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The sun is shining only over WLAN-land it seems, with equipment being sold in bulk quantities. More and more WLANs are being installed in public places such as hotels, airports, and burger joints. The mobile operators see the worth of their UMTS licences decline after a mental bidding war. Tough times for the mobile industry who have not been plagued with a competitive environment over here....
To my astonishment the national unemployment office "Arbeitsamt" was present alongside the expected Stepstone and JobPilot job sites. A friendly voice asked me whether I used their job offer system. A "No" answer and pretending to be interested paved the way for a situation that one typically associates with public authorities: You wait for half an hour or more, there is no free terminal during that timme, you leave without a result. That problem did not exist for all the other job sites where surf time had been limited to half an hour or so, what a clever idea. But alas, I fail to understand why a virtual job site pays for a physical booth just to print out job offers and put them on a wall. A cooperation with internet cafe chains would make much more sense...
The industry looks to the end consumer to revitalize the economy. In the current climate, it's difficult to know whether the discussions on higher taxes will stimulate this development. It will be interesting to see where things go this year.
Produced by Michael Claßen
URL: http://www.webreference.com/xml/column78/2.html
Created: Mar 31, 2003
Revised: Mar 31, 2003
