Selling Wi-Fi Subscriptions to Enterprise Customers
While I love the idea of blanket Wi-Fi coverage I'm unconvinced that stand alone Wi-Fi offerings are a viable business with their current pricing. It's just too expensive for individual users to justify. However I think bundling access with mobile phone service at a reasonable price is an interesting idea. For enterprise users I'm intrigued by Cometa's model as it was outlined at a New York technology breakfast this morning. Cometa will build the network and lease access to existing ISPs. These ISPs can in turn bundle Wi-Fi access with their enterprise offerings. So an enterprise that leases a wired connection for their office would also get access to the ISP's Cometa based Wi-Fi network to connect to corporate email and applications on the road. It's not really a brilliant new product, but a more efficient distribution channel for enterprise Wi-Fi subscriptions.
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