Introduction

Since a couple of years, a debate has been going-on that WLAN (wireless local area network) technology has the pottential to compete with 3G. In my opinion, all this is true from a theoretical perspective but things are quite different if one considers practical implications, lets discuss.

WLAN Advantages over UMTS

The possitive aspects of WLAN over UMTS are that WLAN is providing far more better bandwidth i.e. 11Mpbs rather than UMTS 2Mbps stationary 384kbps mobile. WLAN operates in 2.4 GHz frequency band which comes in the unlicenced area. Hence, operators dont have to pay for licencing this spectrum. Furthermore, the devices needed to setup a WLAN on operator and subscriber side are far cheapter than the one in UMTS. Currently, WLAN is just supporting a range in hundreds of meters, but its expected that in a couple of years it will extend upto several kilometers. Hence, with all these features if WLAN is technically crafted with other networks such as GPRS could easily satisfy the emerging needs of high bandwidth.

UMTS Advantages over WLAN

Lets discuss the benefits of UMTS over WLAN. The above discussed extension of WLAN is just an idea on the theoretical table, no work has been done yet to check its practical implementations. UMTS is providing far more area of coverage as it is based on providing some Universal Mobile service rather than Wireless Local service in WLAN. Furthermore, WLAN comes up with security issues which might get solved in future but its hard to get a reputation back in this context. WLAN is cheap, which can cause drastic decrease in the quality of service when low-standard companies come and do business over that. Even if WLAN got implemented, there would be many handovers and cold spots in the network while the user is mobile which will definitely cause problem.

Conclusion

UMTS has been specifically made for a global purpose while WLAN has been developed to fulfill local wireless needs. It has also been said that UMTS dont need bandwidth like 11Mbps for its small screen devices and 2Mbps is enough for UMTS. You can observe that currently Bluetooth is catering the local wireless needs for global mobile devices which has been slowly replaced by WLAN. But, there doesnt seem to be a chance where WLAN completely replace UMTS.