SHANGHAI is about to experience a wireless revolution.
Everything from viewing e-mails in your hotel's swimming pool to downloading new songs directly into your MP3 while riding on the Metro will be a part of everyday life.
Shanghai will join the list of existing wireless metropolitan hubs: Hong Kong and, in the United States, Austin, Texas; Orlando; and San Francisco.
The city aims to become wireless before World Expo 2010 and local telecommunications carriers have fastened the pace to achieve the target.
Shanghai Mobile and Shanghai Telecom both signed with Putuo District yesterday to expand wireless coverage for the first time within the region of Inner Ring Road, the central part of the city.
Previously, carriers signed with governments in suburban areas on the "wireless city" initiative, including Baoshao, Minhang and Nanhui districts and the Chongming County.
Today, Shanghai Mobile will sign similar agreements with Xuhui District where the major Olympic stadiums are.
After the project is completed, people will be able to access the Internet through various devices such as mobile phones, laptops, PDAs or other Wi-Fi built-in devices such as iPod Touch.
"As a modernized city, Shanghai should have a wireless Internet network without a limit of space or time," said Zhou Weidong, secretary general of the Shanghai Municipal Informatization Commission.
The number of wireless Internet hot spots in Shanghai will hit more than 3,600 by the end of this year - triple last year's level.
China Telecom will establish an additional 2,000 Wi-Fi hot spots this year from an existing 1,000 now. Shanghai Mobile will establish 666 more Wi-Fi hot spots this year from the current 100 to 200 Wi-Fi sites.
Under the wireless city project, Wi-Fi services will be available in hotels, universities, shopping centers, commercial buildings, Olympic and World Expo sites.
In future, more personal users will enjoy wireless services for video downloads, Internet browsing and data sharing, just like the family broadband services.
Shanghai Telecom, the first player in the wireless project, has used services to issue wireless video monitoring for the police.
Shanghai Mobile has developed solutions for logistics, education and health care sectors.
In 2007, China's WLAN (wireless local area network) equipment market revenue was US$142 million, with 56.7 percent growth year-on-year, ranking the No. 1 position in Asia Pacific, excluding Japan. The market revenue is expected to reach US$197 million this year and US$498 million in 2010, according to IDC.
"The major WLAN users in China are enterprise clients but the service becomes popular in the consumer sector as sales of laptops with built-in Wi-Fi climbs here," said Yi Feichun, IDC's analyst.
In the city, carriers adopt various methods such as WiMax, 3G and current mobile networks to construct wireless networks, besides major stream Wi-Fi (802.11 standard).
Shanghai Telecom said it was considering adopting WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access), a wireless broadband access technology built on the 802.16 standard.
WiMax is considered the next revolution in wireless, and the hot spot can deliver capacity of up to 40 megabits per second in a wider range, compared with Wi-Fi's 11Mbps.
Intel Corp will invest US$500 million in Taiwan mainly on WiMax.
It is also in negotiations with carriers and the governments to be involved in the wireless city project, according to Sean Maloney, Intel's executive vice president, who visited Shanghai last month.
Shanghai Mobile plans to set up 3,000 3G base stations in Shanghai this year.