3 ms·

I have several colleagues in the retail industry talking about free Wi-Fi being "the next big thing" and several major chains are only just jumping on board. I'

I have several colleagues in the retail industry talking about free Wi-Fi being "the next big thing" and several major chains are only just jumping on board. I'm incredibly confused by it - we've reached a point where everyone has a mobile device with 4G at better speeds than the 1MB DSL service shared across 20 patrons. I would have sworn from a technology point of view, that buying a bunch of APs to offer free Internet in your café would be a dying trend.

SyneRyder 11y ago
The retail stores aren't really interested in the free WiFi - they're more interested in the silent tracking of customers that comes with the access points, even if the customers never actually connect. Think Google Analytics for brick & mortar retail, and being able to track location & frequency of individual customers in stores.