On Community WiFi
Free is very good. Cheap is ok. Paying is bad.
This is the basic consumer rule. Why would customers pay more for a certain service in your company than in your competitor? Why would anyone pay for a product if there is a similar free alternative?
The price issue is affecting many sectors that have been kind of “sacred” for ages. Services like airplane tickets (low cost airline companies) or basic telephone service (skype) have recently incorporated some new competitors that make use of optimal cost structures and new technologies.
So my question is, who will be next? And the next precious golden hen seems to be: Internet Access. It has always been assumed that internet access is expensive, or at least, you must pay for it. Well, fellow internet users, this assumptions has come to an end. Wireless access not only is pushing local administrations to offer free public wireless access on certain public buildings, but also internet communities are being build in order to share and use common broadband connections.
And Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are worried. Why shouldn’t they? Iberia, the major spanish Airline is planning to cut the shuttle service between Barcelona and Madrid due to the menace of low-cost companies. Shouldn’t Telefonica (the major ISP) be worried about some people sharing broadband connections?
FON is the new free share-and-use wireless DSL service in Spain. Anyone can register in order to get free access to freely opened broadband home connections, as well as one can decide not to open his/her DSL subscription to everyone, but to charge some money for the incomming connections. Now the question is: why shouldn’t I join FON? The average user utilizes his/her own internet connection only 3% of the available time. Why shouldn’t I share the rest? or even better, earn some money out if it?
Telefonica is worried. I would be worried too.
October 13th, 2005 at 15:59
Creative destruction. I believe the idea (algorithm) behind the Wifi Community (not the Community in itself) is just another clear example of the competitive markets’ cost-beneffit worthiness. However, it seems such development / evolution path is only possible once entry barriers have been surpased, not only for the supply side budies, but for the consumers too.
October 13th, 2005 at 16:15
Which consumers barriers?
October 13th, 2005 at 16:18
Some IT knowledge, a laptop…
October 13th, 2005 at 16:32
mmm, a few aspects to debate about this post…
first one, pricing…. the most important aspect in any commercial issue, just studying and investigating its influence in mobile communications…. but just remeber, sometimes price doesn’t matter and is not the most important access. linux? what’s that? who the fuck is using linux? still now everybody pays for software, even though you can find hundreds of free programs, free source OS’s, hundreds of different linux distributions….. but in you company, the most important consoulting group in the world, they still spend millions and millions every year on windows based programs’ licences.
second one. yeah, internet evolving and developing towards free high speed internet connections. and of course, this is going to worry ISP’s, telefonica and all those companies you state…. and it’s also worrying you. But the fact is that it’s also worrying me. so we are proud of the technology evolution, and we find interesting how wireless comunications are developing and evolving faster than the world. but meanwhile hundreds of millions living in our world still don’t know what is electricity, and they ara amazed when they see a simple lighter, and they think that TV is a magical box.
maybe it would be better if, before sharing our proud with other proud people because we are so proud of paying for a connection from which you only use 3%, we tryed to invest our proudness and our efforts and our money to acchieve something better. why not helping the rest of people to know what electricity or tv is? maybe before having free ISP’s it would be better to help an african young boy to be able to connect to internet.
mmm, going to say one more thing, but just forgot that. i wrote too much and it went away from my mind
October 13th, 2005 at 16:47
Mago de la lluvia:
The consumers barriers are falling apart. It won’t take too long before we see small, easy-to-use and specially cheap PCs under the €100 barrier. In fact, the playstation 4 will incorporate a linux based PC that will allow to surf the net.
Roger:
Open-source development teams have been built up in order to introduce the world of software and computers deep inside africa. Free, modifiable software and, more importantly, opensource mindset is the key to bring the equality that you claim. Before wikipedia, the only online access to an enciclopaedia was through the british enciclopaedia or Microsoft’s Encarta, both after paying the access fee. Can’t you see that we are also tearing apart those barriers?
And, still, it’s true. Linux is not successfull, but if you take a look to the figures, you’ll see that it’s growing, and microsoft is loosing market share, while apple is focusing on digital music. It seems to me that microsoft is even more worried than Telefonica.
October 13th, 2005 at 16:56
ok, just tell me… how can i look the word “capitalism” or maybe “starve”, or “poor” in the wikipedia when i am living in africa and the closest internet connection is in a corrupt city 400 km far away… obviously a shitty connection through one of the 2 modems of the only internet cafe in the city?????????????
October 13th, 2005 at 19:26
yes, and an expensive OS is the best solution. wikipedia is free knowledge, it is true that it is not accessible without a free pc system and the infrastructure beneath, but at least it opens the door to knowledge. And from knowledge you get responsibility. And from responsibility you get actions. And from the actions you get results.
I agree that the system may be badly designed, but I think the best way to shift towards what you would call a “better world” is not by using propietary software.
October 13th, 2005 at 22:56
i never talked about a better world. before trying to reach a better world we have to achieve a world of equality for everyone
and opening the doors of knowledge to the ones who already have the knowledge doesn’t work good when we try to achieve that “better world”.
before opening doors we have to open our eyes in order to know which doors should be opened
October 13th, 2005 at 23:54
Maybe, at the present Internet conection is something unknowed in Africa, but there are some ONGs that are working to change it. A clear example is this one:
http://www.ntafrica.org/index.php?lang=in
The aim of this ONG is to re-distribute by Africa the surplus in PC’s, more accurately the surplus in old PC that exists in the developed countries. With ideas like this maybe we will reach a better and more equality world (where everybody will be able to connect to internet using opensource software and therefore acces to a huge amount of information), but effort and unselfish work are still more important. This effort and unselfish work is the first step that each one should do himself, withouth this step it’s imposible to reach this world. Then it’s easy we should should start with small details, like giving our old PC’s which we aren’t going to use but we don’t know why, but we still keep at home. Afterwards when we will be in the way, we can start to speak if there are better ways to reach this world.
October 14th, 2005 at 00:47
i keep my old pc in order to have this website… jejeje.
I really think that selfishness is probably the most difficult barrier to overcome, it seems to me that a good step to take as a start is to share knowledge, to share software sources and to share hardware.
October 14th, 2005 at 13:08
mmm, having bad days… can’t agree with anything… sorry :D
it’s very easy to be proud of sharing knowledge, software sources and other stuff. but in fact anybody is sharing anything. you are not sharing knowledge or software sources if other people can reach them.
just a simple example. i leave 20€ on my table now and i am proud to say that i am sharing them with all the african poor kids… but, how are they taking this money? i am alone on this room now, nobody is reaching those euros now.
what i mean is that i totally disagree when you say that developing an amazing and huge wikipedia on the net is an act of sharing knowledgement globally. and the same about free software sources and other stuff. when any african guy can read that wikipedia and learn what “democracy” means, and that guy does that with a computer working on a linux system… then you will be able to be proud of sharing knowledgment and software sources. meanwhile keep dreaming about your pride of sharing things with the northern half of planet earth.
not wanting to sound rude… just too much work to do and too many things in my head :D
also checking that website, giving old 486 and pentiums to african guys sounds sarcastic, but at least is a good begining
October 14th, 2005 at 13:41
But Roger… i never said that it was the definitive solution. I just said it is a way to begin. And yes, I am proud to share it with the northern part of the world, because you don’t have to go to africa to find poverty. It is on our society too. Some low income families cannot afford having a PC, but if they can go to a Public library and access internet a find a free encyclopedia… well, I think that’s a huge step forward.
October 14th, 2005 at 19:26
I believe Africa is not an issue here. Such continent has been totally left apart by the rest of the world; however, the roots of some sub saharian countries’ prehistoric development are to be found deep inside cultural and historic events. Its a nice topic, but much more complex than a “IT investment burst” or “teach em’ about tv and electricity”.
Technology development is fundamentally based on network externalities (the benefit of aquiring a techonlogy is proportional to the people who already posses such tecnology, being a clear example a phone line) and past-dependence events; in other words, though a 95% of home and industry users of computer software are on the Microsoft side, this doesnt mean its the optimal equilibrium; it just reflects assimetric information during the innitial stages of the different softwares development.
Community wifi is worth of an effort, but it is necesary much more than an altruist behaviour in order to achieve its goals
October 15th, 2005 at 15:41
interesting new today in la vanguardia related to our topic. a project to develope and build cheap pc’s for students from poor countries. with an expected building cost of 100 dollars.
mmm, more info, la vanguardia (15/10/2005) or maybe check “one laptop per child” in google
October 15th, 2005 at 16:39
Just as an example: robust economic studies concluded tha a 1% increase in cellular conection within third world countries generates a much more important development (both in terms of GDP growth and economic development) than a 1% increase in pc investment. I believe a 100 bucks pc will have a much more significant effect within low income families in developed countries than within families in underdeveloped countries