Quocirca's Straight Talking... 3G remote access

Will 3G satisfy your data needs on the road or will a bundled cocktail of 3G, GPRS, Wi-Fi and fixed line prove the answer? On the back of Vodafone's recent announcements and armed with fresh research on the subject, Quocirca's Dale Vile has some of the answers...

Reaction will be mixed to Vodafone’s announcement this week of its 3G data card trials for corporate notebook PC users.

3G advocates are likely to welcome the announcement as a milestone to be celebrated. Vodafone is the gorilla of the mobile operator community and in many ways sets the pace for introduction of new developments into the mainstream. It was the first operator to deliver genuinely coherent GPRS connectivity for notebook PC users, for example, that could be implemented without the application of black magic or rocket science. Vodafone’s simple-to-install PC cards and easy-to-use connection management software set the standard that other operators have since followed. The long-awaited emergence of Vodafone onto the 3G stage is therefore indeed significant, even if it is in a limited and highly-controlled manner.

And it’s the limitations that the 3G cynics are likely to focus on, particularly in the area of geographic coverage. Looking at Vodafone’s announcement closely, it states: “With 3G capacity currently in London, along the M4 to Newbury and in cities such as Birmingham and Manchester, the first phase of 3G deployment is concentrating on major urban areas.” It goes on to say that this equates to approximately a 30 per cent population coverage.

While this initial prioritisation of coverage is understandable, there is a big gap between 30 per cent and the 95 per cent plus coverage we have come to expect from cellular networks, including GPRS. Under the terms of the Vodafone’s 3G licence agreement, it must ultimately deliver against a population coverage commitment of 70 per cent, but even then, availability will be limited in less densely populated areas. We therefore need to be careful about regarding 3G as genuinely pervasive, at least in the short to medium term.

This is significant for two reasons. First, from a corporate use perspective, it will be extremely unwise to assume availability of a 3G connection when deploying business applications. As is made clear in the Vodafone announcement, users will fall back on the much slower GPRS network when they roam out of 3G coverage, which is likely to be a frequent occurrence for the next couple of years at least. Applications must therefore still be tolerant of slow connections and even lack of a connection altogether on occasions. The 3G vision of universal high speed wireless connectivity is therefore still a long way off.

The other reason why limited coverage is significant is because it makes it more difficult to differentiate 3G from Wi-Fi hotspot services. Hotspots are being deployed by service providers such as BT, Swisscom and The Cloud according to pretty much the same set of coverage priorities as 3G – urban areas and major transport routes. For business users working nomadically in public gathering places, there is therefore likely to be little effective difference in coverage. Wi-Fi would then be preferred because it is faster and, potentially, cheaper.

Luckily for the mobile operators, Wi-Fi access is less likely to be available in more private locations such as client sites and hotel rooms, and these are often equally as important. Cellular networks with their longer transmission reach and therefore larger cell sizes (areas of coverage around base stations) can penetrate into such places OK. It will then become a question of 3G or GPRS versus traditional wireline connectivity such as dial-up modem or Ethernet access. This will boil down to decisions based on performance, cost and convenience, with the weighting of these factors depending on the individual’s circumstances at the time they need to connect.

When we talk through the options in this way, it soon becomes clear that the average business user is probably best served by a cocktail of connectivity solutions. This requirement was confirmed in a recent Quocirca study in which 190 senior IT respondents were asked their opinion on various aspects of delivering remote access to business systems. Of the 45 per cent of these that had experience of Mobile Office, 83 per cent said that “users will sometimes need to use different connectivity options (e.g. GPRS, Wi-Fi hotspots, 3G) at different times depending on their situation and requirements”.

The study also revealed concerns about cost escalation if users are left to make their own arrangements, for example, paying for ad hoc Wi-Fi access on credit cards. Respondents then highlighted the importance of a putting a multi-network remote access strategy into place that deals effectively with usability, security, support and cost management issues. Not surprisingly, almost 70 per cent of those seeing a need for multi-network access said they would consider combined services that delivered cellular, Wi-Fi and fixed remote access options under a single contract.

These findings help us to put the Vodafone 3G announcement into perspective. GPRS and 3G are combined within this but corporate buyers are telling us that this is not enough. Hotspots are required too, especially since the incorporation of Intel’s Centrino chipset brings Wi-Fi as standard in most new notebook PCs aimed at the business sector. More important than the 3G announcement is therefore the move by Vodafone and other mobile operators to incorporate Wi-Fi hotspot services into their offerings. This is on the roadmap of most operators we have spoken with and marks a significant change in the shape of market.

One of the most obvious impacts of the multi-network world that is emerging is the broadening of the competitive landscape. Players that have traditionally restricted their activities to the wireline remote access space, such as GRIC and iPass, are embracing wireless and challenging the cellular operators in the mobile data arena. The recent launch of Fujitsu-Siemen’s total connectivity solution - £99 per month for rental of a high end notebook with bundled GPRS and Wi-Fi hotspot services – also demonstrates some of the creativity that is emerging.

While the Vodafone 3G announcement is interesting, it therefore does not represent a world changing landmark. Wi-Fi has already stolen the thunder. What it does highlight, however, is that the way forward will involve multiple network options and that the cellular players no longer rule the market. This might lead to some challenges for the service provider community but is generally good news for business users, who can look forward to more choice and better value for money.

The research referred to in this article is available in the form of a full report entitled “Multi-Network Remote Access”, available free of charge by sending an email to info@quocirca.com.