Sprint PCS Gets Serious About WiFi Build-Out
Mike reviewed Sprint PCS' initial foray into WiFi, wherein Techdirt essentially supported Sprint's choice to roam onto Wayport, but chastised the high price points offered. Today, Sprint ups the ante with a commitment to build-out hotspots at 3000 truckstops across the US. Apparently 25% of the 4.5M US truckers have laptops, and present a viable market opportunity for WiFi. I think Sprint is making a relatively smart move, here: The truckers are probably heavy cell phone users, and will shift towards SprintPCS for voice and 1xRTT data access. Furthermore, one of the problems of PWLAN is that there is no roaming, so a mobile professional like me needs 5 different WiFi accounts during any given business trip. However, by targeting and locking up an entire market segment, the roaming issues are greatly diminished. The big problem with the announcement was arithmetic: Sprint says they will bring on 300 truck-stops per quarter, with a goal of 3,000 over the five year agreement??
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
