The Hindu Business Line : Sensible tie-up

OFFERING `seamless mobility' has long remained a cherished goal of the mobile/wireless community worldwide. The inability of the mobile industry to honour the promise of providing mobile Internet access "anytime, anywhere" still rankles for most players. On top of that, once the hype surrounding 3G (or third generation mobile technology) was punctured in 2001, the industry has displayed few signs of a respectable recovery. This is not surprising, given the fact that European operators had paid exorbitant sums of over $100 billion for buying spectrum for running 3G networks. And the commercial viability of running the much-touted data services (particularly multimedia services) remains in doubt. Reams and reams of newsprint have been devoted to the 3G fiasco and how competitive pressures almost left the mobile industry gasping for survival.

Even as 3G was tottering on the brink, the attention of the industry shifted to Wi-Fi, another wireless technology which offers high-speed Internet access to digital devices such as laptops or personal digital assistants (PDA) within a few hundred feet of a fixed transmission point. These have rapidly sprung up and spread across homes, offices, universities and Wi-Fi hotspots such as cafes, airports and hotels over the past year or so. But it is important to remember that Wi-Fi capability is limited to `short distances' and analysis also shows that enhancing this to longer distances is not practical and economical. This, obviously, tends to restrict the potential growth of this technology in the long run.

It makes commercial sense

Seen in this backdrop, a recent study titled "Seamless Mobility: The Marriage of 3G and Wi-Fi" by the International Engineering Consortium makes a lot of commercial sense. According to this study, the industry must continue to invest in both Wireless Wide Area Networks (W-WAN) and wireless Local Area Networks (W-LAN) and provide roaming between these networks.

This will ensure that 2.5G (or GPRS - General Packet Radio networks ) or 3G networks offer services across wider areas such as cities or towns while Wi-Fi will cater to users over shorter distances in densely populated areas. Typically, once the 3G networks are up and fully operational, they will cater to e-mail and other multimedia kind of applications of users, while Wi-Fi (through W-LAN networks) may be extensively used for access to corporate intranet and reporting.

4G threat on the horizon

While the plans of 3G and Wi-Fi players are panning out, a new threat to these wireless technologies is looming on the horizon.

Termed as `4G', according to a recent study by Visant Strategies, these are supposed to be IP (Internet protocol)-based cellular systems which are slated to be positioned as lower-cost and high-performance alternatives which will help bypass 3G altogether. It is important to note that this 4G coinage is different from 4G (or fourth generation mobile technology) which is planned as a successor of 3G technology.

In order to capitalise on this technology, about half a dozen wireless vendors are approaching them from two directions. One, in order to counter the growing dominance of Wi-Fi, they are positioning it as a wireless technology which will provide broad-based coverage — overcoming the limitations of narrow coverage provided by Wi-Fi.

Two, to capture the broadband capabilities by improving the speed of downloads for Internet access. As regulators across the globe approve this technology, the strong performance and lower cost of the fledgling 4G system can pose a robust challenge or at least a serious alternative to 3G in the long run.

maverick@thehindu.co.in

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