Each day that goes by makes it more clear that WiFi is taking a parallel course to what we saw with the web nearly ten years ago. Many grass roots initiatives are underway and many established leaders of major companies are unable to see the shift. WiFi is doing for “access” what the web did for content; i.e. making it ubiquitous. I have seen WiFi described as an American phenomenon, but this is clearly not the case. Prior postings here talked about WiFi in Europe. Thanks to JY Stervinou for letting me know that the French regulatory office (ART) announced that starting on January 1st 2003, external public WiFi networks will be “Ok” in 38 “departments” (geographic regions) of France including Paris. Click here to read the details of the Nov. 7 press release. This is a good first step which will probably lead to the French Army opening up WiFi in all 100 regions. There is much more going on with WiFi across Europe.
Matt Gould at Megabeam tells me that they are continuing to rollout new hotspot locations across the continent. The Brussels BIAC airport just went live, joining Milan Linate and Rome Fiumicino airports. Megabeam also has locations live in business centers across Europe, including London, Munich, Zurich and Amsterdam. A story in The Register says that the Megabeam service will soon be live at hundreds of European sites including London City airport and ten other major airports, business hotels, key railway stations and conference centers. They further reported that Megabeam has secured a non-exclusive deal to provide WiFi at 15 major UK railway stations. The service is live at Paddington with a roll-out to other rail hubs across the UK scheduled for the end of the year. In another move, outside of the airport and business center space, Megabeam announced a deal with the Queens Moat House chain to install and operate WiFi hotspots at 27 hotels throughout the UK, Germany and the Netherlands.
The mobility of business professionals today makes WiFi Internet access via laptops essential. Soon this will be extended to PDA’s and what we used to call cell phones. European 3G operators are poised to offer wireless LAN services to businesses as a way to bridge between the worlds of cellular and WiFi. This will lead to the ability to use WiFi and the Internet to make an Internet telephony call from the close proximity of a WiFi hotspot but then switch to 3G when out of range of the hotspot. I believe that over time the two networking capabilities will become highly integrated.