Wireless LANs gaining over cellular?

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By Bob Brewin

(IDG) -- Who needs 3G? A growing number of localities have already decided to sidestep emerging third-generation cellular technology in favor of making creative use of wireless LANs.

Greg Anderson, director of IT for the city and county of Broomfield, Colorado, said he plans to cut off his Cellular Digital Packet Data service from Redmond, Washington-based AT&T Wireless Services Inc. because it's too costly and the data rates are too slow. And he said he has no intention of using the more advanced 3G cellular once he completes his industry-standard 802.11 wireless LAN, or Wi-Fi, installation countywide later this year.

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Broomfield has installed eight wireless LAN access points and by year's end will have installed another four or five to provide total coverage of the county's 36 square miles. Anderson called the return on investment on the $60,000 Wi-Fi LAN "astronomical," considering the $52 per month he has to pay today for each mobile unit using the CDPD service.

"It's not hard to do the math" to determine the quick payback, Anderson said. Currently, 23 patrol cars are equipped with Wi-Fi, and Anderson can add additional police cars and other municipal users to the system at a hardware cost of approximately $800 per car. Anderson isn't even considering 3G cellular. "3G is slower than what I have now. Our system is much better [than 3G] and has zero dollars operating cost," he said.

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Anderson isn't alone. A growing number of U.S. localities, including the California cities of Glendale and Oakland and counties of Orange and San Diego, have embraced Wi-Fi technology as the high-speed wireless backbone of their networks.

ITEC Entertainment Corp. in Orlando, meanwhile, uses Wi-Fi 802.11b LANs from Cisco Systems Inc. to deliver automated stop-and-route information as well as video newscasts to bus passengers. The company never even considered CDPD or 3G, according to Daniel West, ITEC's vice president for strategic business development.

The cellular carriers, which have invested billions of dollars in building a nationwide 3G infrastructure, acknowledge that in some markets, wireless LANs could emerge as the mobile data system of choice.

"There is a tremendous amount of excitement around 802.11, and we're studying it pretty heavily ourselves," said Jim Grams, senior vice president of mobile multimedia technology at AT&T Wireless. He declined to say whether AT&T Wireless plans to offer Wi-Fi service.

Grams added that "it is a mistake [to assume] that wireless LAN technology is a substitute" for 3G, which provides service over a wide area. He also pointed out that Wi-Fi suffers from well-documented security problems and that it operates in the unlicensed 2.4-GHz band, making it subject to interference. Cellular services operate in licensed bands.

Sprint PCS Group in Kansas City, Missouri, has made an investment in Santa Monica, California-based Boingo Wireless Inc., which offers public access Wi-Fi services in more than 400 "hot spots" nationwide. Company spokesman Dan Wilinksy called Wi-Fi complementary to Sprint PCS's 3G services, but he said the company wouldn't discuss its plans, if any, for Wi-Fi.

Alan Reiter, an analyst at Wireless Internet & Mobile Computing in Chevy Chase, Maryland, said that the fact that fleet users such as ITEC and police departments have started to build their own Wi-Fi networks could be a cause of concern to cellular carriers. While the carriers haven't focused on the dispatch markets, Reiter said, Wi-Fi "does offer some serious competition to 3G."