Subject: [NEXTEL-1] 3G or Wi-Fi - which will survive?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 16:37:44 -0400

-------- Original Message --------
From: [email-masked]
Subject: 3G or Wi-Fi - which will survive?

http://www.it-director.com/article.php?articleid=10864

3G or Wi-Fi - which will survive?

Thursday 22nd May 2003

War, huh, what is it good for?
...absolutely nothing, say it again.

With apologies to Bruce Springstein there can be something positive to say 
about war in a marketing context! However only those wars that occur between 
ideas, as one company tries to lead an alliance to move the industry in their 
desired direction.

These wars are fought only with marketing words, product specifications and 
benchmark tests, so the consequences are often battered egos, pride and failed 
innovations.

In these technology wars, and perhaps in many others, it's not the actual 
conflict that's important, but rather who forms alliances with whom, and what 
happens in the aftermath. Without such alliances, and the war of marketing 
words that accompany them, the information technology world would be far more 
fragmented and pulling in even more directions than at present.

The alliances provide a louder voice than a single company could muster, and 
give greater media attention. They give focus, allow strong ideas to survive 
and thrive, and weaker ones to wither.

This is especially true when a rival alliance is formed, as there's nothing the 
media like better than a titanic struggle - GUI wars, Ethernet vs. Token Ring, 
UNIX wars, COSE alliances, PC vs. NC. They don't have to be between equal sized 
opponents. They don't have to be direct competitors. A simple 2-way division 
of "you're with us or against us" makes it simple for all to understand. It 
allows the allies, at least for a while, to put their differences to one side, 
and work on the common cause. For the benefit of their customers, at least 
that's the hope.

In the case of the wireless and mobile worlds, there are plenty of potential 
hostilities with sides to pick - PalmOS vs. PocketPC vs. SymbianOS, PDA vs. 
Smartphone, CDMA vs. GSM, Instant Messaging vs. MMS, Bluetooth vs. Wi-Fi, and 
of course 3G vs. PWLAN.

Let's examine 3G vs. PWLAN. The third generation (3G) of cellular telephony 
versus a second generation attempt to get two computers less than 30 metres 
apart to talk to each other over a public wireless local area network (PWLAN). 
On the face of it, an uneven match.

However the parties lined up on the PWLAN side are amongst the strongest 
companies in the IT world. So is this a titanic struggle of the Telecom vs. 
Information Technology worlds? Bell-heads vs. Net-heads as the Americans might 
put it? Perhaps - but that would seem to be too simplistic a division of sides.
It's true that billions of dollars have been pre-paid by the mobile operators 
for the licenses to run third generation networks and services. The PWLAN 
community, despite struggling with compatibility and security issues with the 
Wi-Fi standards, has rode on the back of the mobility bandwagon moving into big 
business, home networks and cool culture with public access hotspots. So there 
appears to be plenty of scope for rivalry.

Recent studies add weight to the rivalry between the two. There have been 
suggestions that PWLAN will establish itself as the dominant mobile wireless 
infrastructure over 3G in the next 5 years. Many people seem to support PWLAN, 
as an apparent underdog against the perceived might and dominance of the 
cellular operators.

There's almost a belief that the mobile industry has brought some misfortune 
upon itself, by riding the dot-com hype, and over-energetically bidding for 
control of the airways in the spectrum auctions. PWLAN has an almost community 
spirit with war-chalking to identify unsecured networks to piggyback off for 
free access, and even the first round of commercial public access points being 
located in coffee bars. Not only one technology pitted against another, but 
social collective against corporate monopoly?

The truth is, each industry has unique features to offer the other. The mobile 
world can do billing expertly, and make it granular yet still simple. It can 
provide instant on, always on, in short, a utility experience. The PWLAN IT 
world provides the core knowledge to develop higher value data services that 
users might be more willing to pay a premium for. Plus a wireless LAN will 
always provide faster data rates, even if only over shorter distances. If the 
two sides got together they could also crack network device management, and 
create truly easy to use user interfaces.

That's why we need a struggle, but not between the two mobile and wireless 
network camps. Perhaps we need some new, frightening alliances. Something to 
shake the status quo, and stir up some action.

It seems that the boom-bust of the Internet's rise, followed by falter when the 
IP gold rush didn't deliver riches for everyone, has led to an excess of fear 
and caution. The only reasons for alliances, and even mergers, seem to be cost 
cutting and consolidation. The problem is this won't encourage the focus and 
innovation needed to combine the strengths of two industries that speak a 
different language.

A cross industry alliance, which brings together operators, network support 
services, service delivery and management infrastructure services with the 
content and application providers could be the start of a common, open 
dialogue. It might then be possible to agree common, de facto, standards.
It needn't achieve total consensus, but that's the point. A full consensus 
would take too long to bring about and would need to encompass too many views. 
Better to have a focussed group of allies, promoting a unified message. If an 
alternative alliance sprung up, so much the better. Then the strongest idea 
would survive.

But 3G vs. PWLAN is not the war to be fought. The real battle is for mobile 
data services whatever the network, and the need to grow a sufficient volume of 
users and usage to pay for those services. That's something the net-heads and 
bell-heads will need to work together to accomplish.
Rob Bamforth

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