The High Price Of Data

Wireless

As if this one was hard to predict… Mobile operators, desperate to increase ARPU are scaring off users by charging ridiculous fees for content. The latest example, as found by MocoNews is that 3 UK (who has an amazing knack for doing the wrong thing) is charging 75 p per minute to watch episodes of some TV show on phones. Remember, this is a technology where it’s not at all clear if people really want it, and ringing up a huge bill to watch a single show certainly isn’t going to encourage much usage at all. The best part, though, is the excuse given by 3’s spokesperson: “We don’t think people will watch for hours.” Ah, right, you’re just offering the shows for the hell of it then? I guess it’s not surprising from the company who once told its own customers they had to be nuts for wanting to surf the internet on their phones.

More Evidence Of Mobile Portal Pointlessness

Wireless

Earlier this week, I predicted that companies rushing to get included in various mobile portals would regret it, in the same way that plenty of dot coms regretted spending all of their VC cash on internet portal deals during the boom years. It appears that the crash may be coming faster than expected. Russell Buckley points out that 70% of all mobile content is purchased “off portal” these days.

Harper Collins Believes So Strongly In WiFi, They'll Hook Up Any Bookstore Without It

Wireless

While there are various arguments for and against having WiFi in places like bookstores, apparently publisher Harper Collins is a huge fan of the idea. While Borders and Barnes & Noble already offer WiFi (via partners), HarperCollins is now offering to help turn any unconnected bookstore into a free hotspot to try to get more traffic. The only additional feature is that the publisher gets to control some of the splash screen page when users login.

Filed Under: wi-fi, wifi

How Come No One Sues WiFi Equipment Makes For False Advertising?

Wireless

from the not-true-at-all dept

It’s widely known in the wireless industry that the “speeds” listed with WiFi equipment are greatly exaggerated. However, no one seems willing to list more realistic speeds, because that would make them look slower than the competition. Of course, this isn’t anything new for the wireless industry as a whole — who has always used the sneaky “up to” before describing the maximum possible speed (as in, “speeds up to 1 gazillion gigabytes per microsecond” thereby making anything well below that fair game). This maximum possible speed is usually under absolutely perfect conditions in a vacuum if you were somehow obscenely (we don’t want to know) close to the antenna/tower in question and no other living being was within 300 miles. Reality has a way of making those speeds much lower — often by more than 50% of the claimed speeds. With companies like Gillette getting slammed for false advertising concerning its razors that don’t actually lift hair away from your skin, why is it that no WiFi equipment vendors get sued for false advertising? The best guess reason is because everyone does it. Posting the theoretical maximum speed is just “how it’s done,” so no one within the industry expects any different. Meanwhile, customers never really notice because their 802.11g routers that are supposed to give them 54 megabits per second are usually used to connect to the internet over a pokey DSL or cable connection that don’t reach anywhere near the speeds of the local network.