Co-ordination vital to wireless adoption
The gulf between the promise of wireless and the reality of incompatible networks and hotspots remains the biggest hindrance to Wi-Fi take-up
The big promise of wireless technology is that it will finally free workers from the tyranny of the office. But there is still a long way to go before wireless working becomes ubiquitous, and many of the barriers to adoption are as familiar as they are depressingly mundane. Take wi-fi. You might access corporate email on a laptop in Costa Coffee on London's Oxford Street, using a service provided by BT Openzone. You have two hours to catch a flight, so you jump in a cab outside bound for Heathrow. You'll lose the connection the minute you leave the premises ð wi-fi coverage is very local. Realistically, the next chance you'll have to catch up on email before take-off will be in the departure lounge. The T4 service at Heathrow is provided by T-Mobile in public spaces and in Starbucks. It not only requires the right software tools to log on to the service, but comes with an entirely different bill and tariff system. And there's the problem: multiple providers, incompatible software, uncoordinated billing and variation in charging mechanisms, not to mention service coverage as parochial as village cricket. You can reach for the user manual or the Nurofen, the choice is yours. Arguably, this is the wi-fi experience today, and it partly explains why the technology has remained fairly niche. Wireless is used mainly by mobile or hot-desking workers who require access to a corporate network in designated communal spaces such as reception areas and conference centres. The technology is basic. Rather than send a signal down a cable, wi-fi uses radio. You simply bolt a wireless router onto an existing network, so it is cheap, too. But price is one thing; coverage is still the major consideration. For analyst Meta Group, blanket coverage cannot come quickly enough. "In 2005, we expect to see 75 per cent of knowledge [white collar] workers being mobile 25 per cent of the time," said Meta analyst Leif-Olof Wallin. The number of laptops in use is increasing rapidly, and companies are likely to encourage their use, seeing them as a reflection of improved productivity. "On a global average, a laptop user will be productive six additional hours per week, compared with someone 'chained' to their desktop," said Wallin. So there is a gap in the market. The question is: what will fill the space? Third-generation (3G) mobile promises salvation, offering to liberate users of corporate networks and the internet with mobile phone levels of coverage. Vodafone has also made sure we all know it is here, although anyone who remembers the telephone number price tag paid by successful bidders at the 3G licence auction will doubtless think such convenience will come at a price. And they're probably not wrong. So are we observing a straight race for the finishing line, with local entrant wi-fi given a head start and international thoroughbred 3G edging past the inside in the final furlong? Not so, according to Meta Group, which regards wi-fi and 3G as complementary and finds agreement on the subject among most other analysts. Using a staple of the Italian diet to illustrate his point, Wallin explains how he envisages wi-fi and 3G will coexist. "Today, the only truly mobile connection in Europe is GPRS. It's like the red sauce on pizza: it covers almost the entire union," he said. "The mushrooms sprinkled on top are the 3G base stations, which you will use to leverage the bandwidth. Dotted around the mushrooms are capers: very small but very tasty. These are the wi-fi hotspots. You will definitely want to use them because, in most cases, it is significantly less expensive and offers many times the bandwidth." Hotspots (wireless access points) are proliferating in public spaces, and industry sources predict there will be 15,000 locations in the UK by the end of this year. So is wi-fi coverage finally becoming ubiquitous? "It would require 10,000 hotspots to cover just one 3G cell," said Wallin. His prediction is that wireless will remain concentrated in areas where people congregate, such as airport lounges, hotels and conference centres. This is where roaming comes in, according to Wallin. The idea is to have one service provider and a single bill. Whether you subscribe to wi-fi, GPRS or 3G, the provider ensures optimised access anywhere and bills accordingly. Hardware devices offering multiple capability are on the way, but for the moment, multiple providers provide very localised coverage, and switching between networks is still a far from seamless process. Frost & Sullivan communications analyst Jan Ten Sythoff sees roaming as a key point as well. "You may have an agreement with a particular provider, but that doesn't mean you can use all the others," he observed. "There has to be agreement between all the providers for the service to be truly useful." Not only are charges seldom integrated at present, but wi-fi suppliers tend to charge daily rates for ad hoc use. This makes it difficult for companies to predict their communications overhead, and has inhibited wi-fi uptake by cost-conscious small businesses. According to Meta, service providers will adopt flat-fee charging arrangements in the future. Rather like broadband access at home, this should make it ideal for budgetary forecasting. Users need convincing, however, so more education is required. Would you know how to log on, for example, if you have found a hotspot? The trick will be to make the experience easy, according to Niall Murphy, chief technology officer at The Cloud, one of the UK's largest providers of hotspots. "Transparency of user experience is essential," he stated. "Users want to open their laptops, double-click an icon and go." Greater awareness will also help, and some big players are already on the case. Intel is marketing the Centrino brand aggressively, with carefully orchestrated lifestyle messages. And laptops have built-in wireless Lan cards as well as energy-efficient processors. The capability is there, now all we need are co-ordinated networks to exploit it.
Reproduced from an article published by vnunet.com
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