Wi-Fi on the rise? 3G advocates fight back

The UMTS Forum is fighting back against the threat to 3G revenues represented by the rise of public wireless LANs based on the Wi-Fi standard.

The Forum, which represents communications equipment manufacturers and network operators committed to 3G, has been explaining why 3G will win the day after releasing figures for the predicted use of wireless local area networks (WLANs) over the next five years.

Bernd Eylert, chairman of the UMTS Forum, told silicon.com: "People talk about WLAN cannibalising 10 or even 20 per cent of 3G revenue data, but we don't believe it. Our study showed a figure of less than one per cent."

The UMTS Forum acknowledges there will be around 20 million users of public WLANs by 2005, in line with figures from leading analyst houses. They will generate around $2.8bn. Its figures are based on interviews with potential business users (intranet and extranet access) in North America, the EU, the big Asia-Pacific economies and Brazil.

However, it believes the 3G market will be worth a whopping $320bn by 2010. As such, Eylert contends WLAN and 3G will complement each other.

"Even if there is some cannibalising with one hand, it will give back with another," he said, after painting a picture of a public WLAN user then turning to a 3G device to carry on communicating while on the move.

As well as mobility, the benefits of 3G over Wi-Fi will include the familiar billing relationships and branding of network operators.

However, there are many Wi-Fi advocates, both privately - including many in education and corporate IT departments - and publicly, from DIY projects to offer access in areas as diverse as Manhattan, Honolulu and East London, to network operators such as BT Group and Sweden's Telia creating 'hot spots'.

Despite damaging delays in 3G roll-outs, Eylert is insistent the technology is sounder than Wi-Fi. "It's like apples and oranges," he added. "3G is an holistic service environment. Public WLAN is just an access technology."