Avis Looks To Take Out The Market Selling WiFi Access To Travelers

from the you-mean-i-won't-have-to-go-to-starbucks? dept

Avis this week launched its Avis Connect service, the WiFi-hotspot-in-a-car service it first announced at the beginning of the year. For $10.95 a day, renters can get a WiFi access point that's backhauled over an EV-DO connection, so it should offer speeds of 500 to 800 kbps. But the device isn't attached to the car users rent, so they can take it with them into their hotel, or anywhere else they go. The cost is very competitive with many paid WiFi offerings, particularly those in the many hotels that still charge for it, and it has the additional utility of being portable and supporting multiple users -- so it has quite a good chance of success. However, perhaps what's more interesting is to see how Avis is striving to differentiate itself in a field of what's essentially commodity offerings. Car-rental firms have tried to compete with frequent-renter programs and quick-checkout systems, but they're all basically at parity. These sorts of add-ons, like internet access or GPS navigation or satellite radio, could become useful differentiators among companies. Perhaps they'll also see the rental firms become like some discount airlines, where the plane ticket is a loss leader, and the real revenues come from all the extras.

Google Wants To Auction Spectrum Now, Too

from the i'll-take-10k-impressions-and-2-GHz dept

Google's been talking about wireless spectrum for a while now, both as part of a coalition asking for the white space around TV channels to be opened up, but it's also been mentioned as a possible bidder in the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auctions later this year. While Google's not commenting on whether or not it will bid on the spectrum, it has made a proposal to the FCC to allow for a "real-time airwaves auction model" for it. Google wants to set up a system for the spectrum that would work much like AdWords does, only instead of advertisers bidding for impressions, service providers would be bidding for spectrum. While we're supportive of ways to make spectrum more flexible and useful, and support the idea of allowing spectrum to be leased and sold in general, it's hard to see a lot of benefit in Google's plan. It says the auction would allow for spectrum to be fully utilized by letting companies easily auction off excess in real-time. That may be true, but it seems unlikely that there will be a lot of interest from potential bidders. Short-term leases that carry few guarantees aren't exactly attractive if you're trying to build a sustainable business -- for instance, it's not a great idea to start up a mobile broadband service one month, then tell your customers that you're sorry, but you got outbid this month, so you've gone dark, but they can be sure and check back next month to see if the service is up again. Perhaps the bottom line here is that spectrum owners should have the flexibility to do something like this, or lease their spectrum another way, should they see fit. But simply having that ability doesn't automatically make it a good idea to do so.

Private Equity Enters The Wireless Space In A Big Way

from the money-money-money dept

A group of private equity firms are buying Alltel for $27.5 billion, capping off months-long speculation about the future of the company. While the scale of the deal is pretty huge, it's not all that surprising: there's been a lot of momentum lately in private-equity buyouts, as robust debt markets are making it easy for buyout firms to get financing. Also, Alltel -- which has quietly become the country's fifth-largest mobile operator by rolling up smaller regional firms -- still doesn't have a nationwide footprint, but in some sense, that's part of the reason the company was an attractive buyout target, since it means the company has plenty of room to grow. This buyout could represent something of a tipping point in the industry as fresh blood, unencumbered by legacy telco thinking, comes into the market looking for aggressive growth and kicks off a round of strong competition. Alltel already has something of a track record for this, as its My Circle plan, which lets users pick a handful of numbers (either wireless or landline, and on any carrier) and call them for free, forced other operators to respond with similar offerings. The deal could also see Alltel become a significant player in the upcoming FCC auction for 700 MHz spectrum, which was already expected to be highly contested, should its new buyers want to secure the spectrum necessary to build out a nationwide mobile broadband network.

Will Zander's Smoke and Mirrors Be Enough To Save His Job?

from the thinner dept

Motorola continues to struggle as it hunts for a device to follow up the success of the RAZR. Last week, the company's CEO, Ed Zander, intimated that big things were in store from the company, and would be announced at an event today -- in particular, he talked up a movie-playing phone. So what's the company announce today for its renewed attack on the mobile handset market? Four products it had already announced, and the next-generation RAZR, creatively titled the RAZR 2. The idea is that consumers will flock to the update and pay a premium price for it, but it's hard to see people paying a high price for 2005's fad. While Zander proudly talks up how the RAZR has sold almost 100 million units, he leaves out how many of those sales came only after deep price cuts. Featurewise, the device isn't particularly exciting, and it's hard to explain the reannouncements of the other four products. The company says it has more high-end, feature-rich devices in the pipeline, but they're nowhere to be seen. It's hard to see today's event as much more than Zander trying some smoke and mirrors to polish the company's image -- and his own, which has taken a hit lately. But while he's showing off new products that aren't really new, Nokia's taking market share from slow-moving Motorola.

Another Company Wants To Track Fido With GPS

from the roving-rover dept

Just four years after a Japanese company launched a similar product, a company in Sweden has announced the "world premier" of a GPS dog collar that lets owners keep track of their pets. The collar has a GPS chip and a cellular modem; when an owner sends an SMS to the collar, it responds with a message detailing its location in text or map form. Like GPS applications for tracking kids, the device can also trigger alarms if the dog wearing it wanders outside a preset zone. While the company behind the device says it can help solve dog owners' "worst nightmare", it's hard to imagine too many of them ponying up the cash for the device and ongoing service. These sorts of tracking applications are continually mentioned as part of the future -- but the only problem is that people don't really seem all that interested in them.