Wi-Fi, Disrupting From the Bottom

Last week, the announcement of Pocket Rendezvous made waves in some circles and confused or amused others. As I've argued, the success of Pocket Rendezvous will be mediated by the portability of the network, regardless of the network itself.

Although there are several backbones upon which Rendezvous-like ad-hoc networks could be established, the most interesting, and presently viable, would the the 802.11x networks currently used for Wi-Fi. Two main factors drive this form of adoption: speed and availability. Relatively speaking, the speed cannot be matched by any widely available consumer protocol.

From the ubiquity standpoint, annecdotally we have strong indicators that Wi-Fi is the force to be reckoned with. From its wide installed base in consumer electronics to its adoption at both business and government levels.

The New York Times has an interesting article discussing the growth and challenges of Wi-Fi in public spaces:

The number of Wi-Fi hot spots has grown rapidly in the last year, with as many as 15,000 in operation in public locations, according to the Yankee Group, a market research firm.

[...]

"The infrastructure is being built from the bottom up," Mr. Hendricks said, referring to a municipal and grass-roots effort to deploy wireless connections. "How that plays out is potentially monumental," he said in affecting the way Internet access is provided.

Source: NYTimes.com, "Where Entrepreneurs Go and the Internet Is Free"

There are two interesting references in this article. The first is the "bottom up" reference. Sometimes it is hard to see how much things are changing around us. Consistently, this type of growth is appearing and giving rise to new and interesting possibilities, both commercially and socially.

The second reference relates back to the issues with micro-payments examined yesterday. As one individual commented:

"The Internet is free here," she said, as she sat doing research at The Canvas, an art gallery with a lounge and cafe setting in San Francisco's Sunset district. "Why would I pay T-Mobile?" she asked, when the cafe owners provide free Internet access to attract patrons.

Source: NYTimes.com, "Where Entrepreneurs Go and the Internet Is Free"

Again we see a large part of the issue that has evolved from the everything-for-free value system.