If you keep an eye on developments in the technology world, the chances are you've heard of third generation (or 3G) mobile phones.

It's also likely you've heard the promises their backers are making for 3G impact on mobile communications, when the system is finally turned on. The benefits the technology could deliver to business people on the move - fast mobile access to email and company data, for instance - could be valuable.

It is much less likely that you have heard of Wi-Fi, or wireless Lan. Yet this is a technology that creates "clouds" of wireless internet access, of around 200m radius, operating at broadband speeds.

Your business can benefit from Wi-Fi in two ways: in your office, where a Wi-Fi network can eliminate cabling and provide fast network access to all your computers; and on the road, where you can use someone else's Wi-Fi network to get access to the internet.

Some of the biggest players in telecommunications - including T-Mobile and BT - are investing heavily in Wi-Fi networks you can buy subscriptions to.

Their first target customers are going to be businesses, and the companies are siting their hotspots in the kind of places they hope business users will be seeking out internet access on their laptops.

BT is fitting out more than 100 locations, including hotel lobbies, Costa coffee shops, airport lounges and motorway service stations, with more to come. T-Mobile appears (in the UK) only in Starbucks coffee shops, but a broader network is expected to be announced next month.

Other smaller operators, such as Wialess.com www.wialess.com) are setting up hotspots in public places, and for some you don't even need a subscription. Some hotspots will be free to access if you, for instance, take a hotel room for the night, or even just spend more than £2 on a coffee and bun.

No matter the business model being used to pay for the hotspots, all this activity is leading analysts to predict 2003 will be the year Wi-Fi makes its mark. The technology has a number of benefits, which makes them unusually confident about its prospects.

· It's here now: Unlike 3G, Wi-Fi is being rolled out today. Operators have networks in place, and are extending them rapidly both in the UK and abroad.

· Standards: a Wi-Fi network in the UK should work in the same way as one in Europe, or the US.

· Speed: the Wi-Fi standard can support up to 11Mb per second (a typical domestic broadband connection runs at 0.5Mbps). You're unlikely to get the full Wi-Fi speed at a hotspot, because they often use standard ADSL to connect to the internet. But this is still a much faster way to access the internet than GPRS mobile phones, or even 3G when it is launched.

· Ease of use: out and about, compared to hooking your laptop up to your mobile phone, using Wi-Fi is easy (see Online's Wi-Fi guide at www.theguardian.com/online). You will need a Wi-Fi card in your laptop and, in most cases, a subscription to a Wi-Fi network (see panel). When you're in a hotspot, you call up your operating system's wireless network manager (Windows XP and Mac OS X both have this as standard) and your computer will automatically find the signal of the hotspot. You select the network you want to join, and the computer logs on. The whole process should take less than a minute.

· Cost: it is cheap to add to your laptop the ability to use public hotspots. You need only add a Wi-Fi card, which costs around £60. A Wi-Fi base station, which can connect to your broadband connection to create a hotspot in your office, can be bought for as little as £100. Set-up should be straightforward.

There are some caveats, however. For all the benefits Wi-Fi can deliver to businesses, it is not a complete replacement for existing cellular (mobile phone) technology. For a start, Wi-Fi networks in Europe are still sparse. "Coverage is a big issue at the moment," warns Richard Dineen, an analyst with telecoms analyst Ovum. He points out that some situations might still require a wired, or cellular, connection - for instance, if you need to check figures from a client's offices.

"It's of low utility if I can only use my Wi-Fi laptop in a certain number of locations," says Dineen. "It's not that useful to me unless you knit together much more extensive coverage to make the service useful."

In addition, security concerns remain, especially if you decide to replace a wired network in your office with a Wi-Fi hotspot. While it is fair to say some Wi-Fi concerns have been exaggerated - especially for small business users - those worries have led a number of leading companies in the field to toughen up security standards. A new standard called Wi-Fi protected access (WPA) is now going to be built in to new Wi-Fi hardware this year, offering greatly enhanced security. By the end of this year, WPA is likely to be a compulsory feature of certified Wi-Fi equipment.

In the meantime, the basic security already built in to Wi-Fi, or Wired equivalent privacy (WEP), should be enough to deter the less determined snoopers, who are also less likely to be showing interest in small business networks in the first place. What is likely is that Wi-Fi will become near-ubiquitous in new business laptop computers, with both Intel and AMD preparing to launch laptop chipsets that have Wi-Fi built in. Hand-held computers are also likely to start appearing with this technology available as an option.

And with more and more people looking for Wi-Fi on the move, the cheap and cheerful standard looks set for rapid growth this year - further increasing its value to business users on the move.

BT Openzone
www.bt.com/openzone
Pay as you go schemes: One hour: £6 24-hour: £15 for unlimited use within one 24-hour period
Subscription schemes: Openzone 300: £20 a month for 300 minutes a month; additional minutes charged at 15p each. Openzone 900: £40 a month for 900 minutes a month; additional minutes charged at 10p a minute. BT Unlimited: £85 a month, with no further charges

Megabeam
www.megabeam.com
(Prices converted from euros, with advertised discounts applied) Two hours: £5.06 24 hours: £20.27 Seven days: £32.93 Monthly (31 days): £58.27 Annual pre-pay: £620.27 + one year free Annual post-pay: £689.18 + one year free

T-Mobile
www.t-mobile.co.uk
Free at the moment, although pricing is expected to be announced next month, along with a roll-out of more hotspots.