Study: Wireless Hot Spot Market To Skyrocket

Hmm. Last month, it seemed there was a study every other day saying that the whole WiFi hotspot business model was dead on arrival and there was no way anyone was going to make any money off of the "hotspot bubble". Now, yet another research firm is saying that the hotspot market is set to "skyrocket". Which is it? I'd say that both of these studies are taking simple data and extrapolating well beyond what the data suggests. For my money, I'd bet that the world isn't quite so simple as either of these reports suggest. It's not about "paid hotspots" or "free hotspots", but about more interesting business models. For example, Verizon plans to let their DSL customers use their hotspots as well. Is that a commercial hotspot business? How do you break out how much is for the hotspot and how much is for the DSL? For Verizon it may mean that more people are willing to sign up with them for DSL, even if the "hotspots" are included on top of the DSL. Simply categorizing "commercial hotspots" ignores the larger market opportunities.

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