Next-generation technology will put the individual first
Knight Ridder - Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Knight Ridder Newspapers
By Dan Gillmor
Take some basic human needs and add the inexorable progress of technological development. You end up with a communications world where the individual is the center of everything.
That's not how things work with today's mobile services. And it won't be tomorrow, even as the latest generation of mobile phone and data technologies _ advanced WiFi, 3G, fixed wireless and more _ takes hold in the marketplace.
But today and tomorrow are old news for people like Radu Popescu-Zeletin, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems in Berlin, one of the field's most prominent think tanks.
Popescu-Zeletin and his colleagues in research labs around the world are more interested in what will happen in the next decade. They don't know precisely what will emerge from a technological standpoint. But many of them envision what Popescu-Zeletin calls an individual-centric model, "intelligent enough to adapt to the individual, wherever you are _ anytime, any place and according to your personal preferences."
It's an attractive idea. And basic trends suggest it will happen, assuming dominant players and governments don't throttle this evolution.
You can see it today, as telephone systems that use the Internet to carry calls make inroads into the markets of traditional carriers that use fixed wires. Soon enough, the same kind of technology will make its way into mobile phones, so if you're in range of a WiFi access point you'll be able to make voice calls, bypassing the cellular networks.
Extend current trends a few years, and the next-generation communications architecture looks like a combination of technologies, says Andrew Odlyzko, director of the Digital Technology Center at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis: "a variety of devices that will seamlessly connect to one of various networks, depending on the devices' features and on what networks are active in the area, and on pricing."
There will be room for all kinds of systems if competition is permitted to thrive. Wired networks will continue to haul bulk traffic along "backbone" routes. If we ever get fiber optic lines to our doorsteps (or the curb, anyway), wireless could easily cover the last 100 feet into the home. We can probably assume high communication speeds when we need them.
One promising area of development is in "ad hoc" networks _ systems that essentially configure themselves on the fly. Remember that devices will continue to get smaller and more powerful; it's no stretch to imagine every device being able to relay information, as a server computer or mobile phone tower does now, as well as display and manipulate it.
The implications of ad hoc networks are immense. In theory, they could eliminate or sharply reduce the need for traditional telecommunications carriers.
Some companies are trying to take advantage of new swaths of the airwaves that have been opened up by the Federal Communications Commission. (Michael Powell, the Bush administration's FCC chairman, has largely carried water for the corporate giants, especially the local phone and cable companies, but he's promoted innovation by deregulating some portions of the radio spectrum.)
At DaimlerChrysler's Research and Technology Center in Palo Alto, Calif., and at other auto industry labs around the globe, engineers are putting one piece of spectrum to an especially intriguing use. They're experimenting with a close cousin to the 802.11 wireless standard, called Dedicated Short Range Communications, or DSRC (www.leearmstrong.com/DSRC/DSRCHomeset.htm), that could let cars communicate with various kinds of wireless access points and with each other, creating a constantly changing, ad hoc network.
The first goal is safety. For example, let's say that a car in front of a big truck slows down and the trucker brakes, too. The communications system alerts the car behind the truck to brake, too, but does so before the trucker acts.
The automakers won't build such systems unless there is demand. And until the systems are widely in place, there won't be much demand.
So the FCC is encouraging other uses of DSRC, such as what DaimlerChrysler calls "DriveBy InfoFueling," a system that takes the basic notion of automatic tollbooth collections such as Northern California's FasTrak and turns it into something much more ambitious.
For example: Before leaving for work, you update the hard drive in your car with the latest MP3 songs from your home server or with an audio book you want to hear. You put gas in the car, and the station updates your mapping system with the latest street maps, including construction zones. On the way to work, you are alerted about accidents and given ample time, and suggested alternate routes, to bypass the trouble.
The technical challenges for DSCR and other advanced networking notions aren't trivial. But so many smart people, backed by some smart investors, are working to advance mobile and wireless communications that breakthroughs seem inevitable.
It has become a cliche to say that such-and-such a technology will "change everything." When we imagine the next generation of mobile and wireless communications, the cliche will be accurate.
(Visit Dan Gillmor's online column, eJournal (www.dangillmor.com/blog). E-mail dgillmor@mercurynews.com; phone (408) 920-5016; fax (408) 920-5917.)
