Wi Fi Chips Ahoy

First, the news on trends in Municipal Wi Fi NETWORKS (my underlining for emphasis).

NEW YORK - In 2004, there were only 520 square miles of networked municipal Wi-Fi. However, ABI Research forecasts a nearly sixty-fold increase over the next several years, to more than 30,000 square miles.

Once technology, business, and cost issues are resolved, nations will benefit from this simple and low-cost broadband Internet access technology, consequently broadening the range of the networked service.

The key points I'd highlight after reading this are:
1) we got off to a distracting wrong start with the emphasis on "free"
2) we've seen the light to refocus on "key financial benefits"
3) spreading acceptance of new business models as "free" influence fades
4) two key characteristics of metropolitan wireless broadband using Wi Fi Mesh make it different and should be leveraged - Simple and Low Cost.

Now for the news on Wi Fi CHIPS and DEVICES.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New market data released by ABI Research shows that about 440 million Wi-Fi chip sets will be shipped over the course of 2008. This represents a tenfold increase over the number shipped in 2003; but over the same five-year period, the revenues they produced have multiplied by only five.

The growth areas for this market in coming years will be found where Wi-Fi chips are embedded in more and more device types. Wi-Fi IC vendors should tailor their strategies accordingly. Consumer electronics (home theater equipment, gaming devices, portable media players), mobile handsets and computer peripherals will all see increased rates of Wi-Fi penetration. "While CE products will initially see more Wi-Fi inclusion," Solis continues, "we expect that by 2011 they will be overtaken by mobile handsets. Mobile Internet devices (MIDs) will become increasingly significant as well."

So, to ask a rather obvious question, just where are all the chips and devices going to be connecting? On Wi Fi networks, that's where. Right now, most Wi Fi routers are a) in business environments, interconnected in local area networks or LANs; b) in residences, as extensions of broadband connections, to provide connectivity throughout the home; and c) in Hot Spots, which mimic the residential model, providing free or for-fee connectivity for public users in coffee shops, book stores, fast food restaurants, libraries, rest stops, airport lounges, the list goes on and on - really Hot Spots now can be found just about everywhere that a person might stop and rest for a moment. They are the modern equivalent of the pay phone.

But these two trends, Wi Fi Chip and Device expansion and Wi Fi Metropolitan Mesh Network expansion come together in cities and provide the modern equivalent of the cell phone. They allow roaming in a wider region while staying connected. The value that the public puts on such connectivity is still immature, just as early cell phones were originally seen as a luxury good or an expensive business device. But we all know the storyline about how over time cell phones evolved, as did their cultural acceptance, and ultimately changed the way we live and stay connected with each other. In similar fashion, metropolitan broadband will ride that wave of more and more connectivity in our lives.

The fact that Wi Fi chips are increasingly available, ever dropping in price and ever increasing in capacity and utility means that they will find their way into more and more devices, which will only raise the value of the networks that allow those devices to be put to use. These two trends feed each other - the more Wi Fi devices there are, the more Wi Fi networks are needed. The more Wi Fi networks that are available, the more places to use Wi Fi devices, and the more valuable the Wi Fi devices become. It's a virtuous cycle, currently inhibited by forces that prefer the status quo and discriminate against "junky" Wi Fi technology, and are threatened by the changes they portend. But the changes will come, regardless of the low opinions those in the know have of this "cheap, non-carrier-grade" technology, because its appeal is universal and irresistible.

But it will take time, because this transition is a complex equation. Two factors compel this social trend and technology adoption movement: 1) ever cheaper and better Wi Fi chips and devices; and 2) successful deployments of metropolitan Wi Fi networks, which provide case studies and show the way for others - proof points of the value proposition, if you will.

Stay tuned and have faith, because over time these emerging trends will lose their shock value and come to seem more and more normal. The simplicity of the unlicensed business model, and the low cost of the Wi Fi gear will complete the equation and drive adoption still further.

Nature has a way of supporting things like Synergy, Symbiosis, and Systems that exist in harmony and provide constructive benefits, because these natural solutions outcompete less elegant solutions over time. That's the idea behind Natural Selection - the cost of living is expensive, and so a premium is put on efficiency, often at the expense of style.

Ask the Platypus, an egg-laying, venomous, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal, about efficiency and style. Who can argue that the platypus is no pretty sight to behold (unless maybe you are a newly-hatched baby platypus, that is). But the key thing to note is that its eccentric anomalies make it an efficient competitor in its niche and so it survives to reproduce...

Man may be slow to learn from Nature, but in time, we usually get it and move ahead. I predict it will be the same with Wi Fi Systems. They'll find their niche in time and provide value where it makes sense. Along the way, they'll face resistance, which will fade as true value emerges. They may not live up to all the early expectations, but so what!

Whoever said that Reality had to match the early Hype? Not me.