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Profile: Is Freerunner founder, Owen Geddes, the Robin Hood of Wi-Fi?
27 Nov 2009 | 17.20 Europe/London
More than 50 free Wi-Fi hotspots are due to be switched on in not-spot areas by a company based around the premise there is more to the technology than fleecing businessmen in airport lounges.
The locations, which include remote Scottish Islands, will be named next week. They won a competition run earlier this year by Freerunner, a business set up by Owen Geddes after leaving BT Openzone and The Cloud. He claims the big guns in Wi-Fi are failing to see how the technology can be used to build a business as well as do some common good.
“I decided that I wanted to do something with Wi-Fi that would make me feel good and want to get out the bed in the morning,” he says.
“So, I founded Freerunner and, don’t get me wrong, it’s a successful business, but it uses some of this success for good.”
Indeed, although Freerunner Wi-Fi is always free to end users at its clients’ locations, the retailers – such as Costa Coffee, Planet Organic and Phones 4 U - pay for the service. This commercial side to the business accounts for around 80% of its hot spots. The remainder tend to be found, like those about to be announced, in charity shops, community centres, churches and mosques.
“We’re very fortunate to have a great relationship with O2 who will provide a fixed link to the location,” Geddes reveals.
“They want mobile devices such as the iPhone to work well without impacting their GSM and 3G networks too much and so Wi-Fi makes a lot of sense for them. Plus, of course, it’s a good thing to be doing.
“With a couple of the 50 new locations we think we might have to go for satellite links because they’re so remote but the service will still be free. There’s a small amount of money to be made by advertising from the page users log in from but it’s not a great deal of money, it’s basically subsidised by our commercial work.”
Business can serve the common good
Although Geddes laughs at any mention of ‘Robin Hood’ associated with Freerunner’s community work, he does, in all seriousness, believe that consumers have been ill-served by the major players.
“Wi-Fi obviously has many benefits and we all think here that you can do some good with that as well as make money,” he says.
“It’s such a shame that most people’s experience of it is being asked for £5 an hour or more. We put forward a proposal to a very well known business which runs multiple locations where business people and travellers congregate and they wouldn’t entertain the idea of free Wi-Fi to end users. We were still going to pay them the going rate but they knew they’d lose their other competing Wi-Fi providers if one were giving it away free.
“It’s a real shame because it means people are just paying way over the odds for their Wi-Fi. We believe you can have a successful business but still do some good with wireless broadband.”
The company is currently in the process of rolling out Wi-Fi hot spots to 500 charity stores, through a project with JustGiving.com and hopes to run another competition next year through which communities can apply to get their own free Wi-Fi hot spot.
The locations, which include remote Scottish Islands, will be named next week. They won a competition run earlier this year by Freerunner, a business set up by Owen Geddes after leaving BT Openzone and The Cloud. He claims the big guns in Wi-Fi are failing to see how the technology can be used to build a business as well as do some common good.
“I decided that I wanted to do something with Wi-Fi that would make me feel good and want to get out the bed in the morning,” he says.
“So, I founded Freerunner and, don’t get me wrong, it’s a successful business, but it uses some of this success for good.”
Indeed, although Freerunner Wi-Fi is always free to end users at its clients’ locations, the retailers – such as Costa Coffee, Planet Organic and Phones 4 U - pay for the service. This commercial side to the business accounts for around 80% of its hot spots. The remainder tend to be found, like those about to be announced, in charity shops, community centres, churches and mosques.
“We’re very fortunate to have a great relationship with O2 who will provide a fixed link to the location,” Geddes reveals.
“They want mobile devices such as the iPhone to work well without impacting their GSM and 3G networks too much and so Wi-Fi makes a lot of sense for them. Plus, of course, it’s a good thing to be doing.
“With a couple of the 50 new locations we think we might have to go for satellite links because they’re so remote but the service will still be free. There’s a small amount of money to be made by advertising from the page users log in from but it’s not a great deal of money, it’s basically subsidised by our commercial work.”
Business can serve the common good
Although Geddes laughs at any mention of ‘Robin Hood’ associated with Freerunner’s community work, he does, in all seriousness, believe that consumers have been ill-served by the major players.
“Wi-Fi obviously has many benefits and we all think here that you can do some good with that as well as make money,” he says.
“It’s such a shame that most people’s experience of it is being asked for £5 an hour or more. We put forward a proposal to a very well known business which runs multiple locations where business people and travellers congregate and they wouldn’t entertain the idea of free Wi-Fi to end users. We were still going to pay them the going rate but they knew they’d lose their other competing Wi-Fi providers if one were giving it away free.
“It’s a real shame because it means people are just paying way over the odds for their Wi-Fi. We believe you can have a successful business but still do some good with wireless broadband.”
The company is currently in the process of rolling out Wi-Fi hot spots to 500 charity stores, through a project with JustGiving.com and hopes to run another competition next year through which communities can apply to get their own free Wi-Fi hot spot.