Wi-Fi Basics: Wi-Fi devices
The cost of Wi-Fi components is dropping rapidly. Wi-Fi radio chips which cost $100 in 2000 now cost only $8, and fierce competition amongst commodity radio manufacturers promises to push this price much lower in the coming years. A future with ubiquitous Wi-Fi networks in homes, offices and in public spaces will be filled with all kinds of Wi-Fi enabled devices:
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Laptops – According to market research firm In-Stat, 5.7% of all notebooks were shipped with built-in Wi-Fi radios in 2002, and this share will grow to 35% in 2003, and to 90% by 2005 -- only a few years after Wi-Fi becoming a widely-adopted standard. It took at least ten years for modems and wired Ethernet ports to become standard on laptops.
PDAs – HP, Toshiba and Palm have already introduced PDAs with Wi-Fi built in, and many more Wi-Fi-embedded devices are coming.
Cell phones -- Imagine a cell phone with a low cost Wi-Fi radio that could opportunistically connect to Wi-Fi hot spots, taking traffic off of overloaded (and expensive) cellular networks, and sucking in broadband content like streaming video. Or switch over to a private Wi-Fi network in the enterprise or at home to do voice over IP. The best silicon engineers in the world at Intel, Atheros, Broadcom, Intersil, Texas Instruments, and other companies are swarming to Wi-Fi, and these kinds of innovations will flood the market in the next five years. Motorola already plans to introduce a cell phone with integrated Wi-Fi by the end of 2003.
Automobiles -- New cars are already packed with data-hungry devices that could make use of Wi-Fi. Soon you will pull into any service station (in the coming years, they will all be hot spots) and top up on your data along with your gas. Download MP3’s, update your navigation system with the latest traffic data, download the day’s Wall Street Journal audio edition to listen to on the way to work. When you pull into your garage, your car will “dock” with your home Wi-Fi network. It could also upload data about itself to your dealer or your insurance company.
Gameboys -- Gaming devices will connect to private and public Wi-Fi networks and become a platform for multi-player games. Again, a low-cost add-on to existing products.
Consumer electronics devices -- Once super-cheap low-power Wi-Fi chips are available, it isn’t a stretch to see them added to all manner of consumer electronics devices. Anything that could benefit from the ability to send and receive information, such as MP3 players (download music in any hot spot) and digital cameras (upload pictures right after you take them wherever you are).
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