Security fears fail to hold back Wi-Fi

Despite security fears, the market for wireless Lan gear will roughly double in value and triple in unit shipments by 2009, largely thanks to next-generation technology delivering higher throughput, longer range and greater capacity.

According to a newly published report by Datacomm Research Company, soaring demand for wireless home entertainment technology will help drive the boom.

The report noted that enterprise applications account for a small proportion of wireless Lan sales as security conscious organisations continue to proceed with caution.

However, the popularity of notebook PCs is forcing all large enterprises to secure their endpoint devices.

"The market for wireless Lan nodes is currently measured in tens of millions of units," said Ira Brodsky, senior analyst at Datacomm and the report's author.

"But the wireless Lan market could increase dramatically as a result of home entertainment applications that could constitute hundreds of millions of units and wireless voice over IP and machine-to-machine applications, which could require more than one billion units each."

The analyst warned, however, that a number of technology and business obstacles must be overcome to reach these levels.

The adoption of Wi-Fi hotspots has so far been "disappointing", but Datacomm expects improved business models and interoperation with cellular networks to help redress this failure.

Datacomm also predicted that improvements in battery performance, quality of service, range, and throughput are crucial to the future success of wireless Lans.