Business: Wi-Fi Technology
Source: Harvard Business School: Working Knowledge
How Hot is the "Hot Spot" Business?
May 12, 2003
Wi-Fi hot spots and the future of broadband were on the minds of attendees at the Bandwidth Explosion colloquium at Harvard Business School.
by Sean Silverthorne and Martha Lagace, HBS Working Knowledge
Telecommunications and Internet pioneers looked at everything from Wi-Fi “hot spots” to the future of broadband at a recent telecommunications conference at Harvard Business School.
The issues were debated at the Bandwidth Explosion colloquium held April 23-25. Professors Robert D. Austin and Stephen P. Bradley hosted the event.
Are wireless “hot spots” potentially hot markets?
Hot spots are pockets of wireless access points that increasingly populate airports, coffee shops, corporate campuses, public transportation, and even homes. The underlying technology, called Wi-Fi, can broadcast high-speed Internet access over a short distance of a few hundred feet. A portable computer or PDA equipped with a Wi-Fi card can tap into the hot spot and jump onto the Net for wireless surfing.
Although the hot-spot phenomenon is big enough to warrant a BusinessWeek special report in April, it’s still unclear whether there is a business model that can turn Wi-Fi into profit.
A panel of telecommunications industry pioneers came together to talk about the larger issue of the competitive landscape in broadband wireless, but most of the time was spent discussing Wi-Fi.
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