Bringing Back Ricochet
from the too-little-too-late? dept
Well, for a while I was one of the biggest supporters for anyone wanting to bring Ricochet back to life. However, now I'm wondering if it's just too little, too late (and too slow). Aerie Networks is getting ready to relaunch the service in selected areas with a completely different marketing focus. Of course, I never liked the original Metricom marketing strategy, but I'm not sure completely throwing it out is so smart. First off, they're making cheaper. That's smart. Second, though, is they're not at all focusing on mobile professionals. While I agreed with that a while back, it might not make sense any more. It sounds like they're just going to be creating another "hot spot" wireless technology where you'll only be able to use it in very select locations. We've already got that with 802.11b - which is faster and probably in many more locations already. I think, at this point, the only way Ricochet would make sense for me again is if they had amazing coverage in locations I was likely to be in often. Otherwise, 802.11 stuff will work just fine.
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Refund?
They still will not refund the remaining 10 months I was denied, saying that once the service gets relaunched, so will my WWC service. Now that it sounds like that is not going to be the case, I expect a long, uphill battle to get my refund and the last thing I am going to do is pay for any more of the service, which was great, but too spotty to justify sinking (and possibly losing) any more money on it.
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