Wi-Fight It?
It is a measure of my intense geekiness that I can get excited by a product such as Cisco’s new phone. But excited I am: here is a handset that operates through wireless Ethernet (so-called “Wi-Fi”) and allows users to have a phone extension that “follows” them wherever they take it, provided a wireless connection to the company network is available. The next version, Cisco says, will have a VPN client built in, so employees can take the handset anywhere (London, anyone?) and make and receive calls over the public Internet just as if they were in the office.
Of course, the product (similar versions of which are also available from vendors such as Avaya) is not without its shortcomings. Chief among these: poor battery life, the short range of Wi-Fi hotspots, and the inability to “roam.” These are serious obstacles, but to those who claim the cell phone will conquer all, I offer three numbers: 54. 0. 30.
That’s 54Mbps, the current top speed for the recently ratified 802.11g standard. While this is a theoretical maximum, no cellular network — including the vaunted 3rd Generation (3G) — gets anywhere near this speed.
That’s 0, as in 0¢ per minute. When call traffic is carried over the Internet, per-minute metering (almost always) goes away. It’s such a trivial amount of data that it’s not worth tracking. You might pay a fee for access to the hotspot (perhaps, heaven forfend, the cost of a Big Mac) but from there it’s potentially free calling worldwide and high-speed Web browsing, concurrently. Surfed the Web on your cell phone lately? How about while you were chatting?
And of course, 30% of long distance traffic is already packetized, hopping from switched phone company circuits right into the IP rodeo.
Add it all up, and I think my cell phone will be relegated to conversations on the move, provided the quality is there. My more relaxed (or data-intensive) exchanges will likely be made at rest, in a setting where I can speak — and surf — all I want.