KPN, the Netherlands telecom incumbent, is setting up Wi-Fi hotspots in Total gas stations along highways in the Netherlands, starting with the Total station (called Aurora) along the A4, the highway that connects Amsterdam to The Hague. People who want to stop and check email will be directed to parking spaces by signs showing the availability of Wi-Fi.
KPN, the Netherlands telecom incumbent, is setting up Wi-Fi hotspots in Total gas stations along highways in the Netherlands, starting with the Total station (called Aurora) along the A4, the highway that connects Amsterdam to The Hague. People who want to stop and check email will be directed to parking spaces by signs showing the availability of Wi-Fi.
According a survey sponsored by KPN and conducted by MetrixLab in the Netherlands, among people who work in small and mid-sized businesses and who travel for work, 70% do most of their work at the client’s premises; 52% do a lot of work from a highway restaurant or gas station. Of this 52%, 86% check email, 46% look for customer information on the Internet (I assume this consists mostly of looking up addresses and phone numbers), 44% make appointments online or alter them (if there are traffic jams).
While the KPN-Total hotspot rollout is an excellent initiative, I’d rather have Wi-Fi everywhere, not just at a Total gas station. This is where city and countywide Wi-fi come in, and later perhaps WiMAX. The ability to do all this from the home, the street, a park, cafe, is much more valuable to me. While there is good HSDPA service in the Netherlands, it’s expensive and slow relative to Wi-Fi on my laptop or my Nokia mobile phone.
[Thanks to Cees Versteeg at Sympac for sending the news about the KPN-Total partnership]
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Description: Even as municipal wireless becomes more prevalent in communities throughout the country and around the world, more and more emphasis is being placed upon ensuring reliable connections inside the four walls. Connecting to an outdoor wireless network from inside a home, an office building or city hall often requires reliable, cost-efficient customer premise equipment like access gateways and signal boosters.
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* * * * * Events * * * * *
Muniwireless Amsterdam Salon
June 11, 2007
Muniwireless Boston Conference
June 3-5, 2007
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