Wireless Services Slow To Connect At Companies

As cellular carriers provide faster data services and Wi-Fi hot-spots pop up in coffee shops and hotels, businesses are increasingly providing mobile employees with tools to take advantage of wireless data services outside the workplace. But widespread adoption is still down the road because of incompatible standards, high costs, and overhyped data speeds.

Only 11% of 651 business-technology professionals surveyed by InformationWeek's sister publication Network Computing say wide area mobile wireless data services are widely used within their companies. More than a third (37%) report that their companies aren't using the technology at all.

That should change as the ability to wirelessly access E-mail grows more popular among mobile professionals, and more systems become available to let them connect with other back-end applications. The introduction of faster third-generation wireless data services by cellular companies provides data speeds that make accessing enterprise apps more feasible. And the proliferation of Wi-Fi hot-spots makes it easy to connect to the Internet and a company's network while on the road.

A growing number of businesses are equipping employees with the technology to take advantage of those services. But in most companies, individual users are driving the use of mobile wireless data services.

Cost is one issue. Most of those surveyed (70%) want flat-rate monthly pricing, rather than the usage-based pricing common for wireless data services. A quarter of those surveyed want a pricing plan that includes tiered multimegabyte monthly quotas, with additional charges when the quota is exceeded. That approach mimics common plans for cellular voice services. Only 5% support a plan that has no monthly fee and a small charge for each byte of data transferred.

Let us know your company's strategy for wireless connectivity.

Paul Travis
Editor-At-Large
[email protected]

Rollout Intent

Which wide-area service adoption scenario is likely to occur?

Thirty-nine percent of the business-technology professionals surveyed in Network Computing's study predict that the IT department will roll out wide area mobile wireless data as a basic service for all mobile employees, while 35% think business units will demand the service to improve the use of specific applications.