Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Technology now being tested could integrate cellular and Wi-Fi networks

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 19:18:22 -0400

Technology now being tested could integrate cellular and Wi-Fi networks

By Nancy Gohring
Special to The Seattle Times

The union of two big wireless technologies — cellular networks and Wi-Fi — isn't really a
match made in heaven. It's more of
an arranged marriage, where the matchmakers aren't exactly sure if the pairing will last
or yield happiness.

Yet supporters are moving ahead, developing technologies to enable the integration of the
two.

The latest chapter in the success story of Wi-Fi, the technology that lets computer users
wirelessly connect to the Internet within
a few hundred feet of an access point, is a trend toward combining Wi-Fi's small-area
networks with the wide-area cellular
networks. While some benefits of the integration are clear — customers could get a single
bill for using both services — other
possible payoffs are a bit murky.

The ultimate vision involves a single handheld device that allows users to send and
receive data files and make telephone calls
regardless of which network is in range.

Picture it. With a handheld device like a Palm that's also a phone, you could walk down
the street chatting with a friend. As you
stroll into a building and through a few corridors to a cafe deep inside, instead of
losing the signal and your conversation, the
Palm automatically transfers the call onto the cafe's Wi-Fi network. You wouldn't even
notice.

Some of the big wireless carriers, including Bellevue-based T-Mobile and AT&T Wireless of
Redmond, have begun working
on Wi-Fi and cellular integration. By this summer, T-Mobile plans to allow customers to
receive a single bill for cellphone
service plus the use of T-Mobile's 2,300 Wi-Fi hot spots, available in Starbucks coffee
shops, Borders Books and Music
stores, and soon Kinko's.

Ultimately, T-Mobile envisions a service that would automatically choose the best network
for each activity. For example, if a
user wants to download a large PowerPoint file on a laptop, the service would determine
that a high-speed Wi-Fi network is
the best channel, if one is in reach.

Other benefits of integration may be rooted in the reasons why some carriers are branching
out into Wi-Fi in the first place.

"It comes at a nice time, when they're rolling out 2.5G networks that aren't really robust
yet for data," said Roberta Wiggins,
director of wireless mobile services at the Yankee Group, a Boston research company.
"Wi-Fi makes up for the lack of
satisfaction with data on 1X and GPRS networks."

What Wiggins was referring to are recent upgrades AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless and the
other carriers have made to
handle increased transmission speed and data. Called 2.5G, for the second-and-a-half
generation of wireless technology, it can
deliver data over cellphone systems at roughly the rate of a conventional dial-up modem.
Two of the competing high-speed
technologies are 1XRTT, offered by Sprint PCS and Verizon Wireless, and GPRS, available
from T-Mobile and AT&T
Wireless.

Where 2.5G networks approximate dial-up speeds, Wi-Fi can reach immensely higher speeds of
11 megabits per second or
more, supplementing the slower networks.

With the competitive landscape unfolding, integration activity has been significant this
year. T-Mobile recently announced a deal
with Santa Monica, Calif.-based Boingo Wireless, a company that facilitates access to
Wi-Fi hotspots, points at which laptop
users can connect to the Internet.

Under the deal, Boingo is to develop a service and user interface that allows customers to
detect T-Mobile's Wi-Fi and cellular
networks and decide which to use for data applications.

Single bill

Boingo recently began offering wireless carriers a similar platform that allows operators
to provide a self-branded service
connecting users to both a cellular network and any Wi-Fi network under the Boingo
umbrella. Customers would receive a
single bill for the use of either network.

AT&T Wireless said it will begin selling a PC card from Sony Ericsson that will enable
access to Wi-Fi networks as well as to
AT&T Wireless' wide-area data network. When it becomes available during the second
quarter, customers are expected to
have the single-bill feature.

Plenty of other activity is also under way, much of it focused on the single-bill
approach. RovingIP.net, a Bellevue company
founded by McCaw Cellular veterans Rob Mechaley and Nick Kauser, has developed a product.
"It's not just integrating
WLANs (or Wi-Fi) to 1XRTT or GPRS, but integrating disparate WLANs," said company
President Andrew Bezaitis.

Moving between networks

The most recent buzz is about building a seamless connection that lets users move from one
network to the next while using an
application. That ability will be especially attractive if telephone service over Wi-Fi
networks — termed voiceover IP, another
emerging technology — becomes widely available. It would allow a user to talk on the phone
and move from a cell network
into a Wi-Fi network without losing the call.

Developers have already begun testing handoffs between the networks. Transat Technologies,
along with Intel and AT&T
Wireless, has tested software that passes an application from one network to the next.

"From a subscriber perspective, they don't know which technology they're using," said John
Baker, chief executive officer and
founder of the Southlake, Texas, company. A European carrier is already using Transat's
service to offer cellular customers
access to Wi-Fi networks; they get just one bill.

Bellevue-based RadioFrame, another Mechaley company, has tested application handoffs
between networks but hasn't had
customers ask for the capability. In conjunction with cellular carriers, RadioFrame offers
large businesses a system that delivers
Wi-Fi coverage and can extend cellular service inside buildings. Nextel Communications is
marketing the product to businesses.

There's a roadblock to handing off applications between networks, however.

"As we look at the marketplace, what's missing is the combined handset," said Jeff Brown,
president and CEO of RadioFrame.

But Motorola recently teamed up with Avaya and Proxim to develop a phone and a system
aimed at linking corporate Wi-Fi
networks with cellular networks. It expects to test the system at the end of this year and
make commercial products available in
the middle of 2004.

Problems loom

The possibilities are interesting but also rife with problems. Critics say that such
handsets will be difficult to engineer because the
Wi-Fi technology will require significant battery power, something tough to offer in a
small format.

In addition, the wireless carriers likely wouldn't make money when users are on the
corporate Wi-Fi network, which is
generally set up and maintained by the individual company.

"Part of the reason operators are embracing this cautiously is that they see Wi-Fi as a
happening thing and something they can't
afford to miss, but by no means is it clear to them or to me, either, how exactly they
will make money off this," said Warren
Wilson, a Seattle-based practice director at Summit Strategies of Boston.

But some are optimistic. "If people start using one phone for voice and data, chances are
the carrier will pick up additional
customers who demand wide-area coverage in addition to coverage in the enterprise," said
Nicholas Labun, general manager
of Motorola's WLAN business team.

Differing prices could pose yet another problem in integrating public Wi-Fi networks, such
as those in cafes, with wide-area
networks.

"There are some interesting customer-management issues," said David Hagan, president of
Boingo Wireless. "I don't think
they'll want to pass a customer from a Wi-Fi network to 3G (another emerging high-speed
wireless technology using the
cellular network) without telling them." That's because the cost for customers to use
Wi-Fi networks will be cheaper then 3G.

No big hurdle

AT&T Wireless, which offers Wi-Fi coverage in three airports and has a roaming agreement
with Wi-Fi service provider
Wayport, said pricing plans aren't a significant hurdle. Carriers could offer special
packages with set fees for users of both
networks, said spokesman Ritch Blasi.

T-Mobile isn't necessarily focused on enabling a user to physically move between networks
while seamlessly running an
application, said a spokesman. That may be because the company also isn't focused on
enabling voice over Wi-Fi networks.

"Since we already have a network built out for voice, it doesn't make sense to make a huge
investment in voiceover IP," said
spokesman Bryan Zidar. Still, he said T-Mobile is looking into the technology and thinks
it might have a use on corporate
campuses.

But voiceover IP is already here. SpectraLink of Boulder, Colo., has customers using its
wireless office phones that operate on
Wi-Fi networks. Bellevue-based TeleSym has developed a technology that makes voice calls
possible over Wi-Fi networks on
Pocket PC devices and laptops.

Ultimately, wireless operators' interest in Wi-Fi might grow because it's one of the only
choices they have to expand their
networks. Most cellular operators are using nearly all of the spectrum — the radio
frequencies that enable cellular phone
service — they own. Wi-Fi works on shared spectrum, so anyone can use it.

"One issue here is that there is a spectrum shortage and operators are trying to figure
out how to do more with what they have,"
said RadioFrame's Brown.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=134689187&zsection_id=268448455&slug=wificell05&date=20030505

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