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| The four elements that will make Wi-Fi useful |
May 7, 2004 |
By Peter Wolchak
Lately, a lot of attention has been paid to WI-FI, the wireless networking standard otherwise known as 802.11. It’s cool technology: for about $200 you can link a couple of computers in your home without having to lay wires.
On the business side, Wi-Fi is a nice high-tech add-on, but it’s really not much more than that. If you’re a mobile worker, for example, and happen to have a wireless-enabled handheld or notebook computer, and if you happen to be in a coffee shop that’s got a wireless hotspot, you can check e-mail and get some work done.
But that’s two big ifs — hardware and hotspot — and hardly something you can rely on. You can be walking down the street and literally stroll right past a hotspot without knowing it’s there.
Which means Wi-Fi as a current business tool is nice, but not really useful.
But that’s changing. The first change comes courtesy of the big-four wireless carriers: Telus Mobility, Microcell (Fido), Bell Mobility and Rogers Wireless. The group recently signed an inter-carrier agreement that establishes common standards for roaming and interoperability of public Wi-Fi hotspots. Before this agreement, using paid public-access hotspots meant paying upfront and maintaining accounts with different Wi-Fi providers. But with the new plan, which should be fully implemented by the fall, any hotspot installed by any of the big four will use the same browser-based login screen and the access fee will be charged to your existing wireless account. So if you are a Bell Mobility cellular customer, your Wi-Fi access will appear on your monthly Bell bill, even if that particular hotspot runs on the Telus network. The carriers demonstrated this roaming infrastructure at the recent Wi-FiPower 2004 conference in Toronto and the sign-on worked easily and intuitively. Change number two is availability. Wi-Fi is only useful when access sites are plentiful. To that end, the partners plan to have about 500 hotspot locations running across Canada by spring 2005, and they are inviting other providers to join the group.
And then there’s the logo. As trivial as it sounds, the fact that the partners have created a single, consistent logo to identify hotspot locations will be one of the big drivers of success. You don’t want to buy a coffee, find a table, haul out your notebook and wait for it to boot up, only to discover that the café you’re in isn’t online.
Posting simple, consistent signage is change number three.
Change number four is based on that old chicken-and-egg question: is Wi-Fi success driven by the availability of access points or by people acquiring the hardware necessary to tap in to the service? The answer, of course, is both, and increasingly handhelds and notebook computers are shipping with Wi-Fi built in. In the near future, these devices will be able to scan for a network and beep when one is found. Until then, you can accessorize. The pocket-sized WiFi Finder from Kensington Technology, for example, lets you know with one button push if there’s an active Wi-Fi network in the vicinity.
Today, Wi-Fi is a nice convenience. Within a year it will actually be useful. And that’s something to keep in mind the next time your company needs to buy a bunch of new notebook computers or equip its sales force with handhelds.
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