MIT Negroponte emulates Elmat: WLANs to change telecoms landscape - Negroponte
By Ray Le Maistre, Total Telecom, in Rome
15 April 2002
802.11 technology will prevail, but 3G will not deliver, states technology guru.
Wireless LAN technology "is so big it will change the telecoms landscape - I don't think people realize how big an effect it will have," Nicholas Negroponte, the founder and director of MIT's Media Lab, told IDC's European Telecoms Forum 2002 in Rome Monday.
"Even if people try and regulate it out of existence it will prevail. Like the Internet it will be a viral technology," he proclaimed.
The issue of unlicensed spectrum is very important in Europe, he told a packed forum, and the EU needs to address the matter very quickly as there is too much diversity among countries about what people and companies can do with it.
But Negroponte is still down on the prospects for next-generation mobile services. "I don't think customers are going to want 3G," he stated. "The move to what 3G is offering is not big enough to call it a new generation." |
