Asia's HotSpots -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 6/9/2003
Last Visited: 4/10/2009
"We could never figure out" the pricing model for Wi-Fi hotspot leader T-Mobile, says Teletronics CEO Dr. Dickson Fang.
His company's $500 hotspot gateways will allow unlimited monthly usage for $12.99, complete with national roaming.
Teletronics argues that is nearly 1/3 lower than competitors.
T-Mobile, for instance, charges its cellular customers $20 per month for unlimited access at its 2300 hotspot locations at sites like Starbucks, Kinko's and Borders Books & Music.
For those not part of T-Mobile's phone service and unwilling to sign-up for a one-year contract, unlimited Wi-Fi access is $40 per month.
Fang says the low rate is possible using Teletronics' National Operating Center, "a giant server-based system" handling user authorization, authentication and accounting back-end functions.
It has a capacity to serve up to 1,000 customers per second, according to Fang.
That system is under no threat of collapse as there are only a handful of EZ Hotspot locations available in the Washington DC-area.
Fang says that number should climb to 30 in around a month.
The hotspot service was launched May 21 in Taipei, Taiwan.
High profile Wi-Fi cheerleader Intel was at the news conference, alongside McDonald's, the latest venue promoting Intel's Centrino 802.11-based chipset for laptops.
Also making interesting Teletronics' entry into the hotspot market is its planned revenue-sharing.
"Our hotspot strategy in the U.S. is based on an operator-favorable revenue distribution, that an entrepreneur with a publicly accessible space such as a restaurant, shop, parking lot, apartment or mall can buy our gateway," said Fang in a prepared statement.
Venue owners using EZ Hotspots, by picking and choosing which options they want to handle themselves, can keep as much as 90 percent of the revenue generated by Wi-Fi customers, says Fang.
Aside from the back-end server, provided by Teletronics, and the hotspot location, provided by the venue operator, EZ Hotspot members can choose their own Internet Service Provider and may install the Wi-Fi gateway themselves, or Teletronics can provide a turn-key system.
EZ Hotspot operators generally choose a mix of setup options resulting in their sharing 45 to 60 percent of the revenue, according to Fang.
Between nine and ten customers use the hotspots each day with a prepaid $2 card worth 20 minutes of Wi-Fi access the most-popular payment method, according to Fang.
The Teletronics CEO says in Tiawan, where 802.11 services are growing by leaps and bounds, wireless customers see low-cost and dependability as most important.
The U.S. Wi-Fi experience "is very different," he says.
28 online sources [ view sources ]
Profile is not claimed [ claim profile ]
