Wireless Wealth
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Ready to roll out a hot spot? Using one of the turnkey products
already on the market is the accelerated path to Wi-Fi involvement.
Even with limited technical proficiency, you can become a hot-spot
operator, and the hardware costs have come down significantly--$300
to $700 today, compared to $1,000 to $2,000 a year or so ago. Ready-to-go solutions include the Hot Spot in a Box from Boingo
Wireless, FatPoint from FatPort, the Routing Access Point from NetNearU and
the Hot Spot Controller from Pronto Networks. Each solution
provides a slightly different set of features. Some are more
customizable, some provide better revenue-sharing opportunities,
some are easier to set up and maintain, and some include marketing
and promotional help. All these solutions include roaming
agreements with one or more major aggregators--so you can
capitalize on business travelers passing through town who need
Internet access. Whether you're choosing a turnkey hot-spot solution or
developing your own, you need to consider roaming arrangements with
hot-spot aggregators as a fundamental part of the value
proposition. Roaming is essential to attract the 27 million
business travelers who take laptops on the road. Traveling
employees need to know they can connect in any hot spot without
joining a new network. Content Continues Below
Roaming partners publish up-to-date directories of partner
locations so customers always have the most current list of hot
spots, and some roaming partners like Boingo publish that directory
directly to the software on users' laptops. Increasingly, Wi-Fi
customers are looking for roaming locations when they choose hotels
and airports for travel. If you haven't ensured a roaming deal,
you won't be in the database when that traveler is looking for
a connection in your town. Finally, some roaming providers will pay you a cash bounty for
new customers you sign up for their service. This can be a great
revenue stream, so ask about customer acquisition bounties when
choosing a hot-spot solution. | Covering All
the Bases | Deep Blue Wireless
in Menlo Park, California, is making money from Wi-Fi on a spectrum
of services. Founder Alan Gale, 39, explains the business: "As
a hot-spot operator, we seek out and establish relationships with
location owners and deploy a wireless solution. As a wireless
Internet service provider, or WISP, we seek out customers who gain
access at those locations." There are five parts to the Deep Blue
business model: public hot spots, public access kiosks, tech
services (like faxing, printing and voice), residential broadband
and consulting. "We're integrating all these things
together," says Gale. "And we're layering tech
services over access to increase revenue per user." The
company stays focused on core business issues by using Pronto
equipment and back-end services, to keep the technical complexities
to a minimum. Gale knows the wireless industry is still evolving.
He's seen even well-funded wireless companies close their
doors. "But we'll survive by being smart and not moving
too quickly with the rollout. We get rid of bad locations and tweak
our pricing and offering for each new market." The company's networks attract more
than 1,000 unique logins per month and generate 400,000 network
minutes. Deep Blue hopes to hit $1 million in sales this year.
-D.W. |
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