"NO WI-FI FOR YOU!"...
Echoing yesterday's post ("All dressed up and nowhere to go"), Verizon showed it knows where it's bread is buttered, when it canceled it's much ballyhooed entry into the free Wifi hot-spot market in 2003. (picture from engadget.com...click for larger image)
This brief article in webpronews.com says it all:
Citing billions of dollars in costs to upgrade its cellular Internet networks, Verizon announced that it would phase out free WiFi connection for New York City DSL subscribers.
Verizon announced the decision on Wednesday accompanied by plans to implement a paid cellular Internet service in the New York area.
Being gradually eliminated over the next two months, the free service was made possible by short-range WiFi transmitters installed in phone booths in 2003.
Verizon Wireless has spent $138 million this year upgrading its cellular network in the New York metropolitan area. This is in addition to $475 million investment in 2004.
The service is based on EV-DO, a technology that offers wider coverage more stable connections for untethered laptop users. WiFi, while faster, doesn't have the range of EV-DO.
"The usage level, as other alternatives have become available is not enough to justify continuing it when there are other options. A lot has changed over the past two years in terms of wireless access," said Bobbi Henson, spokeswoman for Verizon.
"Every body's trying to look for a business model around (Wi-Fi).... But the better business model in our mind is the EV-DO network."
Of course they like the business model on the EV-DO network...it offers unlimited data at broadband speeds (300+ kbps) via a PC card on a laptop for almost $80/month, and unlimited data on PDA phones like the Audiovox XV6600 I've talked about in previous posts ("Broadband to go") at almost $50/month. (Most likely they supported the XV6600 because it didn't have Wifi built-in...wonder what they'll do when the next model does...)
And they know they're the only game in town for that kind of speed in dozens of cities around the US...for now.
Why roll-out a free network that has even the slightest opportunity to impinge on that kind of "better business model"?
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