Wide-area wireless broadband targets Wi-Fi

IDG News Service - Sensing an opportunity and a challenge, wide-area mobile broadband service providers and equipment makers are positioning their wireless data technologies as an alternative to Wi-Fi hot spots, with the promise of wider coverage and lower cost to users.
Though Wi-Fi technology has limitations, it has spurred general interest in wireless connectivity and spawned a growing population of multitasking laptop users who can be seen in cafes, airports and hotels around the world, sipping coffee, having business discussions and using downtime to catch up on e-mail. But now that Wi-Fi has piqued user interest in wireless connectivity, it may provide opportunities for alternatives.
"If consumers are given a choice between a service for which they have to find the nearest point and a service that is everywhere, we think the everywhere service will win every time," said Chris Gilbert, CEO of IPWireless Inc. in San Bruno, Calif. IPWireless sells equipment for mobile broadband services that's built around a packet data implementation of Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). "The best analogy I have heard is to pay phones vs. cell phones," Gilbert said.
Wi-Fi was designed as a local-area technology and is not equipped to cover wide areas, support mobility or scale as a carrier-grade network, according to Gilbert. "In urban areas, Wi-Fi covers a few hundred feet, while IPWireless covers about two and a half miles," he said.
The largest cost with Wi-Fi isn't upfront capital expenditure but the ongoing operating expense to backhaul all the access points, according to Gilbert.
Wi-Fi operators have to set up more access points to match broadband wireless coverage and incur large backhaul costs, since each access point has to be connected to T1 lines or Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL). To break even, then, Wi-Fi operators have to generate more revenue from each user than do operators of wide-area, mobile broadband technologies, Gilbert said.
Now, IPWireless' technology is getting a boost as service providers in New Zealand, Germany, Malaysia and the U.S. have announced plans to deploy networks using its products. Other equipment makers for wide-area mobile broadband include Flarion Technologies Inc. in Bedminster, N.J., Navini Networks Inc. in Richardson, Texas, ArrayComm Inc. in San Jose, and Broadstorm Inc. in Bellevue, Wash.
"The benefit of these [wide-area mobile broadband] technologies over Wi-Fi is that you do not have to hunt for a hot spot, and you can get service where there is not a hot spot," said Tole Hart, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc.
While it is true that the burgeoning number of

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