Everywhere mobile broadband communications becomes ubiquitous participation

The increase in broadband wireless communications networks combined with skyrocketing penetration of advanced two-way mobile devices has given rise to a new social phenomena "ubiquitous participation", according to David Jacobson, director of emerging technologies at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Ubiquitous participation - which refers to bottom-up approaches to content generation and sharing - is among the trends Jacobson forecasts will arrive over the next few years. Speaking at a recent technology event in Ottawa, the noted futurist explained that a new generation of users, applications, devices and networks are coming together to forge new ground. His presentation was titled Emerging Technologies, Applications and Markets: Now to 2012. Ubiquitous participation can be considered a natural extension of the always-on, anywhere, anytime concept of communications. In this new era, citizens can participate in a wide range of activities such as creating mashups and social networking without regard for where they are or when they are doing their particular activity. Jacobson attributes much of this new ability to the significant expansion in mobile broadband networks around the world, particularly high-speed packet access (HSPA) networks, and the tremendous rise in the use of smartphones. "Smartphones such as the iPhone and the new releases of BlackBerries are extremely important in our future," he told the crowd of about 100. These types of devices offer a wide range of capabilities that mirror desktop and laptop computers. Users can take pictures, send them to friends and family or post them on their Facebook page. They can write a restaurant review and post it to a website that will then add the review to a mashup of a particular city's establishments. The mashup provides users with a map of the city pointing to restaurants and offering the reviews for those who want to read them. Advanced device penetration is important because the majority of high-speed mobile networks are going to be cellular-based, said Jacobson. HSPA and Long-Term Evolution (LTE) a few years from now are going to sweep across the entire globe, giving a healthy percentage of the earth's population access to very high-speed mobile networks. "As we approach 2012, we are likely to see high speed packet access as 70% of broadband access in the world," says Jacobson, noting that fixed lines will play an important but nevertheless smaller role." Only a few years ago, many were happy with the 1 Mbps for their wired Internet connection. But now HSPA provides upwards of 7 Mbps in many parts of Canada and higher in other parts of the world. A third iteration of HSPA is expected to provide speeds in the 14 Mbps range and LTE, when available in about four years, promises to provide speeds that could reach 10 times faster than that. Ericsson recently completed live tests in various parts of the world demonstrating 21 Mbps using high-speed cellular technologies. "High speed cellular could have a very big impact because of the coverage, the speed ease of use," says Jacobson, adding that cellular allows the user to easily hand over from one cell site to another, meaning "you can be connected at high speed even on a fast moving vehicle." While the future looks bright for advanced devices, applications and services, the same holds true for the low-end of cell phones, according to Jacobson because carriers will expand networks to regions that previously didn't have any communications infrastructure. "The very low end cell phone is also rising tremendously," he says because "there are parts of the world where people have never communicated other than face to face and now have the ability of communicating through wireless networks at very low rates, very inexpensively."

Everywhere mobile broadband communications becomes ubiquitous participation

News | 01/05/2009 8:10 pm EST

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