Public wireless LAN (WLAN) services are finally picking up speed in Asia/Pacific after two years of struggling to get off the ground, according to Dataquest, a unit of Gartner Inc.

In at least six major markets - Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan - there is a wider choice of operators, service coverage is improving rapidly, and pricing has come down to realistic levels. The service is currently led by incumbent carriers, even though most of them are not first movers in this sector.

"'With big carriers getting into the game, they bring better service coverage and more affordable pricing, especially for the consumer market,'" said Alayne Wong, industry analyst for Gartner Dataquest's worldwide telecommunications group. "'The downside is that some startups are already falling out of the market or scaling back their operations, leaving the field to carriers.'"

"'However, none of the vendors provide truly ubiquitous coverage, even within a city, but it's a good start,'" said Wong. "'In the long term, serious players need to be able to provide comprehensive coverage to stay in the game as they are up against very large carriers.'"

Source: "Gartner Dataquest Says Public Wireless LAN Services Picking Up Speed in Asia/Pacific," January 13, 2003

Enterprises need to be prepared to increase their IT budgets by 10 percent to 15 percent per year to support enterprise wireless technologies through 2007, according to Gartner, Inc. Today, the average enterprise claims 30 percent of its employees' mobile costs and subsidizes most of its employees' wireless voice services.

"'Enterprises need to evaluate their telecom costs, and put together a plan to regulate and monitor these costs before they spin out of control,'" said Phil Redman, research director for Gartner. "'Understanding user needs is extremely important, and enterprises should gather information from users, division managers and current operator relationships to institute an adoption and usage policy. Those companies that do can generally see a 20 percent decrease in telecommunications costs.'"

Mobile and wireless technologies are also key elements needed to establish a real-time enterprise. These technologies help decrease or even eliminate the time delay between responding to customer or coworker questions, such as signing off on a purchase order, or making and delivering management decisions.

In fact, Gartner analysts said that by 2007, only 50 percent of the people given mobile data will actually benefit from it due to poor implementation, management and the high cost of supporting services and technology. Enterprises need to consider three main technology areas for mobile wireless — network services, mobile devices and mobile applications — and assess its needs against the technical maturity, costs and capabilities of wireless technology.

Source : "Gartner Says Companies Need to Evaluate and Regulate their Wireless Telecom Costs in a Better Fashion," October 7, 2002

"While many technology sectors are struggling, the wireless local area network (LAN) industry is poised for double-digit growth. Worldwide wireless LAN shipments are on pace to grow 73 percent in 2002, while revenue will increase 26 percent, according to Dataquest Inc., a unit of Gartner, Inc."

The industry will continue this consistent growth in 2003, as worldwide wireless LAN shipments total 26.5 million units, up from 15.5 million units in 2002. Revenue will reach almost $2.8 billion in 2003, up from $2.1 billion in 2002. Gartner analysts said the market will continue to experience healthy growth through 2007.

"'The initial strong growth in the wireless LAN equipment market is being driven by the mobile data connectivity needs of professional portable PC users,'" said Andy Rolfe, principal analyst for Gartner Dataquest's worldwide telecommunications and networking group."

"The increase in wireless LAN-enabled mobile PCs and PDAs will drive demand for wireless LAN access in a variety of locations to support mobile access to business applications," Rolfe said. "These include homes for teleworkers and 'day extenders', public spaces or 'hotspots', and enterprise premises. As wireless LAN equipment prices continue to fall and speed increases, wireless solutions will become a viable alternative to wired LANs in small premises. This is because bandwidth demands are lower in small sites, and the cost of cabling for wired Ethernet is higher than in larger premises."

Source: "Gartner Dataquest Says Worldwide Wireless LAN Shipments to Grow 73 Percent in 2002," September 19, 2002

"With the promise that general packet radio service (GPRS) will significantly boost average revenue per user, GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) operators are in the process of rolling out GPRS across their networks in Asia, Europe and North America. Gartner, Inc. expects that GPRS will fail to meet the revenue expectations of mobile operators, and that it will prove to be a great technological disappointment until capacity, device and application challenges are overcome."

"'GPRS will have niche success stories as a technology for B2E applications,' said Bill Clark, research director for Gartner's networking group. 'Businesses will find that GPRS will be most appropriate for applications requiring short, bursty transactions, where time-critical information is a key factor.'"

"Gartner advises that operators further build out their networks to provide adequate service and coverage for consumer-focused applications. Gartner forecasts that an additional $6 billion to $9 billion in infrastructure investments will be necessary by 2005 to adequately support network loading. These investments are in addition to the $113 billion that operators have already planned for GPRS voice and data rollouts worldwide."

Source: "Gartner Predicts GPRS Will Not Succeed Until New Technologies Are Developed," June 3, 2002

"In the findings of a Gartner, Inc. survey released today, wireless customers revealed the most important factors in their selection of wireless services. The 122 enterprise survey respondents, all of whom attended Gartner's Wireless Conference in Chicago in March, ranked their reasons for selecting wireless service providers and their satisfaction levels with major wireless service providers."

"Factors for selection of wireless services are ranked below with the percentage of respondents who ranked each factor as most important. (Note: Percentages total more than 100 percent because some respondents had multiple equal criteria.)

• Complete regional or national coverage: 73.5 percent
• Service pricing: 25.3 percent
• International roaming and coverage: 8.2 percent
• Wireless Internet and data services: 8.1 percent
• Handset selection and price: 2.0 percent
• Other: 15.4 percent

"'Beyond anything else, geographic coverage remains the most important characteristic for mobile enterprise users,' said Phillip Redman, Gartner mobile wireless research director. 'No matter what the price, if you are out of coverage or get a fast-busy signal too often, you are paying too much.'"

Source: "Gartner Survey Shows Wireless Customers Prefer Solid Wireless Coverage Over a Good Price," May 1, 2002