22 May 2002
Pinto's Point: Emerging wireless technologies
By Jim Pinto
By 2004, nearly 800 million people will use mobile devices daily. The market for wireless data communications is far outpacing the voice communications sector. With a nightmare of competing standards and sliding costs, the technology is arriving piecemeal and continues to change at breakneck speeds.
Here are the key wireless technologies that are emerging now and in the short term:
Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity): Plugs in to existing networks and provides Fast Ethernet connections without wires. Wi-Fi PC cards in laptops pick up wireless signals from base stations located wherever needed.
Wi-Fi runs at 2.5 gigahertz (GHz) and offers connection speeds as fast as 11 megabits per second (Mbps). Networking systems based on two different versions of the standard, 802.11a and 802.11g, should roll out in early to mid-2002. The 802.11g standard runs on the same frequency as Wi-Fi but promises speeds up to 54 Mbps; 802.11a offers the same rates and runs at 5GHz. Much of WiFi cost savings come about by not installing cable in every nook and cranny of office buildings.
Bluetooth: This allows devices to communicate at speeds up to 1 Mbps within 30 feet. So, for example, you can check in at a hotel without standing in line or connect to the Internet while you sit in an airplane or the airport lobby (through a Bluetooth-connected base station) or send e-mail from your personal digital assistant using the address book in your laptop or pay for a soft drink with your cell phone.
Bluetooth is still not in the mainstream—it's in a chicken-or-egg dilemma. Few people want to pay a premium for an add-on card until enough other Bluetooth devices come into circulation to make it worthwhile. Bluetooth chips should drop to about $5 by 2003, which should help.
Some problems remain: Even though Bluetooth uses authentication, encryption, and frequency hopping to keep communications secure, the systems aren't yet completely foolproof.
Free-space optics: High-speed Internet and intranet connections for the "last mile," without tearing up the streets to install cables. The technology requires line-of-sight access from a transceiver, situated on the top of a building or inside near a window, to a central hub, which then attaches to a fiber-optic line. The laser beam is usually transmitted hundreds of feet in the air.
More than 70% of U.S. businesses are within 1 mile of fiber-optic lines, yet less than 10% of those have installed a direct connection. Free-space optics allows use of fiber optics and also works well as a wireless LAN for a series of buildings.
2.5G and 3G: High-speed voice and data wireless services. 2.5G is a half generation between today's second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks and tomorrow's third-generation (3G) high-speed cellular communications, equivalent to DSL or cable modems.
The interim 2.5G networks are about 10 times faster than the 14.4 kilobits per second speeds of today's Web phones and wireless modems and offer always-on connections. But 2.5G phones won't simply ramp up to 3G speeds when those become available. And a hodgepodge of standards makes it hard to meet long-term needs without changing equipment, which means delay and additional costs.
Ultimately, speeds equivalent to an office T1 connection will be available at notebook PCs, cell phones, or handheld PCs. Those are just some of the promises of 3G wireless. Look for the first 3G products and services to arrive in the U.S. in 2003.
Wireless technologies to bet your business on
Behind the byline
Jim Pinto is founder of San Diego–based Action Instruments. You can e-mail him at jim@jimpinto.com, or view his writings at www.JimPinto.com.
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