WiFi providers

There is both good and bad news for WiFi providers. Firstly the good news?

Wireless Internet operators are no longer being charged a $10,000 carrier license application fee. In fact, this fee and other regulatory obligations have already stopped applying for wireless carriers under new rules to make carrier licensing obligations ?technologically neutral?. It seems that these measures are aimed at encouraging more players into the market. It is good that authorities are finally realizing the potential WiFi has and thus want to develop this sector.

However wireless carriers who had already paid the $10,000 fee would not be reimbursed.

Now the bad news:

According to reports, Google the major Internet search engine has wireless plans that could kill commercial WiFi. According to Business 2.0, Google intends to enter the WiFi hotspot market in the US through a free ad supported model.

The hotspot initiative is an offshoot from its move to lease its own fiber to avoid transport fees and to become a network peering partner. And with the bandwidth that comes with this, Google can virtually run its own hotspots in a very financially favorable way. It seems that Google is already supporting Feeva, which is a San Francisco free hotspot venture and may also be further involved in this.

This is putting commercial WiFi providers in a potentially lethal position due to the increasing onslaught of free municipal networks on one side and free Google hotspots on the other. Commercial WiFi providers are basically squeezed in the middle and are left with little or no choice.

Becoming a service provider themselves, Google can create quite an impact in the market, especially the huge cash that they have at their disposal. Though it is true that Google has no experience in this, but they can always get top executives from the big service providers to help them out with the big remuneration packages they can offer.