Ericsson Predicts Swift End For Wi-Fi Hotspots

mikesd81 writes "Mobile technology group Ericsson is predicting a 'swift end' for Wi-Fi hotspots, according to the PC Pro site. Johan Bergendahl, the company's chief marketing officer, offers this analysis: 'The rapid growth of mobile broadband is set to make Wi-Fi hotspots irrelevant ... Hotspots at places like Starbucks are becoming the telephone boxes of the broadband era. Industry will have to solve the international roaming issue ... Carriers need to work together. It can be as simple as paying 10 euros per day when you are abroad.' He also pointed to a lack of coverage as a potential hindrance to the growth of the technology."

Simple, right...

It can be as simple as paying 10 euros per day when you are abroad.'

Ten Euros a day? Well gee, at that low low price, Wi-Fi hotspots don't stand a chance! /sarcasm

Re:Simple, right...

I pay about US$0.20 per Megabyte here in Pakistan. For that I get HSPDA and, so long as I'm in a city, it work well, reliable and fast.

When I go home to Ireland, I put an Irish prepaid SIM card in my phone. I asked them (wisely) how much their 3G service costs. They told me it was Euro10.00 PER MEGABYTE. Needless to say, I disabled all the data functions on my Windows Mobile smartphone.

Why the phenomenal difference between the two data tariffs? Nobody could tell me. Some media stories surrounding the announcement by the European Union that they were looking at Roaming charges suggested that the high price of data services cross-subsidises lower voice and SMS costs. In any properly regulated telecoms market, that sort of cross-subsidy should be banned. It is no longer business customers who want data services - telcos who stack it high and sell it cheap will gain market share and should smell the coffee.

In fairness, a post-paid data-only 3G subscription is available in Ireland for Euro50 (for the dongle) and Euro15 per month (that will increase after three months and the service is capped at 5Gb per month). This is more reasonable. But 10 per day? No way Jose...

Simple yes, cheap no

Carriers need to work together. It can be as simple as paying 10 euros per day when you are abroad

Sure it's simple, but it's not cheap.

Re:Simple yes, cheap no

consider many wi-fi spots are free, and the most expensive are $29 (15E) per MONTH these guys are on crack. Even ATT is giving away wi-fi access to their paying DSL customers of premium packages.

What they really mean is that Google's 700Mhz gambit will make paying more than $15 per month for a wireless device that's only a phone, or only Wi-fi go away... cleared that up!

Re:Simple yes, cheap no

> some Other countries can be far worse

Some other countries, are *far* better. China, for example, never charges for wifi - well, I've never found a place that charges. Even Starbucks has it for free. SPR Coffee. Pacific Coffee. All free - not even a home page or login. Just fire it up and go - like at home (probably very similar equipment and service).

I use a free product called Devicescape [devicescape.com] where you can add hotspots and other wifi access points; it'll create a single fake access point on your device and automatically switch between the real ones when it finds them. Works pretty well on my Nokia E90. I added 'linksys' and a few other common SSIDs and it gets my email while I'm walking down the street, or on a bus :)

But, yes, that certainly isn't cheap.

I fail to see the correlation.

If I sit down at a place and have the option to either A.) Connect to a free wireless hub, or B.) Pay exorbitant amounts to connect my phone to my computer and connect at a horrible speed, which one am I going to choose?

Wait, don't tell me, I can figure this one out...

Re:I fail to see the correlation.

The correlation is this: Ericsson are a dealer in mobile internet devices. It is in their interest for people to move to mobile internet devices as people who buy mobile internet devices might by an Ericsson one. Ericsson don't do wifi hotspots, so there is no way using wifi hotspots puts money from your wallet into Ericsson's pocket. This displeases Ericsson, so they will now crow from the rooftops that wifi hotspots are dead, in a bid to drum up business for their absurdly-tariffed mobile internet devices.

Does anybody seriously listen when companies come out with this sort of self-serving 'analyses'? Do they think these companies make these statements out of the goodness of their hearts? If one person switches to a mobile internet device because of this, they're an idiot. Doublly so if they buy an Ericsson.

(Posted from a wifi hotspot).

Re:I fail to see the correlation.

While that is true, it is also true that the situation in Europe is very different from the US. Western European countries have large built out mostly under-used 3G networks so carriers offer fairly cheap access for mobile broadband. 7 MBit for 19/month is not that bad. And at least in Sweden, free wifi hotspots isn't that common. The fee at hotels is about 20/week and on the train it is 10 for a 5 hour ride. Both wifi and mobile operators are trying to screw you so you just have to roll with the one that manages to screw you the least.

Re:I fail to see the correlation.

What you don't understand is that Johan lives in Sweden, here mobile broadband has really taken off lately. Our operators is offering very reasonable, almost flat rate, high speed mobile broadband deals. For 30 $/month you get about 5-10 GB traffic/month, at up to 7.2 mbit/s download speed and 0.4 mbit/s upload. Many here cut their old land-based broadband and just use mobile. It really makes no sense to hunt for silly hotspots, when i can use my regular broadband where ever i wish to go, with no extra charge. So from a Swedish perspective, what he says is rather obvious. It is just a matter of time until this applies to the US and the rest of the world as well.

Amazing how companies are unrealistic.

As soon as I can get cellular wifi for free, then and ONLY THEN will wifi hotspots go away. Until then the entire article is nothing but uneducated posturing by a company that has zero clue as to how the public actually uses the internet.

Cellular modems are typically very slow unless you buy the high speed broadband type. And that's $50.00 a month for limited use. Even when I have my cellular modem with me I still use public wifi when it's available. It's faster, not capped with hidden transfer caps, and honestly smoother.

Granted my only experience is with Verizon's and AT&T's offering. but wifi hot spots are here to stay.

Quite the opposite

Places that DON'T have free wifi are finding themselves with a very easy decision:
either get with the times, or lose business.

It is assumed that a coffee shop will have wifi, seeing it at a restaurant is becoming more and more commonplace, and seeing it at an airport is starting to be expected.

Does he mean non FREE wifi?

This is something that has always baffled me. A really fast cable connection costs about 50 bucks a month (at least thats what I pay for 8down 2up in Phoenix)....a wireless AP costs anywhere from $20-100 depending on how much bullshit you eat from the idiot working at best buy.
How can you not justify a $50 a month expense, and a $50 initial cost?

Re:Quite the opposite

I have free wifi in my videostore and to generate a little extra money I put a few RV spaces on the lot behind the store. I offer my RV customers free wifi and many of them are here because I have it and other places don't. I don't keep my store computer on line except when I use it and it's on a different network anyway. The outdoor access point is a commercial unit that cost me about $200. All I have available is 1.5Mb DSL, but it works out OK.
people visiting town will come by and get their email and sometimes even spend money here.

And pigs will fly out of my butt

Yes, you could pay out the nose for a 200k mobile broadband account (on a good day) or you could pop in to your local sandwich shop for free and use their broadband (which might be tied into a 5/2 Mbps cable modem). Hmmm...

Ten euros a day?

Doesn't that kind of bloated figure screw up his own argument that wifi is irrelevant? Was that a typo? In the long run when the price is right --and that price will have to be a lot lower than ten bucks a day-- it's quite obvious that wifi will be overtaken by other wireless technologies with wider range. But it's also obvious that there are going to be dozens of standards for different regions of the world for probably another decade or so. On an international scale, telecoms, much like electrical utilities, don't like cooperation because they make money by charging to overcome incompatibilities. Quite to the contrary, there are many cases where telecoms make their money by staying as inefficient as they can possibly justify.

Typical Marketing BS

Hot-spots are low-latency, cheap to set up and maintain and there are actually quite a number you can use for free. The access device is also cheap and typically computer-integrated, even in low-end laptops. The mobile phone network, in contrast, has high-latency, is expensive to operate, typically expensive to customers and the access device can easily be more expensive than a lower-end laptop.

This guy is just predicting that he will get more important without any factual basis.

they have always been irrelevant,

especially in the form that is available now in most places. the problem with hotspots is their accidental availability -- you can never be sure that you will end near one when you need it, so rebuilding your "mobile internet experience" around them is pretty stupid. that being said, even when you know you can't rely on them, they can be a nice surprise. that's how i am treating the occasional hotspot -- as a convenience, sometime nice, and (very rarely) helpful in emergencies. that is as much i can say about hotspots.

now, the issue of mobile connectivity is a different matter altogether. there is only one huge reason we still can't have reasonable mobile connectivity. it is because the mobile carriers are hellbent on not letting their networks 'decay' into something similar to the open internet, where they'll have to make money from network connectivity, and probably lose out on all their stupid "markup" services that are pushed onto the mobile users -- ridiculous "ringtone" downloads, ridiculous "official sites" and what not. once mobile connectivity becomes ubiquituous, all those "business models" will go, and most likely on day zero.

until the governments (or, eventually, the invisible hand) turn the mobile services oligopolies into something more competitive, changes will be coming at the usual glacial speed.

Only in that guy's microcosm

Most notebook computers come with WiFi built in, and the hotspots are free or low cost plus operate in places where other forms of connection may not be readily available (except apparently to the hotspots' hub). Not the case with cellular data service, where one needs a modem and a data plan, plus the service will not work everywhere (despite what certain TV ads broadcasting currently say), plus costs $50 a month for service. Free/ish and 'there' verses home broadband cost and extra equipment? Hmm.

Additionally, those coffeehouses (and ferries, and restaurants, and so forth) stand to either do good by doing well -- wouldn't you frequent a business where you can get online free? -- or make enough coin to cover the service and then some. Cellular modeming only profits the telephone company. So WiFi is only a dying breed (wishful thinking) in the cellular providers' eyes, same as vinyl records and cassettes went away only because the industry said they were passe, not the consumers.

Telco Business Plan

1. Get the government to grant you a monopoly on providing communications service.
2. Charge high fees to your (trapped) customers.
3. Profit!

Free (or cheap) Wifi has to be eliminated as part of step #1.

Premises

"Carriers will need to work together." Yeah, like that is going to happen. It took an act of Congress in the US to get our phone numbers portable. Do people really think that this sort of cooperation just magically happens?

"Just 10 euros"

A quick check says that 10 euros is US$15. Let's look at some interesting metrics.

* My 10 meg cable is $50/month or so
* My rent is $645/month
* My car payment is $420/month
* Dinner and a good beer at the pub is about $15-20
* This service would cost $450/month

So, "internet freedom" would cost 2/3rds of a month of rent, as much as eating dinner out almost every day, nine times what my statically located service is (where I spend most of my time), and would give me little benefit compared to making a car payment.

I think "just 10 euros" are much better spent on practical things.

I think his leg is getting wet.....

He can take his ten euros, his hardware sales, his subscriptions, and self-fornicate with them.

What an abnormally stupid thing for even a marketing guy to say. It seems to thread together the common hubris among carriers, telcos, and their equipment providers. Quick-- somebody tell them about the lipfart problem before it's too late. I actually like Sony Ericsson phones (they last longer) over Moto, LG, and the iGroan.

Only 30x more expensive...

What, 10 euros a day?

Let's see, I pay 10 euros a month for unlimited (tethering allowed, no hidden bandwidth cap) 3G access on my phone here in Europe. Ok, it's only full UMTS, not full HSPA, but it gets the job done when I'm not on a 8-24 mbit line at home or work. That's 30 times cheaper than 10 euro's a day. What a strange 'simple' figure is that anyway, who spends 10 euros a day on mobile internet?

As for the wifi hotspots, well to be honest I havent encountered many of them and I do live in a big city, but I haven't really searched for them either. I know the university and two or three of my favourite bars have them (never see people with laptops in there, but I imagine it's nice for others who have wifi enabled phones but don't have a data plan). Unsecured access points are everywhere.

Roaming are awful though, especially here in Europe. You go somewhere near the border, you get the same provider but from a different country and suddenly you have to get a second mortgage to google. Glad the EU is looking into it.

That being said, if you are waiting around somewhere and you need internet where your data plan isn't 'valid' (or you don't have one), you can make a wifi hotspot anywhere if you can find somebody with a phone and a data plan with WMWifiRouter [wmwifirouter.com] or JoikuSpot [joikuspot.com] softwares, depending on the type of phone they have.

This just in

Company claims rival technology is no good, causes cancer, and impregnates young women.

Re:What is planet is this guy from?

I'd like to ask this guy how much money he makes

Isn't it interesting just how far out of touch from reality he is? I mean, even after you allow for the self-serving corporate shill factor, he's still way, way off anything that sane people are going to want. That can be dangerous for a senior corporate officer, even in marketing. It may be his job to lie, but I suspect that the shareholders would like to think he knew roughly where the bounds of reality lay.

You know what I think he's doing? I think he's extrapolating from the ridiculous margin the carriers make on SMS messages, and using that to calculate bandwidth charges. He thinks "they pay these rates for SMS, so they pay for connectivity".

Of course, if too many people make that particular connection, it could end up having the opposite effect to the one he wants.

Re:no more starbucks wireless

Now people will just go to Starbucks for the overpriced foo-foo coffees.

Customer: Could I have small coffee
Server: That would be a mezzo, sir
Customer: what the f*ck? mezzo is medium, piccolo is small
Server: sir mezzo means small
Customer: never mind, I'll a medium coffe
Server: That would be a grande, sir
Customer: Whatever, just give me a medium coffee that is actually a small.

foo-foo coffees and no grasp of language.