Just four years ago, no one knew the Web’s popularity would be so explosive. Today, vendors and carriers are realizing its power and are crafting networks around it as they move into the third generation and beyond.
“Even in 1995, people didn’t think the Internet would be that important,” said Rich Howard, director of the wireless research lab at Lucent Technologies’ Bell Labs. “3G standards in the wireless world have their roots well before that. The 3G standards as they were created, defined and put into place were really before the Internet became a driving force. The only thing you can know is that this is probably not the last technology.”
The International Telecommunication Union is working toward adopting a family of 3G standards encompassing CDMA- and GSM-based technologies that will be capable of transmitting data speeds of up to 384 kilobits per second (kbps), providing full-blown Internet access. Beyond that, the wireless industry can only imagine what future generations of wireless technology will look like. But today carriers know the name of the game is taking advantage of the seemingly endless possibilities that data, with a big push from the Internet, will provide.
“The Internet is the one thing that will change things,” said Greg Wortman, senior director of marketing with Fujitsu Network Communications, at a recent New York Telecom Business conference. “By 2005, its use will grow by 80 percent. By 2010, it will grow by 200 percent.”
“Looking forward to data, we’ve just scratched the surface,” said Keith Radousky, director of engineering with U.S. operator BellSouth Cellular. “The Internet amazes me.”
“Being unconnected and doing what you were going to do anyway is a big motivator,” said Howard, Lucent’s visionary when it comes to the future of wireless. “We see the wired network exploding. Just four or five years ago, there were empty fibers around the country. Now, they are laying fiber at 3,000 miles per hour. Not much of that happens through a wireless connection now. Clearly people, when given a choice, don’t want to be nailed down to their desk.”
Thus, the imagination of wireless executives runs wild. The future could mean simply asking your mobile phone with voice commands where the best restaurant is to get Chicago-style deep-dish pizza and where to find it. It could mean querying your mobile phone to monitor the security, temperature and lighting of your home while you’re away on vacation.
“The fourth generation could be more than a means of communication,” said Marie Wold, head of Deloitte Research Communications in London. “It could be a way of customizing your surroundings. Walk into a room, and you have basically the information on a microchip that dims the lights and everything else.”
Competing with wireline data?
But how does the wireless industry get there? Today, wireless data rates pale compared with those employed by wired networks. No one is sure of the type of network compression capabilities wireless carriers will be able to employ in the future to compete with wireline speeds, but most believe data will never keep pace with wired data rates. As Howard’s metaphor puts it, a fiber-optic connection is to a wireless connection as the Colorado River is to a soda straw.
“The challenge in the wireless world is to make that soda straw larger to the individual and to be sure when you put something through that soda straw that it ought to be real pearls of wisdom, not slush,” said Howard.
Jeffrey Schlesinger, wireless analyst with Warburg Dillon Read in New York, believes wireless data speeds of 64 kbps, a speed carriers will evolve to in the coming years, will be enough to break open the wireless data arena.
“All mobile does is extend what we do wired into wireless,” said Schlesinger. “These speeds will drive spending through e-commerce, and the utility of mobile devices is going to go through the roof.”
Extinction for circuit-based switches?
This enticing prospect brings about the need for operators to begin deploying packet-based architecture. This architecture will not take away capacity from the voice channel like circuit-switched packet services today, and carriers can charge users by volume pricing to meet the wireline data pricing paradigm.
“The biggest change that has to take place in the wireless network is not GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) or wideband-CDMA, it’s an evolution to a packet-based system where we can provide high-peak-rate data cost effectively,” said Peter MacLaren, vice president of strategic market relations with Nortel Networks. “We know of many carriers that will be making major investments for rollout in 2000 to provide packet-based infrastructure.”
Wortman believes almost all network traffic will be packet-based data by 2010.
“Tomorrow’s network will need voice and mission-critical data,” said Wortman. “The best is [Internet Protocol] with fewer network layers, better network utilization and lower costs.”
Radousky believes by 2003 carriers will deploy more packet-network routers than circuit switches.
“Our cost will have to come down significantly to deploy data services,” said Radousky. “We have plans to do things that will fundamentally change the whole architecture of a network … It’s very possible that within 10 years, circuit switches as we know them today will be extinct.”
Will the future remain multimedia?
While many executives dream of an all-wireless world in the years to come, technology may not allow that to happen.
“Wireless will not keep the pace with wired data rates,” said Radousky. “Appliances in the future will be smart and will be able to choose whatever medium makes sense for the service being requested.”
Many carriers today are making investments in all telecommunications areas-including fiber, wireless and cable-to keep costs down and use the best access technology suited for a particular customer base. AT&T, for example, offers nationwide wireless and landline long-distance services in the United States, owns a local exchange carrier, is spending large amounts of money to upgrade traditional cable TV networks to penetrate the local market and is developing Project Angel, a proprietary wireless last-mile connection solution to the home. AT&T is bundling many of these services on one bill.
“One of the interesting concepts is an area where operators are thinking about the share of the telecommunications wallet,” said Nortel’s MacLaren. “From the end-user point of view, it’s becoming more of a smorgasbord across spaces … We are going to see services delivered across the wireline and wireless space in a more integrated manner.”
RCR Publications’ New York Bureau Chief Elizabeth V. Mooney contributed to this article.
