Net Results:Wifi the way it should be in hotels and airports - that's what you get in Las Vegas. That means free, at least in public access areas, writes Karlin Lillington.
I am fresh from four days in Sin City where the ridiculously enormous Venetian Hotel (there are more than 4,000 rooms) supplied free wireless internet access all over the place - in lobbies, around the casino, out in the pool area. I could even get an occasional signal in my hotel room 20 floors up, though if I wished to pay, it was a quite reasonable $9.99 a day.
OK, I know what you are thinking. What sad soul would care to be logging on when there are dice to be thrown, cards to be inscrutably scrutinised, one-armed bandits to pull? Not to mention the shows, and the Venetian even boasts Vegas's one gesture towards culture - a small branch of the Guggenheim Museum of Art (closed for an installation while I was there, unfortunately).
Plenty of them, it seems, when a hotel can sleep a few thousand people and a good number of those are packing it out for a technology conference (Las Vegas and big technology events go way back, to 1978 for the now defunct Comdex and also the huge annual Consumer Electronics Show). There were people sitting at computer screens out by the pool, in the comfy lounge areas, even - gasp - right next to the gaming tables.
Frequently, I am fully prepared to admit, one of them was me.
Out at the wonderfully friendly McCaren Airport, where service staff actually seem genuinely delighted that you are there, wifi is also free. With an airport full of slot machines, perhaps there's plenty of spare cash to underwrite this basic service, but it's a very nice gesture. Would that more places in Ireland offered basic access as a free service.
From Vegas it was on to Silicon Valley for a few days, where there's palpable excitement building towards Apple's iPhone launch next week. While critics have cast a cold eye on its lack of a keypad, shortish battery life and high price ($500 or $600 for two models), prospective buyers do not seem much bothered by any of these things.
A survey of 11,060 people by market research firm M:Metrics indicates almost two-thirds of its survey sample know about the iPhone and 14 per cent expressed a strong interest in buying one. The company estimates that's a potential market of an astonishing 19 million Americans for iPhone's initial launch (Europe must wait until the end of the year).
That's not just the ultra-geeks or the well-heeled, either. Strongest interest in the device comes from iPod generation 18-24-year-olds (with 31 per cent saying they'd like to buy one), and over a quarter of 25-34-year-olds would be tempted, too. So would 18 per cent of those with annual incomes under $25,000.
That's a broad iPhone church. M:Metrics feels the phone's potential popularity is such that the exclusive iPhone distribution and connectivity deal Apple struck with telecoms carrier AT&T will pull subscribers from rival carriers over to AT&T. Apple has said it hopes to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008, which perhaps isn't looking overly optimistic any more.
Meanwhile, we still know little about Apple's European plans. The M:Metrics survey indicates there's a 56 per cent public recognition level of the phone in Britain where it has hardly even been advertised, which may bode well or may just indicate the story was done to death back at the phone's January unveiling.
Behind the scenes it is known there's been a scuffle among mobile carriers to get the European distribution deal with Apple. Days ago, I sat at dinner with a senior London-based technology executive who had been talking informally to Apple chief executive Steve Jobs fairly recently, and he said Jobs, in brain-picking mood, asked him which carrier he thought he should go with.
So it appears this has yet to be decided. All to play for, for the European carriers who no doubt would love not just the Apple association but the high-value data download revenue stream that will come from those using these high-end devices.
On a more sombre note, many Valley nerves are on edge following the start on Monday of the first big trial of a Valley executive in the share options backdating scandal that has allegedly engulfed executives at 257 companies.
About 50 Valley companies are among those accused of backdating awards of stock options to financially benefit executives and employees. Valley talk is that generally this was a common practice in the dotcom era and mostly was never intended to mislead; US government prosecutors hope a federal courtroom may feel otherwise.
blog: www.techno-culture.com
