Something is happening in wireless that was not planned.  Most things in wireless aren't planned, anyway.  A wireless version of a LAN (Local Area Network) is springing up in thousands of places.  It's called "Wi-Fi," for wireless fidelity, and it allows decent speeds (2 Mbps) on a handheld device such as a laptop, PDA or WEB tablet.  This beats the tar out of 2.5G and it will be years before 3G enables these kinds of speeds.

The only problem with Wi-Fi is availability.  A cell phone needs a cell site, but Wi-Fi needs a wireless access point.  These occur wherever someone wants to make them available: airports, larger companies, hotel lobbies, internet cafes and, most important, your residence.  A broadband connection (cable, DSL, T-1, etc.) brings the very fast connection to a wireless access point where the user logs on with a smart card or embedded capability in his/her handheld.  As the graphic with several houses indicates, almost a whole neighborhood could be served from a handful of homes, since the Wi-Fi standard (802.11b) can serve users up to 300 feet from the wireless access point.  This means ubiquitous Internet in residential areas and only a few subscribers need to pay for the services.  This does real violence to a broadband carrier's economic model that assumes 40% of the households in a neighborhood will buy their broadband services.  It is also considered illegal by the broadband carrier.

This is where the unplanned part comes in: cable companies and broadband providers do not intend to sell their services to subscribers who turn around and share access.  But this network sharing is happening between unrelated parties and it's happening faster and more ubiquitously than ever imagined.  Today, someone can go to any first world metropolis and find strange chalk markings on the sidewalk or a building wall.  These markings are the signature of wireless activists who point out "hot spots" or public places where 802.11b is available and free.  The real impact could be in residential neighborhoods where households that get broadband now (early adopters) can share their technology with their neighbors.  This type of relationship can be informal and spontaneous … a real "people's market."

Consider the consequences to most residential neighborhoods where "towers" are just plain not allowed.  A few subscribers to personal wireless services might be able to use a distant tower for voice reception and transmission; but, when 2.5G services are made available, not all of those users will be close enough to the ‘tower" to use its precious – and extremely limited – bandwidth. When 3G services come to the "tower," then there will be so many more subscribers than available bandwidth that distant residential users will be lucky to get access.  So it may not be so much the advantage of availability that favors Wi-Fi in residentially dominant areas, but rather the inherent inability of "towers" to bring 3G services to all of the carrier's subscribers in far-flung areas where demand is greatest … areas of homeowners and digitally oriented renters.

As shown in the graphic with a monopole and antenna arrays, only a few residents (and even that is questionable) get the voice signal when they are in zoned residential areas, but there will only be so much 3G bandwidth to share amongst residential users

The huge tower sends (& receives) a voice signal over a large area

 dependent on towers.  The very advantage that 3G hopes to bring Cellular, PCS and ESMR users – data and Internet connection at home – will be difficult in some neighborhoods and impossible in others.  This will be the perfect pre-condition for Wi-Fi to go where towers aren't, as long as some type of broadband is available.

PlanWireless has discussed towers with its readers for years.  Towers cannot (in most jurisdictions) penetrate residential areas and the only way that carriers are going to penetrate those areas is with low-level sites on utility poles.  The reason is not so much signal strength (although that is a factor), but rather that 2.5G and 3G cell sites cannot serve as many people within a signal strength area. This is because the precious data and Internet bandwidth can only be shared by a limited amount of users and that is why cell sites (call them "microcells" because they will be lower power) will have to be constructed on utility poles that are located in residential areas.

As the drawing with the two short mounts, utility poles will bring the bandwidth into residential areas; but, consider the following:

·            The residential user will still have to subscribe to 3G data and Internet services and those services will be expensive.

·            3G data rates will never reach Wi-Fi data transfer rates, particularly when newer fixed wireless technologies are made available.

·            Megabit dollar for megabit dollar, Wi-Fi will always be a better mode for accessing data and Internet connectivity wirelessly.

So, the utility pole deployment scenario only makes sense where Wi-Fi is not going to be a likely competitor. And PlanWireless doesn't know (and we don't know anyone who does)whether Wi-Fi can connect all the dots it needs to become a major wireless deployment scenario.

Here are some things to consider:

·            Wi-Fi depends on at least limited availability of broadband to people's homes.  The outlook is mixed:  many households won't pay the price and many areas don't have broadband available.

·            Broadband providers are going to move decisively against subscribers sharing the access provided.  The prospect for a favorable outcome for the broadband provider is also mixed;  does FCC care whether a cable company, for example, has a franchise (monopoly within a jurisdiction) and subscribers are sharing their service?  It seems to PlanWireless that the broadband providers would have a better argument for precluding Wi-Fi if there were true competition for the broadband access, and there isn't.

·            Wi-Fi has other built-in problems: its data transfer is highly susceptible to hackers.  At this time, anyone can enter a "hot spot" and have access to a wireless access point's many users if not their files.  Of course, encryption and firewalls offer some protection if you're an enterprise.  But an individual household may not be able to afford such protection and could therefore be vulnerable to hacking.

·            That's not all:  Wi-Fi is essentially a fixed wireless system. As the user moves from one hot spot to another, he/she is not "handed off" as in mobile telephony.  Believe it or not, enterprising wireless companies are working on this.  It will be solved.

While the questions are many, it is clear that Wi-Fi will not be going away.  Perhaps it may be more realistic to predict the convergence of Wi-Fi and personal wireless services. In Japan, vendors are already manufacturing handsets with dual mode capability: Wi-Fi and 3G both accessible by a cell phone!  And, more than a neighborhood phenomenon, we know there are some activists trying to make Wi-FI available on a community-wide basis. For that, they will need "Wi-Max," a powerful broadband wireless signal on top of – can you believe – a "tower."  The "tower" in one part of the town transfers an amplified broadband signal to a user directly or to a shorter "tower" in another part of town.  Any user can bring the signal down with a strong wireless access point in their home and, from there, neighbors can access it.

To learn more, subscribe to the PlanWireless newsletter...

Top of
page

Kreines & Kreines, Inc.
58 Paseo Mirasol, Tiburon, CA 94920
Phone: (415) 435-9214
Fax: (415) 435-1522
e-mail: mail@planwireless.com