What's holding back Wi-Fi?

Technical roaming trials by the WBA have just been completed and results are expected to be announced in a few weeks. It's making the right noises but the Wi-Fi industry is growing increasingly impatient and it could in fact take a proprietary solution, such as Boingo, to solve the roaming problems.

European roaming
The fractured networks that exist at the moment force the user to subscribe to multiple services or pay for redundant per-location fees. This is not only frustrating but also further increases the costs, because Wi-Fi customers cannot take advantage of an "economy of scale" pricing model -- for example, a monthly subscription price for countrywide or pan-European Wi-Fi roaming.
 
"3G and Wi-Fi will co-exist, and in fact, the combo software from companies like Vodafone or Boingo and others may help drive the usage on both networks," comments Allard at Boingo. "Many carriers are taking a user-centric philosophy to the subject of Wi-Fi versus 3G, providing the customer what they need to always have the best connection."

Boingo believes the promise of Wi-Fi, especially to the business traveller, is so strong and represents such a great market for service providers that these issues will be resolved, allowing the market to grow.

Market growth is something that everyone seems to agree on although the extent of that growth is still open to question. While Wi-Fi has managed to hurdle many of its early technical issues such as speed, security and interoperability, the commercial issue it is now facing is in many ways a stiffer challenge.

Users drunk on hype
Marc Patterson, VP Mobile Workplace Solutions at Infonet, talks about the current phase in hot spot deployment as "a real-estate game" and he's right. Service providers are vying for hotels, cafes, burgers bars and pubs to try and establish market share. Users are becoming "drunk" on the hype of it, he says, and enterprises are sitting back and waiting. Patterson adds that what is needed is a common Wi-Fi interface; a front end for users that can work regardless of the supplier and back-office mechanics.

It seems the honeymoon period for Wi-Fi is over. Businesses are demanding more of the technology before they will bite. While vendors and service providers are making the right noises, 3G waits to chance its arm at offering a more complete service.