| WLAN Hot Spot Access For 3G Ericsson announces strategic partnerships to speed up market take-off for public WLAN. Ericsson chooses Agere and Proxim to jointly develop and supply telecom operators with complete end-to-end solutions for WLAN (Wi-Fi) access, integrating hot spot access with mobile 2G and 3G networks. [thanks, CYBERFROST.net] On the surface this looks like a great idea. But for it to work, we'll need mass shipments of client hardware that supports it. Imagine a new PCMCIA card that does 802.11a+b as well as GSM and/or CDMA with identification and authentication via a standard cellphone SIM. We'd then be able to fire up the laptop and get access anywhere with the software and card choosing the highest speed available. It ought to be possible to choose an appropriate voice channel as well, VoIP if it's available, dropping back to cell if not. But like I said, to do this, we have to have a high installed base of these cards and we also have to have the same sort of roaming and cross charging arrangements that we currently have with cellphone operators. Meanwhile the WLAN industry is churning out .11b and now .11a cards without all this. The operators won't have the same stranglehold over the technology that they enjoyed with cellphones during the 90s. [from: JB Wifi] |
[ << Gartner WLAN stats ] [ 12,647 access points in Manhatten >> ]
[ 02-Nov-02 9:06am ]
