When is the UK – and mch of Europe for that matter – going to finally understand that the business model for WiFi provision using charging and subscription schemes is dead?
If a user is already paying for a home or business ADSL service then, by definition, s/he is not going to be using that bandwidth when on the road. Internet access is becoming almost as ubiquitous as electricity access, and no-one attenpts to charge me for a few minutes rechargig a mobile phone or plugging in my laptop. Surely the incidental on-costs – at least for most users – is marginal and this charging model is just another cash-cow by the big corporates. They have a lot to learn from the US (particularly West Coast) where free Internet access is seen as a quality of life/service issue and not a cash-grab for greedy providers.
It’s not as if the telecom giants are short of money…
Pensive Peter 