TABLE OF CONTENTS The Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) industry envisions a world where people routinely use high-speed wireless networks to access email, corporate networks, the Web, and more whether they are traveling or going about their daily business in their local neighborhood. For the purpose of this book, the WISP industry encompasses all businesses (for-profit and non-profit) that operate under new, although varied, business models with a common theme: providing publicly available Internet access via Wi-Fi technology.
At the moment, the industry is struggling in its bid to find the right revenue model. As the reader will grow to understand, it will take time for the industry to determine the right revenue models for each segment of the industry. So while there is money to be made with Wi-Fi, there are still issues that need to be resolved. Until then, all within the WISP industry will run into difficulties when it comes to producing a consistent, positive revenue flow.
What exactly is a WISP? The term "wireless Internet service provider" or "WISP" is commonly used to refer to any entity that provides publicly available Internet access via a wireless local area network (WLAN), Wi-Fi or not. However, the term is too all encompassing in that it refers to all service providers in all segments of the WISP industry: individual HotSpots (they provide wireless access to the Internet only from a specific location), the...
