Top Trends in the Industry
#10: The Impact of Wireless Technology on the Internet

In 1952, the phrase, “I like Ike” was the talk of the day and the former Allied Supreme Commander of Europe, Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower became the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 through 1961. Among Ike’s many accomplishments was the establishment of the U.S. interstate highway system. Lesser known was his role in creating what is today referred to as the “information superhighway,” or the Internet.

After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in October 1957, the U.S. found itself in second place in the race for space. Ike recognized that the talent required to successfully respond to challenges of this magnitude existed in abundance; however, it was broadly distributed. To create results in the timeframe required, he recognized that a practical means of creating a critical mass of collaborative talent was needed. In 1958, through a Department of Defense directive, Ike created the Advanced Research Project Agency, or ARPA. ARPA created the ARPANET, which initially linked only four university research centers. The computers used in this network, IBM 360s and DEC PDP-8s, are now museum pieces. Yet, it was from these modest but prophetic beginnings that the modern Internet evolved.

The Internet that exists today is the product of a series of related developments, some of which had significant impacts, and others that represent true inflection points along the longitudinal path. 

• The original critical mass of talent that ARPA attracted was the very same men and women who would later create 3Com, Bridge Communications, Proteon, Synoptics, Cisco, and many other network equipment and software companies. Their legacy is the vast standards and communications infrastructure in place today.

• The early 1970s saw the first public demonstration of the ARPANET and the introduction of the microprocessor. By the mid-1970s, the early proliferation of personal computers was well under way.

• The early 1980s saw the introduction of the TCP/IP protocol; an open stack of communications protocols which today serve as the basis for both local area networks and the Internet. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) emerged, which extended access to the Internet beyond defense and academia interests to the general public. Later in the ‘80s, cell phones appeared in the marketplace, giving subscribers their first taste of communications mobility.

• The early 1990s brought us practical laptop computers and on-the-go computing. The appearance of the first Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) marked the beginning of the consolidation of computer, communications and consumer electronic functionality within common devices. By the end of the decade, the IEEE had published the first of a series of wireless local area network access standards under IEEE 802.11. These enabled un-tethered network access at home, workplaces, and many public venues.

Today, 50 years after ARPA, it would be difficult to point to another development that so profoundly changed the world in so many ways, culturally, politically, and economically. This brief, yet extraordinary, history of the Internet begs the question: What’s next?

We believe that the developments of the past 50 years are merely a prelude to what is likely to develop in the future. The magic word is “wireless.”

• Today, there are more than two billion cell phones in use, and an estimated 400 million have Internet capability. The 3.5G and 4G cellular network upgrades are creating a new category of broadband Internet access. By the end of the decade, we expect that more than a billion cell phones will have Internet access.

• There are approximately 500 million PCs and servers, and 100 million laptops. Desktop PCs are expected to decline during the remainder of the decade, as laptops continue to grow. Almost all laptops produced today are equipped with embedded wireless access.

• Laptops, PDAs, and other categories of consumer devices are expected to morph into new device categories:

o         UMD: Ultra-Mobile Devices

o         UMPC: Ultra-Mobile PCs

o         MID: Mobile Internet Devices

o         IVI: In-Vehicle Infotainment Devices

We estimate that the convergence of telecom, computing, and entertainment functionality will account for one billion additional devices accessing the Internet by 2012. Illustrated above is a UMD from Samsung.

The cost of ultra-mobile devices, in general, will be brought down by advances in semiconductor technology, thereby enabling more rapid market adaptation in both the developed and developing regions of the world. 

o       The new Intel Atom microprocessor is designed for smaller, lighter, more power efficient, and less costly UMDs. The Atom uses a 45 nm process technology with Hi-k metal gate dielectrics. Several ODMs are presently developing product platforms based on the Atom processor. These will appear on the market in 2009. 

o       By the end of the decade, we expect that microprocessors, based on 32 nm process technology, will become available for mobil applications. These will feature more functionality, lower size, lower cost, and greater power efficiency.

·         The new category of UMDs will feature anytime, anyplace, any way Internet access capabilities:

o         WPAN: Wireless Personal Area Networks

o         WLAN: Wireless Local Area Networks

o         WWAN: Wireless Wide Area Networks

·         In the access arena, WWAN is where we find the greatest potential impacts on Internet evolution. There are presently two significant wireless wide area network access approaches: 

o       There is the traditional cellular wireless infrastructure that is being updated to 3.5G and 4G data handling capability. These upgrades are costly and add complexity to the network which, in turn, increases operating expenses. Also, the range of upgradeability may be limited by the underlying network architectures. Thus, at some point in the future, the bandwidth capabilities of these networks might hit the wall. 

o       There is WiMAX, which is based on work of the IEEE 802.16 wireless wide area network committee. If WiMAX-compliant networks achieve large scale commercial success, it will overlap DSL and fiber access, and compete with cellular, both for data and voice (VoIP) access. The net result is incremental bandwidth demand on the Internet.  

Both of these access methods will create new location-based services via the Internet.

·         Municipal and safety networks represent another major potential for wireless network access and the Internet. Security, traffic monitoring and control, environmental monitoring, and emergency operations could potentially add millions of sensor end points to a municipal network. The IEEE 802.16f version includes a mesh connection topology, which enables the network to backhaul itself. Multiple municipal networks are likely to be monitored from central locations via the Internet. 

·         Ubiquitous fixed and mobile wireless access to the Internet potentially enables new methods of remotely managing energy consumption in our homes, better ways to track and monitor assets, and better ways of monitoring patients outside the clinical environment—to name a few. The list of possibilities is only as limited as our imagination. 

Point-to-point, wireless packet radio was there at the very beginning of the ARPANET. Today, we believe that wireless mobility will be the key driver and shaper of the next-generation Internet. At the same time, the Internet is driving and shaping wireless mobility. Either way, wireless network technology and the Internet are joined at the hip.

The impact of wireless technology on the Internet is the 10th and last trend that we’ve seen influencing our industry. In 2009, we’ll begin a new series. If you have been impacted by an 11th trend that you don’t want us to miss, let me know what you’re thinking. Email atanghe@connectorsupplier.com.