Wi-Fi experts provide NGN preview

A handful of networking experts who will be delivering keynote speeches at November's Next Gen Networks conference provided a glimpse of what we might hear in their speeches during a conference call convened this week to discuss the state of the Wi-Fi industry.

If the call was any indication of the conference to come in Boston Nov. 4-6, expect to hear positive words about the public access Wi-Fi market; uncertain, but hopeful, words about voice over wireless LANs; and a repetition of the following words: "It's too early to tell." The call featured such high-wattage names as Sean Maloney, executive vice president and general manager of the Intel Communications Group at Intel; Gary Weis, president and CEO of Cometa Networks; Vipin Jain, vice president for LAN access at Extreme Networks; and Dennis Eaton, chairman of the Wi-Fi Alliance. The call was moderated by David Passmore, co-chairman of the upcoming conference and research director at the Burton Group.

Maloney estimated that there are currently between 7000 and 8000 public access hotspots in the U.S., a figure which doesn't count individual hot spots or freenets, but which is "ahead of what we expected at this point. The public market continues to grow." Cometa has begun doing its part to support that growth. Weis said the company is in the midst of its launch of 250 hot spots in Seattle, and added that his company's network expansion is being stoked by the availability and variety of secure access devices.

"We're working with service providers on creating programs that will be attractive to different segments of users using different devices," Weis said. Looking at Wi-Fi development in other countries, Maloney pointed to Korea as the most aggressively growing public Wi-Fi access market "because of the single-minded ferocity of Korea Telecom in building that market out." But, hot spot roaming will help the U.S. market gel, and grow together.

"Roaming will take time and numbers [of hot spots and users], but time more than anything else," Maloney said. "It was the same with GSM, which was available in multiple countries before you had roaming agreements. It's important to remember we're at the very beginning of this [growth]."

Panelists also speculated on the future of fee-based, public Wi-Fi access. Eaton said there is room for both models.

"Some people will pay for security and quality of service, and operators will charge for that," he said. "Other operators like hotels will have it as an amenity, and may not charge."

Other panelists agreed with that view, and suggested that it's to early in the market's maturation to figure out how fee-based business models will evolve. Uncertainty also reigned on the subjects of mobile/Wi-Fi roaming and voice over wireless LANs.

Commenting on the former, Maloney said, "I'm a cynic on that one. We can demonstrate this integration now, but its evolution is not a technical issue, it's a business issue."

Weis agreed, saying carriers will have to come up with business models that leverage this kind of integration, and that has happened yet. Weis added that some service providers might be waiting on the progress of standards such as 802.16, which could provide a link between wide area mobile networks and Wi-Fi hot spots. Jain cited a need relating to both mobile/Wi-Fi integration and voice over wireless LANs that is a perquisite for both developments: Users must be able to rely on one device that does it all.

"The phones may not be agile enough yet," Maloney said. "Simplicity is the key for the development of voice over wireless LANs."

"There is just too much device baggage now," Weis added. "It's not the infrastructure itself; we just need to ensure the user a simple experience,"