My view on public WLAN, really, is that:
*it is compelling for laptop connectivity in fairly confined areas,
where there is a significant market, but which mobile operators really
don't care about.
*It cannot compete with cellular connecting anything smaller than a
laptop on a wide area basis.
Consider, for a moment - how many applications that can take advantage
of the greater speed offered by WLAN will fit on a screen that fits in
your pocket? Streaming video looks just fine at 200K. What does the
17-year-old use 1Mbit for? Why will they pay an additional subscription?
I ran through these issues in some depth in a report I wrote just before
getting shut down :-(
http://www.ben-evans.com/cv_1/wlanflash.pdf
>This is just what they said about PHS, which in terms of take-up for
data access is currently kicking 3G's butt
>in Tokyo.
And what's the return on the original investment in PHS? Have any of
the operators come even close to making their money back? Aren't they
just milking a written-down asset base?
-Benedict Evans
Received on Tue Jun 24 21:25:52 2003