Wifi wireless public hotspots are an elusive beast that will never realize their original potential.

My business partner owns a large regional ISP, and has experimented with virtually every wireless internet technology and business model out there – he’s even attempted to sell internet via infrared transmission and lasers (yes, they both exist in commercial form). He’s relentless – mostly because his long-term objective is to bypass the telcos.

However, for most businesses, the public wifi hotspot business is more or less a zero-sum game. People just arent willing to pay too much for it (unless they are frequently captive, such as in an airport terminals or hotels), and cellular data plans just keep getting cheaper and faster.

Last week I was at a conference in Manhattan – an internet conference – and my Sprint Blackberry 8830 tethered to my laptop gave me far better EVDO connectivity than the wifi at the Hilton.

Corante.com interviewed wifi internet business CEDX (who set up wifi on the Hampton Jitney) in 2005 to ask about the feasibility of putting wifi on subways and metro-north commuter trains. This was in response to a 2004 Gotham Gazette article calling for wifi on Metro-North and the LIRR.

Well, its 2008, and we should consider ourselves lucky to have a seat on a metro-north train, much less high-speed internet access (The Corante article mentions something about some mythical $200M MTA ‘rainy-day fund’). Truth be told, it is a very expensive proposition, and as the Corante article mentions, a political nightmare in obtaining the necessary champion within MTA:

“One MTA guy laughed when I asked the question,”Is there anybody in (MTA) that is measured on passenger satisfaction?”"

Although the technology is there – you could, theoretically, buy a turnkey solution black box that sits atop the train and converts 3G (via AT&T HSDPA, Verizon EVDO, or Sprint EVDO) to Wifi – it would require many repeaters for each car, a custom line for clean power to the boxes, and a long-term contract for *special* maintenance to the tops of trains (probably made worse on New Haven Line cars due to the overhead catenary lines). Seriously, even from the outside looking in at Metro-North, it isn’t an appealing expenditure.

But here’s another killer on the New Haven Line: Only the face-to-face seats near the exit doors allow enough forward space to even *open* a notebook computer. Wifi on today’s New Haven Line could never recoup the costs for this single reason alone.

Also, take a long look around any Metro-North train on the morning rush-hour commute. What are people doing? Well, many are sleeping. Many are using their Blackberries – which have become an almost preferred method of handling email for commuters, whether they have a laptop and wifi available or not. Many are reading the paper, or just listening to their iPods.

When I first started riding Metro-North, I really thought wifi on the train would be a great idea. I wondered how everyone kept themselves from getting bored on the ride. But now, after some time, I understand – I am just like them – in the morning, I want to SLEEP. On the way home, I want nothing to do with work, and just want to drink my beer.

Whereas I thought that my fellow riders originally were simply doing stuff *because* they didn’t have wifi, I now realize that they probably aren’t missing it at all.