Wednesday 2 July 2003

WiFi hotspot businesses cost too much to be profitable (and they suck) Cory also notes that the Economist is rather pessimistic about Wi-Fi hotspots. The Economist reports on the failing business of providing WiFi hotspots at very high prices -- especially in Europe (I just spent three weeks there, and discovered that the average cost for a day's WiFi was on the order of $20 or more). The article points out that lower prices would certainly make a difference, and as Glenn Fleishman points out: Starbucks has an average of two people per store per day use the T-Mobile HotSpot service; Amsterdam's airport has just a dozen per day. At these rates, they'll pay back capital expenses in negative 1,000 years. Me, I figure that most of the expense of running a hotspot comes from the billing for hotspots. Figure $50 for a cheap access-point and $50/month for a DSL line, and you can imagine coffee-shops turning a profit on free WiFi if by selling one extra latte a day, and a hotel paying off its WiFi by renting out one extra room per floor per month. Also missing from the article is the painfully stupid practice of using scratch-off cards for WiFi billing, like the network in the Helsinki airport. The network costs about $10 for a couple hours, but the service requires that you buy a scratch-off card with a one-time-use number before you can get on. And these cards aren't for sale in the airport. What's more, the captive portal screen (where all this is explained) lists all the places you can buy a scratch-off card in a downloadable, enormous PDF file, rather than on a web-page, and has a tech-support 800 number that can't be dialled from the payphones in the airport (which disallow toll-free calls). Presumably, this is a significant contributor to the paucity of users for the network -- and nevermind the outrageous costs. Link (via WiFi Networking News) [Boing Boing Blog] 4:38:32 PM    comment []  Google It!

Clarion to lose funding Noted by Cory Doctorow: The legendary Clarion Writers Workshop at Michigan State University is being cut off by the university administration. Clarion is the long-running science fiction writers' "boot camp," that has graduated such writers as Bruce Sterling, James Patrick Kelly, Nalo Hopkinson, Kelly Link, Ted Chiang, Martha Soukup, Scott Edelman and, well, me. This is pretty disheartening. Clarion has spawned sister workshops in Seattle and Australia, and has served as the proving ground for hundreds of writers over more than 30 years. On the other hand, this is an incredible opportunity for some university to snatch up one of the most culturally signficant academic writing programs in the world. The Clarion team are soliciting ideas (see below) -- I really hope that someone can come up with a smart answer to this conundrum. Dr. Lister Matheson has received word from the Interim President and Provost that Michigan State University will be unable to support the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop. He has asked that this message be passed on to our friends. Suggestions and comments can be sent to Interim President and Provost, Dr. Lou Anna K. Simon at laksimon@msu.edu, and the Dean of the College of Arts and Letters, Dr. Wendy K. Wilkins at wwilkins@msu.edu. Please copy any messages to clarion@msu.edu. Link [Boing Boing Blog] 4:14:34 PM    comment []  Google It!

© Copyright 2003 David Stewart. Last update: 02/08/2003; 00:54:34.