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Could Govt stall on WiFi commerce?

A call for conservatism in wireless: "let's not necessarily make WiFi hotspots legal," - could anybody turn the clock back? Frost and Sullivan thinks we might ...

The sceptic is Michael Wall, wireless industry analyst; and he thinks it would be foolish to assume that BT will be allowed to launch commercial WLAN "hotspot" access points.

"I know that BT has announced that it will make it available, but I wouldn't make any assumptions about when ordinary WiFi hotspots will be legal in the UK, and I have good reasons to suggest that it shouldn't happen," Wall told an audience of IT managers in Monte Carlo today.

His argument is that in countries where 802.11b is legal for public access, the channels are clogged with too many users.

"I can see that with the next generation, 802.11a, the congestion problems won't be so bad, and I don't think that's a problem when it's approved finally; but I do know that the Radiocommunications Agency was upset with BT's pre-announcement of a Government decision to legalise commercial hotspots," said Wall.

He told the Mobile Convergence seminar that he would recommend that rather than see the UK follow the rest of the world into making 802.11b legal for commercial exploitation, the rest of the world might do well to reconsider making the WiFi standard ubiquitous, and instead, leave the 2.4 GHz band to Bluetooth and other technologies. "Already, in high usage areas like the City of London, we're seeing serious congestion, leading to reduced bandwidth for existing users," said Wall.