The systems have generally been free to start with, but seven of those airports have started charging, with prices from $2.5 (£1.60) to $22 (£14). In collaboration with national telcos, mobile operators and specialist wireless players, Cisco has...
EuroNet's Peter Herbert sees his clients charging around £6 for an hour or £18 for a 24-hour period, of which the hotel keeps 25 per cent. BT sees WLAN (wireless LAN) access as a service it can charge significant sums for - up to £100 a month.
Charging will merely carry with it greater responsibility, and that's the way it should be. Of course, to a business wanting to sell more coffee or books or whatever, the cost of providing a free WLAN using Wi-Fi is appealing.
Many figures in the Wi-Fi industry argue that the business model of charging a monthly fee for access to a wide-ranging network of hot spots is flawed, saying that instead access should be offered for free, as a customer incentive, like air...
By 2007, Infonetics forecasts, mobile WiMax products will hit the market and the technology will be on its way to becoming an "established" technology which will complement 3G, mesh and wi-fi. Sales of wireless LAN (WLAN) equipment are rising...
In the first six months of this year spending on WLAN equipment hit $1.2bn in Western Europe, according to IDC research. Business demand for centralised WLAN architecture technology in particular continued to grow, with revenues jumping 48 per cent...