One size does not fit all in the public Wi-Fi market, said Gary Weis, President and CEO of Cometa Networks, speaking at NGN in Boston. He believes there will be many economic models for public Wi-Fi service, ranging from free sites to business-class access sites. Once VoIP and streaming media become common applications, Weiss expects there will be clear service differentiation between casual and business uses of the networks. Cometa, which is a wholesale Wi-Fi operator building a national network of hotspots, anticipates that the PWLAN market will develop in three phases: incremental buildouts, consolidation, and finally growth through valued added services. Weiss believes the market is currently transitioning from phase 1 to phase 2.
Today, Cometa estimates there are about 4.2 million regular Wi-Fi users in the U.S. By 2007, this number is expected to grow to 31 million across the country. The Wi-Fi revolution has already spread from laptops to handhelds. It will soon reach other devices, such as cameras, MP3 players, gaming consoles, etc.
Cometa was founded in December 2002 by IBM, AT&T, Intel Capital and Apax Partners and 3i. All three strategic partners are active in the Cometa business plan. Intel is stimulating the market; IBM is providing site installation and back office capabilities; and AT&T is providing security, the IP backbone and network management. Cometa’s first market is Seattle. It is currently using DSL to reach its venues. Unlike other Wi-Fi hotspot aggregators, Cometa is targeting an intra-city model rather than an inter-city model. Cometa expects most users will want to roam between various hot-spots in their own city, rather than only using a hotspot at an airport or hotel. Keys to success will be in developing a very diverse and dense footprint.
Weiss said 802.16 (Wi-Max) offers a variety of interesting possibilities to Cometa, potentially enabling the company to daisy-chain Wi-Fi hotspots to a common backhaul. Among its business prospects are the cable companies, said Weiss, who might be looking to offer their broadband users a roaming service similar to Verizon’s Wi-Fi deployment across payphones in Manhattan.
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