Software may want to be free, but what about wireless?

2004.11.01

Nigel Ballard, Matrix Networks director of wireless by day and free wireless advocate with Personal Telco by night, thinks accessing the Internet or corporate network wirelessly should be free -- both as in free software and as in free beer -- or perhaps more appropriately, as in free with a cup of coffee.

Ballard was on the free side of the "To Pay or Not To Pay" WiFi discussion at the recent NW Wireless & Security Summit held in Portland, Ore. While his company has helped customers such as hotels deploy fee wireless services, the pay services typically prove unprofitable for those deploying them, according to Ballard. Instead, he said, wireless access is increasingly becoming a necessary add-on for hotels, coffee shops, and even municipalities.

Free access becoming more commonplace

"We had hotels that were pay," Ballard told a room full of summit attendees. "And they're all free now," he added, citing hotels in eight U.S. states that provide wireless access at no extra cost.

Ballard explained that despite significant deployment costs, particularly for tall and tony hotels, providing free yet dependable service is as necessary as housekeeping.

"'It's the cost of doing business in the hospitality industry' was the quote [from a customer]," Ballard said. "It's a mandate: you will put complimentary wireless access in there."

Ballard said much of the free wireless deployment performed by Personal Telco -- a nonprofit grown from guys and girls with home hot spots to a group whose goal is to shower Portland in free WiFi access -- depended on the use of donated machines running Linux.

As for wireless that costs, Ballard said a viable business model around pay wireless services in public places and stores has not yet emerged.

"I don't' think the business model pans out, and it's being hampered by people like me," Ballard said.

Although he conceded "the pay guys" have a valid point in declaring their fee services more reliable -- with the Personal Telco and other free wireless providers sometimes sidetracked by their daily lives, weather, or real jobs -- Ballard said the free model has actually proven more profitable to businesses, such as Portland's World Cup coffee shop.

The store -- with three locations in the Portland area -- was skeptical of providing wireless services for free to its customers, and at first attempted to charge.

Hotels competing with coffee shops

"It was the only coffee shop in town that didn't buy the Nigel charm," Ballard said, indicating that World Cup had visions "making bank" using a Toshiba wireless solution to charge a nominal fee for access along with lattes. However, as Ballard pointed out, it is hard to charge for wireless access when there are a plethora of other coffee shops within view offering the same thing for free. Now that World Cup has seen the light of offering free wireless access -- a decision that came a month before Toshiba bailed out of the hotspot business -- the coffee shop has seen more return from its investment in wireless, which was recouped within a couple of months.

"The reality is, it's done wonders for business," Ballard said of World Cup.