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Dell welcomes BT's move into WiFi "hotspot" business

Dell's wireless/mobile supremo in the UK believes BT's decision to start providing public 802.11b access points will trigger a huge expansion in the wireless data business.

"I think someone like BT taking a bold step in this direction means regulatory restrictions and obstruction will melt away, and other people will jump on the bandwagon," said David Krathwohl, who heads up wireless for Dell in Europe.

Dell is another partner of BT's wireless provider, mmO2 (Cellnet) and is now providing high-speed cellphone data (using GPRS) as a corporate service to its larger customers, as well as selling "wireless-ready" notebook PCs as standard.

"What matters most about the BT move is the authentication and usability approach," Krathwohl suggested. "We've found that it's important to reduce confusion for customers, because it can get complex."

He suggested that BT would probably follow the lead of Swedish WiFi supplier Home Run, which is providing public Internet access in an increasing number of hotels and public areas in Scandinavia. "The beauty of their system is that once you find an access point, all you need is a pay-as-you-go scratch card to give you a one-day password, and you're in - it's great! - and it sounds like BT is planning something similar, with about ten pounds for a day, or a fifty pounds per month subscription."

Dell sells a modified NovAtel GPRS card as its mmO2 corporate service connection, and is due to start a service aimed at small business and home users based on One-2-One, or T-Mobile as it is becoming known.

"We found that this approach overcomes security issues; we can have end-to-end control over corporate network access, by providing a server inside the corporate firewall. We connect that over leased line direct to mmO2 networks; and for our WiFi clients, we set up end-to-end virtual private network links, and this leaves the users with an easy system to understand."

Examples of usability services include the sale of an optimiser server for Microsoft Exchange. Normally, Exchange assumes a fast wired link, and is prodigal about the amount of data it sends between server and PC, often re-transmitting the same file several times back and forth.

"We've gone with Broadcloud optimisation software for the Outlook/Exchange combination.At GPRS rates, we're seeing between 28K bits per second and 45K - which means you don't want something chewing up that bandwidth with unnecessary chatter back and forth. Broadcloud interposes a server between the Exchange server and the client Outlook program, optimising the link. It keeps the server convinced the client is connected, even if it is going through a railway tunnel and is cut off, and it cuts down the amount of data you send over the air."

Krathwohl believes that the market will find the difference between voice and data particularly confusing, especially when software starts to integrate GPRS mobile phones and WiFi public access, and can switch seamlessly between them. "From a customer perspective, it's important that there's no confusion about the payment model. When you mix modes between GSM and GPRS, you have to think - 'which mode am I in? am I paying for time, or paying for data?' We think that would confuse users. We have plans to do something like that one day, but it's a way off before it can be done in a way users will understand," he said.

As an example, Dell disables a feature on the NovAtel card; it comes with a voice-jack which Dell removed. "We felt a notebook is really a data device, and most people who were interested in GPRS data would be users of a mobile phone already. So being able to make a phone call from a notebook isn't a compelling advantage for them, while working out what you're spending like that is confusing; are you buying data at so much per megabyte, or time at so much per minute? Voice over GPRS is both. So we've emphasised the data only model, and dropped the voice option."

Current Dell notebooks all come fitted with a WiFi (802.11b) standard antenna built into the box, and if you order it, they'll build a mini-PCI wireless card into the box, too. That's retrofittable later if the user doesn't want to go for a PCMCIA standard wireless card.

Krathwohl isn't convinced that BT is right to be offering Bluetooth access early on, however. "There's an ecosystem that supports this technology, that has to be evolved; it would be a mistake to be too far in front of that. Hotspots starting to appear, are great; hardware will evolve and converge, and we're starting to see new forms appear - for example, the Nokia dual-purpose GPRS and WiFi card is interesting. But for the moment, we don't see a lot of business demand for Bluetooth, and there are issues about linking two Bluetooth devices together - pairing - which we think isn't as seamless as it needs to be. So at this point, we only offer a PCMCIA card for Bluetooth."