2003 - the year of the wireless LAN

A handful of technologies may come of age in any given year. This year instant messaging will take off as a business communications tool and so too will the use of wireless LANs based on the b, a or g versions of the IEEE802.11 spec. No prizes for those predictions.

What is interesting is the range of companies jumping on the latter bandwagon and why it will succeed in a way 3G won't.

Today saw European telecoms network player Interoute launch London's first WLAN network based on the 802.11g standard. Owning a pan-European or global fibre network has had, to put it mildly, its issues over the past four years. Should we assume Interoute is merely looking for a new, friendlier area of business?

It may answer that 802.11g - around five times faster than the 11Mbps max the more common 802.11b Wi-Fi wide area standard can operate at but still backwards compatible with the older kit - is an obvious extension to its fixed network. Others will say it too has simply recognised the next big thing.

And who wants to be left out? Telenor is also choosing today to launch into the UK a WLAN package, dubbed Wireless Zone. It is already used by organisations such as BP and Riks Hospitalet back home in Norway and provided with the help of Accenture and Cisco.

Other factors also bode well. Incumbents across the continent, from a mobile arm-less BT in the UK, to other experienced Scandinavian players, to other independents such as Megabeam, are all mostly gung-ho about WLAN roll out.

The US-based Wi-Fi Alliance is working on a universal way of letting individuals know - via a common logo - when they are in a 802.11 hot spot, and Intel's upcoming Banias chip for notebook PCs, due in March, will mean every new laptop comes with integrated Wi-Fi connectivity.

And whereas 3G has had no bottom up push, WLANs are already starting to be used by individuals with domestic broadband wishing to share their connection - even if telcos and cable companies the world over try hard to stop the practice.

As silicon.com columnist Peter Cochrane said this week: "I already have my fibre connection run up to my loft, where I have a small server and Cisco router. I know lots of my neighbours can't get broadband so I'm thinking it would be easy to use [Wi-Fi] to become a WISP [a wireless ISP]."

3G may end up covering broader areas than Wi-Fi, be good for voice and available on the move but it is still a technology being pushed from above by the industry. WLANs, public and home WLANs especially, are being driven from below, by users who see a use for the technology.

Perhaps more than all the factors above, the DIY nature of many WLANs will ensure their success.