Skyrove Maps (Beta)

Hi folks,

We have finally launched Skyrove Maps. It’s still in Beta, so please forgive some minor bugs and anomylous behaviour.



Please note that less than 10% of Skyrove hotspots are currently shown on the map. We depend on Hotspot Owners providing us with their hotspot coordinates, so it will be a few weeks before all Skyrove hotspots are shown.

It also only works in Firefox for the time being, so if you’re STILL running Internet Explorer head over to www.getfirefox.com and get the faster, more secure internet browser.

Your feedback is always welcome! (Either here, on our forums or by email

Skyrove Pricing Recommendations

I’d like to share with you ways in which you can maximise your Hotspot earnings, while at the same time offering a highly competitive service to Skyrovers.

One of the things we’ve learnt in the last few months is that the most expensive hotspots do not make the most money.

For example, we have 2 hotspots that both cater exclusively for American Exchange students.

Here’s a brief comparison:
Hotspot A Hotspot B
12 users 18 users
~$1005 per month $734 per month
Average user time online: 46 minutes Average user time online: 23 minutes

Although Hotspot A is 4 times cheaper, its earnings are almost 50% higher! Hotspot A is also much more likely to retain customers in the face of ever-growing competition.

The reason for this is simple: Once Internet users perceive the service to be expensive, they start closely monitoring their own usage. If internet access is affordable, users don’t hesitate to download a song from iTunes or having a lengthy chat using Skype. Although they now spend more, they are definitely getting more value for money! They’re also less likley to look for alternatives.

Based on our current experience with hotspots at cafes, hotels and MDUs (Multiple Dwelling Units), we’d like to make the following pricing recommendations:

Cafes/restaurants: 10 - 20 credits per MB
Hotels: 15 - 30 credits per MB
MDUs & Student Accommodation: 5 - 10 credits per MB
(Note that these are recommended prices for South Africa & other countries with similarly high bandwidth costs)

Please experiment with your pricing, perhaps by offering time-limited discounts. Be sure to distribute pamphlets informing users of a price drop. It’s important to find a ’sweet spot’, a price that is low enough to encourage the maximum amount of usage and customer retention while at the same time retaining sufficient profit margins to fund your next Skyrove hotspot!

Changes to Pricing Increments

We had some requests from Hotspot Providers who wanted to set a price somewhere below 10 credits per MB but above 5 credits per MB. Previously, you could only choose 0, 5, 10, 15… and so on.

From now, you can set the price at 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, … up to 20 credits per MB in increments of 1.

1 credit is still equivalent to 1 US cent.

Please leave us some feedback about this or anything else you’d like to see improved in Skyrove!

New Portal Page is Live

Hi folks,

The new portal page has gone live. If you are a Hotspot Provider, you’ll need to log into your account manager and update some settings.

Of course this is an iterative process, so we welcome your feedback for the next iteration of our portal page. Please see our previous post for the main requirements.

We know it’s not as “pretty” as the last one was, but then I prefer Google (simplicity) over Yahoo (bells & whistles).

We’ll keep working on it!

Welcome Page

Hi Folks,

By now you would have noticed a slightly different Welcome page. (The page that shows up whenever a Skyrover clicks on the Connect button on the Portal page. The Portal page being the first page that shows up when someone connects to a hotspot)

The Welcome page is still very new, so doesn’t have half the features we’re looking at. We’re looking to have certain elements of the Welcome page being controlled by the Hotspot Providers. Once again, as with the portal page, there will be certain restrictions as to what is possible. (I.e. no porn, no animated advertisements etc). The purpose of the Welcome page is to provide help to Skyrovers.

As always, we ask for your feedback! You can discuss this topic on our forum at http://www.skyrove.com/community/

New Skyrove Portal

The current Skyrove Hotspot Portal doesn’t look too great. The main reason for this is that it was designed ‘by programmers, for programmers’. This means it was built to be functional, rather than aesthetic.

We place a lot of value on simplicity, but sometimes a simple nature does not imply it will be simple to use or understand. Imagine a computer keyboard with only one button. You could use Morse code to enter data! Very simple, but not really user-friendly.

We’ve started redesigning our Portal page (the first page anyone sees when they connect to a Skyrove Hotspot).

Our requirements are:

1. Must be user-friendly

2. Must be fast to load

3. Must give all pertinent information, but not too much information

4. Skyrove Hotspot Provider must be able to provide their own logos, pictures and some advertising, within limits.

5. Regardless of point 4, there must be a consistent look & feel across all Skyrove hotspots, making it instantly recognizable by Skyrovers.

Here’s what we’ve come up with so far:

Changes to the way we charge for megabytes

When Skyrove started charging for megabytes, instead of for minutes, a lot of people said we were simply overestimating the intellectual capacity of our customers. “No-one understands a megabyte”. Be that as it may, it seems most people have figured out that Skyrove’s prepaid per megabyte billing system is both more convenient and cheaper overall! There are many other reasons for 24/7 access based on per megabyte billing, and I’ll be sure to post about them in another post.
Up till now Skyrove has been charging only for downloaded megabytes. This means that some customers could be running photo servers and the like without Skyrove Providers getting paid for it.

In places where Skyrove Providers pay for bandwidth going up and down, this could lead to significant losses.

By the end of the month Skyrove will be amending the structure so that customers will be paying for both downloads AND uploads.

This will benefit both Providers and Skyrovers. Providers won’t be taking any risk of end users abusing bandwidth, and are therefore expected to drop their prices.

Skyrove Blog

Welcome to Skyrove’s Blog!

Through this blog we’ll keep Skyrovers informed about everything that’s happening! New features, new hotspots, new partnerships etc.

This is mostly a blog about Skyrove, not general news & opinions, but don’t be too surprized if we write something irrelevant (or irreverent)!