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Geoff332 · Sep 24, 2003, 08:11 pm

Peter Cochrane's opinion piece on the future of mobile technology. Cochrane was the head to research at BT for a long time, before jointly founding a technology think-tank.

Mobile technology is already huge, but the next step is going to require a major leap in bandwidth -- which most of the existing implemented technology solutions seem unlikely to provide.

What is your experience with and opinion of mobile technology?

**Sean** · Sep 29, 2003, 10:17 pm

I'm not amazed by much of the mobile tech, but WIFI is amazing. I love that I can access the internet just by being on campus, or in most parts of the city.

Geoff332 · Sep 29, 2003, 11:16 pm

The main problem facing the mobile industry is bandwidth. Ensuring that genuine mobile computing is possible requires a lot of bandwidth -- this is really the heart of Chochrain's work. The ideal world would have us with mobile devices (PCs, phones, PDAs) all with fully connected roaming capacities.

We're getting there. A friend of mine works for Vodafone and has a mobile connect card for her laptop. She can go anywhere (in the UK) with that and connect to a network. If she's on a GPRS network, such as in most of London, she's getting broadband like connection speeds; elsewhere she gets closer to ISDN connection speed. Either way, it's pretty funky.

The problem is that GPRS (and G3) is both limited in its coverage and doesn't have a lot of scalability beyond the start-up capacity. The capacity is great with relatively few users, but as you get more users, the network will slow down and lose capacity per user (ADSL has a similar problem).

**Sean** · Oct 1, 2003, 02:10 am

yes, and who profits if internet becomes like radio.

**Pooeypants** · Oct 2, 2003, 08:51 am

Surely we'll soon reach frequency saturation and the air will be so filled with EM radiation gawd knows how it will affect our brains. Or perhaps not.

Sep 29, 2003, 10:17 pm	#2 (permalink) (top)
Sean former overlord Location: New York Posts: 2,383	I'm not amazed by much of the mobile tech, but WIFI is amazing. I love that I can access the internet just by being on campus, or in most parts of the city. So it goes

Oct 1, 2003, 02:10 am	#4 (permalink) (top)
Sean former overlord Location: New York Posts: 2,383	yes, and who profits if internet becomes like radio. So it goes

Oct 2, 2003, 08:51 am	#5 (permalink) (top)
Pooeypants Neo Moderator Location: England Posts: 5,467	Surely we'll soon reach frequency saturation and the air will be so filled with EM radiation gawd knows how it will affect our brains. Or perhaps not. War is Peace Freedom is Slavery Ignorance is strength Harness the power of Ingsoc, then you can capture someone killed the year before

Sep 24, 2003, 08:11 pm	#1 (permalink) (top)
Geoff332 Igneous Magma Location: New Zealand Posts: 309	Peter Cochrane's opinion piece on the future of mobile technology. Cochrane was the head to research at BT for a long time, before jointly founding a technology think-tank. Mobile technology is already huge, but the next step is going to require a major leap in bandwidth -- which most of the existing implemented technology solutions seem unlikely to provide. What is your experience with and opinion of mobile technology?

Sep 29, 2003, 11:16 pm	#3 (permalink) (top)
Geoff332 Igneous Magma Location: New Zealand Posts: 309	The main problem facing the mobile industry is bandwidth. Ensuring that genuine mobile computing is possible requires a lot of bandwidth -- this is really the heart of Chochrain's work. The ideal world would have us with mobile devices (PCs, phones, PDAs) all with fully connected roaming capacities. We're getting there. A friend of mine works for Vodafone and has a mobile connect card for her laptop. She can go anywhere (in the UK) with that and connect to a network. If she's on a GPRS network, such as in most of London, she's getting broadband like connection speeds; elsewhere she gets closer to ISDN connection speed. Either way, it's pretty funky. The problem is that GPRS (and G3) is both limited in its coverage and doesn't have a lot of scalability beyond the start-up capacity. The capacity is great with relatively few users, but as you get more users, the network will slow down and lose capacity per user (ADSL has a similar problem).