Dual mode Wi-Fi/ cellular — a very short-term solution

The Wi-Fi Alliance announced today that is has certified its 100th Wi-Fi-enabled phone for interoperability with other devices and Wi-Fi networks. Of those, 82 are dual mode.

I’ve read the usual cant about how with Wi-Fi and cellular in a single device you can switch between networks with the software in the phone choosing the better connection or making the selection based on cost at a specific location, time of call, and the pricing for the particular cellular plan.

It all sounds wonderful, but at the risk of being a Wi-Fi curmudgeon, I still think that Wi-Fi hot spots will in a short time disappear, and the need for a dual mode phone will disappear with them.

The performance of the cellular networks is continuing to improve, and the price of service is continuing to decline.

In addition, why would the carriers want to cannibalize their own cellular business for which they paid millions of dollars at spectrum auctions to offer something else?

One of two things will happen.

Either the carriers will stop investing in cellular to pump up Wi-Fi coverage and eventually WiMAX coverage, or the reverse: The carriers will invest heavily in fast-tracking cellular performance and rapidly lower prices in order to induce customers to expand the use of cellular for data and voice.

Because only Sprint has enough WiMAX spectrum to make it remotely worthwhile to deploy that technology, which does have better performance and a better range than Wi-Fi, the other carriers have little choice. They either have to stick with Wi-Fi and try to increase the number of available hot spots by a thousand fold or

improve cellular.

Look for the price of cellular cards for your notebook to decline. It makes perfect sense when you need something with serious internal performance, storage, and memory. Meanwhile, the cell phone will be used for lesser applications and, of course, voice.