This is something we think about a lot at TechCrunch, because so many conferences have bad connectivity, and we need to make it perfect at TechCrunch50 next year. There’s a real business here if a large company can get it right and is willing to put a guarantee in place to conference organizers. They can charge almost anything – I’m sure Loic would have paid €200,000 if that’s what it took to get proper Internet for attendees. If they can build a reputation for reliability, and are willing to back up that reputation with a liquidated damages clause for failure in the range of, say, 5x the fee they charge, then I imagine every conference that could would hire them.

Src: TC

It’s a simple business idea: build a company around guaranteeing internet connectivity in large conferences. You can have your own gear, cables, etc., put a little bit of magic into the connectivity and guarantee that the internet works – I’m sure this future company would become world famous and a trusted brand globally within a year.

Image: Travelin’ Librarian CC:BY-NC

Risto Koski, a colleague from Nokia, and I were having a deep discussion when he naturally suggested that why bother making phones with both WiFi and cellular connectivity (now being called dual-mode).

Y’see, you could just have a WiFi phone and when you wanted to make a call, just go around looking for a WiFi access point.

Of course, if you are a regular 21st century person, this suggestion should shock you. You must be thinking: Who is going to be looking around for a place to call from?
(via Lifeblog)

It’s not that awkward now is it?

What all these start-ups assume is that users are never offline.

This is where wi-fi comes in. It is only when wireless net access is everywhere that these companies can even exist.

But, say experts, this freedom to connect will not just make it possible for lots of new companies to get going. It could also have a profound effect on the way companies are run and what they have to do to ensure they keep their customers.

Touch?©.

Also in the news this week (short clips, haven’t simply had the time to blog about these):

• The Futurice guys have struck a deal with the largest commercial television network MTV3 with their discrete photosharing service Kuvaboxi. Kuvaboxi seems to be now an official part of MTV3 offerings. Congrats!

  How do I know them? I did my Master’s thesis in close co-operation with these guys.

• Ex-CEO of Nokia, Mr. Isokallio, launches the first open WiFi in Helsinki center in co-operation with Fujitsu and a restaurant chain (source – in Finnish). With this he wants to show that it does not require a lot of money to operate a ubiquitous WiFi network, but more a will to do so. This is something I’ve been ranting about previously quite a bit – for example; here, here, here, here, here and here. Man, talk about being obsessed about WiFi :) Anyhow, my point is: Pity the fools who don’t see the value in this and a big thank you to Mr. Isokallio for doing something about it!
• The head of US copyright office has actually said that the current copyright term is too long! Is this the beginning of the end to large media companies bullying consumers?

Oh, and the Finnish Curling team is in the Olympic finals playing at the moment…

There’s also this other website I found through Antoin’s website; FON. There’s some sort of a plan to liberate the online world, like Antoin put it. It’s an attempt to build a voluntary public network of WiFi hotspots and enable connectivity for more people.

Now why are these people doing this? The simple answer to this is of course because nobody else is doing it. Telcos are complaining that they are losing money by extremely competitive domestic markets (especially in Finland) and are looking for different content channels to create more money, but I don’t understand why they haven’t looked deep enough into setting up proper WiFi.

WiFi is going to be tomorrow’s network for sure. The reason is that it enables quick and reliable access for devices requiring internet connection. I got the following idea while reading Barabasi’s Linked;

Internet in itself is a huge network of millions of nodes. You could also define the nodes on internet by people, websites or whatever. Let’s examine the network through people as the nodes. Internet enables peer-to-peer connectivity around the world between any two people who wish to connect, right? But this is only valid when they are both online. You need to be online to be able to connect and talk to somebody else and this of course makes perfect sense.

Then you can take the people in the real world who create another network of nodes. If you wish to connect to some node/person, you need to be around them or then you need a device that will somehow connect to them across another network – this is why the traditional phones have been so successful. WiFi is going to be to regular computers what the mobile phones are to traditional landline telephones.

Mobile phones became so popular because you could be reached wherever you wanted to be reached. The true mobile internet is not (only) about being able to surf the web through your phone screen, but taking the social innovations from the normal internet world (as we know it) to the mobile lifestyle. This is where the WiFis and device vendors, who take advantage of this, come in. These two parties are the ones who are able to connect these two networks and make them constantly connected to each other (meaning the same node), breaking the barrier for connectivity that has forced people to stay infront of their computers, if they wish to be online and connected.

You may say that we can be connected through GPRS, etc. but all the people who have used these technologies to connect to the internet probably agree with me that these are still the prototypes of methods that will be the ultimate ways to be connected. Secondly, the devices that we are going to use will change dramatically to make use of the already invented social innovations, such as IMs, VoIP, etc. And I don’t see any reason why there isn’t going to be any possibility to make a euro or two in this field if somebody took the proper iniative. The telcos of course don’t want to invest money as there is no immediate return for their investment and device vendors arent’ creating the devices as they don’t see the possibilities to use them. Nevertheless, a good example of this is Nokia’s 770, an internet tablet that does exactly what I’ve been talking about – it connects these two networks over the WiFi.

ps. This is a very quickly written piece and I believe there is a lot of room for improvement, but I felt that I had to get this down somewhere before I forget the keypoints I wanted to make.

First of all, there were no electric plugs in 1st class and the online reservation system did not allow us to book a seat with a place to plug your computer in, even if there were any. Secondly, how expensive would it be for VR (the railway company) to integrate WiFi on to the wagons? Do you think people would rather take the train to Helsinki, even if it took 5 hours if you can work on your normal day to day stuff during that trip, or pay triple and fly to Helsinki for one hour (plus all the trips to the airports and to the city)?

I’d argue that VR would have a real competitive way to steal passengers from airplanes to their trains by simply adding WiFi and marketing it a bit. But then again, there’s no competition for them (direct, anyways) so why should they improve service that much – being a monopoly is pretty good.

ps. I’m off to a friends wedding today – I’ll try and moblog some stuff from there, but don’t expect too much – I am after all in charge of the punch :)

Susanna Mukkila (HS 8.8.) suggests that the construction municipal Wi-Fi networks should be funded with tax money. In light of history, the suggestion is wise.

Finland gained a lead in wireless because the state-owned operator Tele built the first mobile networks here. Meanwhile, the mobile communications industry got off to a wobbly start in the U.S. as the public sector lacked the will and the instruments to invest in network infrastructure.

Finns could concentrate on innovating texting culture, while in the market-driven U.S. it made no sense to keep the mobile phone on, as the network coverage was spotty and the receiving party paid.

Now there is a disruption going on in the telecommunications industry. People are calling and messaging each other for free on the internet. This is destructive to the teleoperators, but for innovations that spur economic growth, it’s not such a bad thing.

As the cost of access drops, the spending on content actually increases. One would think the money flowed into Hollywood, but it doesn’t.

Few people are willing to pay for ready-made content online. Instead, millions are subscribing to services created by new growth companies, that make it possible to self-publish photos, music playlists, and keep a blog for instance.

Many believe that the rapid spreading of Wi-Fi is a factor that helps to explain the growing popularity of these services. The industry agrees that wireless broadband will be an even more important driver of growth in the future.

History tends to repeat itself. New services spring up where consumers have terminals; and there is an incentive to buy terminals where an affordable, reliable network is in operation.

This has been noted not only by Finnish cities who offer a Wi-Fi network, such as Oulu and Lahti, but also by some Americans – wisened by their mistake?

For instance, Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, promised in his speech: “We won’t stop until every San Franciscan has access to a free wireless internet service.”

Helsinki has know-how. It can offer a wireless network through its energy company, like many other Nordic cities have done, if it so chooses.

It can also collaborate with commercial operators, manage the network infrastructure, and let the operators handle the services.

If Helsinki doesn’t acknowledge its strengths, its position as the pioneer of wireless culture and economy becomes questionable to say the least.

I have to say I agree with both gentlemen 100%. Finland is not doing enough for creating the internet infrastructure in our country. What people don’t usually understand is that availability of Internet is becoming an essential part of our information society, just like street lights, sidewalks and paved roads. As society develops, the standard of living increases and more and more things are taken for granted.

However, availability of Wireless Internet should not only be taken for granted, but also seen as a great platform for innovation – just like Janne put it. Once you have availability of internet in most parts of the country – you can begin to see small companies emerging and taking advantage of this platform.

For example, once GSM became a dominant platform for mobile phones and the customer base grew large enough, tens of companies offering content for mobile phones emerged. The reason behind these is that their business plans saw the GSM network an open network in a sense that they did not have to talk to other parties (not to that extent the application providers have to at least) for setting up their business.

Janne talks about the difficulty of creating applications for mobile phones and new businesses in his post. I have to agree with this as I’ve seen it first hand, when Futurice was launching their Kuvat Kavereille (a photo sharing) service – they had to talk to numerous parties in order for the business model to work. This could be fundamentally different in an WiFi space where internet access can be seen as a part of the everyday infrastructure of a modern society.

This indeed creates a very big freedom to innovate that the Finnish government has not yet seen the advantage of. Are there any other people who would like to see a WiFi.ee kind of network being built into Finland? I would seriously like to help if there were other enthusiasts like me.