A change of heart on public wireless hot spots

By Keith Shaw
Network World Mobile Computing Newsletter, 11/04/02

I've had a change of heart on wireless hot spots. As long-time readers of this newsletter know, I have argued in the past that wireless carriers who were setting up third-generation high-speed wireless networks had to worry about public hot spots that were using the IEEE 802.11b wireless LAN standard to achieve high-speed connections to the Internet.

My arguments were based on mobility - that for most heavy-duty data usage, an end user was going to stay put. If the hot spots were at places where most users were doing their work - in hotels, airports or convention centers - then there would be no need for users to use a 3G network.

Some carriers have noticed this effect - witness T-Mobile's move into the wireless hot spot network via its purchase of the MobileStar network. T-Mobile is using the wireless LAN technology in conjunction with its 3G network to provide coverage for its users in all sorts of situations. When you look at a map, for example, the high-density population areas (or high-density user areas) are covered with WLAN technology, and the broader areas are covered with the 3G network.

Now for my change of heart, which happened during my recent trip to Las Vegas for the CTIA Wireless & IT show. This show is slightly different from the CTIA Spring show, which highlights mobile phone technologies (a.k.a. new phones, etc.,). This CTIA show focuses strictly on wireless data. Surprisingly, there was very little discussion of wireless LAN (802.11b) technology, and instead the vendors were pushing the data features of the wide-area wireless networks.

Anyway, I got the chance to speak with some carriers about their thoughts on wireless LANs, and many of them are still on the fence about the technology. It was after talking to some of these carriers that I discovered that my earlier theory had some holes in it. Now, perhaps the carriers don't have to worry so much about wireless LAN technology preventing users from the next-generation networks and services.

The first notion occurred to me when I couldn't get connected to any hot spots in Las Vegas. There was nothing available at my hotel room. On the 23rd floor of Treasure Island, the only connectivity option was a phone line (ugh). Checking the Boingo Wireless application, I found only two other hot spots listed, and they were at different hotels off the strip. Checking the T-Mobile location map (locations.hotspot.t-mobile.com/) didn't help either. None in Las Vegas. Click on some other states, and you'll find them mostly where there's a Starbucks.

I had to walk over to the Sands convention center, where there were plenty of wireless networks available from the vendors at the show (I scanned at least 10 networks at one point), and the press room had a free network courtesy of T-Mobile. But the range was only 1,000 feet, which in Vegas is about the length of one hallway at the convention center. Definitely not close enough to my hotel room.

Granted, I don't think hotels in Las Vegas are too concerned about giving high-speed data services to their guests, for the same reasons there aren't any minibars inside the hotel rooms. They want you downstairs in the casino. But the bigger picture is that this country is too large in size for 802.11b to pose any real threat to wireless carriers, who are still planning to go beyond the current speeds of their wireless networks and shoot for the stratosphere of data rates.

Current 3G speeds, which we are getting a taste of here in the U.S., are the equivalent of dial-up speeds (so 802.11b and broadband still provide better experiences). But when the next jump occurs, watch out. Sprint is estimating that within a few more years, its data speeds will be between 3M bit/sec and 5M bit/sec, which is three times the speed of a T-1 line. At that point, you can kiss 802.11b goodbye (because the wireless LAN still has to be connected to a wired network, which won't surpass T-1 speeds any time soon).

The costs are too much for any company that is expecting on end users for revenue to deploy any type of wireless LAN that has a large coverage area. It will be less expensive in the long run to cover an airport with one cell phone tower with the advanced network than to provide five or six access points all connected to a T-1 on the back end.

There are some other high-speed wireless data technologies on the horizon that may pose a threat to the big wireless carriers (such as those from Flarion and IPWireless); but for the 802.11b hot spot vendors, it's probably going to be a case where they work in conjunction with a wireless carrier (such as the T-Mobile case), which has better experience in dealing with billing issues.

Let me know what you think - send e-mail to kshaw@nww.com, and I'll post some comments in a future newsletter.