Insanely Expensive WiFi

from the taking-the-captive-audience-argument-a-bit-too-far... dept

Mon, Oct 11th 2004 11:52am — Mike Masnick

If you think that any fee for WiFi is too high, then wait until you hear about the plan from Sweet Spot Solutions and Pronto Networks to WiFi up downtown Tempe, Arizona for this week's Presidential debate. The two companies have set up a WiFi network that covers about 2 miles, but you need to buy a special "USB key" from Sweet Spot solutions in order to access the WiFi. Here's where it gets ridiculous. A one day pass will run you $49.95, though you get a real discount if you sign up for the weeklong deal at $199.95. Yeah, $50 a day or $200 for the week. And you thought paying $7 for a WiFi daypass was expensive? Of course, it's not too hard to find plenty of other WiFi providers, including a good number of free ones. Someone should explain to the folks at Sweet Spot and Pronto the concept of price elasticity -- especially in the face of cheap or free competition.

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

4 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Rob Henderson, 11 Oct 2004 @ 12:30pm

What exactly are they selling?
It occurrs to me that the local Starbucks free WiFi might not be able to handle the usage needs of the national press corps covering a pivotal political event. If what these people are selling is a guaranteed high-bandwidth, high-availability connection that blankets the debate coverage zone, and if they are primarily marketing it to professional (or very dedicated amateur) types, it might not be a bad idea.
On the other hand, this service may be no more reliable than any of the free services. In that case, it's just a great example of capitalism in action. There's a sucker born every minute, and there will always be someone waiting to take advantage of him.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Fred, 11 Oct 2004 @ 1:18pm
  
  Re: What exactly are they selling?
  Actually, they are looking for suckers with expense accounts that will subscribe. Who else would be that stupid or ignorant ?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Esme V, 11 Oct 2004 @ 2:13pm

Insanely expensive Wi-Fi in Tempe
Wow! Someone actually charges more than Swisscom Eurospot's hotspots in Europe. That is really an achievement.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mike Swensen, 16 Nov 2004 @ 2:48pm

poor research
To set the record straight on this article this was event pricing only for the debate. Other providers namely Cox Communications began selling individual connections at $350.00 to the media for the event. Next time I would suggest doing your homework before publishing a ridiclous article.

[ link to this | view in chronology ]