Who Will Own The Hotspot Customers
Techdirt contributing analyst Derek Kerton has written up a piece looking at who is going to “own” the hotspot customer going forward, and comes to the conclusion that it’s going to be the wireless telcos. His argument is that, when it comes to commercial, for-fee, hotspots the only sensible customer-facing entity will be the telco, who has the experience, scale, and technology solutions to handle it. However, they probably won’t own the hotspots themselves. Who does own the hotspots is still a bit up in the air. As the article points out, there’s only so many different ways companies can resell Wayport’s 700 hotspots. No matter how many times they’re resold, they’re still just 700 hotspots, and not (as some people seem to be counting) 700 more from each reseller. He also takes on Cometa for being a bit questionable in their claims – even to the point where he says Wayport might want to take the Cometa strategy of being the carriers’ carrier, “since Cometa has not yet adopted the Cometa strategy,” leaving the market open. Definitely brings up some good points, but still leaves me wondering who actually builds these commercial hotspots. I’m sure Derek will chime in with his opinion.
