JERSEY CITY, N.J.-As the International Telecommunication Union wound up its meeting in South Korea July 24 to consider 15 third-generation wireless proposals, Telecom Analysis Systems convened a media briefing to evaluate the need for this technology.
“2G is barely rolled out, and a lot of money has been spent on it, so there’s a time and resource shortage, yet people already are talking about 4G at 100 MHz, not the 20 MHz in 3G,” said Rob Van Brunt, wireless product manager for TAS, Eatontown, N.J.
“Why leave 2G? Non-standardization. Weak data support. No multimedia. To replace wireline voice, you must support more users, (offering) a single phone for fixed and mobile (communications) with better voice quality.”
Third-generation wireless isn’t new. A half-century ago, “the basic shape of how things would look was already known,” said Richard H. Frenkiel, who was Bell Laboratories’ director of mobile systems engineering for Advanced Mobile Phone Service when AMPS was developed.
Now senior consultant to Rutgers University Wireless Information Network Laboratory, Frenkiel is involved in research on “Infostations,” an architecture in which isolated, short-range base stations deliver very high bit rates of data to low-cost terminals.
The war over the utility of cellular was decided by the time second-generation wireless arrived in the 1980s, but wireless communications have failed to deliver ubiquitous roaming and fast, cheap data transmission, he said.
“With 3G, the first thought is access to the Internet in the car. What for?” Frenkiel added.
Instead of mobile copy cats of fixed wireline services, next-generation wireless might do better to answer other needs. On Frenkiel’s wish list would be anywhere, anytime roaming; easy retrieval of information from personal files by means of concept-based descriptions by end users; instantaneous language translation; and photograph files with subjects identified for those who can’t quite place what’s his name.
“The key issue is, if you are designing the same stuff for wireless as for wireline, which has (virtually) free bits, that will have to change because bits cost more in radio. If so, we are talking about a different and smaller market.”
The key pad is another important issue because peoples’ fingers aren’t getting any smaller despite the incredible shrinking nature of wireless device evolution.
“When Motorola (Inc.) announced the other day a three-ounce phone the size of a (chewing) gum pack, I realized that at some point I’ve stopped caring and begun to wonder about the [operational interface],” Frenkiel said.
The idea of people talking to their handsets or personal digital assistants in crowded public spaces isn’t a particularly appealing alternative, in his view. Instead, Frenkiel envisions two other possibilities: a three-dimensional display that you can see in the space before you, and an infrared sensor that knows where your fingers are as they type in the space in front of you.
“The real question is, if we build it, will they come? Eventually,” said Theodore S. Rappaport, director of the Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
“In the early days, wireless (telecommunications) was a technology pull industry, consumer driven. For the first time, the wireless industry is entering a technology push [era], similar to the computer industry.”
