An interesting article from C-NET about Verizon
strategy behind the newly announced WI-FI
hotspots deployment in Manhattan:
"Telecommunications companies are starting
to use Wi-Fi as a weapon against the cable
industry's ambitions to infiltrate the local
telephone market. "
"Wi-Fi is more of an expense item than a
revenue-generating item, so to experiment
with it to see how it can contribute makes
sense," Briere said. "But just like all the
other services, it's generic. Once the other
players offer the same service, the only
thing they have to look forward to is a price war."
So as more and more users install broadband
they also start to use voice calls over cable.
WI-FI is seen as an integration of the ADSL
service providing roaming to users.
This makes more sense than comparing it
as a 3G alternative. Also WI-FI has coverage
problems that will be even more serious in
the future:
"Briere added that although this may be true,
pay phones are gradually being weeded out
of the Manhattan landscape, raising the question
of how effective roaming will be in the future.
And Briere had other concerns. "
So here we see a step towards a "network mix"
with devices switching from one network to
another. Anyway there is a long way to the
definitive model.
http://news.com.com/2100-1037_3-1001644.html?tag=fd_top
What do you think?
Giovanni Bertani
Received on Thu May 15 09:23:04 2003