February 2010 Archives

There will certainly be shifts in the market as 4G rolls out, but will they incremental or radical?  A recent article in Wireless Week (http://www.wirelessweek.com/Articles/2010/02/Technology-Shaking-Up-4G/) does not really indicate that the shifts will be dramatic other than commenting that Clearwire has the most free capacity, AT&T may have the best transition approach (given they are deploying HSPA 7.2 now and can use GSM for voice fall back), and Verizon has the early jump on LTE.  What this tells me is that we are in for more of the same at least for the next few years.  LTE will not be much more than a WiMax look-alike initially (dongles and air cards with rates between 6-10Mbps).  The real seperation could come when handsets are widely available (most likely end of 2011/2012) since this is when economies of scale and the major product/software players (Apple, RIM, Google, Nokia) start to drive the game.  The question is, can the market wait this long?  we have been suffering for a while due to the availability of smart phones and netbooks that can consume large amount of data (15-40X a typical feature phone) coupled with insufficient network capacity.  In order to prevent a huge backlash, the carriers will have to move more aggressively to femtocells and WiFi fallback as a way to stem the bandwidth crunch, or else players like Clearwire may be vaulted into a leadership position as connectivity and speed will trump everything else in the future. Continue Reading...

Google's decision to offer a gigabit high speed network trial in selected communities (http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi/public/overview) represents another step in the companies evolution from an internet ad company to a network operator.  Except the goal of this network is to disrupt the incumbent broadband model which has been passed by the rest of the world (the US currently ranks 28th in broadband speed with an average speed of 3.9Mpbs with S. Korea in 1st at 14.6 Mbs on average).  In addition to just increase fixed line broadband speeds, Google may be laying the foundation for a high-speed backhaul network to support 4G wireless roll-outs.  Especially given the backhaul costs represent roughly 40% of the network expense and there will be huge pressures to offload as much data from the wireless network as possible through UMA/WiFi or femtocell access points.  If Google is able to control the major trunks and the end-points (with Android devices like Nexus One), then they will put themselves in position to connect and analyze all data connections.  If they can extract value for this, then the connections could become free, sending the current carrier model into a death spiral.  Today, the Community Fiber project is just for social benefit and experimentation.  But the future possibilities are very interesting. Continue Reading...

The recent article in the New York Times, (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/31unboxed.html)
, "Smart Dust are We There yet?" talks about the progress in distributed wireless sensors which I have talked about in previous blogs.  While we continue along the Moore's Law track towards smaller more capable nano-sensors, the more interesting part of the story is the surge in Participitory sensing where humans and their phones are the sensors.  With each new smartphone comes more advanced suites of sensors including motion, sound, RF, light among others.  Peripheral sensors connected via primary connectors, SD slots, or Bluetooth and WiFi connections, could expand this suite dramatically with sensors such as chemical/bio detection, spectral analysis, and power/current use.  This could enable a whole new wave of applicatioins that could be used for both socially good and for profity applications such as air quality/climate monitoring, community planning, and RF interference management.  Participatory Sensing is a great example of Digital Swarms that I talk about in my recent book, The New World of Wireless: How to Compete in the 4G Revolution (http://www.amazon.com/New-World-Wireless-Compete-Revolution/dp/013700379X)

The Center for Embedded Network Sensing (CENS) at UCLA ( http://research.cens.ucla.edu/ ) has been at the forefront of research in this area and companies like Sense Networks ( http://www.sensenetworks.com/ )are just now beginning to mine the data flowing from participatory sensing networks.  The possibilities are endless. Continue Reading...