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THUS Slams Wi-Fi Too Immature

Posted: 21st Oct, 2003 By: MarkJ

Telecoms group THUS (Demon Internet) has slammed broadband wireless LAN (Wi-Fi) access, criticising the "immature" market, technology, security and a whole host of other issues:

Commentators are predicting a dot com-style crash for WiFi as money is thrown at a technology that has no proven market. THUS believes that the problems run deeper. Not only is the market immature, the technology is inherently flawed and there are no guarantees it will deliver bandwidth consistently. In addition, it is emerging into a strict regulatory environment that could seriously hamper its roll out.

Steve Kennedy, head of product futures at THUS plc, makes the following arguments for WiFi to come with a government health warning:

INTERFERENCE

Most WiFi networks in the UK operate in the 2.4GHz band, a very congested spectrum that is already used for applications like Bluetooth, surgical devices, industrial machinery and microwave ovens. A network based on WiFi has to share the spectrum not only with other Wireless LANs (WLAN), but also with all these other applications.

This means that there are no guarantees that a WLAN will work in a built-up area. If it does work, the usable bandwidth may be very low as all the other devices are interfering with it. A business trying to connect staff to the LAN or to another building may find that at certain times of the day the WLAN will not provide any bandwidth. This means it is impossible to offer Quality of Service guarantees."

SECURITY

Security is another major flaw. While all current WLAN kit can use an encryption technology known as Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), most users don't even bother to turn it on. This allows anyone in the vicinity to connect to the WLAN and scan for other machines on the network, upload illegal material or even send SPAM through the mail servers. Even if WEP is enabled it is a weak encryption system and can easily be broken.

REGULATION

The regulatory environment is another major issue for potential service providers. Governance of the 2.4Ghz band was recently brought under the Communications Act, bringing companies that use the band for commercial services in line with other Communications Service Providers. That can lead to major headaches, such as having to comply with the RIP Act (which considers legal and illegal interception); maintaining logs of user activity in line with the Data Protection Act and keeping any billing records for at least seven years, as well as having to provide service performance statistics to the regulator.

CONCLUSION

WiFi can offer a useful solution for specific networking requirements. But it is a developing and imperfect technology. It has inherent weaknesses and offers only a fraction of the capacity and security of wired networks. Consider also the fact that service providers will need to be very careful to stay within the law and you realise that at the moment WiFi ought to come with a Government health warning.