Alde’s Stuff

Ok, so most people have never heard of Wayport, and that’s understandable. When you’re the “Leading provider of highspeed wired and wireless internet access to the business traveler and McDonalds,” not many people will have seen the 0 TV ads or the very few radio commercials run.

Quietly, Wayport endured the Dot-Com bubble, and is generating not just EBITDA positive cash flow, but actual real profit.

You’re thinking, “Ok, why would almighty god of Technology Google want with a network provider to hotels and McDonalds?” It’s really one word… Just one word: Patents.

“Huh?”

Using Google’s own patent search, searching for Wayport, a list of obtuse patents is displayed.

The first patent that is key is Patent# 6326918, which lays down the groundwork for Geographic-based advertising in a wireless environment, which Google and San Francisco seem to have talked about before.

But it doesn’t end there. Throw in the other key patent, 6732176, which in essence patents the “Vendor Neutral” municipal WiFi environment that Earthlink is trying to do with Vonage and Google, and basically any Muni-Fi network in which the Muni is not the only ISP on the network.

And should the Muni try to sell WiFi access to Hotels with interactive ads, you can bank on Patent# 6604087 being leveraged to provide hotel-based ads.

Other than the patents, Wayport is the US’s largest WiFi hotspot provider. There’s already over 6,000 McDonald’s with Wayport WiFi access. Even if T-Mobile had every Starbucks wired, that’s still less than 5200 in the US.

So, there’s already a build WiFi infrastructure, intellectual property that basically covers everything Google wants to do in the WiFi market, and the know how of running a profitable WiFi venture. I’m not sure it’s a matter of if, but one of when?

(Disclosure: The Author owns shares of Wayport.)