Forester are a bunch of publicity-seeking hucksters - that much everyone
can agree with (except perhaps the lurker from forester?)
But I'm conscious that I don't really known what it is that Debi
disagrees with. First, what everyone agrees with:
* Possible role or WLAN as a DSL competitor (remembering that trees
block the signal, so will work much better in some cities than others)
* Role for WLAN in laptop connectivity for business travellers
(personally, I think landlords and existing telcos will be the only ones
making money from this)
* Using WLAN for voice is pointless and impractical.
That leaves the general population, walking around with 'pocket screens'
- call them phones, PDAs or whatever. Personally, given the advance of
Symbian etc and QVGA phones, I think PDAs will be subsumed within the
'smartphone' category anyway.
How do these people use WLAN, and for what? What advantage does it
offer, at what cost? No-one has yet suggested anything that runs on such
a screen that needs more than 3G speeds. The speeds advantage of WLAN,
however much it is, is irrelevant, and invisible to the user of such a
device.
Hence the only reason to use WLAN is to save a few pence on a video
download by walking five minutes to the nearest hotspot (and that's
being very optimistic about how close the nearest hotspot will be).
With all due respect, Debi, my scepticism is not founded by ignorance,
but on doubts as to whether the theoretically possible growth of
hotspots will be matched by reality, and on whether hotspots will offer
anything to consumers to justify the effective abandonment of
spontaneity in their use of mobile services.
I'm not taking a binary position - I've no doubt that HMV will have WLAN
(or Bluetooth) music video download points, for example - I just think
the vision of WLAN crushing telcos is lunacy.
As regards 3G investment, to say that WLAN has affected 3G investment in
Europe or Japan is simply false. Those operators that have money
(Hutchison, Vodafone, TIM, TEM) are building 3G as fast as they can, the
only constraint being the availability of handsets. Those that do not
have money (mmO2, Orange, DT) are coming up with excuses, or lapsing
into late nineties gibberish about 'fixed-mobile integration' -
hahahaha.
-----Original Message-----
From: keitai-l-bounce@appelsiini.net
[mailto:keitai-l-bounce@appelsiini.net] On Behalf Of Philip Sidel
Sent: 26 June 2003 03:46
To: keitai-l@appelsiini.net
Subject: (keitai-l) Re: Wi-Fi
Debi, Giovanni, Benedict,
Does this discussion need to be one technology vs the other? We feel
that
all of these technologies are (or will be) actually complimentary and
will
soon become invisible to the end user. I believe I've posted some of
this
information on prior postings (sorry, I'm not the archive master that
Juergen is) so I apologize for repeating myself.
Three things to consider:
1) Switching between service technologies (PHS, GSM, GPRS, WiFi, 3G,
Soma,
Ultra Wideband, FWA, etc...) is now feasible for select technologies,
and
will likely be for all of them in the near future (see article below
from
Nikkei Net Interactive, May 12th, 2003)
2) Major telecommunications companies (such as NTT Communications) are
already expressing visions of such solutions in which smart devices
simply
find the most appropriate access service -
http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/activity_rep/200211_tf_sum/slides/t
omita.pdf
(please see slide 12)
3) Sources that may be a little more objective than Forrester Research
(ok, I'm not sure if this is truly an accurate statement, but I'll go
out
on a limb with it anyway), such as this article from Wireless Asia, are
also discussing how WiFi and 3G actually should be viewed more as
complimentary than competitive technologies.
http://www.telecomasia.net/telecomasia/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=5782
0
In light of all of this, I would suggest that there will remain to be
hype
and disappointment around promising (and failing) communications
technologies for a very long time. If the very basic vision that I've
outlined above actually comes to pass, then consumers will never need to
care about or consider which access technology they are using. This
whole
debate of a "best" technology becomes moot regardless of which
technologies
dominate during a specific point in time.
The simple challenge in front of all of us on this list then, is to find
compelling business models within this space that actually resonate with
consumers and not to get so heated in our discussions of dominating
technologies, or enamored by their capabilities. The fact is that each
technology has significant advantages and disadvantages, and the true
advantage for end users comes when these are all wedded together. That
seems to be the vision of most telecommunications "visionaries" that
we're
speaking to here in Japan... and the Tanner article in Wireless Asia
seems
to support that as well...
Please educate me a little bit more on this if I've missed a fundamental
point (never out of the realm of possibility), as I have a masters
student
sponsored by one of the leading telecommunications companies in Japan
finalizing his thesis on this very subject. If my suggestions are in
any
way off base I'd like to fix my mistakes before he submits this in
August.
Wireless communication devices to choose own response mode Nikkie
Weekly, May 12, 2003 Government-affiliated Communications Research
Laboratory, known as CRL, has
developed a method that enables a single wireless communications device
to
choose different technologies to transmit data, automatically selecting
the
appropriate one for a given situation.
Currently, wireless communications devices use one of three basic
technologies: cell phone, personal handy-phone system or wireless local
area network. The new technology will enable one terminal to use all
three. CRL aims to commercialize the technology in two to three years.
The new technology is the result of a private-public partnership
including
KDDI Corp. and the Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. group. Cell-phone
and PHS handsets now use specialized networks, but by 2010 the
networks are expected to be merged with the Internet, which includes
wireless LANs, creating the need for terminals that are compatible with
different wireless technologies.
The new technology measures the strength of the signals being received
with
a terminal from base stations and then chooses the appropriate format to
respond in.
Wireless LANs, for example, offer the highest speed. But outside urban
areas, it may be unavailable in places, so the terminal will choose to
operate as a slower cell phone. This will allow the smooth transmission
of
video data anywhere in the nation.
-- Philip
At 02:48 PM 6/25/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>Benedict,
>
>Your first couple of questions are good ones. Please see the reference
>sites that I've provided in previous posts to the list for the answers
>to those questions.
>
>I fear the rest of your post is a result of linear thinking. Your
>convinced that 3G is the solution, because you have believe it until
>now. Your not really taking the time to investigate and consider the
>alternatives. We live in a complex environment and it's likely that a
>number of wireless solutions will exist for different aspects of our
>environment. The one clear impact that Wi-Fi has already had on 3G
>worldwide is in investment. It was thought only a couple of years ago
>that the business market would belong to operators. That compelling
>applications would be funded and built. Wi-Fi and it's associated
>startups have disrupted the flow of capital and that is clearly a
>disruptive and competitive issue for 3G service providers and
>application developers.
>
>Wi-Fi has momentum and to simply deny it's capabilities, competitive
>advantages, and rapid growth won't make it go away.
>
>Realistically, the speeds to expect from Wi-Fi currently are in the 6
>to 10 MB range and that increases significantly with 802.11a and
>802.11g. The user experience of using the same applications one uses
>on wireline networks with the same expectation of broadband throughput
>isn't insignificant to the end user.
>
>As for the voice impact of Wi-Fi, I believe that the operators who want
>to offer "push-to-talk" to enterprises may well feel the sting of
>competition. I don't see Wi-Fi replacing voice communications of the
>cellular/PCS operators. The battle is laid out for data
>communications.
>
>I'm not unaccustomed to being in a minority opinion position. I
>predicted that Palm and Handspring would become one company a year ago.
>Many people disagreed with me then.
>
>...Debi
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Benedict Evans" <ben@ben-evans.com>
>To: <keitai-l@appelsiini.net>
>Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2003 2:31 AM
>Subject: (keitai-l) Re: Forrester: WI-FI is going to crash
>
>
> >
> > I think there are two separate questions here:
> >
> > *What can WiFi really do over wide areas without putting a base
> > station ever few hundred yards?
> >
> > *Would consumers use wifi for anything other than the laptop
> > connectivity ghetto? If not, all due respect, but who cares?
> >
> > The second question depends partly, but only partly, on the first. I
> > can get 64-384Kbits/sec in around 50% of the UK TODAY, with
> > Hutchison's '3' product. That will get better, and wifi will never
> > come close in terms of coverage. So:
> >
> > Under what circumstances will the speed advantage (realistically,
> > wifi might offer up to twice the speed of 3G where available) and
> > cost advantage (if any) cause people to use wifi instead of 3G for
> > anything other than a laptop?
> >
> > It seems to me self-evident that wifi cannot compete with cellular
> > for voice. PHS, a comprehensive, integrated cordless system, has
> > only 5M subscribers, compared with over 50m cellular subscribers. No
> > wifi voice offering would be anything like as good as PHS.
> >
> > -Benedict
>
>This mail was sent to address psidel@iuj.ac.jp
>Need archives? How to unsubscribe? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/
Philip Sidel
Assistant Professor of Marketing
The International University of Japan
Graduate School of International Management
Phone: 81-(0)25-779-1400
Fax: 81-(0)25-779-4443
Email: psidel@iuj.ac.jp
This mail was sent to address ben@ben-evans.com
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Received on Thu Jun 26 13:06:26 2003