Global Trend

The Battle for Wireless Technology Dominance Gets Serious

A broadband connection has become more and more essential to every aspect of our lives, whether at work, or at home, or on the road. People are becoming so dependent on it that the next obvious step is to have a wireless connection everywhere. And that’s what we’ve been promised for some time now.

Intel has been touting its WiMax connection with the slogan, “Connecting the next billion people.” The idea was that with its high-speed, long-distance antennas, it could create vast hot spots covering entire cities or even nations.

The problem is, WiMax hasn’t happened. And a report in The Economist says it might not happen until 2010 at the earliest. The problems abound. The technology seems to have trouble communicating with all the different types of hardware that end users have. And it hasn’t come close to reaching the promised speeds, either.

While Intel struggles to launch WiMax, competitors have seized the market, jumping on the opportunity to forge a standard that will be difficult for Intel and its partners to dislodge once it gets established. The idea is simple in theory: The cell phone networks already exist. Why not use them for broadband wireless?

T-Mobile recently announced that it’s doing just that in the Czech Republic, using IPWireless, which is already installed in Germany, England, and New Zealand. Netcom Africa is taking the same approach in Nigeria. This is especially important in countries that don’t have an installed wired infrastructure.

Qualcomm recently entered the game by purchasing Flarion, which owns a rival technology and plans to install it in Finland. Qualcomm’s own technology is the basis of third-generation, or 3G, mobile phones. Both IPWireless and Flarion plan to use their mobile phone technology for wide-area, works-anywhere coverage for Internet access.

Qualcomm’s 3G mobile phone technology was installed in Europe but didn’t work as expected. The company’s plans to use it to deliver broadband wireless failed when it couldn’t achieve the necessary speeds. The hope is that Flarion will deliver where 3G didn’t.

Curiously, Intel encouraged these competitive moves by hyping WiMax so energetically. Mobile phone technologists woke up to the drum beat of WiMax and reasoned that they could do it cheaper, better, and faster. As they looked more closely at WiMax, they realized that even when it does become available, it will initially be available only in certain locations. The WiMax antennas will be installed outside of houses or office buildings for local use only.

This competitive opportunity has already touched off a wave of new offerings in the U.S. Verizon, in a joint venture with Vodafone, began offering broadband Internet service with a technology known as “evolution data optimized,” or EV-DO, in San Diego and Washington, D.C. in October of 2003. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, it now offers the EV-DO service in 43 markets.

Meanwhile, the San Jose Mercury News reports that Verizon plans to turn the entire San Francisco Bay Area into one big Wi-Fi hot spot. In response, Cingular Wireless has stepped in with a different technology to offer its service in six cities so far, with ambitious expansion plans.

So, not only are various companies competing for wireless airspace, but numerous conflicting technologies are competing to become the standard. Cisco entered the fray by introducing a Wi-Fi service called LinkSys, along with air cards for notebook computers. It recently bought a company called Airespace for its expertise in mesh networks, which may emerge as the front-running technology.4

The public was first widely introduced to mesh networks in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. When the landlines and cell phones wouldn’t work, a mesh network was quickly constructed to help in the emergency response. Because of its resiliency, mesh networks are going up in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Dayton, Ohio.

In light of this trend, we offer the five following forecasts for your consideration:

First, in the next five years, there will be a free-for-all of companies competing to establish the largest wireless broadband footprint, much as they did when cell phones first became popular. The winners will include existing mobile technology companies that can use today’s infrastructure with a few modifications and deliver acceptable service.

Second, during that same time frame, after-market wireless cards will appear, and they will allow any device to gain access to wireless networks. Intel’s Centrino chip, which is installed in most new laptop PCs, already searches for a wireless network when it’s turned on. A huge market for wireless adaptations will emerge. Companies that sell them will come and go, as they fail or get bought out.

Third, mesh networks will spread because of their ease of installation, reliability, and concerns that communications will be available during a disaster. They won’t replace Wi-Fi, but will exist side-by-side with it. They may provide wireless connectivity as a free public utility, as they already do in many places. As they become more widely used, the worldwide market for mesh products will climb from $116 million today to between $400 million and $900 million by 2009, according to Cisco’s projections. By the start of the next decade, the market will be worth $1.3 billion, according to ABI Research.

Fourth, through 2015 there will be plenty of room for all competitors, including WiMax. With Intel’s muscle behind it, WiMax won’t simply fade away. But, because of the wide range of regulatory schemes across the globe, as well as the various technologies, wireless broadband will be much like cell phone networks today: A device that works in Japan may not work in New York.

Fifth, as the technology matures beyond the 10-year time horizon, companies will converge on a common standard. At the same time, devices will converge. Your handset will automatically switch seamlessly from network to network, depending on where you are and what’s available. You’ll be able to check phone and e-mail messages, watch a movie or enter a virtual environment, all on the same device. Tiny localized retail hot spots like those at Starbucks will disappear, because the entire planet will become one giant hot spot.

References List :
1. The Economist, August 18, 2005 “Why Wait for WiMax?” ⓒ Copyright 2005 by The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. 2. Chicago Sun-Times, July 8, 2005, “Sprint to Offer Wireless Broadband,” by Bill Draper. ⓒ Copyright 2005 by the Chicago Sun-Times. All rights reserved. 3. San Jose Mercury News, June 27, 2005, “Verizon Lets Loose Wireless Broadband,” by Sam Diaz. ⓒ Copyright 2005 by San Jose Mercury News. All rights reserved. 4. Bangkok Post, December 21, 2005, “Coming to a Computer Near You: Wireless Broadband,” by Tony Waltham. ⓒ Copyright 2005 Post Publishing Public Company Limited. All rights reserved.