Just to declare my commercial interests first, my company currently supplies wireless Internet systems at caravan sites, canal marinas and similar sites.
I was recently advised by a friend in the truck industry that quite a few drivers are looking for Internet access at truckstop locations in the UK. A small amount of research seems to indicate that this is the case but that availability of wireless hotspots at truckstops/transport cafes is very limited.
As this appears to be the most widely used drivers forum I would be grateful for any feedback on this issue to see whether it is worth investing in this type of location.
If anyone has questions relating to wireless Internet access I will try my best to answer but it would be best to post on this thread or pm me as I can’t monitor the forum on a regular basis.
For the site administrators I’ve kept this post strictly to genuine market research rather than any form of advertising as I appreciate that would be against the forum rules. If there appears to be a high level of demand I would be quite happy to discuss advertising separately.
scriv
Moved to the PDF to get a higher profile,
and thanks for following the forum rules 
I think that it would be a very worthwhile investment.
I can think of four drivers (myself included) at my depot with Wi-Fi laptops that would use such a service.
We only have twenty vehicles.
We have it already at Alconbury and it’s great! 
Would probably be quite successful.
Only pointer I would make is it would be better to make it available in the Truckstop parking area rather than lug laptops into the reception area.
the main problem with most current wifi spots is you have to be on top (not litalrally) of the said premises,or actually inside.
it would be nice to be able to log on in any old parking slot at these truckstops.
i would say any improvement is good.i hope you get it off the ground if thats what ur after doing.
good luck.
terry
Thanks for moving the post Rikki, wasn’t sure where to put it originally. Interesting response so far especially as Helen at Alconbury was the person who originally spoke to me about this. She’s a keen caravanner and knew of us from that part of our business. As far as I’ve been able to tell so far Alconbury is the only WI-FI truck stop in the country and that’s an internal hotspot that can only be picked up in the cab if you park next to the building. I’d be interested to know of any others?
The feedback that drivers want access in the cabs not the cafe is very helpful as wide area coverage is our speciality.
The WI-FI at Alconbury is free for drivers and the type of installation I’m talking about would charge, although rates would be reasonable compared to competitors and mobile phone access, I wonder what the feeling is about paying for the service and level of cost?
Thanks so far / scriv
Are you talking about drivers paying or the truckstop?
Looking at equipment and connectivity costs, there’s no reason why a £50-£100 per month fee per truckstop is not possible. You’d recoup the hardware costs in three months. The decent ones would absorb that into their costs.
Another alternative is to put in a pence per day charge to the driver. Needs to be something low though like 50p as most drivers are only going to be wanting to use it no more than a few hours at most and they’ll mainly want web, e-mail and IM rather than downloading off P2P so low bandwidth.
Hi Conor
I was talking about what drivers would be prepared to pay for good quality Internet access. The deal with the truckstop is really a different issue and depends how they want to set it up. It’s probably a bit of a silly question for me to ask because most people would rather pay nothing given the choice however being realistic we would obviously not go into a business for no return.
how exactly would we pay for this service, at the truckstop or on a pay as you surf kind of contract with yourself. the wireless i got at home is only £22 per month so it would be intresting to know how much you would charge.
also to pay for it on a monthly basis you would have to have most of the truckstops in the uk signed up to make it worth while as we can’t garentee what part of the country were going to be in. i wouldnt pay for something im only going to use when i stop at say necton which is proberbly once a month
ps was you that guy on dragons den that got the investment?.
jon
jonboy
No it wasn’t me on Dragons Den but the company who got the investment is very similar to our operation. I don’t really want to cross over into the specifics of how we would charge etc as that’s getting a bit close to advertising our service and I was more looking for feedback on levels of acceptable cost. My www link obviously goes througn to our website for anyone who want to check out our standard business model but we adapt our standard service to fit a particular market. I would guess that truckstops would tend to work on a voucher PAYG type system where you can log on and off when you’ve done what you need to and keep the unused time.
Thanks for the ideas / scriv
Scriv its down to one thing at the end of the day and thats money!! as you know truck drivers are without a doubt some of the lowest paid workers in the country , who have to work longer hours to make their money up to a reasonable wage and after paying £15/£20 just to park the truck the last thing they want is more rip off merchants trying to etort them even more.
If you were to let us know what kind of price and package you can offer we might be able to say yes or no, Im sure you know that everything else in MSA’s is a rip off from the £5.99 sausage sandwich to the £15 phone car charger all i say is offer a decent proce and im pretty sure most will be interested.
If i done nights out and you offered something like £10 for a 2 meg unlimited connection I would be quite happy to take you up on it
As for Dragons Den i cant swear on here so i cant say much more all i will say is i would trust Tony Blair more than a certain Dragon!!!.
scriv:
Hi Conor
I was talking about what drivers would be prepared to pay for good quality Internet access. The deal with the truckstop is really a different issue and depends how they want to set it up. It’s probably a bit of a silly question for me to ask because most people would rather pay nothing given the choice
Not a lot is the answer. I reckon at about 50p-£1 per day it’d make it seem worthwhile paying for. Anything less, it might as well be free. Anything more and they won’t bother and the savvy will just go for internet access via 3g packages.
One way of doing it is that when you park up for the night, you’re offered an option for parking as with meals. You can have parking with internet access for an extra £1. The beauty of this is that for drivers who get their parking refunded, it costs them nothing in the long run. Once they start using it, they’ll get used to having it and eventually won’t mind putting their hands in their pocket.
Conor:
scriv:
Hi Conor
I was talking about what drivers would be prepared to pay for good quality Internet access. The deal with the truckstop is really a different issue and depends how they want to set it up. It’s probably a bit of a silly question for me to ask because most people would rather pay nothing given the choiceNot a lot is the answer. I reckon at about 50p-£1 per day it’d make it seem worthwhile paying for. Anything less, it might as well be free. Anything more and they won’t bother and the savvy will just go for internet access via 3g packages.
One way of doing it is that when you park up for the night, you’re offered an option for parking as with meals. You can have parking with internet access for an extra £1. The beauty of this is that for drivers who get their parking refunded, it costs them nothing in the long run. Once they start using it, they’ll get used to having it and eventually won’t mind putting their hands in their pocket.
Thats probably the best idea todate Connor, after all some drivers access the internet for routes etc for the next days work and a couple i know get their work details sent via email so itwould benifit everyone.
I have just got a wirless device that allows other people in a group to use part of my bandwidth free of charge using a special logon code so i’m fully protected and inturn i can log on in alot of places arount the world same way and all for free.
I agree the “included in parking” idea is the best so far. It would probably be possible to get costs down to that sort of level if there was enough usage. I assume you’re talking about the fon network or similar gezt? I’ve been following that one with interest. I’m a little sceptical about how useful it will be with most of the wireless routers in peoples houses but I’m prepared to be convinced. Do you really want someone p2p networking on your bandwidth?
l8r / scriv
scriv:
I agree the “included in parking” idea is the best so far. It would probably be possible to get costs down to that sort of level if there was enough usage. I assume you’re talking about the fon network or similar gezt? I’ve been following that one with interest. I’m a little sceptical about how useful it will be with most of the wireless routers in peoples houses but I’m prepared to be convinced. Do you really want someone p2p networking on your bandwidth?
l8r / scriv
I avnt actually used it yet but if someone uses my bandwidth a little then i can use someone elses the same.This idea you have about wireless and truckstops is a very good one so please don’t give up on It . whilst it may be a little slow on take up but once the word gets out it should take off.great idea good luck
Hi Gez
Sorry didn’t mean to appear to run down the fon idea, as I say I’m following it with interest. There’s certainly some huge investment behind it as they’re effectively giving away routers to create the network.
I won’t be giving up on the Truck Stop idea but I think it needs a different approach to our conventional business which is why I put the original post up. The thing that worries me more than anything is that we’ve so far approached a few major Truck Stops with the idea and suggested we install a system free of charge to test the response. None of them have actually said no but we haven’t exactly had a bite your hand off response! That’s free of charge as in at no cost to them
We had exactly the same problem when we first entered the caravan site market. Plenty of end user demand but a reluctance by site owners to do anything. That’s changed over the last year or so but only due to a big increase in pressure from end users.
Thanks for your contribution / scriv
Maybe it needs a few drivers to keep asking the truckstop management when they gonna get wireless connected and complain when they get a negative answer saying the would use another truckstop with this facility next time. If enough ask perhaps you would get a better response.
That’s the way it happened in the caravan parks but it took a long time for the message to sink in with site owners and there’s still less than 10% of caravan sites with professional wi-fi installations. Gives us plenty to work at
Just a thought but we run a system direct on some railway stations which effectively is £1.50 for as long as you need. We use paypal as the payment gateway on that one which most people are aware of since ebay became big. Once the person disconnects they have to pay again. Works well because people at a station are only there temporarily. I’m thinking a truck stop might be similar. Occasionally we get someone in a nearby block of flats taking the mick but it’s easier enough to monitor and kick them off the network.
Using that system all we need from the site owner is a telephone line and we do the rest. Site doesn’t make out of it but they can tell people they’ve got a decent wi-fi system and it costs them nothing. Trouble is we really need at least 5 logons a day to make it worthwhile.
Had enough for the day, hard work this hotspot business!
l8r / scriv
One possible suggestion, if you can afford the initial investment:
Offer a truckstop a free system for 6 months. You install it there, and you pay for it for the first 6 months (as a “trial” period), so that it’s free for the drivers.
At the end of the 6 months, the truckstop has the option of paying for the service, or discontinuing. Hopefully, they’ll get enough drivers complaining that the service has disappeared that they’ll pay to have it reinstated 
As for payment by paypal (or other similar scheme), as an end-user I’d be very wary about using that sort of system. The relative ease of setting up a fake access point to obtain people’s paypal login info using man-in-the-middle attacks makes it too risky.
I would certainly use it. Again, I think the idea of adding it to the parking fee as an option is the best idea. Good luck with it - hope you get it off the ground. Maybe you could do a poll, or petition type thing to back-up your sales pitch at the truck stops!