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Tomizone, where's the vision?

On several occasions (dating back a number of years) I've suggested that there might be a lot of money to be made by setting up a franchised or user-owned WiFi network around the country.

Although several community-based networks have been created during that time, there's been no concerted effort to produce a commercially viable setup which offered to be ubiquitous and functional.

Well it seems that there's now a player who might just be able to create such a critical piece of infrastructure, and they're making lots of noise in NZ right now.

I'm talking about Tomizone, a Kiwi company that seems to have had similar thoughts to my own.

However, they really do seem to be missing the ball.

Their focus seems to be on providing WiFi internet connectivity, which is laudable enough but I don't think it's where the *real* money is.

Let's be honest, the average Tomizone affiliate is only going to earn $2 a day per customer and there really aren't that many folks who wander the streets with WiFi capable devices looking for connectivity.

Some cafes or others in select urban locations may find Tomizone a great way to offset the costs of their broadband connection, but it's not going to make any of them rich.

But wake up guys, there's a goldmine sitting right in front of you and you (apparently) just can't see it.

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If every man and his WiFi-enabled dog downloads and installs a little bit of admin software that turns his wireless card into a publicly accessible node of this network, the coverage would be quite significant and well able to give Telecom/Vodafone a run for their money.

Of course it'd also be necessary to import dual-mode WiFi/cellular mobile phones but these are now becoming readily available at reasonable prices.

I'm also thinking that there's *huge* potential here to create a *new* kind of communications device based on the license-free 2.4GHz band and the plethora of networking/RF products that are now available at an incredibly low price.

Most kids now have mobile phones and make extreme use of SMS - but, despite the various flat-rate TXTing plans offered by cellular providers, it's still an expensive option for anyone on a budget.

Imagine the potential of a device that supports enhanced TXTing, plus voice, MP3, and internet access in a usefully small form-factor but which used the ubiquitous WiFi or other network for access at a much lower cost.

Even better, a device based on the new generation of mesh-enabled ZigBee/802.15.4 devices now hitting the market would open a whole lot of doors.

In a relatively node-dense environment (such as schools or anywhere that numbers of "enabled" people congregate) these devices would operate in a peer-to-peer mode, providing users with a near-zero operating cost.

This is an exciting area and one where even little old NZ could start leading the world -- in much the same way that Nokia has with mobile phone technology.

What's more, given the involvement of some "big money" is already apparent in the Tomizone structure, maybe they'll be the ones with the courage to take this bold step.

What do you think?

Does this WiFi (or Zigbee) based comms network fly?

Is there a chance to create a whole new market for local-area comms by building multi-mode devices that will operate as mesh networks in some situations, and use WiFi connectivity in others?

Is (as I suspect) the market for casual pure WiFi connectivity simply too small for Tomizone to survive in its current form?

Have your say on this...

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