The Cost of Wireless Technologies?

Now that wireless hotspots are almost as commonplace as corner payphones I see extreme differences in costs for the service. I know that the individual business has control over how much to charge for the service and many factors dictate the cost (location, demand, degree of service, etc..etc). I have seen some locations charge as much as $200 to $300 a year for a subscription and others charge as little as $50.00 a year. My question is, Is wifi an expensive technology or is it just that it is so new that people are willing to pay any cost for it?

All I know is that thanks to improperly configed wifi routers and college kid's apathetic attitude towards WEP I have yet to pay for Internet access in like 2 years.

As for technology cost. No, it is not the expense of the technology which makes rates so high. Its the gulliable masses willing to pay for it.

My favorite is that we have a Starbucks in downtown. Everyone knows the have are a hotspot. We also have a free wifi AP that covers all of downtown which is free. Guess what I see these ppl using.....you guessed it, Starbucks.


/me wishes he had Mommy and Daddy's credit card


hjack

Well figure the costs for yourself.
* The cost of a broadband connection and ISP (approx. $50.00 US for a home user [high end])
* The cost of a wireless router - AP ($49.00 US for a D-Link DI-514 (add $200 US for a higher grade one)
* The cost of licencing on third party authentication software ( ??)
* Buisness license ( probably already covered by existing licenses)
* Some type of liability insurance (add on to existing policy ??)
* Miscellanious costs for setup, configureation, and maintenence (varies with technical expertise of the owner/operator) + misc. software.

I think a small buisness could probably have one up and running for under $2500 US tops and if they were in a good location and drew a good steady crowd, could triple their money in under 6 months, without really trying that hard.

Of course add to the cost by considering they would also have to have a computer to use to run the router and authentication software. But an old system running *nix could do that for them rather cheaply.

I have not read all the posts on this thread but I run a small wireless ISP company and the costs can be a lot higher then you might think we sell service to what is refered to as last mile customers.People that have only one option for internet (dialup) we are able to offer these people a high speed conection at speeds up to 1.5 meg.As a exsample of cost if a customer lives over 6 miles from a access point the cost of just one customer raido is over $800.00 US
ok now say the customer take a 256k connection at $40.00 dollars a month (also keep in mind for a good clean T1 we pay 800.00 a month) you can do the math.Also add the startup cost of a tower and the APs, it takes a long time to see a return on your investment that is off course
if a customer raido or AP say get hit in a strom, equipment can only be protected from certain types of damage having a tornado take out a tower with 25,000.00 dollars worth of equipment can hurt even thought insurance would pay the lions share,repair time is down time and lost income we compensate our customers for down time.Just good business at any rate yes it can be cheap to set up a home wireless net work but when its you life line a D-Link router dont cut, it try Cisco for all head end routers and switches and you are looking at 18 to 25,000.00 dollars for the router alone.
For a good idea what ISP quilty customer equipment costs take a look at proxim or orinoco
or check out
www.ydi.com

Wires,wires,wires and they call it wireless