Sifry’s Alerts

News.com’s Ben Charney reports on HereUare’s inability to raise more funding, and it’s openly frank executive team
discussing the sale of the company. Unless a miracle occurs, this
probably spells the end of HereUare (and subsidiary WiFiMetro) from an
investor point-of-view. When you have two weeks of cash left and your
current investors have shut their wallets, you don’t have much leverage
to negotiate with potential buyers. My prediction: expect a sale of
HereUare’s assets, somewhere in the $10-20 million (aka fire sale)
range.

In the end, this is about business models; HereUare’s assumed a strong
thriving market where:

• People were willing to pay for hotspot wireless access


• People wanted to do this from multiple locations (roaming)


• People were willing to pay enough to support multiple revenue shares
  (cafe owner, WISP, HereUare, roaming WISP)

In the end, hotspot access isn’t compelling enough for this large a
value chain, and it will collapse as carriers move in and offer WiFi
public access, probably as part of a mobile voice/data plan. Another
option is that smart location owners will use WiFi as a way to pull
people into their location by offering it for free. Bandwidth will
become a location amenity similar to electricity or bathroom access;
Know anyone selling pay toilets any more?

“WiFi for customer use only”

Related posts:

1. WiFiMetro acquired by Ikano Communications
2. Singapore gets 180,000 square meter hotspot
3. Sputnik releases Control Center 3.0, and hosted service: SputnikNet
4. Sputnik puts new AP in Orbit
5. Dave LaDuke on CBS Marketwatch

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