Viewpoints

About This Technology

Cell phones and mobile services are simply part of the fabric of our lives in the developed world—and increasingly so in emerging economies. Mobile-communications technologies have already greatly transformed the way we work, play, and relate to each other. Yet the changes and disruptions are far from complete. The great majority of traffic on mobile networks today consists of person-to-person voice calls and text messages. In contrast, the Internet delivers a much broader range of entertainment, commerce, and productivity applications. In fact, worldwide mobile-data revenues are significantly smaller than mobile-voice revenues. In addition, 2G-style services such as texting, ringtones, and screen logos remain the dominant mobile-data applications today. Certainly, cell phones have rapidly penetrated the mass market, but the promise of mobile communications will not become reality until mobile devices become ubiquitous channels for just-in-time information access, work-anywhere productivity, find-anything shopping, multiplayer gaming, real-time advice for navigating roads and cities, and dramatically new forms of social relations.

People often use the word mobile to refer to typical cell-phone services, which allow users to remain connected wirelessly to a network even in motion at high speeds. Many mobile-data applications depend on such services, which are currently undergoing a transition from second-generation digital technologies to third-generation infrastructures and mobile devices. Much interest focuses on the competition among various 3G technologies. Companies are especially concerned with the progress of companies following the most popular roadmap (which typically centers on WCDMA technology), many of which compete against companies following alternative roadmaps, especially that advocated by Qualcomm (CDMA2000) and that advocated by the Chinese government (TD-SCDMA). But many mobile-data applications use (or will use) other kinds of technologies and services, including WiMax; wireless LANs; hotspots, hot zones, and metro-area Wi-Fi networks; personal-area networks that capitalize on technologies such as Bluetooth; portable game consoles from Nintendo, Nokia, and Sony that have short-range wireless multiplayer capability.

Now that we have experienced the initial waves of mobile-services developments, what do technology roadmaps have in store, and what new applications will emerge? Future portable broadband services (especially those enabled by WiMax) have the potential to provide service that is similar to broadband Internet service, but without wires, delivering voice (via voice over Internet protocol), text, Web applications, and even Internet-protocol television—all from a single service, and perhaps even from a single handheld device that serves all the functions of a handset, storage unit, server, and router. Handsets could then automatically interact with each other and with various portable and fixed devices, leading toward a practical, ubiquitous future infrastructure. In the meantime, wireline-phone companies and pay-TV services are also proposing other approaches to fixed-mobile convergence. Other efforts are under way to enable mobile devices and networks to use location capability to support emergency-service workers, help people navigate roads and cities, help tourists find information, and even automatically rate restaurants and attractions on the basis of how long people spend in a particular place. Just as the Internet enabled entirely new activities that young people take completely for granted (such as use of social-networking software and peer-to-peer file sharing), future mobile networks promise to enable new and disruptive applications, help us reach our transit destinations smoothly, keep us connected to the workplace, and deliver the latest entertainment. Moreover, mobile technology may enable a new form of multiuser, P2P social interaction that is as dramatically different from today's text messaging as text messaging was different from conventional telephony. Many more innovations are in the works—notably intelligent infrastructure that supports ever-higher data rates; improved money transactions, including mobile music and video purchases and P2P payments; RFID readers embedded into handsets that can scan an item and read its price, ingredients, user manual, warranty information, and recycling instructions; and improved speech recognition, including voice browsing and humanlike conversational interfaces.