Wi-fi signals big change for mobiles

“There’s a lot of wi-fi around,” said James Tagg, founder of Truphone, which lets people makes calls via wi-fi using voice over internet protocol (Voip).

“There are two to three million hotspots in the UK and there’s almost no office that does not have one,” he said.

The most optimistic estimate of GLOBAL *publicly-accessable* (paid or free) WiFi hotspots by 2010 amounts to the same land area as the Isle of Man, or Jersey, or somewhere else really small.

That is, assuming an average coverage per AP of 50m x 50m – sure, airports/universities have more, but most cafe’s or FON-type spots have an awful lot less. No-one wants to stand in the rain to use a laptop or in a noisy cafe or quiet library to make a mobile call.

” they do not have the job of building and paying for a national network to carry their calls”

…and you wonder why operators block the functionality on handsets they have subsidised totally?

“Instead,” said Mr Tagg, “municipal governments are doing it for us.”

No, they are doing a half-arsed paper-thin coverage/capacity rollout. See the woes of Portland, Oregon and San-Francisco for the low-down on the reality of Minu-Fi.

“As hotspots get linked up into mesh networks that offer blanket coverage they create a rival to the 3G networks currently in existence. ”

Utter bollocks. Mesh networking at 802.11x speeds just doesn’t scale. At all. Get 2-3 nodes in and you are down to a trickle.

“Mobile operators are very good at secluding the market for themselves,”

Funny that, given they paid for:

The spectrum
The handsets
The basestations
The backhaul
The customer support

hmmmm…’the market’ is actually THEIR market. WiFi providers have absolutely no moral or legal right to any part of it, unless they want to pony up some cash too.

“Presence, which lets people know when friends are online, combined with instant messaging or social network type services could prove a draw, she said. ”

What? like MNO’s aren’t doing presence, IM, or social networking? HELLO? are you awake? And are the WiFi providers going to do their own optimised-for-mobile devices IM/Presence/SN apps/clients? Symbian sign them? Like hell. Maybe they expect consumers to lug laptops everywhere.

“Established mobile operators, she said, were unlikely to let new operators cherry pick customers. Instead, she said, they could profile customers and target those most likely to use Voip via wi-fi with their own-brand services. ”

Duh.

The reality is that WiFi had a window 3-4 years back and blew it, but being utterly fragmented and overpriced. 3G has caught up, and will in the next few years rapidly outpace WiFi in terms of cost and speed.

Plus WiFi has MASSIVE security and interferance issues. Anyone trying to use WiFi at a conference knows what you get with more than a few hotspots in proximity.

MNO’s offer ‘Carrier-Grade’ coverage, speed, service & security, now at a very, very low price. Evidence: Three – £20 for loads of voice, text (WiFi don’t do SMS!) and flat-rate HSDPA data at MBps speeds. WiFi offers a very mediocre experience, unless it’s YOUR OWN hotspot (then it’s fab).

Plus you can’t get or make the call/email/IM unless you are in a hotspot. Mobile prices are now so low that the idea of users going back to 1985 and the Rabbit phone system of behaviour is just laughable.

The WiFi-beats-3G-emperor has no clothes – just like the WiMax one.

Sound off you VC-hungry snakeoilers…..