| With the Cometa announcement about AT&T, Intel and IBM joining forces to build a US nationwide network of hotspots, I think the WiFi hype meter just went right off the scale. Every technical publication and every technical column in mainstream publications carried the story. But there was a severe lack of intelligent comment or analysis. Now Reiter has published his first thoughts. I'd like to add a couple more. The sheer scale of the plan is awe inspiring. "20,000 Wi-Fi hot spots", "an access point within five minutes walk of any employee in an urban setting and within five minutes drive in a rural setting". This is either going to take a massive rollout effort or a franchise model. It's not at all clear what the busines model is going to be. From Reiter, "The Cometa executives said they were not certain how the new network would be used but were convinced that the nation's 100 million Internet users would begin to use their portable computers in new ways once connections are widely and easily available as they travel." As Reiter points out, not certain? They've got to be kidding! So is this a massive VC, cash and debt based landgrab to secure ownership of the sector? Anyone would think this was 1998 all over again. [from: JB Wifi] |
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[ 06-Dec-02 3:07pm ]
