Will Mobile Broadband Kill Wi-Fi?

Friendly Competition

Carlton O’Neil, vice president of marketing at WiMAX equipment vendor Alvarion, says that Wi-Fi will serve to get people used to fast mobile access, which will fuel demand for WiMAX. He called this "friendly competition" between the two technologies.

“To me, Wi-Fi as a technology will create insatiable bandwidth demand on a portable basis,” O'Neil predicted. “This will benefit users since there will be redundant networks available instead of the situation we have today where Wi-Fi networks are local monopolies.”

Still, Wi-Fi will need to adapt in order to survive, some believe.

“Wi-Fi will have to differentiate itself,” according to O’Neil. One way of doing that is the growing use of Wi-Fi phones.

“If someone makes a cheap Wi-Fi handset, that could be the destiny of Wi-Fi,” says O’Neil. “Demand will skyrocket for Wi-Fi,” he says.

“Wi-Fi won’t be marginalized,” claimed Peter Aronstam, Airspan Networks’ chief financial officer. Airspan recently joined the Wi-Fi Alliance, a sign the company believes Wi-Fi has a future.

"In the very near future, we foresee the widespread combination of WiMAX and Wi-Fi in wireless broadband access networks,” said Eric Stonestrom, President and CEO of Airspan in a statement.

Airspan in Japan is using WiMAX as a ‘last-mile’ option to the home and Wi-Fi for hotspots. “WiMAX will take Wi-Fi where it can’t go -- suburbs or rural areas,” says Aronstam.

Still, some believe that, eventually, Wi-Fi will lose out. That could be the case both for mobile users and in the enterprise.

“I don’t think (enterprises) will (upgrade Wi-Fi); it will be a segmentation of the market,” believes O’Neil. Rather, ultimately, technologies such as mobile and fixed WiMAX could replace Wi-Fi.

The operative word, though, is "could." Will Wi-Fi survive? How will Wi-Fi adapt to this new player? Wireless executives are gambling on the outcome.

“Bets are on the roulette table,” says O’Neil.