In February, I wrote that Houston’s municipal Wi-Fi network needs to be affordable, easy to use, reliable and robust, or people won’t use it. Ideally, “affordable” should mean “free”, but Houston’s already opted not to climb that politicall…

The new ATT pricing I put up there of $20 for dsl is naked dsl – you don’t have to have phone service to get it. Check out the link I provided.

This pricing is what AT&T agreed to as part of the Cingular merger –

and it’s not the $15/month for dsl (and a year agreement) on top of phone service as part of the Yahoo deal previously out there.

I agree with Craig that mobile workforce applications will be a big ROI generator for metro Wi-Fi networks. In fact, I’d go a step further. Mobile consumer usage is already an important application for metro Wi-Fi. In the networks whose usage we track at, up to 20% of users already are mobile in a city on any given day. With devices such as the new Nokia n800 tablet, Skype Wi-Fi phones, Nikon s7c Wi-Fi camera and more will accelerate this trend toward Wi-Fi-enabled Mobile Internet usage.

So we actually have real data rather than anecdotal stories. You can see more of the complete report on our website http://www.novarum.com.

Some conclusions:

1. Well designed WiFi can be VERY good. In St. Cloud, FL 100% coverage outdoors over the city and NO 3G service. In Toronto in the deep urban canyons of downtown – high coverage and often over 5 Mb/s bidirectional service.
2. Poorly designed cellular and WiFi can be terrible.
3. 3G is still a modestly deployed service. In the cities we have surveyed to date with both a WiFi cloud and multiple 3G providers … a user is MORE likely to find WiFi service than 3G service.
4. And our conclusions are quite different than the original article. We think the technology CAN scale and be successful technologically.
5. Business models are still in flux. But an anchor tenant is key. And in San Francisco, Earthlink’s anchor tenant is Google. Who is likely paying $ for capacity that they use to provide an ad supported service. Nothing is really free.

Public WiFi access gets all the press.

But replacing T1 lines with cheaper wireless access and providing for government services is how a lot of these municipal networks really get funded.

The only advantage I see of MuniFi for public use is the mobility which Sprint and others have been doing for years. Sure my Sprint service cost 60+ a month, but it just flat out works everywhere I go. If I were to subscribe to EarthLink, then I couldn’t use it when I’m on the road all the time for work.

The only way I see myself ever signing up for EarthLink would be if they offered vastly improved speeds. I currently get the fastest package offered in my area(8mbps cable) but I want more. Where is my fiber?!!

Having said all that, I still have hopes things will improve and EarthLink is going to cash in from all the money it makes off the cities and businesses it supports with these networks.

For those that are looking at DSL pricing, it is important to look at the recurring fees going forward and the additional requirements. For example AT&T DSL requires the user to have telephone service to get the promotional rate. There are also long term commitments, after which the price increases to over $35 per month.

Business and municipal solutions do represent an attractive opportunity for citywide network operators. In addition to the roaming Wi-Fi accounts for municipal workers that we are already providing, EarthLink has a number of products in development targeted at this sector including mobile vehicle connectivity, fixed wireless for municipal use, video surveillance and an automated meter reading (AMR) solution. We are piloting several of these products today in the cities where we are operating.

Ultimately the ubiquitious access and the standarized method of connection available through citywide mesh Wi-Fi, will enable many different business models, connection types and customer segments.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/80964

For people who already have a bundled phone service they are looking at getting a much more reliable wired connection for 75% of the premium wifi ‘Best Effort’ Average 1000k speed for HALF the COST. – (Best effort – so if your neighbor is downloading video you will probably not get that 1000k speed)

For people who don’t already have phone service and which is bundled, they are looking at getting a much more reliable wired connection for 75% of the premium wifi ‘Best Effort’ Average 1000k speed for the SAME COST.

BUT the DSL wired connection can also support local WiFi with a $50 device and conceivably if you live near two neighbors you could share the wifi and split the monthly cost by two (as well as share it with multiple computers in your place) so your actual monthly cost could be 1/3 the monthly cost in both scenarios above – or possibly upgrade to a higher shared speed.

And if people go with the DSL who already have a phone bill, then they get one less bill a month.

Lastly, a wired connection uses the phone service electrical grid which often lasts in a general electrical blackout, so if you have your equipment plugged into a Uninterruptible Power Supply (a battery) you will still be up (this actually happened to me, my computer was on but the lights were out). It’s useful if you want to find out what the heck just happened or to send a mass email letting people know you are ok etc.

At certain places in the apartment the quality quickly deteriorated to 20-30%. Occasionally the connection would drop for no reason, and it’s hard to tell whether the problem was on my end or hotspot’s.

Anyone using Internet for business or work would be careless to trust public hotspot to be there 24/7. On the other hand, it’s quite convenient to flip the laptop open in a public park or in downtown cafe, and be online instantly, if GoogleWiFi is one of your trusted wireless networks in Windows.