Ericsson Predicts Swift End For Wi-Fi Hotspots 286
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."
Re:Simple yes, cheap no (Score:5, Informative)
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!
Hmmmm (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Quite the opposite (Score:5, Informative)
people visiting town will come by and get their email and sometimes even spend money here.
Re:I fail to see the correlation. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I fail to see the correlation. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Simple yes, cheap no (Score:-1, Informative)
You think so?
How about $6/mb [www.fido.ca]? Until just recently, that was considered "cheap" in Canada. I notice that within the past 3 months we finally have a 3G provider! Only $65/GB! How competitively priced.
Especially since Canada had unlimited cellular internet about 5 years ago from Fido for $50/monthly. That went away once Rogers bought them. Quelle surprise!
T-Mobile wifi phone, good wifi finder, ironic (Score:2, Informative)
Only 30x more expensive... (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Quite the opposite (Score:3, Informative)
Even the $50 cheap wireless routers can isolate the wireless connections from the wired ports, or you get a second cheap wireless router for your customers, plug your business wireless (or wired) router/firewall/NAT into one of the ports on that, and you're isolated.
Re:I fail to see the correlation. (Score:5, Informative)
Badly written summary (Score:3, Informative)
The ten euros a day figure is for international roaming, the most expensive kind of access.
The article IS dumb, but it's not as dumb as the summary makes it sound.
Re:Simple yes, cheap no (Score:2, Informative)