While I like WiFi as a "fixed" and "free" wireless solution (at home and at the office), I just don't get the drive that Cometa et al. are making with transforming it into a roaming and fee-based wireless solution.
Can someone answer the following questions: 1) What kind of bandwidth can one truly expect to the Internet from a hotspot location? The Starbucks/TMobile networks are hooked up via T-1 networks. So the 11mbps WiFi is bottlenecked at the 1.544mbps T-1 connection. What kind of infrastructure will cometa place behind these 20K base stations? Presumably something similar to T-1 speeds (e.g., ADSL). 1a) More importantly, what is the "sweet spot" in bandwidth required for most people while they are mobile? I.e., they are neither at the office nor at home. Do you truly need more than 100kbps sustained throughput? Are there any lessons learned from the Japanese who use 3G technology? That is, are the Japanese 3G customers screaming for more bandwidth or coverage? 2) What is the "sweet spot" in terms of the monthly price these companies can charge customers for unlimited roaming data? 2a) More importantly, how ubiquitous does the network need to be for people to willingly pay for it? Are hotspots spaced out at "5-minute distance" to spotty? Or will people (like real-estate agents, sales people, truckers, delivery people, etc.) want coverage that rivals today's cellular networks (e.g., Sprint PCSVision)? Personally, I'd prefer to have a PDA/TabletPC/Laptop that supports both WiFi and 3G. However, my usage pattern would be as follows: WiFi only when it is FREE and available, and 3G everywhere else. This is because my telecommunications budget of $115/month (for broadband, celluar, and phone) has already reached its peak. There is just no way that I want to increase that by another $25-$50 for spotty hotspots. Sprint PCS seems to have rolled out a viable 3G solution (albeit currently limited to 144kbps burst speeds and 70-90kbps sustained) that works nationwide wherever your PCS phone works --- unlike Ricochet. This is something I am considering when I upgrade my current cell phone to a 3G phone with Sprint. At $40/month for unlimited data via a USB cable to, say, a $49 Sanyo 4900 phone, which comes with 300 anytime + 1000 off-peak voice minutes, this remains within my current $115/month budget for telecommunications. So, what are the compelling bandwidth hungry apps (remember less than T-1 speeds but faster than 100kbps sustained rates) that I may use at a coffee shop, airport, bus stop, restaurant, the mall, etc., that warrants adding ~$30/month to my current strapped telecommunications budget? Please enlighten me. Marc -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
