Does mobile broadband spell the end for WiFi?
I find myself using mobile broadband more than I use WiFi when I am out and about. It’s a practical issue, I always have my mobile broadband with me, either EV-DO or HSDPA, no matter where I am so I don’t have to look for WiFi hotspots. My high-speed hotspot comes with me with the mobile broadband so the major factor for high-speed connectivity, access, is solved by my gadgetry I carry. WiFi is still king in Mobile Tech Manor but when I’m out and mobile it is relegated to a second tier solution for me. Ericsson is predicting, boldly I admit, that mobile broadband spells the end of WiFi for the same reasons I just mentioned.
"Hotspots at places likeStarbucks are becoming the telephone boxes of the broadband era,"claimed Ericsson’s chief marketing officer Johan Bergendahl, speakingto delegates at the European Computer Audit, Control and Security Conference in Stockholm.
"In Austria they are saying that mobile broadband will pass fixedbroadband this year. It’s already growing faster, and in Sweden, themost popular phone is a USB modem," Bergendahl claimed, according to ComputerWorld.
Bergendahl is mainly speaking to the European market but a lot of what he says could apply here in the US too. Of course he doesn’t even mention WiMAX which we expect to start growing this year here on this side of the pond.
I can’t see WiFi being replaced by EV-DO or HSDPA. the reason is that the end user doesn’t control the cellular data connection; WiFi is.
I can see where WiMaxx would take off, but I don’t think any service will completely replace wifi. I still don’t have a cell phone. I use wifi on my pda. I can skype whenever I need to. theres always wifi. People like free stuff. wifi is/ or close to free.
IMHO – Europe = more reasonable broadband rates
US of A = monopolistic pricing of mobile phone/broadband pricing
..wiley
NW Houston
Only picocell infrastructure such as WLAN and probably WiMax can handle bandwidth demands of many users. If data transfer via mobile broadband becomes more popular the bandwidth you achieve will likely decrease dramatically.
the thing about wlan is that unless its a pre-register and login kind of access, you dont know who or whats running that connection.
hell, i suspect one could even set up one in a high traffic corp area that mimics the local water hole and presto, corp secrets by the gigabyte…
JK, I knew from other posts you had EV-DO. I did not know you also had HSPDA. Which provider and card do you use for HSPDA? How do you decide whether to use EV-DO or HSPDA? I’m asking because I’m trying to decide between EV-DO and HSPDA (as Kevin knows because I was bugging him in another post). Thanks!
While I’d love to have a mobile broadband connection, it’s hard for me to really justify one more monthly expense since it’s not a business expense for me….
So, until prices come down on this I’ll probably tough it out without mobile broadband…
Haven’t checked recently, but doesn’t this run at least $50/month???
Mark
Silicone Valley Digerati
Genghis, I also use AT&T HSDPA in the HTC Advantage. I signed up for it as I test a lot of GSM phones and needed a SIM-based solution to use in those phones. It’s sitting mostly in the Advantage these days and I can use it as a backup connectivity via WM Internet Sharing if the EVDO has problems. It is a business expense for me which is why I can have two different data plans.
JK, thanks for the quick response. How would you compare speed by using Internet Sharing via the Advantage (which I also own but gave to my wife when I got the Touch Cruise) vs a PC Card or Express Card? Leave aside the carrier’s response on tethering; I’m just looking for a performance comparison. If they’re about the same, why buy a card? Thanks for any information you can provide.
In principle, other things being equal (which they often aren’t), you can always get a higher data rate in a small cell than in a big cell. Hence no sensible person would use mobile broadband at home if they also had fixed-line broadband and wifi (leaving aside the question of cost). Similarly, the data rate at a coffee shop can theoretically be significantly higher than that from mobile broadband. In practice I suppose it might be artificially restricted for some reason.
Preferring mobile broadband over wifi hotspots (as I do too) is another way of saying that, out in the open, convenience counts for more than data rate. To put it another way, when I’m out and about, I probably wouldn’t try to do anything much more demanding than surfing or email and blog reading. Another question, then, is whether hotspots can re-invent themselves as places where you can satisfy a need for a significantly higher data rate than you’re likely to get from mobile broadband.
From the center of Downtown L.A, where my HTC Touch Cruise reports HSPDA, my LS800 accessed speedtest.net via Internet Sharing.
With a Bluetooth connection, the download ranged widely depending on the server, 876, 744 and 508. With USB, download more consistent, 1123, 1130, 1156. Upload pretty consistent on both connections, between 200-300.
Not sure a PC or Express Card would perform better, but I have none to test.