SBC's Wi-Fi Plan Taking Shape
This article claims that SBC’s WiFi “plans” are taking shape, but then don’t reveal very much. They basically just say that they’ll be offering up some WiFi “in hotels, airports and other public venues”. Most people see this as a reaction to Verizon’s recent WiFi announcement. Of course, as a reaction, this took a pretty long time and doesn’t appear to be very well thought out. Verizon, at least, had an interesting strategy – using their telephone booths to offer “roaming” services for customers who have Verizon DSL at home. From the sound of this article, SBC is simply going down the same road as every other WiFi hotspot provider – looking for hotels and airports to connect. That’s an extremely crowded market without a clear business model. I would hope that SBC’s real plans are a bit more involved. This certainly could be a case where the reporter doesn’t understand the different issues, and SBC wasn’t particularly forthcoming, since they haven’t made an official announcement yet.
