The future of wireless could be the future of most everything.
Wireless technology has evolved in leaps and bounds since the first transmission of radio communication signals across the English Channel and then across the Atlantic Ocean a century ago. Wireless technology is being transformed before our very eyes from an end in itself-that is, to communicate-to a means whereby processes of seemingly everything under the sun are furthered. It is a subtly radical yet highly revolutionary development, especially when coupled with the power of the Internet and buoyed by sophisticated software and middleware packaged in novel applications.
In this case, the sky is not the limit. Not nearly. The heavenly ether is part of the grand design of the still-forming Untethered Universe.
The poster child for wireless technology in the 21st century is the cell phone, which has become as common and critical an appendage to human beings as arms and legs. That is not an exaggeration. Indeed, the great convergence that awaits us may not be between one technology and another but rather between technology and the human organism.
As spectacular, prolific and profound as the cell phone and its impact on society are today, the future of wireless may well be more about what the technology does for everything else than what it does itself.
Wireless is arguably the most power-enabling agent in modern times. Everywhere there are signs of devilish disruptions to the status quo. Inventory management, commerce, transportation, music and entertainment, gaming and gambling, dating, voting, governing, education, environmental protection, public safety and law enforcement, homeland security and, yes, terrorism-all are undergoing their own private metamorphoses.
Oh, don’t forget the food business. Have a slice of wireless with your latte or Big Mac. When the day is done, there’s home sweet smart home to return to. It’s all coming together.
“As technology moves into the home, wireless chips will just be built into it,” said wireless guru Andy Seybold.
What does it all mean? Hard to say, other than something big is happening, and wireless is part of it. There are a lot of opinions, but no one really knows where it all is headed.
Economic forces make consolidation assured. How much shrinkage is up to the Justice Department. Privacy, digital rights management, standards-based trade barriers, spam, hacking and viruses appear to have a place in the wireless future. The health issue won’t go away. States continue to want to tax wireless facilities they otherwise try to block.
As for the wireless widget of the future, it’s hard to imagine computer processors and other electronic components-not to mention wireless gadgets themselves-getting smaller, more powerful and smarter. But just you watch.
Of course, all that assumes the wireless establishment today remains intact. The wireless industry of tomorrow could be very different from the one out there right now.
Reed Hundt, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, predicts Wal-Mart may one day be the biggest wireless company of them all.
Add Disney, 7-Eleven, America Online to the list of prospective wireless would-bes. MVNOs appear primed to make waves in the wireless space. Figuring out who the service provider is could become the stuff of Mystery Theater.
The day could be nearer than some might think. Retail giants and big-brand behemoths may be wireless titans in the making. Wireless carriers, which control large swaths of spectrum, could be relegated to glorified spectrum band managers that stand in the background and make money in their sleep.
Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wireless L.L.C., Sprint PCS, AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Nextel Communications Inc. and T-Mobile USA Inc. are not the only game in town. Likewise for CDMA- and GSM-based technologies.
New technologies combined with powerful software could make the endless CDMA-GSM feud an overnight anachronism. Meantime, 3G (W-CDMA, CDMA2000, TDD), Flash OFDM and other technologies are scrambling for market share in a global economy where a successful wireless solution in one country does not guarantee a big payday in another. Culture, societal norms, politics, economics and other factors will challenge wireless marketers seeking business in countries around the world.
In the mirror, the mobile-phone industry undoubtedly sees unlicensed wireless technologies like Wi-Fi, WiMax and ultra-wideband coming on strong. Whether unlicensed turns out to be complementary or competitive-or a little of both-has yet to be determined. Wireless VoIP, mesh networks and several other iterations of wireless are also on the drawing board.
Silicon Valley is anxious for a big piece of the unlicensed wireless action. Indeed, Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp. and other tech stalwarts are either aggressively funding or cheerleading the next wireless wave that is Wi-Fi. Future business revenue depends on it.
What will it cost the consumer? Service and equipment prices are declining. But how about this? Hundt, noting that per-minute wireless charges are fading fast, said billing generally could become a thing of the past. One possibility: The billing function could be priced into the device.
“The next big convergence will be between communications and consumer electronics,” said Hundt.
If you don’t buy Hundt’s hypothesis, see for yourself at January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Thus, the wireless customer of the future could be anybody and everybody. But as things now stand, teens rule. Most everything wireless will gravitate to satisfying their insatiable needs. Any money they have to spend, they will. Ring tones, SMS and camera phones are big for a reason.
Edmond Thomas, chief engineer at the Federal Communication Commission, said winners in the wireless free-for-all will not be the ones who cram the most bells and whistles in wireless devices at the cheapest price.
“The real trick for industry is choosing subsets of functionality that makes sense for the consumer,” said Thomas.
In addition, Thomas predicted consumers will demand quality. No doubt music to Verizon Wireless’ ears.
Thomas, a progressive advocate of advanced wireless technologies and spectrum reform policies intended to further competition and make more efficient use of the crowded airwaves, said to look for greater frequency sharing among government and non-government users in the future.
Thomas said he has been most dazzled by the compressed time period in which technologies have converged.
Another spectrum reform proponent, Michael Gallagher, chief of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said the feds still have a role amid this technological storm. It is to create the right environment for telecom and tech businesses. Translated: deregulation and tax breaks.
As for wireless, observed Gallagher said, “It’s meant to be portable. It’s meant to be personal.”
Policy-makers will have a hard time keeping up with the rapid and unpredictable pace of change. Maybe they will not have to. Technology advances may make them obsolete.
Can all these wireless wares peacefully coexist?
Seybold fears interference Armageddon. “There is so much interference with Wi-Fi, how do you solve it?”
It’s a good question. Could the light at the end of the tunnel be the wireless train wreck of the century?
That itself should be enough to keep some policy-makers employed.
Thomas Hazlett, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a former chief economist at the FCC, believes a viable third path for residential broadband will be realized only if the FCC allocates more bandwidth for mobile-phone carriers.
“The U.S. has failed to put any new licensed frequencies to use in commercial mobile radio services since the 1994 personal communications services allocation-which is still being licensed through January 2005. This has created a terrible drag on new wireless technologies,” said Hazlett. Music to the cellular industry’s ears.
Where will the innovation come from? Vendors will do their part, but big breakthroughs are also likely to come from the usual places: garages and universities. Cities and states are proving themselves to be successful laboratories for large-scale Wi-Fi rollouts.
Also, in keeping with historical trends, the Department of Defense is apt be a hotbed of wireless innovation, perhaps even more so than in the past as military transformation turns to greater mobility and information superiority for the net-centric battlefield warrior.
The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency is well along with its neXt Generation communications program. XG takes aim at the 70-year-old frequency assignment regime-which experts say is partially to blame for an artificial spectrum shortage. Under XG, wireless devices would “sense” the radio-frequency environment for other users and usage characteristics (a country’s spectrum rules, for example), and then select an available radio channel to transmit. The Pentagon calls the approach “opportunistic spectrum access.” The private sector may be opportunistic about commercially exploiting XG.
“What the military needs is what other people find they need two decades later,” said Preston Marshall, program manager at DARPA.
The future of wireless is happening, real-time in the present
