Wi-fi Vs. Cellular

[parth.paul]

Some argue that Wi-Fi and related consumer technologies hold the key to replacing cellular telephone networks such as GSM. Some obstacles to this happening in the near future are missing roaming and authentication features (see 802.1x, SIM cards and RADIUS), the narrowness of the available spectrum and the limited range of Wi-Fi. It is more likely that WiMax will compete with other cellular phone protocols such as GSM, UMTS or CDMA. However, Wi-Fi is ideal for VoIP applications e.g. in a corporate LAN or SOHO environment. Early adopters were already available in the late '90s, though not until 2005 did the market explode. Companies such as ZyXEL, UT Starcomm, Samsung, Hitachi and many more are offering VoIP Wi-Fi phones for reasonable prices.In 2005, low-latency broadband ISPs started offering VoIP services to their customers. Since calling via VoIP is free or low-cost, VoIP enabled ISPs have the potential to open up the VoIP market. GSM phones with integrated Wi-Fi & VoIP capabilities are being introduced into the market and have the potential to replace land line telephone services.Currently it seems unlikely that Wi-Fi will directly compete against cellular in areas that have only sparse Wi-Fi coverage. Wi-Fi-only phones have a very limited range, so setting up a covering network would be too expensive. Additionally, cellular technology allows the user to travel while connected, bouncing the connection from tower to tower (or "cells") as proximity changes, all the while maintaining one solid connection to the user. Many current Wi-Fi devices and drivers do not support roaming yet and connect to only one access point at a time. In this case, once you are out of range of one "hotspot", the connection will drop and will need to be re-connected to the next one each time.For these reasons, Wi-Fi phones are still best suited for local use such as corporate or home networks. However, devices capable of multiple standards, called converged devices, (using SIP or UMA) may well compete in the market. Top-tier handset manufacturers have announced converged dual-radio handsets. Converged handsets present several compelling advantages to mobile carriers:Efficient spectrum allocation, as more data-intensive services come online and bandwidth demands increase Improved in-building coverage in markets such as the US, where dropped calls are still a major cause of customer dissatisfaction Opportunities for mobile operators to offer differentiated pricing and services