The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
Useless
: Verizon announces today that has turned scores of NY phone booths into wi-fi hotspots.
But the bad news is that you have to be Verizon Online customer already to use them. Dumb.
But here’s what’s even dumber: Lots of them are inside subways. Oh, yes, I’m going to sit in a subway with my laptop out blogging. I’ll add a webcam so you can watch me be robbed.
Take me to Starbucks.
1) You have to be a Verizon dial-up customer to get access to WiFi, which is a low as $7/month. Compare that to T-Mobile HotSpots at Starbucks at $29.99 a month and Verizon is a much better deal.
2) I haven’t seen a mention of Verizon hotspots on subway payphones. I’d love to be able to check email/surf on my PDA while waiting for the F train. Sure, using a laptop while waiting for the subway is a bit impractical, but PDA access is very desirable.
3) Verizon’s WiFi build is an important step towards complete coverage of Manhattan. With 144 live nodes now and a total of 239 to come, this will be one of the largest deployments in the city. (compare to NYCWireless’ 150 nodes, and a similar number from T-mobile) Verizon has the perfect infrastructure, convert pay phones that are not being used because of cell phones into WiFi spots. Brilliant, elegant idea!
Aaron:
Why won’t Verizon let me pay for the service as T-Mobile does? I can’t get their f’ing DSL service because I’m too far away from their CO. I’m obviously not going to subscribe to their dial-up service. I’d be happy to give them money for their wi-fi service. But they’re treating this as value-added, not revenue-added (gee, that didn’t help the rest of the Internet!).
You’ve got a point. I’m assuming you’d like to pay for WiFi time by the minute, similar to T-mobile’s 10 cents a minute plan. But, come on, at $7 a month for basic dial-up, it’s cheap cheap cheap to use their hotspots. Plus, I just read they hope to have 1,000 access points by the end of the year. They’re still playing with the business model — testing it with existing customers before charging the rest of us. They’re a large corporation… give them time.
Let me get this straight, Jeff:
you’re unwilling to pay $7 a month for wi-fi access all across Manhattan and would rather pay $6 an HOUR thru t-mobile?
And don’t worry, the subway hotspots wil be unworking quickly. Verizon can’t execute to save their lives. But this is the right idea. Wonder if T-W cable (or RCN) will follow suit somehow?
I don’t live in Manhattan, so I don’t know when I’ll use the Verizon service.
Imagine if you come to NY on a business trip: There’s no way to use the service.
That’s the problem with all these unconnected wi-fi offerings: Everybody wants a monthly fee. Does’t hunt.
They will also have a WiFi access plan for those of us who are Verizon Wireless customers too.
I would imagine the reason why they want you on their network initially is to simplify their tech support issues at first. Also, I bet that they probably will have you use their software to connect to their network.
As the Verizon VP said, they are not offering for the public good, they are offering to reduce “churn” in customers. I’m not saying they’re correct in looking at it this way, but that’s their goal.
My husband reads (and plays on) his PDA on his commutes. There’s not much stealing going on during =rush hour= on the subways in New York, especially if it would be almost impossible to get away, what with all the people jam-packed in there.
It’s not like it’s some wallet a man has stupidly stuffed in his back pocket.