adding fuel to the belief that making money of access to public wireless lans is a losing proposition,
sputnik
decides to
not charge
for access to the sputnik network:
“Sputnik is relinquishing its plans to eventually charge subscribers for using the Sputnik Network. After a lot of careful analysis, we have not been able to overcome growing doubts about the long-term financial prospects for paid subscriber 802.11 networks. Eight months ago we thought a “bottoms-up” subscriber network was a killer idea, but the landscape has changed a lot since then.” “We also appreciate the bug fixes and patches that community developers have contributed to our code base. We are committed to continuing to support you by providing, among other things, free authentication and roaming services.”
so where’s the money?
sputnik
aims to, “focus exclusively on being a product company, with an emphasis on the enterprise software market.” while it’s certainly smart to recognize that it’s going to be tough to pay the bills with subscription revenues from mom-and-pop public hotspots, it’s still hard to see this as a positive strategic move. i mean, this thing called “the enterprise” is a tough market full of people who like to buy from brands like
cisco.