Public wireless LAN services gain momentum

WI-FI: Surveying the possibilities in the wireless LAN landscape.

The already-considerable buzz surrounding public wireless LAN services has increased dramatically with the launch of Cometa Networks two weeks ago by industry bigwigs Intel, AT&T and IBM.

The new company plans to offer Wi-Fi services across the U.S. While Cometa will be far from the first with such an offering, the muscle of these players is expected to add oomph to the world of public Wi-Fi services. The result could be more business users turning to Wi-Fi for their remote-access needs, experts say.

Wireless LAN or Wi-Fi technology has been around for almost three years, yet most corporate network executives have been content to watch from the sidelines.

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The already-considerable buzz surrounding public wireless LAN services has increased dramatically with the launch of Cometa Networks two weeks ago by industry bigwigs Intel, AT&T and IBM.

The new company plans to offer Wi-Fi services across the U.S. While Cometa will be far from the first with such an offering, the muscle of these players is expected to add oomph to the world of public Wi-Fi services. The result could be more business users turning to Wi-Fi for their remote-access needs, experts say.

Wireless LAN or Wi-Fi technology has been around for almost three years, yet most corporate network executives have been content to watch from the sidelines.

While plenty of organizations have deployed wireless LANs on campuses or in office buildings, public Wi-Fi services that allow users to access corporate networks from airports, hotels or coffee shops are only expected to take off in the next few years.

“Business users will be the primary Wi-Fi user,” says Roberta Wiggins, a director at The Yankee Group. Of 200 IT managers recently surveyed, only 3% said they were using public Wi-Fi services, but 38% said they were interested in using such services.

The availability of wireless CRM applications, an ongoing increase in user mobility and the proliferation of Wi-Fi products and access points are spurring interest in these wireless LAN services, Wiggins says. “But the jury is still out on how big of a market it will ultimately be,”she adds.

The Wi-Fi basics

Wireless LAN or Wi-Fi services are based on the IEEE 802.11b specification, which uses the 2.4-GHz spectrum to transmit data. The specification supports data rates at up to 11M bit/sec, but it is shared access and no one user would see 11M bit/sec. Users typically only need to sign up with a Wi-Fi service provider and deploy a Wi-Fi PC card on their laptop to surf the Web or access e-mail. Users have to be in relatively close proximity to a hot spot to access the Wi-Fi network.

If you’ve heard anything about Wi-Fi, you’ve heard about security problems. While the IEEE is working on new specifications that address security, customers today should use a VPN client that offers end-to-end encryption, experts say.

National coverage and roaming agreements are two other lingering issues surrounding Wi-Fi services.

There are a handful of providers offering Wi-Fi services around the U.S. and, in some cases, globally that take full advantage of roaming agreements. Companies that fit into this category include Boingo Wireless, Gric Communications and iPass. The latter two have built businesses by offering global remote access to the Internet for traveling users by teaming with ISPs that lets Gric or iPass customers access points of presence using local dial-up numbers.

Both are taking this business model and applying it to the Wi-Fi world. Gric and iPass have put together Wi-Fi “hot spot” networks that let customers wirelessly roam the Internet. Neither company owns these access points, but strikes deals with local wireless providers. Boingo has a similar model.