Steve Ranger's Notebook: Rabbiting on about wi-fi

Remember telepoint services? Exactly - not many do. But Steve Ranger says there's a lesson to be learned from this failed tech - one that's especially relevant to the wi-fi pioneers.

Ignored by City suits in their morning rush, just inside Tower Hill tube station hangs a small, forgotten piece of telecoms history.

The 'Phonepoint' sign tucked away inside the entrance might not look like much - but it's one of the few reminders left of the forerunners of the mobile phone network.

BT Phonepoint was one of the 'telepoint' telephone services launched in the late 1980s. These services (others include the better-known Rabbit, as well as Mercury Callpoint and Zonephone) allowed subscribers to carry phone handsets with them and make outgoing calls whenever they were within range (around 100 metres) of the transmitter, which you could spot because of a sign like the one below.

Back in the day this was a pretty cool technology, even if the handsets did cost £200 each, a big chunk of change in those days.

And the operators had some quaintly ambitious plans. Back in 1989 Mercury Callpoint promised to install a base station in every - yes, every - town with a population of over 100,000. It also promised base stations at intervals of two to five miles along motorways and trunk roads between major towns, and in main British Rail stations and Little Chef restaurants.

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Sadly none of these services lasted very long before they were replaced with phones that could make - and receive - calls wherever they wanted.

A few of the signs like the one at Tower Hill - shown below - in the City of London remain as tin tombstones.

But there are some interesting parallels between these long-dead tech dinosaurs and the wi-fi services being rolled out today. Both are technologies trying to figure out a business model based around a limited number of access points. Wi-fi even has similar rollout plans - in big towns, railway stations and motorway restaurants.

Wi-fi has the problem of lots of competing services with different pricing models and payments plans. Some locations give wireless away free if you buy a cup of coffee, some charge you by the minute and some hotels will even charge you £50.

This uncertainty isn't going to endear the casual user to wi-fi.

Imagine if you could only make a mobile call from a few areas of a town, and were charged different rates depending on which location you were in - hardly a way of encouraging people to use their phones. But that's pretty much the model we have with wireless internet at the moment.

The spotty coverage is also a big headache - it's fine if you want to surf while sipping a coffee at one particular wi-fi café but what if you want to access email elsewhere? Wi-fi providers should be aware their customers feel as frustrated as the telepoint users when they can only get online from a limited number of areas.

Does this mean today's wi-fi infrastructure is going to be swept away, leaving nothing but a few fading stickers in coffee-shop windows? Probably not, although there might be some consolidation in the market, meaning not all the providers around today are likely to make it.

And of course there is always the risk that some new super-tech will appear and make the whole thing irrelevant, as happened with telepoint services.

So perhaps it is wise to see that little piece of tech archaeology as not just a rusting epitaph but as a warning.

The 'Phonepoint' sign hanging in Tower Hill Tube station in central London