WASHINGTON-Predicting the future is not as difficult as you might think. To predict the future is to know the present in cold, sober terms. You can read what the experts say down below. The biggest pitfall with year-end prognostications is they tend to lend themselves to hyperbole, owing to a sense of urgency and anticipation about what lies ahead after the big ball drops in Times Square.
In 2005, there will be more of the same in the wireless industry. Start with more deals. After likely approval of the $35 billion “merger of equals,” starring Sprint PCS and Nextel Communications Inc., it could be tougher getting the next big one by government antitrust lawyers. As such, Alltel and U.S. Cellular could start a mega-merger-lite trend. There will be more cell phones in use, with fancier (if not more useful) features. Ringtones, cameras, games, messaging and TV are just the beginning. Will the rise of smart phones mean the death of personal digital assistants?
Expect more third-generation wireless equipment competition and contracts. Keep an eye on Europe and Asia-as usual. There will be more Wi-Fi. We’ll likely learn more about whether WiMAX is for real and when it might rock our world. Meantime, cities and states may decide to crash the party of regional Bell and cable TV giants in bringing low-cost, high-speed broadband access to the masses via wireless.
Expect more mobile virtual network operators hoping to be like a Virgin. There should be more signs of cable guys in the wireless space. There will be more Voice over Internet Protocol, which is apt to infiltrate everything else one day soon. The mobile satellite sector will continue trying to reinvent-more or less-if a federal appeals court here doesn’t give the gong to the Orwellian-sounding ancillary terrestrial component.
Look for more development of intelligent software radios, with the potential to obsolete many 2005 novelties. There’ll be more radio frequency identification development. Who’ll take the lead: Wal-Mart or the cows?
Count on more state regulations and taxes. CTIA President Steve Largent & Co. have a grand plan to take the fight to the states. In 2005, the fight between industry and states over federal pre-emption likely will be the main event.
Yes, there are more wireless viruses on the way. You know that wireless has come of age when tech insurgents bring their games to mobile phones.
And there will be more debate surrounding the usual suspects: CDMA vs. GSM, privacy, cyber security, digital rights management, DTV broadcast spectrum, emergency alert service, cell-phone radiation, antenna siting and technical standards that double as trade barriers.
So what will be new in 2005? How about policy wonking about cell-phone use on airplanes. It could make air travel seem like a ride on the subway or a meal at restaurant. With wireless, everything is within earshot.
If everything goes according to plan, we might even have wireless enhanced 911 by the end of next year.
All in all, more of the same in the wireless industry next year would be a good thing. Recent developments are not passing fads a la the dot-com bubble. They are trends playing out gradually. Some are more spectacular than others. The wireless revolution is the real deal.
That Congress next year will try to rewrite the 1996 telecom act is telling. It is the long overdue acknowledgement of official Washington that the telecom law of the land is decidedly dated, as it was the moment it was signed into law by President Clinton nine years ago this February. The same fate awaits the next attempt at telecom reform, which otherwise will benefit campaign coffers of lawmakers.
Technology will again prove it is king and an undeniable force whose power can never be fully harnessed, only sloppily managed on good days.
Wireless and Internet technologies-separately and in concert-are at the center of a volcanic eruption that is wantonly disrupting the status quo and creating a new one that will last a brief time, before the next technological quake. Old distinctions are going by the wayside, with a blasphemous blurring of form and function in an increasingly unwired universe manifested in a single gadget that does it all: communicates, computes, photographs, entertains and the rest. Everything a teenager could ever want.
There is value in mobility for which there is no good substitute. To reach its potential in the United States, the pipe will have to be fatter though. Policy-makers will have to find more radio spectrum just to bring to life the kind of 3G capabilities springing up overseas. No, 2005 will not be a big year here for 3G services.
The winners and losers are still being decided. Much depends on control. Cingular Wireless L.L.C., Verizon Wireless, Sprint PCS and Nextel Communications Inc., and T-Mobile USA Inc. are currently running the show. But there will be Bill Gates’ Microsoft Corp. and Craig McCaw’s Clearwire Technologies, not to mention Intel Corp. and the high-flying content guys, to worry about during the next year and beyond.
The Great Disruption giving rise to realignment of industry actors is characterized by at once consolidation, expansion and chaos-some of it predictable, some not.
