WIRELESS WISHES... a look back at 2002 and predictions for 2003
by Nicki Hayes, January 6, 2003
In her end of year column, Nicki Hayes, our European correspondent, asks the wireless community what the highlight of their year was and what their greatest wireless wish for the coming year is.
Well here we are at the end of another year, but are we any further down the path of wireless righteousness than we were last year? When you read through some of the rants I’ve published you’d think not. Issues I’ve called upon to be addressed include interoperability, security, billing models, the culture of over-promising and under-delivering and the roll-out of 3G, to name but a few. But calm, rational analysis and review reveals the picture may not be as bad as I have painted. Many of you wireless warriors seem to think so anyway. Here’s a quick vox pox of what some of you had to say about this year’s highlights:
2002 WIRELESS HIGHLIGHTS
Experts at Texas Instruments, who, let’s face it, have had a pretty good year all in all, are busting at the gut for the roll out of some of their new technologies next year. Still they were able to contain their excitement long enough to provide these highlights from 2002.
"The highlight of the wireless year is the roll-out of 2.5 and 3G networks. The first round of Smartphone products have generated a great response from the public." -- Jeff Wender, OMAP strategic alliances manager.
"The highlight of the wireless year has been the surge in device demand which surpassed all earlier projections for 2002 shipments. This reflects the dynamic promise of wireless in meeting and exceeding subscriber demands and expectations, even in a down market. Perhaps a complement to this is the roll-out of next generation networks and devices in select regions."-- Danni Gladden-Green, Americas strategic marketing manager.
“Like any other "conventional" industry, players in the wireless arena are doing their best to remain competitive, innovative, or in many cases, just plain stay afloat! Its reputation tarnished by the high expectations placed on its developers in 2000 & 2001, the shakedown has taken place and those left have been focused on providing some useful and innovative solutions and uses for our devices - we see these every day in the WirelessDevNet news headlines. We're still trying to turn a $ and issues we face are not all that different than they were a year ago; interoperability, security, m-commerce, 3G, 4G, 802.1a. The foundation has been laid for some great opportunities in 2003. Users now have numerous options for arming themselves with powerful web-enabled, MMS (and sometimes gaming) devices. Will they embrace these $300-$1,000 devices though?” -- Glenn Letham, WirelessDevNet’s Managing Editor - and my boss (so therefore he must be right).
Even those of you charged with having to try to implement wireless technology have something positive to say. Frank Domoney, a veteran network-planning manager with experience gained working alongside the likes of Vodafone, Hutchison 3G and Nokia Networks, and founder of Cambridge, UK based Glencroft Consulting thinks the year has ended on a very positive note.
“My highlight of the year was the announcement that Nokia had successfully demonstrated a 3G to 2G handover on a commercial terminal at Omnitel. This removes any nagging doubt that we had something wrong in the standard that would delay further the rollout of the data bandwidth services previously known as 3G and 2G services. Let the good times roll!” – Frank Domoney, Clencroft Consulting.
And my highlight? Well that’s a tough one, without covering the previous ground anyway.
Wait a minute. No it’s not! For me, the highlight has to be that Europe has at last recognized and is at last embracing the ability of wireless technology to deliver broadband internet access to rural communities quicker and more cost-effectively than fixed-line ISPs can. In the UK, for example, EdenFaster, a community project planning to deliver broadband connectivity – wirelessly to the Vale of Eden, has just won government funding to allow them to do so. Hip Hip Hooray!
2003 WISH LIST
But what about predictions and wishes for next year? Well my wish list alone adds up to more than an article, so, next month I plan to publish it, enhanced with more wishes from those of you out there who can be bothered to drop me a line (so get your thoughts to me ASAP at nicki@wirelessdevnet.com).
Meanwhile here’s a short prequel to whet you appetite:
“My call for 2003, gaming will play a significant role as carriers try to lure subscribers to their plans. Interoperability and organizations like the OMA will make great headway - particularly in North America. The killer-app we will all be seeking is devices and applications that are EASY TO USE. And by the end of 2003, carriers will still be trying to generate even more revenues.” --- Glenn Letham, Managing Editor, WirelessDevNet.
"My greatest wish for 2003 is to have video phones powered by Texas Instruments OMAP processors stuffed in every stocking."-- Jeff Wender, OMAP strategic alliances manager.
"My greatest wireless wish for the coming year is that the industry will succeed in defining an application specific performance metric for wireless data applications that is truly representative of overall system performance." --Danni Gladden-Green, Americas strategic marketing manager.
“I suppose my hope for the coming year is that the Open Mobile Alliance manages to unite wireless standards in a more effective way than WAP Forum did. And that we start getting phones that are as cool as the Japanese ones.” – Dr William Whyte, director of research and development, NTRU cryptosystems.
As for network planning veteran Francis Domoney, his wish list is as long as mine, so here’s an item picked at random.
“New names please! I am no longer sure what 3G and 2.5G are, or what other people mean by them. I am sure there is no general agreement about what 4G and 5G (I saw a reference to this recently) are. When we were working on UMTS standards at ETSI we were asked to think of it as the last generation and write the standards accordingly. So can some clever PR person think of a few names for whatever it is we are building and then explain it so the marketing people, the bankers, and the engineers to make sure we are all talking about the same thing in Europe, America, Africa and Asia?”
Good call Frank. But I fear such simplicity is far too much to ask.
And as to an item from the top of my list, well that has to be, more money to wireless programs bringing broadband to the masses please!
Happy new-year to all and best wishes for a prosperous and safe 2003 from Nicki and the crew at WDN
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About the author:
Nicki Hayes is The Wireless Developer Network's (www.wirelessdevnet.com) European correspondent and the part-time judge part-time jester of its new online debate -
Holding Court. Nicki also takes on freelance writing and corporate communication projects relating to business to business internet and wireless issues and has
contributed editorial to a number of publications including Unstrung.com, Wireless Business & Technology, Guardian Online, Financial Times, Banking &
Financial Training, eAI Journal and Secure Computing.
About the WirelessDevNet (www.wirelessdevnet.com):
The Wireless Developer Network is an on-line community for information technology
professionals interested in mobile computing and communications. Our mission is to assist
developers, strategists, and managers in bridging the gap between today's desktop and
enterprise applications and tomorrow's mobile users communicating via wireless networks.
We are interested in supporting the deployment of these evolving technologies through
high-quality technical information, news, industry coverage, and commentary. This
information is provided within a true on-line community that supports developer/vendor
dialogue through message boards and user-submitted tips, articles, links, and software
downloads.
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