Industry Related-Answers

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  • Is Wi-fi complimentary or direct competition to the 3-G services offered by the cellular comapnies?
  • There was much hype abput the 3G services offered by cellular companies in order to allow users to access data at a speed of around 384 kbps.In fact many cellular service providers paid billion of dollars to obtain the licence for 3G. After the advent of Wi-Fi there are doubts whether the 3G industry will be washed out or can Wi-Fi and 3G co-exist. Like we know to operate in the Wi-Fi frequency range which is 2.5 Ghz and 5 Ghz there is no licence fees which need to be paid. The data transmission rates for Wi-Fi are much higher than 3G , typically 11 mbps and 54 mbps. The cost of Wi-fi equipments is approaching almost zero. It is very cheap to set up a Wi-Fi hot spot as compared to the 3G network. Keeping all this in mind Wi-Fi is a challenge for 3G. bur 3G has some advantages of providing a seamless roaming facility within cities and countries which might be a problem with Wi-Fi. So do Wi-Fi and cellular companies have tie ups to provide seamless roaming to the customers and thus benefit from each others. In fact a lot of companies have already started to do this Kyocera has made a tie up with Boingo and is develoing a Wi-Fi and 3g enabled mobile handset. Lucent has also made similar arrangements. This means that it is more like to see mobile handsets with Wi-Fi in future rather than Laptops with 3G capabilities. All said and done 3G cellular companies will either have to tie up with Wi-Fi companies or set up there own network in order to take advantage of the Wi-Fi 802.11 standard or else they have a difficult future ahead.

Refer the following links for usefull information:


  • Will the use of Voice over Wi-Fi effect the landline business of Telcos? Can WiFi provide last mile connectivity?
  • The traditional way of offering braodband was restricted to phone companies and cable companies. But with the cheap option of Wi-Fi which is replacing Telcos and cable companies as the last mile option to provide broadband coverage Telecom companies are losing revenues. Most telecom companies have realized this and have started provideing wireless services through hot spots. For example KPN which provided landline services and then began with cellular has acquired Hub-Hop , the major provider of Hot Spots. This shows the intention of most telecom companies which are under threat from Wi-Fi providers to enter the Wi-Fi space either through acquisitions or through starting their own services. This will further improve the popularity of Wi-fi services irrespective of whether it is provided from Telcos or purely Wi-Fi providers. In fact Telcos have an advantage that they already have an infrastructure which is set up, they just need to offer additional Wi-Fi services to gain significant advantage. Additionally if Wi-Fi is available at home then the landline business might be effected because then people either have the option to call from their PC's or with increasing use of Cell phones with inbuilt Wi-Fi capabilities the traditional landline might just vanish in the future. so it can be said that there might be a less number of landline connections for the Telcos but they can counter this by increased revenues from Wi-Fi business i.e if they decide to enter it.


  • Can Wi-Fi offer the value add which will benefit the service industries like Hotels, Hospitals etc to attract more customers?
  • With competition intensifying in the hospitality industry, companies are looking for additional sources of providing value added services to customers. Internet access is a key factor to attract the business customers to Hotels. And hotels were aware of this fact and have provided internet access to their customers by the traditional or you can say the most common way of running a cable or putting a DSL modem in each room. This typically costed the hotels $285 t0 $ 450 per room. Also this did not allow access to the internet say in the lobby area or at the pool side, in the gymnasium and other places. Hotels can set up Wi-Fi in every room at a much lower cost as compared to wired networks and provide access in other areas like lobby, pool side etc. This can be an excellent opportunity for new hotels who can gain a competitive advantage vis-a-vis other hotels.The hotels have another option of providing Wi-Fi access to their customers, they can tie up with Wi-Fi aggregators like Boingo and Ipass and provide internet access. For the customer it will not be the hotel who will be charging them but the network aggregator who will charge its usual fee. With the benefits that this will offer of not shifting networks and assured security the customers will not mind paying fees to the network administrators. Even in hospitals the use of Wifi is growing substantially. The wifi frequency does not interfere with hospital equipments. And also most of the hospitals that are so busy these days and patients and the persons accompanying them have to wait hours to meet the doctor are employing wifi networks for the convenience of the patients and their attendants to access the internet. Hospital is also using wireless technologies mainly RFID's to track doctors, nurses, patients and important hospital equipments.Beside hospitals and fast food indutries like Mc Donalds, Starbucks are also now offering Wifi internet access at their locations.
  • Wimax vs Wi-fi? and Intel's role in it ?
  • Wimax technology uses microwave for the transmission of data wirelessly. The term Wimax is derived from Wireless(Wi) and Microwave Access(MA)-Wimax. Wimax can run signals very close to each other on wireless channels without disrupting each other. This allows Wimax to offer more traffic on a narrower bandwidth and can be advantageous for wireless last mile DSL and cable service providers as they can serve more customers. Wi-Fi operates in a fixed Wi-Fi Spectrum. The Wimax Channels are also upgradeable. Wimax operates in two licenced frequencies- 2.5 Ghz and 3.5 Ghz and one unlicenced frequency of 5.8 ghz, whereas Wi-Fi operates only in the unlicenced frequency. Since Wimax operates in the licenced frequency it is able to generate more power and therefore better signal strengths than the Wi-Fi. For example the Wi-fi can offer signals upto a hundred of feets from the transmitter and the signal strength weakens as the user moves away from the transmitter. But in the case of Wimax the signal is offered over miles from the transmitter with good strength. Wimax is also much easier to install than Wi-Fi and will provide benefit for the service providers.

Intel is playing an important role as the primary leader in the development of Wimax standars-802.16e along with the Wimax Forum. Infact the president of the Wimax forum which has some 200 companies as members is an Intel manager. Intel also had a major role in the Wifi industry as it developed the Intel Centrino wireless enabled cards for notebooks which has now become a standard part of all notebooks. according to Mr. James A. Johnson,VP,Intel communication group, "When 802.16e is ready, Intel will develop silicon again for premise equipment as well as notebooks as part of Intel Centrino mobile technology. We also plan to develop silicon for the neighborhood transmitters. As you deploy out a metro area, we believe there will be many, many smaller transmitters that might be situated on lampposts or on the top of neighborhood buildings. We'll offer the silicon and software solution for those devices. And we'll work for larger base station companies as they develop their larger transmitters that they usually use in cellular technology. " and " our mission is a global standard, so that we can deliver a global SKU as part of Intel Centrino mobile technology, so that similar to Wi-Fi, you can get a connection regardless of who made the network and the equipment. We want the same thing with WiMAX. You won't need to carry four network cards as you travel around the world. That's the goal, but there's a lot of work to make that the reality". Intel is indeed playing a major role in the WiFi and Wimax space.

Another question arises is that will Wi-Fi and Wimax co-exist or will one of them surpass the other. some people say that Wi-Fi will be used inside the home and offices while Wimax will be used outside.Wimax could also be used as a backhaul for Wifi hotspots, it can be used to connect the hot spot location to the hot spot service providrer's POP. Whether Wi-Fi and Wimax will coexist or whether WiFi will develop its own roaming and metropolitan area networks will have to be seen.

For further information please see:

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