Mobile road warriors, to say nothing of technology journalists, often dream of the day in which the broadband web surfing speeds they enjoy at home are available everywhere.

Sure, GPRS mobile phone systems are great for checking e-mail. But for downloading large files and serious surfing they are far too slow.

So far we have had a tantalising glimpse of the potential of broadband to go with the growth of Wi-Fi hotspots in the UK.

Two announcements made this week means that pretty soon there will another method of accessing the internet at speed on the move: via 3G.

Vodafone has announced trials of a 3G card for laptops with a view to a full launch later in the spring. Basically the card fits into a laptop's PCMCIA slot to deliver data transmission speeds of up to 384kbps.

While not quite as fast as most people's definition of broadband, which delivers speeds of at least 512kbps, or for that matter the average Wi-Fi hot spot, which is also around that figure, it is still a huge leap on from the snail-like GPRS speeds.

The network is far from complete too, with Vodafone only promising 3G coverage in cities like London and Manchester. Road warriors may have to wait until at least 2005 to be able to access 3G networks across the UK.

Still, if the trial proves successful and the launch goes as planned the road warrior's among Vodafone's business customers may have the product they have been waiting for.

It isn't just Vodafone that is intent on freeing your laptop from the constraints of slow connections. This week the Carphone Warehouse announced the arrival of Nokia's 3G handset, the 7600. The phone comes with 3G services provided by Three. However unlike 'official' Three handsets like the Motorola A920 and NEC e606, the Carphone Warehouse claims that the phone can be used as 3G modem for a laptop delivering those ultra fast download speeds.

Although we are still at the "we'll believe it when we see it stage" with this claim, it is certainly news that some business users have been waiting for.

"There is a huge demand for 3G connectivity for laptops," says Roger Butterworth, MD of Expansys, one of the UK's largest retailers of both Wi-Fi equipment and mobile phones. "Thousands of people have bought a GPRS card for their laptops from us. If you offer them something that is seven or more times faster it is an obvious upgrade. People want to be able get online no matter where they are and not have to worry about finding Wi-Fi hot spots."

There are rumours too that Three is about to unleash its business services which will include being able to use its handsets as a modem. Three has other advantages too in that its 3G network now encompasses most of the UK and the company has also had over a year to get the service working properly too. The dream of being able to access the web at fast speeds anywhere is not far from being realised.

All of this comes in a week when BT has been offering free trails of its Openzone Wi-Fi system.

That it needs to do so perhaps reflects the tricky positions Wi-Fi operators are finding themselves in. For while there has been an explosion in the number of hot spots, the number of people actually using those hot spots is, and I am guessing here, minimal (obviously everyone in the Wi-Fi industry argues this isn't the case).

Personally I have never once had to share a Wi-Fi connection in a hot spot, and given the number of different accounts I have, and that I am a fairly frequent user, that's rather a sorry claim.

So why are there so few takers? Price has to be a key issue. Most providers charge around £6 an hour for their service - around a fiver more than many internet caf¿s charge for access.

Roaming is another unresolved issue. Granted, with the additon of The Cloud's range of pubs, BT's Openzone now has a good selection of over 2000 Wi-Fi hot spots across the UK. Yet I prefer Starbucks Coffee, which uses T-Mobile's Wi-Fi network, to Costa (the company that BT has the deal with) and with no roaming I am forced to maintain a pair of accounts.

Lastly there are usability issues. If you don't have an account actually getting online can take the best part of ten minutes, by which time your coffee may be cold and the urge to check your e-mail diminished.

So does the arrival of 3G on laptops sound the death knell for Wi-Fi? It could do. For if users are not getting online at hot spots now, they are even less likely to when they have the choice of a very fast permanent connection everywhere on their phone.

"Paid for Wi-Fi hot spots were always destined to be a short-lived," argues Expansys' Roger Butterworth. "They are the Rabbit [a forerunner of digital mobile phones] of our time. No one is going to use them when they have access to data connections anywhere via 3G."

Not surprisingly, Dave Hughes - chief executive of BT Wireless Broadband - disagrees. "Wi-Fi and 3G are complimentary technologies. 3G might have ubiquity, but it can't match Wi-Fi's speed."

Inevitably, how much 3G eats into Wi-Fi revenue will be all about pricing and not just how much 3G costs, but how operators charge for usage.

"The landscape will depend on pricing models with people used to flat rates being charged per byte. It will be interesting to see what the take up is like," says Angelo Lamme, international product marketing manager, wireless and security at 3Com.

"At the moment users pay around £1 per MB with GPRS," says Dave Hughes. "The average business user is probably going to download 10MB worth of e-mail at a time using 3G. That's £10 which is much more expensive than Wi-Fi. Besides they aren't paying any more for the hardware as Wi-Fi is integrated on almost all laptops anyway."

However much Vodafone and Three charge for their 3G services the good news for consumers is that the arrival of 3G connections for laptops is likely to deliver a serious kick to the Wi-Fi operators, forcing them to tackle the key issues of price and roaming. Should a wireless price war begin there's only really likely to be one winner, and that's the consumer.