the last push for businesses still hesitating. It is thus not surprising that surveys show that wireless infrastructure is at the top of the list of enterprises' "must haves" for 2005. The question is thus no longer whether enterprises will adopt WLANs, but rather how, when, and in what manner WLANs will be incorporated into their businesses.
>> Dead Ahead
Jason Ankeny
Editor's Perspective
Wireless Review
Jan 5 2005
Some sickos like to inaugurate each new year with a dead pool, a parlor game requiring players to select 10 famous people they believe will expire over the next 12 months. Let's begin 2005 with a dead pool prediction of our own: The premium Wi-Fi model long espoused by T-Mobile will finally draw its last breath in the imminent future. Cause of death: competition.
This week, rival Wayport edged past T-Mobile to become the nation's largest Wi-Fi hot spot operator. Wayport claims 6,300 public hot spot locations nationwide, among them 2,300 McDonald's locations. That's about a thousand more sites than the 5,290 U.S. hot spots claimed by T-Mobile on its Web site. And Wayport says it is adding some 150 new sites each week--a far cry from early 2004, when the company operated only about 1,000 U.S. hot spots in all.
Credit Wayport's growth to its pricing model. In May 2004, the company announced Wi-Fi World, its catchall plan for reselling access to aggregators and others for a fixed monthly fee per location ($32 per month, on average) instead of a per-connection rate. Under the Wi-Fi World model, resellers name their own price for subscribers, and do not share that revenue with Wayport; in many cases, resellers are opting against premium subscriptions altogether, instead offering Wi-Fi gratis as a means of driving customer traffic. Even Wayport partner SBC is in on the action, giving customers free Wi-Fi access through April 2005, at which time the price increases to $1.99 per month. Compare that to the $29.99 and up T-Mobile commands for unlimited monthly subscription plans and the $6.00 per hour it charges for pay-as-you-go plans. The disparity is absurd.
In an environment where free Wi-Fi is not a novelty but the norm, Wayport has proven that the revenues to be generated from Wi-Fi come from resellers, not end users. T-Mobile has always supported its pricing model by arguing that its subscribers pay in large part for the comfort and reliability of knowing they can find a T-Mobile hot spot virtually anywhere they travel, but when the carrier can no longer boast the nation's largest hot spot network, that argument loses much of its force. Scenarios pitting a retailer charging $30 per month for Wi-Fi against its next-door rival with free Wi-Fi access are no longer hypothetical, but commonplace. T-Mobile can't possibly expect subscribers to keep paying for a service so widely available at no cost.
A few weeks back, Byte Level Research chief analyst John Yunker reported rumors that some managers at Starbucks, T-Mobile's biggest reseller partner, are now begging their bosses to begin offering free Wi-Fi as a means to generate increased business. The question isn't if Starbucks will slash Wi-Fi prices, but when--and how long it will take for T-Mobile to smell the same proverbial coffee. <<
Best to you and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
Whoosh,
- eriQ - |
