Do we need this "Fee"? History WiFi eyed man in the street

Technology high-speed wireless WiFi should "vigorously develop and capture the minds of the masses" a year ago. However, has not happened - in the U.S. mass increasingly gravitated to the more convenient, versatile and affordable (for them) CDMA-2000 and in Europe, widespread wireless access points let the proverbial price factor. Today the situation is changing rapidly and in terms of consumer WiFi is no longer cause the sad associations with the "Why Fi?"

Confronting supporters quick "points" WiFi and fans of slower, but the opportunity network coverage third generation mobile communication will not soon be over. In his own right, both sides, but today Europe has made ​​its choice: slowly, painfully and small spots WiFi still applies in parallel with the development of mobile networks, 3G. Prospects and benefits of UMTS are undeniable, but their mass deployment will have to wait, and for WiFi equipment and terminals are ready and widely available on the market. Admit (though unlikely) that the ideology of local access points as a result will be a deadlock, but there is a real alternative to the wire. And importantly - working alternative. With regard to Mother Russia, we have really fast wireless Internet is available only in WiFi - "hotspots" and relatively fast - a small (yet?) The number of subscribers SkyLink.

Availability, accessibility and convenience of different options for mobile data services could be fully assessed in Cannes during the Congress 3GSM. Usual for us dialup-connection apparently used less in the hotel at reception had a hard time explaining the essence of the question. But on each floor there are hotspots and WiFi-coating is present in all rooms. Meets WiFi and other public places, in some cafe - free, as bait for business visitors. In most cases, charged no traffic, and access time, which is not very profitable for lovers of leisurely study of the news. But you can run into the Internet cafe down the road, 10 minutes (1 / 2 euros) to quickly download the accumulated mail and news pages. Average prices for WiFi-access are quite high, from 2 to 6 euros per hour, available for sale packages of different lengths, to connect enough to enter issued login and password.

In the exhibition area WiFi-coating was present, a special cafe hotspot was organized and a number of buildings convention center. Taken care of the less "advanced" visitor - in the two places have organized a special "zagonchiki with power outlets and cables with standard network connectors.Free and with a decent speed access, but to get to the promised cable was not easy: a dozen jobs and is not too much around the "Internet zone" there was a group afflicted with laptops in hand. GPRS, in principle, present in two out of three French operators, where it has not consistently had the most expensive (Bouygues Telecom) - it is quite possible that the cut off for the duration of the congress. The other two operators GPRS icon periodically disappeared from the display. Certainly bad enough had all three GSM networks in the week, but none of them had "fallen." In terms of GPRS-roaming selection was meager to the disgrace: Available only for subscribers of Beeline, and only with France Telecom - and where the Antimonopoly Committee looks? Apparently, due to monopoly pricing and appropriate: if you believe the site and the AU Beeline (called 2 times) - about $ 37 per megabyte of data transferred. May still error, but check on your own purse for some reason did not want, it's better we shall scrape through somehow local free WiFi or LAN cable.

Many people remember the "Golden Pioneer" IP-telephony - an eerie quality, but almost free international calls from your computer. Today, under the current pricing IP-operators anyone and would never bother. However, the history of like a spiral, and the situation could be repeated with WiFi, although a qualitatively different level. At a time wage and access to the appropriate software on your laptop or PDA in the area of the hotspot is theoretically possible to relish nagovoritsya for a symbolic price of WiFi access + minimum fares service provider. And if you have a smartphone with WiFi it will be just and convenient, thanks to the emergence of the required software is no doubt. Wait and see, especially since the wait is quite long, the upcoming nokievsky communicator (9500) already knows how to "cling" to WiFi http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0, 6771,54108,00. Html