I’ve been using an EV-DO USB modem from Sprint for about a year now, and I’ve been really, really happy with it. The $60 per month cost is a little steep, but I think it’s probably been balanced out by freeing me from having to pay for expensive WiFi connections at hotels, airports and conferences, while the other freedoms it offers me — to go to whatever coffee shop I want regardless of the availability or cost of their WiFi, or to stay at whatever hotel I choose and not have to worry about connectivity, or to write and work from just about anywhere I’d want to go within the US — are invaluable.
But the dongle market looks set to grow this year, as European operators begin offering them at some pretty great prices. Dean Bubley just picked up an HSDPA one from 3UK, getting the USB modem for free and paying about $25 per month for 3GB of traffic. They seem to be leading the way, in the UK, at least, both for business users and consumers: they have reasonable PAYG rates, and even offer the modems in multiple colors, and sell skins for them too.
Andrew Grill wondered last week if the rise of the dongle would kill the paid WiFi hotspot market. It may be a little early to say it’s going to die, but I think in many places, it may have an impact. For instance, I stayed in a Premier Travel Inn near Heathrow last year, and it featured extortionate WiFi pricing, provided by the lovely Swisscom (the subject of many travellers’ ire). The rate I paid for a few hours in one day would have gone a long way towards for paying a month of service from 3, so you can see the benefit for anybody doing regular travel, even if it’s only a day or two a month. Surely among business users, usage will grow very quickly this year.
But what about consumers? I’m not convinced that all that many general consumers pay for WiFi right now, both because of the cost but also because there are plenty of businesses around the world that understand the benefit offering free WiFi can bring. And £100 for a modem plus upwards of £10 a month still presents something of a barrier to get consumers to buy in to a new service, whereas the equation’s much simpler for business users who are regularly paying higher prices for WiFi.
Business prospects aside, the rise of the dongle illustrates how the mobile lifestyle continues to take a deeper hold. WiFi hotspots provide mobility only in the most basic sense, and I prefer to characterize their use as nomadic rather than mobile — meaning that you have a choice of locations, but are relatively fixed once you choose one. But the dongle changes that, as I said in the beginning, allowing the user the ability to go most anywhere they like. In this instance, yes, we’re talking about mobile PC access. But as people grow more accustomed to the idea of mobile access, regardless of device, and embrace the mobile lifestyle, the demand for mobile services and solutions on all devices will increase.
Looks like Apple is relying on the rise of the USB dongle as well for the MacBook Air if wifi is not enough…
Operators in the UK, Austria, South Africa, Portugal & others are definitely going after the consumer 3G dongle market.
Typical user is someone (student, recent immigrant etc) who doesn’t want a 12-24mo fixed-broadband contract at home, because either they share apartments, don’t have a current landline (which would cost £££ to get re-connected), move flat every 6 months or don’t yet have a local bank account / credit record. Another segment is people who want a 2nd broadband line (maybe families, maybe young professionals).
and in Australia too.
The prices have dropped dramatically in the last year. AU$100 to AU$14.50 a month on a two year deal + free dongle.
Disagree with Dean, about the typical user, for some like me it is the only broadband connection, for most it is a second broadband connection. The are being used by proffesionals on the move.
I’ve gone with the 3 offer as have a bunch of people I know. I was driven over the edge by being charged a fiver in Starbucks because a colleague needed something from my machine urgently. I can’t use my lovely 3.5G N82 as a modem because O2 will charge me £13,000 per megabyte or something like that, so I had to go to Starbucks. But no more. The wifi providers have been getting twenty or thirty quid a month out of me at various hotels and coffee shops: now they’ll be getting zero and 3 will be getting £15. And on my commute into London the 3 modem performed excellently well on the train. I’ll definitely be plugging in to my new MacBook Air when it turns up.
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