Rodent Regatta

That’s nice for Starbucks, but unless T-Mobile is given an incremental per store percentage of aggregate increased sales based on the number of Wi-Fi users at any given time, this doesn’t pay the T-1 bill.

Glenn Fleishman

Wi-Fi Networking News

April 3, 2003

This quote summarizes the current state of the Wi-Fi industry. No matter which type of wireless access you select, at some point your wireless connection hops on a wire that is being paid for by someone. Generally, that ”someone” must cover the cost of that bandwidth as well as the maintenance, operation and original cost of the equipment to operate the network.

This is a fact regardless of which provider you may be. From Starbucks to McDonald’s to Boingo and T-Mobile, profitable companies are not going to operate wireless networks at a loss for very long.

• * * UPDATE * * * Look at what Ephraim Schwartz has to say about public Wi-Fi access.