Good coffee, Bad Wi-Fi

Thursday, June 24th, 2010 Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor

Free Wi-Fi is growing and it’s growing fast, at least here in the U.S. For quite some while, venues of all stripes including airports, hotels, cafes and even trains have been offering free Wi-Fi in some form or fashion. Some have been good at it, while others have stumbled badly, leaving the end user with a burning desire for a paid option that just plain worked.

Things got very interesting earlier this year when McDonald’s announced that they were eliminating their limited-access, paid Wi-Fi option and were “going rogue” with all out free Wi-Fi. We’re not talking about a few venues here and there, but thousands of venues scattered across the county. Add premium coffee to the mix, and you can almost see the cannon ball heading North to Seattle. Not to be outdone, Starbuck’s recently announced they too were going free, and to up the ante, they’ll be providing digital content that would otherwise not be free if you were outside the range of their Wi-Fi signal.

The Starbucks announcement was not entirely surprising. Free Wi-Fi was already becoming increasingly accessible as wired and wireless network operators began offering it to their subscribers either as a source of differentiation or as a response to a competitor’s offering. In addition, the demand for high bandwidth networks has increased with the introduction of smartphones which has led to a 3G capacity crunch in select geographies. This problem will increase even further with the adoption of highly portable touch screen tablets. Some carriers have dealt with the capacity crunch by implementing a 3G offload strategy that allows the end user to easily connect to Wi-Fi hotspots when in range, at no additional cost.

Can the capacity crunch also impact the free Wi-Fi venues? It sure can, and operators should beware.

Back in the “old days” when laptops ruled the world, there was a self-imposed limit to the number of endpoints that voluntarily connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot in a public venue. The café is a prime example. It was highly unlikely that one would connect if they were short on time, couldn’t find an empty table or were running low on battery power with no access to a power outlet. As new portable devices emerge, much of that no longer holds true. For example, lightweight, touch screen tablets that power on instantaneously, have a very long battery life and can be used as easily standing as sitting, will likely result in a spike in the average number of simultaneously connected Wi-Fi endpoints in popular venues. This could lead to a dramatic reduction in the bandwidth available to each device.

Add premium content to the mix and if not done right, it’s entirely possible that the bitter taste in your mouth will not come from the good coffee, but rather, from the bad Wi-Fi.

At iPass, we’ve developed a new platform and service offering that further simplifies the connectivity experience and connects the end user to the best available network whether it be free Wi-Fi, paid Wi-Fi or wireless 3G. In instances where free Wi-Fi has gone bad, we’ve worked with select network operators to provide a private connectivity option that ensures our users have a great experience each time they connect. We also have the flexibility to easily switch a user over to 3G if their device has the required hardware. The end result is they get the best of both worlds–the ability to connect without hassles and with no personal financial liability–the ultimate in free connectivity.

Tags: internet access, Open Mobile Platform, wi-fi access