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It's true Q.A.M.?!?

Sam Gustin writes for “Portfolio’s Daily Brief”:1 about the “fiber” battle that Verizon and Time Warner Cable are having in new ads on TV:

bq. Verizon’s Smith said the Time Warner ad is designed “with the intent to deceive the consumer.”

bq. “Time Warner Cable does not deliver fiber optics to your door,” Smith said, though he acknowledged that Time Warner uses fiber optics in their network backbone. “This is fun. They’re saying, ‘Let’s poke at each other and dupe the consumer.’ But the real losers are the consumers, who are getting fooled.”

bq. “People don’t really care about fiber-schmiber,” Harrad said. “What they care about is the service. We don’t feel that Verizon is doing anything that we haven’t been doing for the last ten years.”

bq. Referring to Verizon’s ads, Harrad said, “Their new service sounds new and improved, but marketers do that all the time when there is nothing new under the hood.”

Of course both sides are right. VZN isn’t doing anything that new, and of course promised decades ago to do what they are finally getting around to do now. And TWC isn’t providing fiber to the home, which makes their infrastructure much older and slower.

The real questions are:
# When is Verizon going to offer FIOS in NYC?
# When is Time Warner Cable going to give us real bandwidth (as in 30-100mbps)?

[1]http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/daily-brief/2007/08/20/battle-of-the-broadband

Filed under: New York City, News

Follow up to "Café Owners Get It Wrong about Wi-Fi and Turn Away Good Customers"

“Craig Plunkett responded”:1 to my “earlier post”:2 about how café owners who turn off their wi-fi to get rid of squatters are hurting their business by alienating their good customers.

This is a really good conversation, and I’m glad that Craig has engaged in it publicly. He’s not wrong by any means. He actually gets it, and even has one solution: use his company UrbanHotspots to help you figure it out.

There isn’t one “magical” way to properly offer free wi-fi (or even pay wi-fi, but I think all public wi-fi should be free, so I’ll just ignore the other kind for now). Just as there are many different types of cafés and many different types of other food stores, there are many ways you can engage your customer to encourage them to purchase more food and not just camp out.

You can go the overt way, and offer limited time coupons for free wi-fi, which Craig’s company can help you set up.

But its always been my experience that such solutions are too abrupt. They are like giving a lollipop to a child when they’ve been good and then taking it away after a few licks and telling them they can have it back when they have been good some more.

More subtle solutions tend to work better, when you play on people’s emotions and good will, and make it easy for them to do the right thing. Align your customers interests with yours and they will do the right thing without you having to beat them over the head about it.

This is not a new concept. Cafés have been offering free live music for many years. The good cafés learn how to build community and a following of good customers by offering free music instead of just having customers stake out a seat and camp out for the night.

Be creative. Be innovative. Sponsor co-working sessions, where you have a bunch of regulars that come in on your off hours. If any of them make it big, they’ll give you a piece of the payout for your support as they struggled. Reach out to moms or nannies who like to hang out together during the cafés quiet time with the children they are watching while surfing MySpace of Facebook.

Even in the middle of midtown there are lots of times that a café isn’t busy, and there are lots of people who want to be there when few others are.

And if all else fails, ask your customers politely to move during rush hour. At least then you can connect with them and tell them how much you appreciate their business.

[1]http://www.cedx.com/2007/08/strategies-to-d.html
[2]http://www.wirelesscommunity.info/2007/08/12/cafe-owners-get-it-wrong-about-wi-fi-and-turn-away-good-customers/

Filed under: News

NYCwireless August Meeting: Aug 30th at 7:00pm

All are invited – please re-post everywhere!

_Please note earlier starting time for meeting_

h2. Location and Time

*Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 at 7:00pm*
*”Bway.net”:http://maps.google.com/?q=568%20Broadway,%20New%20York,%20NY*
568 Broadway at Prince St, NE corner
Suite 404
New York, NY 10012
(lobby sign-in required)

h2. Agenda

*Michael Hallinan and Tejpaul Bhatia, GlobeCo2020*

GlobeCo2020 is sharing the internet with the developing world. We are a media services company that delivers digital content into emerging markets. We aim to develop sustainable business models for broadband networks. We are focused on bridging the global digital divide due to poor infrastructure and unsustainable business models in the developing world.

Join us at NYCWireless to help answer how wireless technologies can be used to bridge the global digital divide. Topics covered:
* Wireless infrastructure in the developing world
* Content delivery as a business model
* A “franchise model” for wireless networks
* Emphasis on brainstorming, questions and feedback

*Michael Rourk Hallinan*
As a Captain in the Marine Corps, Michael has six years of experience planning, installing, operating and maintaining over 20 wireless and satellite voice, video and data systems in Australia, Kenya, Kuwait, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Iraq and Hurricane Katrina ravaged parts of the US.

Michael received the Navy-Marine Corps Achievement Medal for leading 50 Marines with “inexhaustible energy” during the final combat offensive in Fallujah, Iraq. He also received a Navy Commendation Medal for leading 50 engineers in deploying wireless networks throughout Asia and the Middle East. He is an active member of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association and founder of Semper Fi House, a community support initiative for Marines.

Prior to the Marine Corps, Michael founded Student Media Group, which distributed student media nationally for companies such as AT&T and Citibank. Michael has also held various positions at Merrill Lynch, the US Senate and the US Department of Justice.

Michael holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs from Georgetown University. He is a board member of The Way of Grace Development Corporation, which is developing social and physical infrastructure in the war torn country of Liberia. Michael has worked with the SoCal FreeNet project, which brings free wireless access to lower-economic neighborhoods in San Diego.

*Tejpaul Bhatia*

Tejpaul Bhatia is the founder of Tej Media Networks, a consulting company that provides digital technology and strategy services to global media companies including ESPN, NBC, SONY, ABC, Brightcove and Corpus.

Tejpaul was most recently senior manager of international business strategy for ESPN, where he planned and launched new media businesses in Mexico, Latin America, Asia, Australia and Europe. He joined ESPN in 2002 to build the underlying infrastructure for acquiring, distributing and tracking video on multiple digital platforms and was responsible for conceiving, developing and distributing ESPN360, the company’s customizable global broadband service.

“NYCwireless”:3 monthly meetings are held on the last Wednesday of every month. They are free, and open to all, RSVP not required.

“NYCwireless”:3 is a non-profit organization that advocates for, and enables the growth of free, public wireless networks.

[3]http://www.nycwireless.net

Filed under: Community Wireless, Event, New York City, NYCwireless

Café Owners Get It Wrong about Wi-Fi and Turn Away Good Customers

My friend Craig Plunkett “posted a pointer”:1 to a “Daily News article”:3 about how some cafés are having trouble with their free wi-fi service. “With laptop users hanging out in cafes all day, latching on to free Wi-Fi and air conditioning in return for a few paltry coffee purchases, it’s no surprise cafes are cracking down on freeloaders.”

Now, while I certainly won’t dispute what these cafés are claiming, I do think their owners don’t understand the phenomenon taking place, and I am sure their reaction to turn off the free wi-fi is the wrong move.

There are a number of reasons why:
# Free wi-fi is a commodity. If you decide to offer wi-fi for pay or turn off your free wi-fi during certain times, then just wait until the café down the street starts offering free wi-fi and takes your customers.
# Turning off free wi-fi does nothing but discourage people from coming into your café.
# This kneejerk reaction won’t solve the problem and causes collateral damage. Yes, customers will stop using the wi-fi. But many will just not bother to come in at all (lost sales) and they won’t recommend the café to their friends (lost future customers).

If your customers are camping out using your free wi-fi and not purchasing enough to cover their costs, then this points to a fundamental problem:

*You are not offering them anything that they want*

Yes, they may want free wi-fi, but they can get that in any number of places, especially in NYC. If your key selling point is your free wi-fi, then you’ll soon have other, bigger problems and will likely go out of business.

Free wi-fi isn’t valuable. If you are a café owner, the things you sell–your food and drink–are what’s valuable. If you offer tasty and irresistible food and drink (or maybe other things) then the more time that a customer spends in your store, the more likely they are to purchase. Period.

These café owners are blaming free wi-fi for their problems. I see this differently:

*The free wi-fi has brought a captive audience into the store. If you can’t sell them stuff, then that’s your fault.*

By turning off free wi-fi and electricity, you’re driving good customers away. Now that’s something to worry about.

[1]http://www.cedx.com/2007/08/the-death-of-ar.html
[2]http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/food/2007/08/03/2007-08-03_sit_but_dont_stay-1.html

Filed under: News

Rosario, Argentina Uses Open Source to Power Free Muni-Wireless

“The Inquirer”:2 reports that the city of “Rosario, Argentina”:1 decided to build a free municipal wireless network for residents and visitors. Instead of buying a proprietary solution, the city decided to use open source software, including “OpenWRT”:3 and “WifiDog”:4.

NYCwireless and “many other community wireless groups”:5 also use WifiDog, a hotspot management system from Ile Sans Fil, the Montréal, Canada wireless group.

[1]http://www.welcomeargentina.com/rosario/index_i.html
[2]http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41344
[3]http://openwrt.org
[4]http://dev.wifidog.org
[5]http://dev.wifidog.org/wiki/Community

Filed under: International, Muniwireless, News

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