The connection conundrum: 3G or Wi-Fi?

Despite advances in wireless technology, connecting to the company network or getting online is still a struggle. The randomly dispersed public wireless networks known as Wi-Fi hot spots have made life easier but there is still a whole raft of pricing and roaming issues to be solved before they're really going to be up to snuff for most business users.

If you don't fancy queuing up in Starbucks every time you want to get online, then there is an alternative -- albeit a new and relatively expensive one. The launch of Vodafone's third-generation Mobile Connect datacard means a technology, associated in most people's minds with football clips and video conversations, could now solve the more mundane issue of corporate connectivity.

But seamless connections come at a price. The best thing that can be said about the cost of Vodafone's 3G Connect service is that it makes some Wi-Fi services look like good value.

So, with Vodafone taking the 3G plunge and T-Mobile close behind, deciding which technology is going to be the better fit for your mobile workers isn't easy. Operators, who are pioneering both technologies, insist that firms will soon be able to buy services that combine both 3G and Wi-Fi. But analysts are much more sceptical as to whether this will work anytime soon.

For now, if you need to choose between 3G and Wi-Fi, you should consider their respective availability, access speeds, and pricing models, say experts:

Availability
At present, Vodafone's 3G network only reaches 30 percent of the UK population, covering London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool, Belfast, Cardiff, Leicester, Nottingham, Southampton, Portsmouth, the M25 and the M4. Vodafone says this is actually enough to cover over 40 percent of data traffic -- based on the use of its GPRS network.

But the mobile operator has "very aggressive" plans for 3G rollout, says Paul Stonadge, Head of Data Solutions and International Services at Vodafone UK. The target for this autumn is 50 percent coverage by population and 55 percent by data traffic.

In contrast, Britain's estimated 5,000 Wi-Fi hot spots are scattered across the country. Many operators, such as T-Mobile and BT Openzone, have concentrated on sites within cities such as hotels, railway stations and metropolitan coffee shops, but The Cloud -- which has 3,700 operational sites -- has a more regional focus. Its network covers thousands of rural pubs and hotels, so in most places you aren't more than a few miles from a hot spot.

ZDNet UK has been testing Mobile Connect, the Vodafone 3G service, in and around London. We found that coverage is pretty good, but flaky around the outskirts of London at the edge of the network.

Based on this research, Wi-Fi seems like a better bet for wandering workers who travel outside Britain's largest cities. Unfortunately, the market is so immature that the various operators don't have roaming deals, so a subscription to BT Openzone doesn't cut you any slack at a Swisscom Eurospot site.

And the cooperation required to create integrated roaming networks isn't going to happen any time soon. It will take between 12 and 24 months until roaming is sorted out, says Dean Bubley, founder of analyst firm Disruptive Analysis.

"When we get easy roaming between BT, T-Mobile and Swisscom Eurospot, then we'll be able to safely say that there is Wi-Fi mobility," he says. "At the moment, though, they're all still stuck in the landgrab phase."