The iPod generation has a lot of faith in the Apple brand.

Apple has yet to disclose what wireless broadband option will be in the European release of the iPhone in November.

Could a brand alone decide whether WiMax, Wifi or 3G is going to be the most popular wireless technology in the next few years?

In a survey done recently by Strategy Analytics, 90% of mobile phone owners said that the Apple iPhone was superior to their current handset. While the iPhone does appear to have some superior aspects . . . such as a large display, a built-in iPod and a touch-screen interface . . . the startling thing about the survey was that nobody surveyed had actually used the iPhone, just watched a video about it.

Apple predicts it will see 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008. Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson were already worried about the iPhone but this survey has probably helped give more of them sleepless nights.

Phone manufacturers shouldn't be the only ones to be worried. Billions of euros have been invested in Wifi, WiMax and 3G, which are all types of wireless broadband, and if Apple becomes the most popular phone manufacturer it will mean Apple could call the shots on wireless broadband in Europe and delegate the other two technologies to the could-havebeen section of the history books.

In America, Apple has signed an exclusive deal with AT&T to be the mobile provider for the iPhone. The wireless options for the iPhone are WiFi and Edge wireless broadband. Edge is also known as 2.75G network technology, an inferior version of the 3G broadband that is on offer in Europe.

For the launch of the European iPhone, Apple is keeping A DIM VIEW OF PANORAMA LAST week the once respected Panorama TV programme jumped on the bandwagon, saying that WiFi technology was as dangerous as radiation.

The tech world was stunned at how badly researched the investigation was, including the fact that Panorama disagreed with the World Health Organisation's research on the area.

The most staggering aspect of the programme was that the BBC had an 'expert' warning about WiFi. This expert encouraged people to paper their houses with tinfoil and wear tinfoil hats and just happened to sell them for �27 a pop.

Luckily our TV licence doesn't pay for such nonsense.

Instead we get Pat Kenny. Oh.

its cards very close to its chest on what wireless technology it will use.

Europe's biggest mobile phone networks have been courting Apple to get an exclusive deal for the iPhone. Vodafone, 3, O2 owner Telefonica and many others are all jumping up and down shouting "pick me".

While 3G technology is the most popular form of wireless broadband in Europe, WiMax technology is also being used in some places in Europe. WiMax also has considerable backing from Motorola, Intel and Clearwire.

3G has been available in Ireland now for a few years and consumers are set to benefit from a looming price war between O2, Vodafone and 3 after 3 dropped the cost of its mobile broadband service to 19.99 a month.

WiMax still hasn't taken off here, though Irish Broadband and Eircom have been trialing it of late. Eircom also has a 3G licence which it recently acquired so its options are open. Digiweb has also been talking about using yet another technology to offer mobile broadband.

If the deus ex machina that is the iPhone affects the telecoms market in the same way as the iPod forced massive changes in the music industry, then fortunes could be won or lost on the whim of Apple.

A few decades ago, there was a format war between betamax and VHS; betamax ended up losing even though it was the superior format.

Once again we could have a war of technologies which is not about the better technology but about the power of a brand, the twist this time being that the brand that decides the fate of these technologies is a total outsider.

While Apple must be a waking nightmare to everyone in telecoms, have you heard that Google is building a phone. . . ?