U.S. municipalities abandon wireless residential ISP business models
This was one of the headlines on the newswires this week. We have long believed that the idea of WiFi enabling an entire city and giving away the service for free or minimal rates was a total fantasy. Aside from the issue of local authorities competing with private enterprise, there are at least two substantial truths related to this issue.
1) Nothing is really for free, someone somewhere pays.
2) Whilst the model is largely download and light usage, XDSL technologies are a very efficient consumer solution for broadband, and wireless will simply not compete on the residential commercial math where a copper infrastructure already exists.
As the year progresses, more and more bad business models will be exposed, and the subtlety that ‘not all wireless businesses are alike’ will become very obvious.
Ian Roberts