At the EuroCACS conference in Stockholm today, Ericsson chief marketing officer Johan Bergendahl contended that Wi-Fi hotspots will soon be as irrelevant and outdated as telephone booths.

According to IDG's Mikael Ricknäs, Bergendahl's point is that mobile broadband will soon be so pervasive that nobody will need a Wi-Fi hotspot.

InformationWeek's Eric Zeman agrees, noting, "I am writing this article while sitting in a Starbucks. To prove his point, I am not using Starbuck's Wi-Fi, but am using my own wireless broadband card to access the EV-DO Rev. A data network from Verizon Wireless."

But Wi-Fi Net News' Glenn Fleishman ridicules Bergendahl, calling his statement "outrageous." Fleishman contends instead that Wi-Fi is simply a complement to mobile broadband. "It's a way to inject bandwidth into a network at fixed locations where someone might sit to watch a video or carry out some task that involves being static," he writes. "You can make phone calls in motion, but you're rarely jogging or driving while watching a video or composing email."

I'd be more inclined to agree with TechRepublic's Jason Hiner, who writes, "Bergendahl is right about Wi-Fi hotspots being largely displaced by mobile broadband for roaming connectivity in the future, but the big question is the timeline. How long will it take for mobile broadband to achieve mass penetration and be embedded into most laptops? I think we're looking at at least 3-5 years. In the meantime, there will still be plenty of Wi-Fi buildouts going on, and even when mobile broadband is widespread, Wi-Fi will remain a last-mile connection technology in corporate networks, small businesses, and homes."

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