Steve Stroh in MuniWireless says; The Last Fifty Feet Are Wi-Fi
I’ve said this in various forms over the last five years or so, but the point seems to slam home every week now - I’ve come to believe that Wi-Fi has become, and will continue to be the dominant connection method for the last fifty feet (minimum) of nearly any form of Broadband Internet Access to an individual user.
Sometimes the Wi-Fi connection will be even longer than fifty feet, like with next generation Metropolitan Wi-Fi systems that incorporate beamforming technology.
My latest inspiration on this topic comes from a press release about a mobile Wi-Fi HotSpot system in the UK using wireless telephony broadband for the backhaul and Wi-Fi on the bus for user access. There’s certainly no breakthrough in what these companies did - I first heard about this concept from Seattle-based Junxion who makes a box incorporating a Wi-Fi access point and router that uses wireless telephony broadband for its backhaul, designed for installations like public transit buses. I was told that the first use of the Junxion box on a bus was for Google’s private transit buses in the San Francisco Bay area in 2004.
Worldwide, the wireless telephony broadband service providers don’t want to acknowledge the possibility that mobile / portable / nomadic Broadband Internet Access will default to Wi-Fi. But every new portable / mobile / nomadic communications or communications device sold that incorporates Wi-Fi increases the likelihood that Wi-Fi will become… or most chillingly to them… perhaps already is the dominant “final delivery” technology of Broadband Wireless Internet Access. . .
Worldwide Wi-Fi hotspots will grow by nearly 25%, to 179,500 in 2007, predicts ABI Research in its recent report, Wi-Fi Hotspot Market. While almost three-quarters of these sites (72%) are still found in North America and Europe, the Asia Pacific region is growing rapidly.
“More than 900,000 access points will be shipped this year specifically for use in (public) hotspots. Not only are hotspot and subscriber numbers growing, but we have observed a dramatic increase in the number of Wi-Fi sessions per subscriber”, said ABI Research vice president Stan Schatt.
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