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Sunday, July 20, 2008

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Wi-Fi Hotspots Are Hot

A recent report by ABI Research says that Wi-Fi hotspots will grow by 40 percent from 2007 to the end of this year. They say that the greatest growth and largest Wi-Fi availability continues to exist in Europe. What does this say about current Wi-Fi availability in the US? A recent layover in the Atlanta International Airport showed me that the free Wi-Fi model has yet to be accepted by all institutions and organizations. They were charging $7.95 to $10.95 for a day's use through different wireless providers. That was a day I was off the grid.

Challenges facing free Wi-Fi hotspots:

Cell phone carriers locking Wi-Fi features out of phones. During a recent trip to the Verizon store in Greenville, Ohio, one of the salespeople assured me that the Samsung SCH-i760 had no Wi-Fi capabilities. I knew it did since I had used a colleagues, read online reviews, and seen Verizon's own product page that specifically states it has Wi-Fi. I told him it did and politely navigated to the Wi-Fi settings to show him it existed. After seeing Wi-Fi settings on the phone, the salesperson then told me that Wi-Fi was outdated and insecure anyway. He said that he was at an airport checking his bank account and hackers made way to his money. While Wi-Fi can have security issues, what doofus checks his bank account via an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot at an airport?

Competition from 3G, wireless broadband, and other mobile Internet services.

Lack of standardization and public knowledge about what Wi-Fi is and it is used. I have spoken with many people who are learning more about being tech-mobile but don't fully understand what Wi-Fi is and how it is offered as a service.

If anything, I believe the iPhone/iTouch has shown us Wi-Fi certainly has a place in our mobile devices. MuniWireless has an interesting commentary regarding ABI's report.

What challenges do you foresee regarding free access to Wi-Fi?

Photo credit: osde8info

Technorati Tags: Wi-Fi,Wireless,Hotspot

Mobile

7/20/2008 7:47 AM MST

Wi-Fi Hotspots Are Hot Comments [7] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Sunday, July 20, 2008 10:06:23 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

"While Wi-Fi can have security issues, what doofus checks his bank account via an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot at an airport?": Most banks use SSL/TLS -- well, all banks that have any sense in them -- which encrypts traffic end to end, bypassing any risk on the local network. A keylogger on your machine could capture your password, or a fake access point could intercept data -- but your browser would warn you that the certificate was invalid or that an interception was being attempted.

So there's typically zero risk to using banking or most ecommerce sites on open networks because of the secured connection. SSL/TLS hasn't been broken, and many many people are trying, one might imagine. Because each browser and operating system stores details about "certificate authorities," third-party confirmation of the integrity of an SSL/TLS digital certificate, it makes it so far impossible to violate that trust.

Glenn Fleishman

Sunday, July 20, 2008 10:11:16 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

"While Wi-Fi can have security issues, what doofus checks his bank account via an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot at an airport?"

We all do things without enough thinking, sometimes.

Paul Harrigan

Sunday, July 20, 2008 10:44:22 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I am currently in Keystone, CO, with my family for a couple of days. We were told the townhouse we are renting had wifi. We weren't told we would have to pay for it, and that only one person per "account" could be logged on at a time! However, I have been surprised to find a 3G network here, so I am able to use my iphone nicely.

Karyn

Sunday, July 20, 2008 2:13:12 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

The main security problem with wifi hotspots are those spoofers who throw out the SSID "Free Wifi Hotspot". Seen that show up in nearly every airport I've been to and promptly turned off my wifi each time. Blatant scam, especially since it's usually to a computer not a network, but I'm sure plenty of people not in the know get caught by it and discover the consequences much later.

Sumocat

Sunday, July 20, 2008 4:31:35 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

The main problem I see against having free wi-fi hotspots is exactly the benefit, they're free. It costs a company money to buy the hardware and to get the internet hooked up. If it's free, the company doesn't gain anything from putting it in. The only reason places put it in is to attract customers, but in airports, most customers are just going where the tickets are cheapest.

Tim

Sunday, July 20, 2008 9:48:40 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I've been hearing how cool WiFi is on a smartphone for years and for the life of me, I still fail to see much of the value in it. It runs through battery power at an incredible rate and getting an available connection is always a crapshoot. I will admit that as the processors have gotten incrementally faster, the speed of the WiFi connections are now better, but for the most part, it's still like drinking water from a firehose. The processor in most phones can't handle all that much data.

I remember being so curious about it years ago that I bought a compactflash WiFi card for my Handera 330 PDA (yeah, *that* long ago!). I have a XV6800 now with WiFi on it. Guess what? I still don't use it.

I use the 3G on my cellular phone and tether to my laptop or UMPC via Bluetooth or USB when I need to. Heck, these days, I can even turn my phone into a WiFi router itself if I need to (more novelty than necessity really). But more connectivity is always a good thing.

Stephen Feger

Monday, July 21, 2008 3:58:46 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

"While Wi-Fi can have security issues, what doofus checks his bank account via an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot at an airport? "

So you agree with the salesperson about WiFi then?

I agree with Glenn Fleishman. SSL/TLS hasn't been broken yet. At an unsecured location, I do as much via SSL/TLS or VPN as possible.

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