Through the fog… Multi-network mobile access

According to a new study - and let's face it, common user experiences - connecting to the right wireless network at the right time is too difficult, says Dale Vile, analyst at Quocirca. At least that's the case for now…

There is no doubt that mobile data communication is firmly on the corporate agenda. In a recent study by Quocirca, almost nine out of 10 organisations told us they are either active or have plans to become active with GPRS, the current service that allows internet connections over a GSM cellular network.

Yet at the same time many also declared an interest in the emerging Wi-Fi hotspot services that are developing rapidly and being fuelled by the famous Intel “Unwired” campaign. Furthermore, despite popular wisdom, most people involved in corporate communications planning are still keeping an open mind on 3G technologies from mobile operators.

As we look to the future, it is clear we will be living in a multi-network world. In the not too distant future, users will be faced with not only a range of different devices with which to access their corporate applications but also a range of different connectivity options. The question then becomes which connection option to use in any given circumstance.

Making a choice here means considering the characteristics of the networks available in terms of speed, quality of service, coverage and, of course, cost.

One thing for certain is that it should not be left up to individual business users to make this kind of choice. Users are, by their very nature, impatient and unwilling to work or think too hard about trivialities such as how they connect to the internet or their corporate network.

Left to their own devices, as it were, they may end up using expensive cellular access for a communication-heavy application when a cheaper alternative is available. They might also sacrifice connectivity altogether when they travel out of hotspot coverage, even though a perfectly good GPRS or 3G network is available.

To deal with these kinds of problem many of the players in the IT and communications industries are investing significant sums in R&D aimed at providing seamless and automatic connection management. Ultimately the aim is to implement solutions that select the most appropriate of the available networks at any given moment in time, based on a trade-off between cost and performance or quality.

In an ideal world, should a user’s situation change - by for example wandering out of a hotspot area - their device will automatically shift to the next best networking option, such as GPRS. There is even talk in the R&D labs of vendors of software radios that will detect networks on-the-fly, download the appropriate drivers if necessary and attach to the new network with absolutely no user intervention or knowledge whatsoever.

From a technology perspective, it will therefore be possible to deal with a world in which multiple networks surround us very effectively. The next big question, however, is how do we pay for access to these networks?

The worst-case scenario is having to sign a separate agreement with many different service providers to gain access to the relevant mix of network types across the geographies through which a user might roam. Mobile operators are working on this problem in the context of cellular systems and, indeed, roaming agreements are already in place allowing a user to move from country to country.

Of course, most would prefer the costs to be lower and for roaming between different GPRS services to be more elegant but at least it works. The challenge is to achieve the same level of freedom across corporate LANs, dial-up networking, ADSL, wireless hotspots, GPRS, and, in the future, 3G communications.

Providing this level of freedom is the mission of companies such as iPass and GRIC who seek to do deals with each of the individual service providers across multiple countries so they can provide an aggregate service to corporates. Sign a single contract with iPass, for example, and you gain access to whatever networks are relevant in whichever country you happen to be visiting.

Behind the scenes, the aggregator sorts out payment to the original service providers. This makes life extremely simple from a budgeting and payment perspective as well as making things much more convenient for the individual user.

There is an issue, however, in that the service aggregators are in some cases finding it difficult to secure the co-operation of network operators. Organisations like the mobile operators and large national telcos are all keen to own the customer. They would prefer not to have an intermediary between them and that customer.

Signing up with one of these aggregators today means a degree of choice restriction when it comes to connectivity options on the ground. A user might, for example, be sitting right in the middle of a hotspot provided by someone the aggregator has not done a deal with and so be unable to use it.

The reality today for the corporate nomad is therefore less than ideal. Even with a modem cable, a GPRS card, a wireless LAN enabled laptop and that all important credit card there is still no guarantee of being able to connect when sitting in a hotel room in Madrid or on a customer site in Copenhagen - let alone in a portacabin on a building site somewhere in the north-east of England.

We are therefore poised on the edge of genuinely pervasive access to corporate systems such as email and enterprise applications. But too often the reality of establishing a simple connection in order to check email is a frustratingly difficult and time-consuming process that often leads to user disappointment.

One way around this is to forget the reliance on being close enough to a cellular base station, a Wi-Fi access point or an appropriate hole in the wall to plug into and turn to one of those big birds in the sky.

Against the background of the multi-network hit and miss connectivity lottery, modern satellite communications offer a pacifyingly simple and reliable option. Forget the visions of large roof mounted dishes. Services such as Inmarsat’s Regional BGAN can deliver a rock solid connection that is faster than GPRS from a receiver the size of the average laptop. Just open it up, point it at an appropriate piece of sky and away you go.

The ultimate goal is to make all mobile connectivity this simple, regardless of the underlying networks. The ingredients are there. It is just a matter of time before it all comes together.

**Quocirca is a leading, user-facing analyst house known for its focus on the 'big picture'. For a full summary of its activities see www.quocirca.com, or reach the company's founding directors by emailing quocirca@silicon.com.

Also in this series: Through the fog... Better connecting users to technologies Through the fog... Predictive texting Through the fog... Business continuity and disaster recovery Through the Through the fog... Wireless email at work dilemmas Through the fog... Storage as a service Through the fog... Buying an application server Through the fog... Corporate content management Through the fog... Automated speech recognition Through the fog... Public Key Infrastructure Through the fog... Vendor-channel relationships Through the fog... What future photo messaging?

For Quocirca's 'What's the fuss about...?' series for silicon.com, see this page

And for their earlier 'Surviving the Recession' series, see this page.