KEY POINTS:
Geoff Hunt has been having great fun mucking around on his new iPhone despite one limitation when it comes to using the device in New Zealand.
Without some serious tampering, Apple's sexy new toy doesn't actually work as a cellphone here, and won't do until Apple and Vodafone strike a deal allowing the device to connect to the local GSM cellular network.
But this doesn't faze Hunt, the chief executive of state-owned transmission business Kordia, who has instead connected the iPhone to his company's newly-launched Wi-Fi network, called Kordia Metro Wi-Fi.
Using the iPhone's Wi-Fi connectivity Hunt can access email, surf the web, and even download iTunes. He even hopes to start chatting on it soon by downloading a voice-over-internet application.
"If you think of it [the iPhone] as a Wi-Fi-connected device, and you think of what you use your [Wi-Fi-enabled] laptop for, well, most of it can be done on the iPhone, and it fits in your pocket, unlike a laptop," says Hunt.
Breathing some life into the small number of iPhones trickling into the country is not a core use for Wi-Fi networks like Kordia's but it does provide an example of how there is a growing demand.
Personally, I'd be hamstrung without Wi-Fi. As a Napier-based freelancer who travels regularly to Auckland, I'll typically connect to three or four different Wi-Fi networks during the course of a day's commute. Being able to clear email at airports or at a café between meetings boosts productivity immensely and using Wi-Fi is a cheaper option than connecting over a cellular network.
The downside of Wi-Fi is that connection hot-spots have a limited range, typically about 20m.
Kordia is the latest company to try to overcome that issue, last week launching its new Wi-Fi service which blankets some high pedestrian traffic areas of Auckland (parts of Parnell, Ponsonby, Remuera and Karangahape Rd) and some of Taupo's CBD.
Kordia hopes to expand the service to other centres if it can get the business model to work - something Wi-Fi operators and municipal authorities around the world have been trying to do for some time.
A few years ago municipal authorities in centres such as Philadelphia and San Francisco were falling over themselves in a rush to build city-wide Wi-Fi networks. But the economics have not stacked up and recently Chicago became the first major centre to backtrack on its "free Wi-Fi for all" scheme.
"We don't see that as a sustainable model because, at the end of the day, somebody has to pay, and if it's free you tend to over-consume," says Hunt.
"I think that's the reason why a number of American cities are back-tracking, whereas our model is a user-pays model."
In June, Auckland City Council called for information from technology companies about the viability of a market-led approach to building a city-wide Wi-Fi infrastructure and it is talking to players including Kordia.
The issue was discussed last week during a closed-door session of the council's economic development and sustainable business committee.
Meanwhile, Hunt says much of Taupo's CBD will be covered by Kordia's network soon and there are a couple of reasons why Taupo is a focus for development ahead of others.
Firstly, the Taupo District Council is "ahead of the game in its thinking" and Mayor Clayton Stent has been instrumental in pushing the project.
Kordia's Wi-Fi business model is dependent on councils providing it with access to buildings and street furniture where the company can place its equipment, in return for which it supplies them with access to Wi-Fi bandwidth.
Secondly, being a tourist town, Taupo attracts visitors used to the concept of using Wi-Fi.
Another aspect of Kordia's business model is that it is both wholesaling the Wi-Fi service through several internet service providers and retailing it directly through a website with credit card payments.
Until the Kordia Metro Wi-Fi network's footprint expands significantly beyond its present limited coverage in Auckland and Taupo, it will remain a niche service.
But the fact that a business with Kordia's resources is talking up its plans to take the service national is a good sign that Wi-Fi might eventually reach its potentialin this country.
* simon@businesswriter.co.nz
