Nokia and EarthLink Partner for Muni Wi-Fi

Ina Sebastian | July 03, 2007, 02:57 PM

Nokia is the newest player experimenting with citywide Wi-Fi. The companies partnered to allow Nokia tablet users to connect to Earthlink muni networks for free, with preconfigured access features.
In traditional public Wi-Fi, we have seen this type of model with Nintendo and Wayport, as well as recently Sony and T-Mobile Hotspot for free gaming. In muni Wi-Fi, companies like Google and MSN use free high-speed access to study consumer behavior and pull people to their sites. MSN for example provides content on the landing page of the Portland Wi-Fi network. Companies try to target advertisements to time and location of the users, although both networks and location-specific experiences are still developing.

Wi-Fi tablet users will be a small user group, but free Wi-Fi is popular and a differentiator for Nokia in the EarthLink areas, and an opportunity to trial the service. Overall, most of public Wi-Fi users do so only for free and many would prefer free Wi-Fi (even ad-supported) to paying. When choosing devices and applications for partnerships, companies should also consider that young consumers are the biggest group of mobile users at city locations. Clients should see this report.