Hotspots To Stay Ad Hoc
More not-particularly-helpful analysis concerning the whole hotspot thing. Yet another analyst group is coming out saying that WiFi hotspots won't be as big a deal as some people predict, which is increasingly becoming the party line. Their argument is that less than 3% of Americans have used a public hotspot, and a "negligible number" have become subscribers (5% of that 3%). I don't see how that's really relevant. For example, I'm a huge supporter of WiFi, and I am not a subscriber to any of these services because I don't use them often enough to pay the ridiculously high fees they charge. I test some of them out, and I use them on occasion, but it's not worth it for me to be a "subscriber". That doesn't mean that hotspots will fail. For example, this report seems to ignore free hotspots, which I use all the time. The report is also trying to extrapolate from very early data. If we looked at any product that goes through an adoption cycle, you see that the early adopters pick things up slowly before a mass audience gets into it. So, while I agree that commercial hotspots will have a problem, it's because of their business model - not the idea itself. A report like this just says "it's going to fail, because not enough people are adopting it". That's useless. A report of this nature needs to say why people won't adopt it.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
