When people think about Wi-Fi, they think of it in terms of connectivity: I am able to surf the web. I can get my e-mail. I can access my corporate network.
Wi-Fi though can be more than just wireless internet connectivity. It can be the place where you go for mobile multimedia, whether you want to watch streamed video, video conference, or game. For all the promise of 3G to provide a means of delivering multimedia content to a handset -- or to be more accurate, to hundreds of types of handsets (with all sorts of formats, browsers, renderings) offered by a handful of carriers (who control the phone interface or 'deck') for a fee, or series of fees - a well designed Wi-Fi Hot Spot is just the better short range option for delivering multimedia content at high speed.
Such a network would of course have to be able to detect different device types and serve pages accordingly, but it would not be locked into all the proprietary standards and formats that content providers are forced to adopt by the carriers. It would be free and open, in other words, a true wireless extension of the internet. In this scenario, if people want VOIP or video conferencing, fine. If people choose to upload or share pictures, no worries: They don't have to use the carrier's photo service to distribute or post. They can go right to Flickr, photobucket, etc.
With the emergence of the social web, we need to ask this: Who would you rather have driving it locally and wirelessly? A carrier looking to monetize on 3G or a local Wi-Fi Hot Zone with 150 simultaneous users generating local ad revenue on a network created by and for the community?
3G is a mobile technology. Wi-Fi is a highly local one. Within its limited ranges it much faster than G3. It's open while the cell network is closed. In the end, it is a true complement to 3G, and a necessary one. The carriers need to ask themselves whether they will be able to support all the wireless multimedia traffic on 3G alone, or will have to leverage what Wi-Fi is good at - very local broadband.
Leave a comment