martinjy.com — Martin Young’s blog

Is free public Wi-Fi starting to gather steam?

Interesting piece by David Braue on one of the zdnet blogs last week about Internode’s decision to set up its South Australian Wi-Fi hotspot network to give free access to iPhone users.

Here’s the link to the post

Unlike Telstra and Optus, (Internode) doesn’t actually sell the iPhone, or any phone. So while those two carriers have big Wi-Fi networks just crying out for users, Internode actually has no incentive to provide free access to its Wi-Fi networks for any reason at all.

Telstra and Optus already offer their iPhone customers free access to their own Wi-Fi hotspots (I didn’t know that before I read the piece), and the phone supposedly switches automatically to use them. I’m not sure if that same Wi-Fi is also available to customers who want to use their laptop/iPod Touch, but throw in the freebie hotspots around town and there’s free Wi-Fi all over the place.

But, as Braue points out, seamless Wi-Fi nirvana is still a bit of a pipedream at the moment:

There is, of course, a major issue of geography — a customer of one telco could hardly expect to seamlessly roam onto another telco’s Wi-Fi network. Yet, with the right peering agreements, it could.

Something like the 3 / Telstra arrangement could work. That lets 3 customers use 3’s 3G network when in range and Telstra’s 2.5G network when not. Maybe a monthly plan that includes 1gb of home carrier data and 500mb of roaming data?

I’m interested to see what’s going to happen in this space in the next 6 months. If the telcos start bundling in Wi-Fi peering with their phone plans, then the free Wi-Fi in cafes and bars from start-ups like Cafescreen might not survive. Their business model is advertising-driven, so they might be OK, but if they die I’ll be looking to my current telco 3 to be one of those offering Wi-Fi peering so that I can continue to use my iPod Touch and my laptop when I’m out and about. If they don’t, or can’t, it’s bye-bye 3.

(This post published courtesy of the free Cafescreen Wi-Fi in Cafe on Collins, 303 Collins St!) :-)