* Voice over Wi-Fi at the Ottawa airport worked and was economical
Last week we mentioned that every wireless LAN-equipped PC is a potential voice-over-Wi-Fi device when coupled with a VoIP softphone or other similar device. Last week Steve was traveling to Ottawa, and he decided to put his (Canadian) money where his mouth was on this one.
Arriving at the international boarding area at the Ottawa airport for the return trip to the U.S. with an hour or so to spare, he noticed that Wi-Fi access was available. Always willing to access e-mail at the drop of a hat, he decided it was worth the $9.95 (Canadian) to test the service and to make a few calls as well.
The whole scenario worked – exactly as expected. More importantly, the breakeven point vs. making calls back to the U.S. using a cell phone was only 12 minutes.
Here’s how the arithmetic works. The $9.95 (Canadian) purchase for 24 hours of access converted to $8.02 (U.S.). Using SkypeOut to make calls, the cost per minute is about two cents. Disregarding any data usage, the cost for the first minute would have been $8.04 (U.S.). The price for 12 minutes is $8.26. Another option, making calls using his cell phone, would have cost 69 cents per minute. Needless to say, there would have been little casual chatting. Twelve minutes of airtime on the cell phone would have been $8.28. (Actually, that’s based on the base rate without all of the additional charges that get added to your cell bill.)
The bottom line is that with as little as 12 minutes of call time, the Internet access paid for itself. In reality, Steve chatted for a total of about 30 minutes with various parties, the call quality was quite acceptable, and the cost was $8.62 instead of $20.70. (Admittedly, Steve could have used his prepaid calling card, and the breakeven point would have stretched out to 50 minutes. But standing at a pay phone is SO 20th century.)
Of course, the Wi-Fi access also allowed Steve to check e-mail, send SMS messages via e-mail for free (as opposed to the out-of-country rate of 25 cents per message when traveling in Canada), and to do a bit of Web surfing. And had he made digital photos while on the trip, he could have also e-mailed a few photos.
Which brings us to our question of the week for the readers: We’ve found that it is almost impossible to buy a cell phone without it being a camera phone these days. The business case for the cellular carriers is transparent. You get the camera for free, you make pictures, and you can’t download them to your PC. Instead, you must e-mail the pics to your PC for a not-so-trivial amount.
Admittedly, this is a cool toy. But has anyone come up with a good business justification for camera phones? This is one piece of consumer-oriented convergence that we’re having a hard time justifying outside some highly specialized circumstances. Let us know, and we’ll pass along the results.
