Remembering Rabbit hotspots
Hutchison Rabbit was a wireless pre-mobile phone that only worked at specific locations where the Rabbit sign was displayed. Years ago when I started advising clients about public WiFi hotspot models I referred back to the weaknesses of Rabbit.
What’s striking to me now is how many so-called current mobile services still resemble Rabbit, and like Rabbit they’ll fail unless they’re available to people 24×7. Some examples from the many:
- iPhone applications that only work on WiFi, rather than 24×7 on the mobile/cellular network (e.g. Slingplayer, Skype, Pandora, etc.). I can’t see this model lasting.
- Handheld games consoles that rely on WiFi for connections and expect their users to search for the right location to go online. Effectively no one is going to bother, except at home.
- WiMAX networks that don’t have national coverage.
- Muni WiFi where the coverage is great in urban centres outdoors, but the signal doesn’t reach reliably into buildings where people are actually sitting.
- Cloud based services that aren’t available when there’s no Internet connection, e.g. Google Docs, the new Office Live.
The following advertising was inside a 1993 motorway guide book I found recently in a friend’s car:
(Click on an image to zoom in to read the text, it’s rather wonderful with the hindsight of just 16 years)
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I vaguely recall reading about telephone-box-like installations where you could use these things. I recall none where I lived. Are there derelict ones, like the lopsided payphones of long-dead BT competitors?
Ben Locker
August 11, 2009 at 10:06 pm
I think the problem was that the things were mis-marketed. They should have been considered a coin-phone replacement – no incoming calls, use only from specific locations, cost about the same – because on that model they were actually quite useful (no queueing, no worries about vandalism, no looking for change). What they were not was a full-blown mobile telephone, and to be fair the pricing did reflect that.
Ben – AFAIR the Rabbit base stations were mounted inside shops and such like (and a few Underground stations) – the antenna was a 6″ or so wedge-shaped box with the Rabbit logo, visible at the bottom right corner of Ian’s photos.
RogerBW
August 12, 2009 at 7:29 am
I haven’t checked lately, but there was still a Rabbit sign/base station up inside Brighton station a couple of years ago – just inside the ticket office.
Ian Betteridge
August 13, 2009 at 10:21 am
And in fact, here’s a picture:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37996585435@N01/224830242
Ian Betteridge
August 13, 2009 at 10:22 am
Outstanding. I wonder if there is any working electronics still there too?
I did love the way the copy on that advert I posted listed “British made” as a selling point.
Ian Fogg
August 13, 2009 at 11:44 pm
i remember seeing the logo on vans at various open air events as a kid. anyone know where there are anymore of these signs? better than trainspotting!
Tim Latter
February 25, 2010 at 8:37 am