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| Why Wi-Fi, Delilah? |
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| Thursday, 29 March 2007 | |
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New study says the US market is ready to go nuts for Wi-Fi/cellphone convergence. Security concerns remain, however: they are technical by nature but will influence commercial take-up and consumer outlooks.
One in four US wireless subscribers would switch cellular carriers for access to a converged Wi-Fi/cellphone service, according to a new study conducted by ABI Research and now released by the Wi-Fi Alliance. The study also indicates that nearly one in three subscribers would discontinue their traditional home phone service in order to obtain strong in-home signal coverage and reduced pricing for wireless calls made from home. And, according to this reading of the runes, Wi-Fi connectivity in a ‘converged’ mobile phone can offer as much as five times the throughput of 3G networks, as well as improved indoor coverage. The ABI Research study, conducted in March 2007, surveyed 1,223 US wireless subscribers in what is billed as a “nationally-balanced and demographically representative sample of adult consumers”. Respondents were asked to indicate whether a variety of listed benefits, typical of converged Wi-Fi/mobile convergence phone offerings, would compel them to switch carriers now or in the future. Among the most attractive benefits were: • ‘reduced prices for mobile data services at home’ (25% would switch); • ‘better signal coverage in my home’ (25% would switch); • ‘reduced prices on voice calls made from my home’ (24% would switch); • ‘reduced prices for data services at Wi-Fi hotspots’ (21% would switch); • ‘reduced prices for voice calls made from public Wi-Fi hotspots’ (21% would switch). Yup… 116% would switch. Sounds like a general election in Florida. "Convergence presents carriers with a compelling opportunity to build subscriber loyalty and migrate more users to mobile applications such as e-mail, Web surfing, and multimedia downloads," says Philip Solis, principal analyst at ABI Research. "We expect to see a number of US carriers launching convergence programmes over the next 12 months." "It's meaningful, though not surprising, that so many people are interested in Wi-Fi/mobile convergence phones though they are just now becoming available in the United States", adds Frank Hanzlik, managing director of the Wi-Fi Alliance. "Wi-Fi technology has quickly become a ‘must have' feature for users who value the throughput, affordability, security and ease of use, in addition to the flexibility it brings. When you ask whether they'd like to see it a part of mobile phones, it's an easy decision." ABI Research forecasts that in 2011, more than 325mn converged Wi-Fi/cellular phones will be shipped, representing a 183% annual growth rate from the 2006 shipment total of 1.8mn. How these forecasts might be impacted in the short term by the findings of a new survey by voice over IP (VoIP) security specialist Sipera Systems – namely that certain Wi-Fi/dual mode terminals from the like of RIM, HTC, Samsung, Dell and D-Link have security vulnerabilities – is unknown. Sipera has published nine threat advisories for Wi-Fi/dual mode terminals from these vendors (posted at http://www.sipera.com/viper). The major threat advisories issued by Sipera include: • a format string vulnerability in the RIM Blackberry 7270 SIP stack that may allow a remote attacker to disable the phone's calling features (VIPER-2007-023) • the HTC HyTN using AGEPhone is vulnerable to malformed SIP messages sent over WLAN connections, which may cause active calls to disconnect (VIPER-2007-0026) • a buffer overflow vulnerability in Samsung SCH-i730 phones running SJPhone SIP client may allow an attacker to disable the phone and slow down the operating system (VIPER-2007-0029) • the Dell Axim running SJPhone SIP soft phone is vulnerable to denial of service attacks, which can freeze the phone and drain the battery (VIPER-2007-0030) • a vulnerability in the SDP parsing module of D-Link DPH-540/DPH-541 Wi-Fi phones may allow remote attackers to disable the phone's calling features (VIPER-2007-031) But these may be just teething problems John Williamson |
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