Once the darling of the wireless broadband publicity machine, 802.11-based Wi-Fi technologies have increasingly lost their luster to more appealing opportunities forecast from broader-coverage technologies like WiMAX and OFDM-based services, and even more traditional third-generation cellular technologies. But, despite the dimming attention, most industry observers are not ready to write off Wi-Fi in the face of more highly touted technologies. And in some cases, Wi-Fi is expected to continue to flourish.
“Wi-Fi is here to stay and in fact should continue to see strong growth opportunities over the next several years,” said Dan Lowden, vice president of marketing for wired and wireless broadband provider Wayport Inc. “We definitely see a great opportunity for other technologies, but Wi-Fi remains the favored wireless broadband technology for the foreseeable future.”
Lowden noted that while Wayport is constantly evaluating wireless broadband technologies and even sees great potential for WiMAX-type services, Wi-Fi has a number of significant advantages that likely will ensure its survival.
“Wi-Fi within a location will always offer the highest performance in relation to cost and so will always have the lowest cost to the end user,” Lowden explained, adding that Wi-Fi’s low cost of deployment makes it easy for just about anyone to set up a hot spot. While estimates of total Wi-Fi hot spots in the nation vary, most analysts put the number at between 50,000 and 100,000 locations.
Others noted that Wi-Fi also has the advantage of using unlicensed spectrum, which helps keep the cost of deploying a Wi-Fi hot spot in check.
“You can’t overlook the spectrum position of Wi-Fi,” said Roy Albert, chief technology officer of wired and wireless broadband network provider and aggregator iPass Inc. “Once WiMAX is deployed, it will likely rely on licensed spectrum bands that will limit who can deploy the technology and increase the costs associated with deploying a network.”
Albert cited wireless industry veteran Craig McCaw’s recently launched Clearwire Corp. venture, which uses licensed spectrum and is seen as the initial test bed for high-speed wireless broadband services.
Albert also noted that Wi-Fi has a huge time-to-market advantage compared with other technologies, adding he does not expect WiMAX-like services to be available commercially for several years. In the meantime, Wi-Fi deployments are expected to continue to accelerate.
Both Lowden and Albert also downplayed the competitive nature of cellular-based high-speed data services. While Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS claim they will have broad nationwide coverage by the end of next year using CDMA2000 1x EV-DO technology, Lowden and Albert claim Wi-Fi will provide higher throughput speeds and significant cost advantages to consumers.
“EV-DO will likely cost $80 per month in addition to several hundred dollars for a PC card to access the network,” Albert said. “Companies are already providing unlimited access to Wi-Fi services for as low as $20 per month, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a laptop computer that does not have Wi-Fi built in.”
Albert added that some carriers are already integrating Wi-Fi into their next-generation wireless broadband services and using software solutions to allow the end user to access the most efficient network available.
“Most people would be happy to use Wi-Fi if they can get it, but if it’s not available can fall back to a 3G network,” Albert said.
Wi-Fi is also seen as a superior in-building solution for providing wireless broadband services, as most wide area services are expected to rely on base stations that historically have had problems penetrating most enterprise environments.
“It just makes more sense to provide a wireless broadband signal from the inside-out rather than outside-in,” Lowden said. “Cellular networks have shown the difficulty in providing sufficient coverage into a building.”
Instead of competing against other technologies, some analysts think Wi-Fi will benefit from what the more highly touted services can provide.
“Building off a hot-spot backhaul strategy, technologies like WiMAX will coexist with Wi-Fi and enable carriers to provide extended coverage in cities more economically and provide broader hot-zone access to users,” said Philip Marshall, director of wireless/mobile technologies at the Yankee Group. “This type of service will be combined with wide-area coverage offered by technologies like 3G, TDD-W-CDMA and 802.20, so that subscribers will no longer be confined to coffee-shop hot spots but will be able to access broadband service anywhere within the radius of the hot zone.”
Wayport’s Lowden echoed the backhaul capabilities of WiMAX, noting that despite the continued proliferation of wired broadband availability, WiMAX will help fill in the coverage holes in areas where broadband is still not commonplace.
“In an ideal solution, you could use WiMAX to provide a broadband connection to a location that would support a Wi-Fi connection inside,” Lowden said.
Wi-Fi’s competitive advantage is also expected to continue evolving as higher-speed versions of the standard are introduced. Infrastructure providers are already offering modified versions of the standard that they claim can provide network speeds in excess of 100 megabits per second, while others are working with the yet-to-be-ratified 802.11n standard despite a statement from the Wi-Fi Alliance discouraging companies from using the term until it’s approved.
“Wi-Fi has had some success and has almost become a default technology,” added John Yunker of Byte Level Research. “It’s difficult to change or replace a default technology.”
