When Internet cafés begun it was because few people had home access. But now could they face obsolescence with the impending rollout of Digicel WiMax wireless broadband and its greater mobility and bandwidth?

Not so, say members of what has become a thriving Internet café society in Jamaica.
Yet with the new wireless technology offered by Digicel, enabling users widespread ability to login while on the road, surely the cafés will be left pedestrian by comparison? Feeling lazy you need not leave the safe environment of your air-conditioned car: park, login and surf.

Tara Clivio, photographed at Cannonball Café in Barbican, St Andrew; one of three outlets she co-owns with business partner Wendy Facey. (Photo: Ross Sheil)

Broadly speaking there are two types of Internet Café. The first, more traditional kind, are those equipped with desktop computers catering for those who lack a PC and domestic access. The more upscale establishments, who don't call themselves 'Internet Cafés', began offering wireless access to cater to an increasing population of Internet users equipped with laptops - access is complimentary, just so long as they are prepared to pay prices like $240 for a cappuccino.

But according to one such seller of Blue Mountain coffee costing the price of someone else's lunch, cafés still offer a unique customer experience.
"Absolutely not," replied Tara Clivio, part owner of the chain of three Cannonball Cafés (located in New Kingston, Barbican and Manor Park), when asked if WiMax will cost her custom.

"Customers like our coffee, like our food and they are coming here, opening up their laptops and doing what they need to do," said Clivio of a customer-base that includes creative types, fleet-footed entrepreneurs and bored housewives.
Cannonball chooses not to charge for its wireless Internet, having begun offering the service over two years ago in response to customer demand. They may not make any money from it, but neither do they from the free magazines, newspapers and their book exchange basket - it's all part of an experience to which Jamaicans have become increasingly accustomed, maintained Clivio.

Charging for Internet is not a realistic option, according to Digicel head of Wireless and Broadband Magnus Johannson. "I think Internet cafés are more an opportunity to market like with T-Mobile and their joint venture with Starbucks than a revenue earner. You might just have people sitting there, but ." shrugged Johannson.
'Cheaper' customers might further undermine a café thanks to the open wireless networks they use (some establishments such as the Hilton hotel in New Kingston charge for access to their closed network) by stationing themselves with range of a receiver; or in residential areas, by stealing a signal from a neighbour.

Clivio is used to such behaviour. "One man in New Kingston - not a Jamaican - used to come in and order just one cup of tea and stay for four hours, holding up a table and causing us to turn away other customers. In some instances we reserve the right to charge - we told him and he hasn't come back!"

Digicel's established competitor Cable & Wireless, the first to provide Internet services in Jamaica, has embraced the café concept. C&W services both ends of the market, offering wireless hotspots in eating and drinking establishments and fixed-line access via PC-equipped cyber clubs in poorer less-connected communities such as Grants Pen in St Andrew and Flankers in St James.

"You still have a value proposition with the cafés. If you have a laptop you can access via WiFi (the older but familiar wireless technology offered by C&W and compatible with 'smart' handsets like the iPhone) and if you don't have a computer you are also catered for," said Roger Richards, C&W senior vice-president for business transformation. "Part of it is the connectivity and the other part of it is a community and the atmosphere that it generates."

Nelka Clarke, system administrator at the Grants Pen café, which charges for service, agrees with Richards. Located inside the 'Model Police Station', along with other community amenities, the café will be largely unaffected by WiMax, believes Clarke.
"Remember, we are referring to the inner cities where people may have computers in their homes but mostly cannot afford laptops or Internet access. Others may not understand computers and wireless - what we are talking about - so we will always be able to offer them a service."

Revenue issues aside, Digicel, which plans to package laptops with its WiMax service has no plans to enter the market since cafés do not fit its increasingly mobile vision of Internet service, which next year could extend to offering the same speeds on mobile phones with the release of the first WiMax-enabled models. First it was PCs and now laptops that face obsolescence by increasingly portable and converged technology - your pocket-sized mobile phone.
But in terms of adoption much could depend on whether WiMax, and enabled-mobile phones and laptops can be marketed at an affordable price.

WiMax is yet to prove its reliability to the Jamaican customer, having only just gained approval last week from the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union (ITU). However, Digicel is confident of success following a full rollout in the Cayman Islands, while business customers in Jamaica have been able to subscribe to the service since earlier this year.

Digicel has had business customers sign confidentiality agreements while a doubtless watchful C&W remains non-committal about its future plans for remaining competitive with its wireless Internet offering.

"We are putting together a comprehensive wireless broadband capability together with a mix of markets which we want to be in which may include different technology," said Richards.
That, he added, could include WiMax.

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