Analysing the Disruptive Potential of WLAN: Empirical Evidence from the German Hotspot Market

The disruptive potential of WLAN technologies is further explored in an empirical study of the German hotspot market 2003-2006. The main proposition to be checked – whether WLAN has disruptive potential for MNOs or not, suggested by Hüsig et al. (2003, 2005) or Christensen et al. (2004) – is analysed using market and firm data from the hotspot market in Germany 2003-2006. The results of our study suggest that the incumbent MNOs have taken advantage of the opportunity provided by the WLAN technologies and the hotspot market, and dominate in Germany. Therefore, we categorise the WLAN technologies as radical sustaining technologies based on the disruptive technology theory (Christensen 1997; Christensen and Raynor 2003). These findings have significant theoretical and practical implications for the efforts to improve the applicability of the disruptive technology theory and attempts to develop forecasting frameworks based on this theory. Analysing the Disruptive Potential of WLAN: Empirical Evidence from the German Hotspot Market