Who need WiFi on their mobile phones
Nowadays, more and more users want to have WiFi on their mobile phones, I am also on of them. I bought 2 mobile phones recently, having WiFi is one of the facts my choice based on. I excluded Motorola Z8 at beginning though there was a promotion for it, just because it doesn’t have WiFi.
I need WiFi for my mobile phone since I use VoIP services very frequently, with WiFi enabled handset I can make VoIP calls like using cordless phones with my wireless routher, then I don’t need to sit in front of my PC or buy dedicated devices such as VoIP gateway.
Except VoIP, WiFi on mobile phones is not so important in other applications to me. For example, if you want to watch online video, laptops/netbooks or portable game consoles like PSP will be better since the screen size of mobile phones is too small.
The major issue of WiFi is that its mobility is too limited, in applications that don’t have high requirement for bandwidth (for example, Web browsing, text chat and so on), it is even less practical than GPRS. The bandwidth of EDGE is almost sufficient (if cell is not too crowed) for applications such as VoIP or online videos with lower quality. So if the cost of 3G network could decrease, WiFi on mobile phones is not very necessary.
Another problem of WiFi is that it consumes too much bettary. If users use WiFi to keep online (no massive downloads, only stay on IM network or connect to email server), most mobile phones’ batteries could hardly last for one day. If users use EDGE instead, the standby time will decrease too much. 3G network cost more power, but it is still less than WiFi.
Surely, mobile phones with WiFi have more flexibility. For instance,
1. Some mobile operators don’t allow VoIP over their 2G/3Gnetworks, users much have WiFi to use VoIP services.
2. It is more convenient to share files between PCs and mobile phones with WiFi and WiFi is equipped on almost every laptops, while bluetooth is not.
3. WiFi is more useful for users without unlimited data plan.
Even though, WiFi is not so important on mobile phones as on laptops/netbooks and MIDs.
