Surf,
You ask an interesting question. The answers I am giving give my personal vision and do not necessarily indicate what products Wi-LAN is working on. As you will see, I am trying not to be specific about any company or their products.
The first high speed wireless data products are fixed meaning they connect fixed installations together like a building to the central office of the telephone company, etc. Within a year I expect that we will see more transportable devices; meaning the subscriber to the service can install it himself and move it with him when he moves. By the end of 2000, I expect that we will start to see total mobile solutions meaning a personal digital assistant (PDA) like the PalmPilot from 3Com that is capable of full motion video or holding a video conference. I am bullish about this because of the developing IEEE802.11 standards.
We know that cellular manufacturers are working on BlueTooth which is meant to be a 700kbps wireless data connection that will connect the cellular telephone to the nearest base station or a laptop computer. This probably is meant to be a radio replacement for the infra-red ports on telephones. Cellular manufacturers are also working on third generation (3G) cellular telephones which are supposed to be able to handle speeds approaching 2Mbps. However, the problem associated with both technologies is that as soon as they are out, software developers will develop applications that use the entire available bandwidth. 700kbps or 2Mbps shared between a number of users will not provide much service.
However, as for convergence, I think in the long term (five years and beyond), we will see cellular and PDAs integrating. Today there are minor problems in that path. PDAs have to have a certain size for data entry purposes and cellular telephones have us accustomed to smaller sizes. This can be solved in a number of ways.
It is my belief that we will see PDAs used for Internet access whenever the user is stationary: at home, in the office, in a restaurant, in a stadium, etc. Cellular phones will be used for full mobility. There will probably be dual mode devices that operate as cellular when and only when full mobility is needed; otherwise they will connect to the nearest high speed (30Mbps) base station.
One area that we have not touched on is the HomeRF which is meant to generate devices to connect home appliances and multimedia devices together. This adds an interesting dimension to the whole equation. It introduces the power of the large consumer electronics companies into this arena. I think that they fir nicely in my model described above. |
