Forget voice, it’s all about data
I was at the J-Lo and Enrique Iglesias concert in Atlanta recently and was struck by the thousands of fans around me (ok, myself included) taking pictures and shooting video from their cell phones; and I was thinking that at one time not that long ago, that was considered the latest in technology and worth talking about. Even texting to the large jumbo screen was cutting edge once. Now it’s like, “so what?” That’s as natural as overpaying for a drink at the concert venue.
So, what’s going on in wireless world that’s new and noteworthy?
Plenty – but I’ll spare you the gory details of Apple vs. Samsung’s battle over who has the better lawyers. In today’s technology world, we find that wireless operators are seeing 20,000% growth in data traffic within 5 years (yes, I said twenty thousand percent) while at the same time losing close to 40% of their voice revenues. That’s nuttier than politics during an election year! I mean, how is that even possible?
The app store revolution
It all started with this thing called the app store. From there, the world opened up to clever 20-something developers who don’t believe in the status quo and next thing you know, we’re texting on WhatsApp and calling each other using Viber – neither of which costs me a single penny for SMS or voice – it’s all traffic over the data network. Suddenly 20,000% makes sense, right?
The industry is going the way of Silicon Valley competing for phone service while having the operators make sure the network can carry the increasing load. It’s an interesting shift in culture with the rapid pace of innovation and the ongoing love affair we have with the evolution of communications. But what I love to envision now, is the near future where wireless is more than just communicating to another person – it’s a world where machines talk to other machines. Where there are 10x more machines wirelessly talking to each other than there are people on the planet.
Science fiction
Imagine a world where the cool computer systems from the movie “Avatar” really could swipe data from a clear glass computer wall on to an equally transparent glass tablet, where the complete interior dashboard of your vehicle instantly changes to match your preferences just as you get into the car, where augmented reality actually adds value to life (yeah, good luck with that) and whatever else we haven’t dreamed of yet.
While 2012’s technology goes the way of the texting jumbo screen, tomorrow’s wireless capabilities are only limited by the mind of its dreamers and creators. It’s where possibilities exist and new industries are built overnight.
