WiFi Hotspot rip off

d-j-k

I was just looking into using a WiFi hotspot in the Cork area and was completely shocked at the prices being charged by BitBuzz and EsatBT Openzone it works out at roughly €10 per HOUR!!! if you're using vouchers and even their monthly subscription prices are absolutely crazy around €60 with various restrictive maximum number of mins per month.

I've used t-mobile's hotspot service in the USA and it worked out at about $35 / month but that gave you completely unrestricted access to every t-mobile hotspot which included all of the starbucks outlets etc.

It's no wonder that you hardly ever see anyone in Ireland using WiFi in cafés etc.

I wonder do Irish telecoms companies actually understand economics. The average consumer is not going to pay those prices. The service simply isn't worth €10 / hour.

Cork City Council are rolling out a 801.11a/b/g (up to 54mbit/sec in theory) service in the 1.5sq mile area around the city centre. Maybe it might drive down prices? It's being operated by Smart Telecom and due to launch this month, but so far I haven't seen or heard anything about pricing or access.

cgarvey

I agree totally.. there are a few places beginning to offer free WiFi to customers, so hopefully we'll see more of that rather than the outlandish prices BitBuzz/Esat charge. WiFi users generally don't need much bandwidth, and I presume resources are well oversold, so I can only assume that the subscription charges are mainly to line pockets.

.cg

Capt'n Midnight

d-j-k wrote:

I wonder do Irish telecoms companies actually understand economics. The average consumer is not going to pay those prices. The service simply isn't worth €10 / hour.

The most expensive part of Wifi is the metering. The cost of providing the service otherwise is less than keeping the toilets clean - and very few places charge a surcharge for the use of the toilets. It should be viewed as a way to get people in the door.

Instead it's a handy way of identifying places that are determined to rip you off.
Vote with your feet.

Evil Al

d-j-k wrote:

I was just looking into using a WiFi hotspot in the Cork area and was completely shocked at the prices being charged by BitBuzz and EsatBT Openzone it works out at roughly €10 per HOUR!!! if you're using vouchers and even their monthly subscription prices are absolutely crazy around €60 with various restrictive maximum number of mins per month.

...
Cork City Council are rolling out a 801.11a/b/g (up to 54mbit/sec in theory) service in the 1.5sq mile area around the city centre. Maybe it might drive down prices? It's being operated by Smart Telecom and due to launch this month, but so far I haven't seen or heard anything about pricing or access.

Hi,

(I work for Bitbuzz, so happy to answer any questions on our service).

I'm not going to pretend the RRP of WiFi service in Ireland (from any provider) is cheap; however, regarding telecoms pricing in Ireland generally, you have to bear in mind that Ireland is about 18 months behind the UK, which is about 18 months behind the US, in services and pricing for most internet products. WiFi has only started to gain acceptance in Ireland in the last 9 months, so pricing is still suffering from an "early adopter" hangover. We fully expect RRPs to fall in the next 12 months as WiFi stops being a business-only service and starts being more widely used.

Having said that, pricing is not too different from what it is in the UK... we watch prices fairly closely, and Ireland isn't too bad.

In relation to Bitbuzz and our charges, I would make one correction of your post; our 69.95 pm subscription is "all you can eat". The subscription with a limit of 1500 minutes per month is 39.95. We see that the 1500 minutes is plenty for most people who use it occasionally.

Secondly, unlike the other WiFi operators here we allow our location partners to bulk-buy time from us and bundle it with their products. This means that in some Bitbuzz locations, WiFi is discounted or even free for customers. Not sure about Cork but for example most of the Kylemore Cafes we service will currently give you a 30-minute voucher if you're buying something and you ask them.

Regarding Cork, Smart are renting space to place their antennas from Cork CC and running a pay-for-use service; it's not got a lot to do with CCC (press releases aside).

Lastly, d-j-k, email me and I'll send you a complimentary voucher to try the service :-)

Alex

d-j-k

Alex,

I'm not trying to single out Bit Buzz or EsatBT Openzone.. they just happen to be the two services that I've hit upon in Cork

I appreciate that we're in an early-adopter phase of roll out of WiFi services compared to the United States. However, what drove adoption in the US was the relatively affordable prices and wide range of hotspots offered by the likes of T-mobile.

Having spent a lot of time in New England I relocated to "Old England" and while in London and was completely horrified at WiFi prices. I went from a situation where I used hotspot access regularly to a situation where I just couldn't justify the expense and cancled my T-mobile subscription.

I don't claim to know the ins and outs of your business model but I can't see any hope of attracting large number of subscribers unless the price comes down to a more reasonable level.

The higher subscription rate was almost tollerable, but the tight metering caps offering X mins per month really put me off.

There are considerable numbers of tourists, students, etc with WiFi capable laptops and their needs simply arn't being met by any of the providers on the Irish or UK market.

What drove the whole WiFi thing in the USA was quite simple.. You could go to a Starbucks, order a coffee, bring your laptop.. Send emails, browse the web, etc and not worry too much about watching the connection timer!

I just don't understand the logic behind the pricing here at all.


Btw thanks for the offer of the free voucher

Rew

Who ever came up with meterng access by the min needs a kick... We stoped doing that when 56k mdems got the boot and there is no need to go back to it.

€70 unlimited access is a crap deal and i dont see how it could be justified. My brother uses hotspots are part of his work. Only a handfull of erocom spots have been any good to him and initialy finding out how to get on to it was like pulling teeth.

He now has a 3G card from Voda and its €70 for 100mb per month any where he has coverage...

Evil Al

d-j-k wrote:

I appreciate that we're in an early-adopter phase of roll out of WiFi services compared to the United States. However, what drove adoption in the US was the relatively affordable prices and wide range of hotspots offered by the likes of T-mobile.

Well, as usual with Internet services, usage levels and price drops go hand in hand. Several years ago, the T-mobile hotspots cost more or less what we charge here. As usage increased, they lowered their prices; this fed more usage, etc.

The same thing happened here with home dialup access... early services were more expensive, and they became cheaper as time went on and economies of scale increased. The same is very likely to happen with WiFi. Of course, that's not much comfort to you now :-)

FYI, we've already had a major round of WiFi price-cutting here...

d-j-k wrote:

What drove the whole WiFi thing in the USA was quite simple.. You could go to a Starbucks, order a coffee, bring your laptop.. Send emails, browse the web, etc and not worry too much about watching the connection timer!

Common misconception... T-mobile access in Starbucks in *not* free. Until very recently it was quite expensive. Now it's a bit better ($5 per hour I think). That's likely to happen in Ireland too, in time.

Remember, the exact same applies to DSL pricing. Now it's high, but it will fall.

d-j-k wrote:

I just don't understand the logic behind the pricing here at all.

I guess having seen the market here do the same thing for dialup, ISDN, and DSL, it's not as big a surpirse to me. I hope the prices fall, but remember that we operate in a market where there are far fewer WiFi devices per capita still than in the US; and far fewer people per capita use the Internet.

Thanks,

Alex

Evil Al

Rew wrote:

Who ever came up with meterng access by the min needs a kick...

I take it you don't use a mobile phone service?

The question is whether WiFi is a data service (people expect to pay per byte or per month) or a mobile service (people expect to pay per minute). Every market I've looked at in the world, the current answer is, people have wanted to pay per minute until now but it's moving to a flatrate model.

Rew wrote:

He now has a 3G card from Voda and its €70 for 100mb per month any where he has coverage...

So, he doesn't mind being limited by MB but he does mind being limited by the minute? That's certainly one way to look at it, but not everyone likes that.

Alex

Capt'n Midnight

Evil Al wrote:

We fully expect RRPs to fall in the next 12 months as WiFi stops being a business-only service and starts being more widely used.
...
In relation to Bitbuzz and our charges, I would make one correction of your post; our 69.95 pm subscription is "all you can eat". The subscription with a limit of 1500 minutes per month is 39.95. We see that the 1500 minutes is plenty for most people who use it occasionally.

Imagine a small cafe that has Broadband. ONE customer at €70 per month = €840. Even eircom will install ADSL, give you a wireless router and full years rental for the basic service for less than that.. I just can't see where the rest of the high price goes unless it's because you scare away so many customers that you have to fleece the rest.

Out of curiousity do places that do BitBuzz and other providers log the identity of the person using the service in case they do something illegal ? - bacause that might be worth having where the cafe can put any and all liability on to the shoulders of the ISP.

lomb

yeah its all bonkers. even if a shop or restaurant gets a business line and pays u guys half for 'metering' and legitimate billing its crazy money. a business adsl connection with unlimited use is 1200euro pa. now if a restaurant wants to attract big spending customers they would b advised to give it away and recoup their adsl costs so to pay u guys 1200 say for billing the minimum pa is 2400/365 = about 5euro a day or 2.50 a day and providing an unmetered 'free' connection. therefore if i was a restauranteur i would give it away for free. hell if they are wiling to accept amex credit cards who charge 5% then surely they can give away this access to get goodwill. and they will get goodwill
see here http://www.wififreenet.com/weblog/

Rew

Evil Al wrote:

I take it you don't use a mobile phone service?
The question is whether WiFi is a data service (people expect to pay per byte or per month) or a mobile service (people expect to pay per minute). Every market I've looked at in the world, the current answer is, people have wanted to pay per minute until now but it's moving to a flatrate model.

WiFi is a mobile data service, its not ambigious.

I use a mobile phone yes I pay per min for voice but I pay per byte for data because it makes no sense meter voice by byte and data by minute. If it did the telcos would be doing it. WiFi has alot more in common with 3G/GPRS then me phoning my girlfriend to tell her I love her...

I work in Telecoms/IT, I take a laptop on the road, in fact I have multiple WiFi devices so im one of your potential customers but ill never use it at those rates. I dont want my minutes disaperaing while I scratch my self and drink coffee waiting for an email or ticking away as I read a long story on The Register (maybe even their long story on how crap UK hotspots are).

Evil Al wrote:

So, he doesn't mind being limited by MB but he does mind being limited by the minute? That's certainly one way to look at it, but not everyone likes that.

He works for one of the bigger media companies so he isn't paying the bill etiher way and again he is a potential customer of yours so why isn't he using your service?

1) He finds it dificult to find hotspots
2) He has an Eircom login so its not attractive to go to another company
3) If he does find a hotspot the staff stare blankly when he asks about access

Multiple logins are not attractive to him, €70 x 3 (or more) providers is not going to happen so they picked one and ran with it. Why eircom and not BitBuzz or [Insert Provider Here]? Eircom pimp the service better then the others.

What would make more sense? Roaming argeements. If not roaming Metered access that they can pay the bill for that way they use any provider and pay the bill. The nearest Hotspot that they can find gets the busniess.

You need to asking your self why they pour money down the drian in to 3G services instead of dealing with you?

d-j-k

I found paying T-Mobile $35 ish for 4 weeks of completely unlimited access while I was in the USA relatively reasonable. It's not cheap but, it wouldn't cause you to spill your dairy free skinny vanilla mocha all over the keyboard when you saw the rate card pop up

The packages seemed to cater for long term subscriptions as well as people who might be on business for anything from a week to a few months and need internet access on the go.

And yes, the service in Starbucks etc isn't free.. and if you just use your credit card to pay for access there and then it's quite expensive. But if you're a subscriber, it's not all that bad really.


Actually, as a matter of interest UCC has rolled out WiFi hotspots across its' campus. they're accessable by registered UCC students and provide basic web access only (via a HTTP proxy). Quite handy though and apparently they already have several hundred active users.

Rew

I installed WiFi in IADT's campus a year or so ago, went down well but I think is only coming in to its own now coz there putting some time in to it.

Was in NYC for about 10 days this time last year. Found a coffee shop near the appartment and used it most mornings. WiFi was free and quite popular with the customers. Then again from the appartment I was staying in I could hit between 7 and 10 AP's most of which were open and conected to cable conections.

Evil Al

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Imagine a small cafe that has Broadband. ONE customer at €70 per month = €840.

You've hit on the crux of the matter; people wouldn't pay EUR 70 a month for unlimited access to one hotspot. But they do for a large network of hotspots. If you wanted access in, say, a dozen of the places you go most frequently (think travelling salesguy) it makes sense.

Alternatively, you can consider it as a 3G/GPRS replacement. I know people who were paying EUR1000 pm (no I'm not joking) on GPRS charges, but really all they wanted was highspeed access in a few locations. WiFi looks like a pretty good deal compared to that.
[/QUOTE]

Out of curiousity do places that do BitBuzz and other providers log the identity of the person using the service in case they do something illegal ? - bacause that might be worth having where the cafe can put any and all liability on to the shoulders of the ISP.

Yes, most providers adhere to the Code of Practice and Ethics which requires user registration and some logging (not of each site visited, but of IP, MAC etc) in case something bad happens. We strongly adhere to that, since we don't want our WiFi network to turn into a haven for spammers.

Thanks,

Allex

d-j-k

Well, WiFi and VoIP could present a serious challenge to the telcos eventually. Add skype to your PDA, hook up to a WiFi node.. and dial It could be a decent alternative to over priced roaming mobile calls if you're in an airport etc etc

Capt'n Midnight

Evil Al wrote:

You've hit on the crux of the matter; people wouldn't pay EUR 70 a month for unlimited access to one hotspot.

In effect each customer is being asked to fund one full hotspot. If the ratio of hotspots to customers was close to unity this would be understandable.

Again I don't see how at these prices an establishment can consider it as being a service to customers, but rather as a way to extract the maximum possible from them.

most providers adhere to the Code of Practice and Ethics which requires user registration and some logging (not of each site visited, but of IP, MAC etc) in case something bad happens. We strongly adhere to that, since we don't want our WiFi network to turn into a haven for spammers.

good to hear but the prices would scare spammers in to internet cafes and back to good old anonymous dial up..