OXFORD, United Kingdom-Regardless of concerns expressed by European third-generation (3G) license holders, the German telecom regulator, RegTP, expects wireless local area networks (WLAN) networks to complement 3G services and plans to make more spectrum available for WLAN in the 5 GHz band.
RegTP said it came to this conclusion following a thorough technical, economic and regulatory analysis that investigated the potential threat to 3G from WLAN services. Matthias Kurth, president of RegTP, claimed the two technologies would effectively supplement each other for the benefit of all market players. “Using WLAN frequencies for public applications should be in the interest of 3G operators and would more likely lead to the commercial success of 3G than if public WLANs were prohibited,” he said.
Separately, Cisco and Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced aggressive WLAN deployment plans. In particular, Cisco claimed it has reached agreement with 19 European airport operators to launch commercial WLAN services based on its long-reach Ethernet and virtual private network (VPN) technology. The airports involved include Munich, Copenhagen and Ataturk Airport in Turkey. Meanwhile, HP announced a worldwide initiative to develop WLAN infrastructure to stimulate take-up of its notebook and iPaq Pocket PCs. Nokia and IBM also recently unveiled a joint strategy to address the WLAN market.
