« Lappy migration | Main | SMS finishing time »
April 08, 2004
It's the mobility, stupid
In the end the mobile operators will win. I came up with this simple outlook on the future this afternoon when the following event joined the dots (in my head at least):
I applied for an account on T-Mobile's HotSpot Anytime, which basically gives you a pay-as-you-go WLAN account to use T-Mobile's hotspots. Cost is 2 Euros for 15 minutes and the account works in several countries. I've yet to try it out - but anyway. Sign-Up was easy. As a T-Mobile customer I just sent them an SMS and received my T-Mobile hotspot login in the reply. Easy.
Now wait a minute. I applied for a WLAN hotspot account using an SMS? Think about it. It took a couple of hours for the relevance to hit me.
It's not about GSM or 3G or WLAN - it's about mobility and connectivity. And the mobile operators don't really care what it's called in the end.
Because they win anyway.
Update: Frank has some good comments.
Posted by Matthew at April 8, 2004 03:24 PM
Comments
Btw., would you consider that a secure means to order something? Say I do that from your phone while you're at lunch - how long until you realize somebody is using your password? Do you really check those bills...?
Posted by: Frank Koehntopp at April 8, 2004 03:49 PM