XplanaZine

Speaking at the CTIA Wireless 2003 show last week, Qualcomm CEO Irwin Jacobs said that cell phone providers don’t need to spice up their mix of offerings with access to Wi-Fi networks.

Jacobs said providers should instead stick with using cellular technology, which is already matching the download speeds of a Wi-Fi network, is cheaper to operate, and covers more ground than Wi-Fi’s 300-foot range. “As these high-speed cellular networks begin to spread across the country, they will become the preferred service,” he told wireless executives gathered for the show.

This was the second part of a big debate over cellular and Wi-Fi networks.

The first salvo was fired earlier in the morning by Sky Dalton, Boingo Wireless founder . According to Dalton, Wi-Fi already has too much momentum to ignore. Boingo Wireless has a network of more than 1,000 hot spots, to which it sells access in the same manner that EarthLink sells subscriptions to its wired Web service. Dayton is also the founder of EarthLink.

“Wi-Fi has clearly emerged with escape velocity,” Dayton said.

The debate, of course, is over customers and which wireless technology will gain lock-in with mobile consumers.

Cellular network providers have all built high-speed wireless networks using technologies with names like CDMA 2000 1xrtt or General Packet Radio Service–doubling the capacity of their networks for voice calls and creating a wireless Web network capable of matching landline Web speeds. And now most are adding Wi-Fi to the mix, eyeing the market for commercial “hot spots,” places such as hotel lobbies or coffee shops where wireless Web access is made available to the public via Wi-Fi for a fee. Of course, some businesses, such as McDonald’s, are entering the Wi-Fi business on their own accord.

Many believe the two technologies are complementary and simply serve necessary parts of a larger picture that the other is incapable of addressing. cellular and Wi-Fi, as complementary. Cell phone networks can cover a wide swath but don’t download data nearly as fast as Wi-Fi networks. Wi-Fi can pick up the slack in cities or other areas for “heavy lifting,” like downloading huge files.

But Jacobs disagrees, pointing out that Wi-Fi has a limited range, while the high-speed cellular networks already covering about 91 percent of Japan and beginning to be built in the United States are “everywhere,” he said.

Cellular networks will also be cheaper for carriers to operate, Jacobs said. The faster data travels, the more carriers can sell in the form of ring tones, wireless Web access or downloadable games, he said.

Adding support to Jacobs’ argument is the popularity of smart phones in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Consumer use of cellular technologies in these regions is outpacing that of PDAs and laptops for mobile information management.

The problem in the United States seems to be that, regardless of what kind of speeds networks afford users, there is a definite resistance to using phones for activities other than talking. Even instant messaging via phones, wildly popular in other countries, has met with only lukewarm reception here.

For education, the best bet is that the evolving integration of hardware devices will lead to the dominance of smart phones over PDA’s. We should also assume that Wi-Fi will continue to be the preferred option for mobile computing. That means, unfortunately, that we will need to provide mixed options for students and instructors (problematic in tough budget times). Thankfully, hardware manufacturers are beginning to build handsets and laptops that work with both technologies.

It may seem redundant, but at least we’ll all have a backup.