There has been a lot written in the press and the blogosphere the past few days about the Junxion Box. This is a device that utilizes a high-speed, 3G wireless data connection for a backhaul connection to the Internet and Wi-Fi for a wireless local area connection with multiple PCs. It’s like a wireless router that has no need for the DSL or cable connection. According to the New York Times Verizon is not happy about this. Just as with municipal Wi-Fi, Verizon have this one wrong, too.
The folks at Verizon Wireless seem concerned that customers who choose their $80 all-you-can-eat EV-DO wireless data plan are going to set up Junxion boxes to share with the entire neighborhood. There is a concern that this will eat into their wireless data revenues by allowing customers to share and overload their connections. There is also likely some concern that neighborhoods could use this box to share these connections and forgo buying DSL. This quote seems to suggest that fear:
“The premise is one person buys an air card and one person uses the service, not an entire neighborhood,” said Jeffrey Nelson, executive director for corporate communications at Verizon Wireless. “Giving things away for free doesn’t work anymore. It never did.”
These stated concerns ignore two very important realities:
- The real value of the EV-DO data plan is for customers on the move. These are the customers who are going to pay a premium for this service.
- Customers can already share DSL and cable Internet connections with their neighbors using Wi-Fi. These connections offer much faster throughput than EV-DO at a much lower cost. People aren’t going to forgo their own cable or DSL connection based on an EV-Do backhaul than they would today based on a shared cable or DSL connection.
Just as they do when articulating opposition to municipal Wi-Fi, Verizon are underestimating the value of their DSL service. They’re also underestimating the true value of their EV-DO service.
The really great thing about devices like the Junxion Box is the ability to create an instant hot spot in locations where otherwise no broadband service would be available. This won’t give laptop users a full equivalent to a connection with fixed backhaul, but will be good enough for checking e-mail and basic web browsing. Considering the interest from business customers for instant hotspots at conferences, meetings and other locations as well as in buses and other modes of transportation, Verizon Wireless should embrace this device in the same way that Cingular appear to be.
Considering the problems carriers are having getting customers to sign up to their premium data plans, they need to be able to offer functionality such as this. Then maybe they’ll actually get some revenue coming in for those high-speed data networks they spent billions to build.
