It seems to me that to speak of Wi-Fi in terms of hotspots and WLAN alone is
fairly simplistic. Yes, roaming is important and my belief is that roaming
for Wi-Fi will become a realty long before I can travel to all locations in
the US and have my cell phone work regardless of what carrier owns the
closest tower.
The initiatives in the US of companies like Vivato (expands Wi-Fi coverage
to a cellular footprint) and Cometa (ATT, IBM, Intel) means that coverage
issues in population centers will be much cheaper to deliver than leasing
real estate and constructing huge towers as is required to deploy cellular
networks. Further, as Wi-Fi is analogous to ethernet specialized switching
and data centers aren't required.
Further, many individuals around the world are deploying Wi-Fi on their own
which is huge potential for the network. In my home I have DSL service. I
don't need a network technician to deploy and operate my ethernet network to
connect devices. I buy a cable, a hub or router and viola! I have a
network. If I chose to share the costs and capability with a neighbor, we
could drag a cable between us without any technical assistance and extend my
network to my neighbor. Wi-Fi as wireless ethernet is being shared this way
today. As additional standards are released for roaming, security, AAA, and
etc., those issues will be resolved.
About a year ago, I did some research into the cost of covering the UK with
3G including cost of licenses, tower construction and infrastructure. I did
not include the direct costs to users such as devices and applications. To
deploy 3G in the UK it would cost $687 per population head. Of course many
of the population wouldn't be consumers of the technology for some time as
they are still in diapers. :-) While I haven't yet completed the same
analysis for Wi-Fi, my instincts tell me there is a huge difference. No
licenses, real estate leases, or tower construction would be required for
covering the country with Wi-Fi.
...Debi
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dirk Rösler" <dirkREMOVE@tkm.att.ne.jp>
To: <keitai-l@appelsiini.net>
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 7:12 PM
Subject: (keitai-l) Re: Forrester: WI-FI is going to crash
>
>
> Surely the most important thing is that someone can make money out of
> it. In my opinion this is the gist of the report.
>
> 802.11 is WLAN. Hot spots are sort of a wannabe wireless WAN made out
> of bits designed for other purposes. Yes, 802.11 is cheap... in itself.
> Add user management, billing, core network backhaul costs, roaming,
> security and more... basically all the stuff that wasn't included by
> design and it's no longer cheap, and still is far from ubiquitous.
>
> Thus a real wireless WAN has a real chance.
>
> Dirk
>
> On Sunday, Jun 22, 2003, at 08:04 Asia/Tokyo, Aoun Shamsi wrote:
>
> > What is the point? Surely the most important thing is the delivery of
> > data regardless of the technology and all the problems that surround
> > it.
> > Users don't care if it's WiFi or 3G, they don't care if it's Bluetooth
> > or Bubblegum - users want things to work! They want their data when
> > they
> > want it and on the device they are using.
>
>
> This mail was sent to address djones@wireless-one.org
> Need archives? How to unsubscribe? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/
>
Received on Tue Jun 24 08:17:22 2003