T-Mobile and Boingo™ to Deliver Improved Experience for T-Mobile Hotspots

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.boingo.com/pr/pr36.html' target='_blank'>http://www.boingo.com/pr/pr36.html</a><br /><br /></div>"T-Mobile USA, Inc. and Boingo Wireless™, Inc. today announced they have entered into an agreement to co-develop unique end-user facing software and services that will make it even easier for customers to discover and access T-Mobile's Wi-Fi (802.11b) wireless broadband network of hotspots and its nationwide GPRS 2.5G data network."<br /><br />Boingo also has a <a href="http://www.boingo.com/hso/hsiab.html">very cool package</a> for those of you who own retail properties you think might be enhanced by WiFi access. And hey, even my home city of Calgary has two Boingo Hotspots!

[Scott R]

I'm glad this topic was posted, because I've been wondering about all this hot-spot stuff. According to the Boingo site, you pay them about $700 for a wireless access point that supports up to 100 users, firewall, etc., etc., etc. You still have to get your own T1 line. You have to have your own dedicated IP address. Boingo sends you a check when people use the service. So, here are my questions:

1) What does this super-fancy $700 access point do that a sub-$100 SMC (or whatever brand you like) wireless router does not?

2) I think that if I owned a coffee shop, I'd want to sidestep all of this nonsense and just let paying customers use my wireless access for free or perhaps charge a small fee for use by the hour (or some block of time). I guess I still have trouble imagining a lot of people paying $25-50/month to subscribe to something like this.

Scott

[bdegroodt]

1) What does this super-fancy $700 access point do that a sub-$100 SMC (or whatever brand you like) wireless router does not?

2) I think that if I owned a coffee shop, I'd want to sidestep all of this nonsense and just let paying customers use my wireless access for free or perhaps charge a small fee for use by the hour (or some block of time). I guess I still have trouble imagining a lot of people paying $25-50/month to subscribe to something like this.

Scott

1-Very good question. Drive profit for Boingo?

2-While I wouldn't do this on my own company dimes, when I was working for an employer and before I had a BT phone, I used to use both MobileStar and Boingo for the very luxury (Dependability?) of knowing I had a pretty good chance of getting connected while traveling. It was better than having to find a Kinko's and plugging in. I really think, like Ricochet, these services are priced at the business user versus a consumer (Although, there seems to be some headway in that area ala McDonalds.). The way it's going, I'm sure we'll see a packaged WiFi/Wireless package coming soon from T-Mobile. It's the only way I can see them properly leveraging these relationships with Starbucks etc. Chage me an additional few bucks on my GPRS/Wireless package now to access WiFi and I'm in. Ask me to pay $30 of my own money for access every once and a while and I have to pass.

Which reminds me, has Kinko's gotten on the bandwagon yet? They would seem like a logical choice.

[jeasher]

I don't understand what these people are thinking. Why would a restaurant, coffee shop, etc want to get in the ISP business? That's exactly what they (Starbucks) are doing. I understand they can make money, but why sell something you don't know anything about? Besides, this product should be free with a purchase and McDonalds (ironically) is the only one that gets it so far. Screw Starbucks and anyone else that asks me to spend $0.10/min. or $30, $20, or even $10 a month. They should provide the access to reward me for my loyalty and business.

[Jason Dunn]

...You still have to get your own T1 line. You have to have your own dedicated IP address....What does this super-fancy $700 access point do that a sub-$100 SMC (or whatever brand you like) wireless router does not?

I think the biggest reason Boingo is mandating a gateway of their chosing it to control the experience - imagine the tech support nightmare if everyone was allowed to chose their own WiFi gateway devices. And in that price I'm sure there's support from Boingo - much lower support costs if they only have to support one device.

In what I read, they said you could have a cable modem or DSL - not just a T1. So the barrier to entry isn't too high...

[Brian J. Burke]

1) What does this super-fancy $700 access point do that a sub-$100 SMC (or whatever brand you like) wireless router does not?

2) I think that if I owned a coffee shop, I'd want to sidestep all of this nonsense and just let paying customers use my wireless access for free or perhaps charge a small fee for use by the hour (or some block of time). I guess I still have trouble imagining a lot of people paying $25-50/month to subscribe to something like this.

Scott

Scott,

We use that particular piece of hardware for our own HotSpot program here in Fairfax, VA. The hardware is a hybrid access point/access controller, the Colubris CN3000. In boingo's case, the one you buy from them comes pre-configured to connect to their back end/billing system. You can tie it into just about anything really.

It differs from a regular access point in that it has hooks in it to control a users access to the web.

When a user attempts to use the web, it redirects to a login screen to validate their account. Once the account is authenticated, the gate is open, and they can surf as they want.

Accounting and login control can be tied into other systems, primarily radius based systems. When it comes to deploying other sites, you just drop one of these units in, and a line. It ties back to your network control center for use authetnication and validation via a secure tunnel.

With it and a good radius server you have flexibility on how you allow for accounting of data, bandwidth/quota, access times, and priveleges and so forth.

It makes it extremely easy and cost effective to deploy a pay-per use network hotspot program (re: one small low profile box, easily replicated and deployed). Firmware updates can be automated, and everything is tied to one or more database.

Now, if you want to just provide free access, the answer is simple. Just drop a regular access point in. This does have some additional information for accounting, if you're doing this for a chain of small coffee houses or something. You'd be able to get buy with regular radius accounting then.

Boingo has several models, where you're basically just providing a node in their network, in which case you get a bounty per day for each person using it, and a bounty for existing users. Other providers can also provide their own level of service as well as let boingo users roam onto their network.

Brian J. Burke
Partner, Net2Air.Net
http://www.net2air.net

[bdegroodt]

^ Cool! Thanks for the info Brian. Sounds like a much more robust AP than your average Joe's SOHO setup. Are you part of the Boingo network yourself?

[Brian J. Burke]

^ Cool! Thanks for the info Brian. Sounds like a much more robust AP than your average Joe's SOHO setup. Are you part of the Boingo network yourself?

We're in a soft launch mode (pilot site is up and running and working on the others), but it looks like we'll at least provide roaming access to boingo users within the next month as more sites roll out. The nice sniffer/directory software they provide to users is a good enough incetive for most locations. It's nice to have the free marketing help as well.

Very interesting times for WiFi=)

- Brian J. Burke
Partner, Net2Air.Net
http://www.net2air.net