Comment: Will wireless hotspots burn cash?

After a hesitant start, it appears the implementation of public-access wireless LANs (WLANs) is gaining pace. The catalyst for their development, at least here in the UK, was the Radiocommunications Agency's decision to legalise commercial use of the 2.4GHz waveband, used by 802.11b and WiFi equipment to transmit data signals. This means that from 31 July, operators such as BT and Megabeam can charge customers who connect via theses firms' wireless "hotspots".

This will encourage the carriers to create more hotspots, but it could also prove very costly for businesses. So far, BT and Megabeam have announced they will cover 15 UK mainline railway stations, mostly in London, and a number of as yet undisclosed airports.

These locations make sense because they target the hordes of regular, expense-account business travellers who need email and Internet access on the move, and in some cases require secure links into their company networks.

The same is true of the two main London exhibition complexes, Earl's Court/Olympia and Excel Arena, which will also be furnished with BT Openzones. Both sites host a variety of IT and business shows throughout the year, which attract healthy numbers of corporate employees who are likely to carry the requisite WiFi access equipment.

But quite why BT feels the massive Bluewater shopping centre in Kent needs a public access WLAN is harder to fathom, unless shoppers are now routinely travelling with WiFi-enabled portable computers in their handbags.

As yet, only the locations and the technology have been confirmed for the UK's proposed public access WLANs; all other aspects of BT and Megabeam's plans remain vague. For instance, what are the boundaries of the hotspots within these locations, and will users be able to roam at will across concourses, or will they have to remain fixed in a certain position within range of single or multiple access points?

How many users will each hotspot support, given that each access point supports about 30 simultaneous users? And while 802.11b access points offer a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 11Mbit/s, a data rate of 5.5Mbit/s is more usual, which at best can provide no more than 11 users with the 500kbit/s each that the operators are talking about. If there are 30 users the rate would be much lower.

But the crucial issue, of course, is cost, and how the hotspot operators will charge people for usage. Early indications suggest that IT managers will have to prepay for licences in bulk, then issue the appropriate usernames and passwords to their roaming employees - a measure that reduces the operators overheads no end. BT has said it will introduce an ad hoc payment system at a later date, so users can gain access to the WLAN by entering their credit card details.

What nobody is saying yet is exactly how much each individual user will be charged for wireless access to the Internet. If the operators decide to follow the example of other mobile data-access tariffs, such as those for GPRS or GSM, IT managers should prepare for the worst.

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