At first sight mobile communication of the third generation may seem very attractive and advantageous for everybody:
1. on the one hand users will get high quality services such as excellent
2. new revolutionary services like video calls or VoIP calls over the internet
3. sound quality
4. fast mobile internet connection
5. thus can count on getting super-profits within a short period of time
6. on the other hand the mobile operators will get access to the newest market of such services with a high level of demand
Category
There have been a lot of debates lately about who is more likely to win in the increasing competition between such successful new wireless technologies like 3G (UMTS, or Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) and Wi-Fi. Let's see what these two competitors have to offer, what difficulties companies may face in introducing them and what main advantages they have over each other to understand which one will be more likely to stay and which one will have to go.
Let's start with the similarities. Both 3G and Wi-Fi offer users high quality, high speed wireless broadband internet connection and they are both being widely discussed and studied lately. Well, that's all for the major similarities. Everything else is different. Let's try to single out the major differences.
1. The nature of these technologies is different. UMTS is a cellular technology similar to GSM but with considerable improvements, it is designed for both packet data and voice transmission while Wi-Fi is historically a technology designed only for data transfer, although it doesn't mean that VoIP (Voice over IP) does not work with Wi-Fi.
2. Speed of data transfer. Here Wi-Fi is the winner, new modifications of it offer amazingly fast speeds of internet connection (100 megabit and more) while the existing UMTS networks are somewhat slower. Anyway, with the advent of more advanced 3G technologies like HSPDA, which are called 3.5G (which emphasizes their better quality) and which offer connections speeds of up to 14 megabit, the difference between the two candidates becomes less distinct.
3. Coverage. While Wi-Fi devices can cover areas of about 100 meters, UMTS base stations are installed by the same cellular principle as the 2G ones, thus providing greater coverage for their users. But there are two things to say in favor of Wi-Fi: this technology provides better connection than the 3G networks within buildings and they can be used in any area outside big cities. The existing 3G networks are still limited to big cities as their introduction requires a lot of time and investments.
4. Accessibility. In most European countries the frequency bands for Wi-Fi is free to use by anyone owning the necessary equipment, thus everyone who has good internet connection at home can create his or her own hotspot by simply connecting the existing ADSL connection to a Wi-Fi router. UMTS is something different, because to create even a small cellular network you need to buy a lot of expensive equipment and to have all necessary permissions from government authorities.
5. Cost. Licenses for frequency bands used in the 3G standards are so expensive that only big companies can afford buying licenses enabling them to use such frequencies. The prices for the licenses are sometimes so high that they make up about 35-40% of all costs of introduction of the new generation networks. Price of one Wi-Fi router may be as little as $40.
In addition to the above we must say that both Wi-Fi and UMTS have their advantages and which one is going to win will depend on the choice of individual users. All what's left for us is to wait.