Johan Bergendahl, Chief marketing Officer of Sony Ericsson is predicting the apparent end of WiFi hot spots; well what he’s actually saying is that the WiFi hotspot will eventually disappear in favour of mobile broadband.
Bergendhal, speaking at a conference in Stockholm said: “Hot spots at places like Starbucks are becoming the telephone boxes of the broadband era. In a few years, [HSPA] will be as common as Wi-Fi is today.”
Bengendhal reckons the widespread use is ever bringing down the price of mobile broadband subscriptions and a fact that HSPA is being incorporated into many more laptops. Of course it could go another way and entire cities become major WiFi hot spots.
Source – IDG.no
Although HSPA is coming down in price, public Wi-Fi is more often than not free, so economics say people will still go for it occasionally. I see the two systems operating side by side rather than one replacing the other, myself. Also dont forget other wireless technologies such as WiMAX…