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RFID has seen massive adoption and will continue to realize new usage scenarios but only marginally compared to the emergence of location-based services for mobile devices. This is a wireless technology still in its infancy in the US market. Europe has a lead in LBS as they have a mature GSM-based cell phone infrastructure as opposed to our disparate CDMA, TDMA and GPRS networks in the US. My prediction is that we will see a handful of killer apps emerge that leverage the LBS technology to deliver various location-aware services to consumers in real-time. The Japanese market already has advanced ad delivery options that allow a merchant to send a barcoded coupon to a commuter's cell phone as he/she passes their favorite starbucks on the way home. The coffee aficionado redeems the coupon at time of sale by scanning the cell phone over a barcode reader yielding an end-to-end trackable solution for highly targeted advertising. I expect we'll see similar ad-delivery mechanisms spring up in the States as mobile phones and the wireless networks begin to reliably support the LBS capabilities.

The types of location-aware applications we'll see emerge in this space:

• highly-targeted realtime ad and coupon delivery
• integration with social network systems to enable spontaneous, physical encounters for users as they move about their day
• GPS-less foundational services atop which companies can innovate with dispatch / routing apps
• geo-alert type services that enable consumers to set alarms that are triggered by location
• gaming applications that incorporate a physical component
  

Reasons why we'll see widespread adoption of these LBS applications:

• It's already occurring abroad in places where the wireless infrastructure supports it.
• If current trends with mobile device usage are representative, people will become more only reliant upon their phones/PDA's over time.
  
• The high school "Twitter users" of today will be finishing college and the majority of the young professional population will embrace permission-based targeted ad delivery through movements like the Attention Trust initiative. People will take control over how they receive offers and look for frictionless ways to incorporate them into daily life via their mobile technology. Success of LBS ad delivery will be predicated upon consumers becoming comfortable with the notion of opting-in for realtime notifications (this is occurring to some extent now).
• As companies experience commoditization of their offerings and margins become stretched thin, they'll be seeking new avenues through which to promote their goods and capture new customers. The ubiquity of mobile devices, the growing support of LBS and the high conversion ratios one should expect from this form of advertising will meet this demand.

The wireless technology that has the best chance of becoming dominant in the next five years in Ultrawideband. Here are six reasons the technology is primed to take over the wireless space.

1. Short distances matter more than long distances. The consumer pain right now is around the need for short distance high speed wireless. The cords and cables that drive consumers crazy are the ones needed to connect video equipment and computer peripherals. As a high speed wireless technology capable of sending massive amounts of data across short distances, UWB is in a prime position to heal this pain for the consumer.

2. Built on existing protocols. USB is the most popular peripheral connection standard in existence. The first applications to market of UWB will be "wireless USB" - or the USB protocol across the UWB radio. Because the USB protocol is well known by consumers, it will be quickly adopted in wireless form. The association models of numeric compare and cable based authentication make it easy for the user to set up a wireless USB device.

Because the protocol is designed to use existing USB software stacks and simply plug in beneath them, it will be quickly adopted by the development community.

3. Improves multiple protocols. Work has been done on IP over UWB (WiNet), which should be released shortly, and Bluetooth over UWB, which is a little further down the road. It will allow high definition video to be sent using all sorts of protocols, thus making it the radio of choice for device manufacturers.  By building on existing protocols, developers and manufacturers can use their leverage their existing knowledge in these areas to improve the speed and performance of their devices without the pain of learning a new wireless protocol.

4. Other technologies don't cut it.  802.11n doesn't solve any problems. It's just a faster version of a technology that isn't consumer friendly. Zigbee is so cheap and niche that the low margins discourage development efforts. UWB technology isn't going to hit the rapid growth phase until late 2008 or early 2009, which means that after 3 years of rapid growth it should dominate the market for wireless technologies.

5. Strong Ecosystem. The hardware and software companies in the UWB ecosystem are well funded and work well together. Most of the major players are finding their market niches in UWB, and are promoting each other in order to make the overall technology a success. Some of the brightest minds in short-range wireless are working on the issues, and the space has generated enough investor interest that several more companies will probably be funded in the space.

6. Low power. UWB technology features low power consumption compared to other wireless protocols, thus making it ideal for the design needs of device manufacturers.

Summary

Consumer adoption patterns for new technology are driven by ease of use, and ability to solve some major problem. UWB provides the promise of a computer monitor that can sync to a pc or laptop without a cable. It offers users the ability to move their video equipment to a storage closet to clean up the cable mess, and still stream high definition video to their HDTV set. It increases the role and significance of portable devices, which are proliferating at a rapid rate already.  In short, it improves the experience of things users are already doing every day. 

When you combine the pain of the problem, the ease of the solution, and the ability to piggyback on existing protocols, a strong case can be made that UWB will be the dominant wireless technology by 2012.

Well, if you're a regular reader of Techdirt Wireless, you will know that I and other writers have been posting negatives about WiMAX since 2002. But surprisingly, WiMAX is my answer to your question.

The reason is that a lot of time has passed since 2002, and the technology - though fraught with hurdles, rose-colored assumptions, and hype - has also captured the attention of all the necessary stakeholders to push it through to reality in the time-frame you set. Other superior technologies, like UMTS TDD or Flarion/Qualcomm's Flash-OFDM simply can't match the level of industry support, and thus are the Betamaxes of this game. Here's what WiMAX brings to the table:

1. Standards body support
2. Critical mass of operators considering it
3. Critical mass of device manufacturers driving scale
4. Chipmakers, device makers, operators, investors, analysts - the end-to-end value chain
5. Significant capital
6. Multiple Major Champions: Intel, Motorola, Samsung
7. Lots of gearheads working on solving the problems
8. Upstart companies driving innovation and pushing the leaders: Alvarion, Alcatel, WiLAN, etc.
9. So much hype and FUD that any other option gets crowded out by the noise
10. Globally liberalizing spectrum policy that may provide additional unlicensed and licensed bands

But be advised, the technology will fall before it will rise. It will not, in the short-term, measure up to promises and expectations. There will be a backlash. Yet this is where the hordes of labcoat-wearing engineers kick in. So many companies have so many smart people working on WiMAX that they will eventually solve the issues that created the backlash. Thus, by 2010 it will start to emerge from Gartner's "Trough of disillusionment".

Unfortunately, your title and your question are framed differently. One is "by 2012" and the next is "in the next 5 years". Over the next five years, expect EV-DO Rev A to make a big impact, and HSxPA versions of GSM. And my high expectations of WiMAX by 2012 does not mean that the Long Term Evolution (LTE) of cellular technologies will not also be very significant. LTE, too, will adopt the OFDM, MIMO, and other elements that many people wrongly assume are exclusive to WiMAX. In fact, for existing carriers, LTE evolutions are more likely to be the dominant technology.

I have no doubt that if you asked around, lots of people would answer WiMAX, since that is where the hype is. But I never bought into the hype. In 2003, I said that WiMAX was vaporware, and that we shouldn't expect to see it until 2008. http://news.techdirt.com/news/wireless/article/3029 . Now I see WiMAX (much like VHS in its day) as an inferior technology that is bound to succeed because of market momentum.

It won't be obvious but it will be ubiquitous - NFC (near field communication) will be in hundreds of millions of mobile phones and other devices, providing a simple way to link devices together - touch two devices together and they will set up the link by whatever means is appropriate - bluetooth, UWB, WiBree or wifi - without the user having to know anything about the technology.

But NFC will also open up contactless payment systems (starting to roll out in 2007 with 30m users so far) and other usage models - tap your phone on a poster in the street and a passive tag printed on the paper will provide a web address that automatically pulls up the web page and an offer.     

Why this one? WiFi will be competing with WiMax, WiBro and the next generation mobile (LTE) for broadband wireless access , limiting its growth and not giving true economies of scale for operators, plus the setup, interference (in the unlicensed 2.4GHz band) and interoperability issues will probably still be around.

NFC has a global standard, no competition, low cost hardware, ease of use, several strong business cases and strong industry support from companies like Nokia and Philips.

The WAP-based mobile experience seems most poised to dominate in the next five years for a number of reasons:

• Users recognize it. WAP runs on the http protocol and utilizes a stripped down XHTML as its mark-up language, creating a mobile web experience similar to that which we have in our traditional browsers.
• Developers know how to implement it. Because it runs on protocols derived from our traditional web experience more developers will be able to develop WAP-based applications, sites, and experiences.
• It's the most "free." If the Cingular's treatment of the iPhone is any indication, carriers will likely continue open their connections to allow devices to perform just about any function, leaving behind the restrictive model of approving only certain applications (usually java-based) to first load on devices and then interact with the web. Supporting this vision is the widely reported trend which indicates that carriers are finding much success is selling data plans.
• WAP is already growing quickly. According an M:Metrics report in October of 2006, 12% of US mobile subscribers have browsed the internet on their mobile phones (using WAP). In April of 2007, Opinion Research Corporation reported that 30% of mobile subscribers have browsed the web. This trend should continue, and considering SMS and MMS are the only two mobile platforms more used than WAP at this point in time, I don't suspect they are much competition to WAP.
• Lastly, if a better platform is developed in the next five years, it won't be dominant in five years. Five years is a relatively short time for the development and adoption of a platform. Even if Flash, SilverLight or AJAX (which would rely on a different compiler than the java which is on many phones) is developed for mobile phone usage, it is difficult to imagine they will both be adopted by mobile phone manufacturers and users.

If I had to bet on a single wireless technology to dominate over the next 5 years my money would be on one that's already dominating - text messaging.

Text messaging is already in wide use among teenagers in America, but pales in comparison to the number of users in Europe. Look for text messaging to become even more widespread as more companies start to offer unlimited texting plans. Once that happens, look for a whole new range of on-demand services to pop up using text messaging as their method of delivery.

SMS will allow users to request and retrieve information now whenever they want it. Sites have already sprung up to offer text message reminders, sports scores, search queries, weather, stocks, etc.

A few new companies built on this idea to offer blogging (like twitter), and even niche markets like texting via licence plate.

With most of today's cell phones already having GPS build it it can't be long before you can walk into a store and recieve a text message about the sale they're having today.

Look for these niche markets to expand into everything else. There's a huge market out there for on demand information, and we're just beginning to use text messaging to deliver it. Look for companies to step in and leverage this medium in a whole different way.

I approach this question as a technologically savvy consumer. I do not [fully know] the technicalities of wireless networks, so keep that in mind as I choose WiMax as the likely leader. A close second would be cell phone networks and I'll explain why shortly.

But first, why WiMax?

As a technological optimist, I trust that the remaining hurdles will be past and WiMax will mature as a working model for blanketing large areas with WiFi. The continuing urbanization of the world - and this must be a world question because by 2012 the Internet will be reaching more than 2 billion people - puts more people in less area. That smaller geographic area can be connected with WiMax. At this point, the main obstacle to urban WiFi is the lobbying of the threatened telecoms. They see phone calls being made on Skype or as emails. They see the egalitarian and e2e nature of the current web as opposite to the control they are used to.

However, the experiments in Washington and San Francisco demonstrate that free or cheaply available and ubiquitous wireless is beneficial to consumers and businesses alike. The telecoms may well become proponents of using WiMax themselves.

If they don't, they will fall back on the cell phone networks which are already built. The single biggest driving force of this type of wireless network will be the iPhone and the inevitable competitors who will make today's smart phones look like toys. Mobile will be king. Entire businesses will develop to suite the powerful new phones with the abilities of PCs. People will demand more of a connection between their phones and laptops. The EVDO, etc. cards of today will become internal just as WiFi did.

The main obstacle to the telecoms victory is the telecoms. If they refuse to become customer friendly and affordable, people will demand competitors and I think the most viable one will be WiMax.

Wireless technologies exist in such number and variety that it’s really hard to categorize and compare them. Fortunately over the last couple of years, technologies like WiMAX, Wi-Fi, and 3G have broken the barrier and have made in roads big time. But, clearly it’s WiMAX which is garnering all the attention right now. There has been a lot of buzz ever since WIMAX was first announced and the buzz around this new wireless technology is greater than it's ever been. Let’s discuss as to why WiMAX stands out among others.

WiMAX overview:

WiMAX can best be described as the most promising emerging technology in the broadband wireless access industry. Not only does it provide very good performance and spectral efficiency but also is based on the current IEEE 802.16-204 standard, which is designed to provide Internet access across metro areas to fixed (non-moving) or portable/nomadic (not moving while in operation) users. Equipment based on this standard will be available late this year, and I believe this form of WiMAX will eventually dominate the wireless access market on a global scale. The lower costs, interoperability, and degree of comfort associated with having a major standard all but assure this outcome. The other WiMAX, which is still evolving, is "mobile WiMAX," based on the almost complete IEEE 802.16e standard. As you might guess, this is a fully mobile version of WiMAX that will be quite competitive with the data services available on cellular networks (which today primarily include UMTS, HSDPA, 1XRTT and 1xEV-DO).

For quite a long time this has been the issue with other wireless technologies with most of them tending to focus either on fixed or mobile markets. This perhaps led to the birth of WiMAX, which scores over other wireless networks when it comes to flexibility. WiMAX supports both fixed and mobile users at the same time. Hence it is a huge boon for both service providers and vendors. From a service provider’s point of view, you need to devote substantial funding to building infrastructure. So if you can use the infrastructure for multiple services you’re clearly at an advantage. For vendors, it’s a great technology not only because of the performance, but also because most of the industry has moved behind WiMAX.

WiMAX Advantages:

MAC layer impact:

In Wi-Fi, the media access controller (MAC) uses contention access — all subscriber stations that wish to pass data through a wireless access point (AP) are competing for the AP's attention on a random interrupt basis. This can cause subscriber stations distant from the AP to be repeatedly interrupted by closer stations, greatly reducing their throughput. In contrast, WiMAX uses a scheduling algorithm for which the subscriber station need compete once (for initial entry into the network). After that it is allocated an access slot by the base station. The time slot can enlarge and contract, but remains assigned to the subscriber station which means that other subscribers cannot use it. The 802.16 scheduling algorithm is stable under overload and over-subscription (unlike 802.11). It can also be more bandwidth efficient. The scheduling algorithm also allows the base station to control QoS parameters by balancing the time-slot assignments among the application needs of the subscriber stations.

MIMO and AAS:

With MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output), you have multiple antennas, both at the base station and at the receiver. So you’re able to be more efficient in carrying your data. And with AAS (Adaptive Antenna Systems) you basically have more advanced antennas that are able to have a narrow beam that focuses on the receiver. That allows you to gain in terms of performance and efficiency. The advantage is that you have a much higher throughput with MIMO and AAS. It’s a clear advantage. If you look at 3G and WiMAX, that’s where WiMAX in terms of performance looks significantly better than 3G. At the same time, if you have just plain WiMAX, the performance is not too different from 3G, but once you add MIMO and AAS, then the difference is quite significant.

Efficiency:

Given the data rates supported on its 25 MHz channel, Wi-Fi 802.11b delivers bandwidth efficiency around 0.44 bits/Hertz. And the 6 Mbps to 54 Mbps transmission rate supported on the 802.11a or g 20 MHz channel yields a bandwidth of 2.7 bps/Hertz. In WiMAX, a combination of modulation and coding schemes yield bandwidth efficiency up to 5 bits/hertz. That would in turn deliver a 100 Mbps transmission rate on a 20 MHz radio channel. The bandwidth efficiency will decrease as the transmission range increases. So a maximum of 3.5 bits/Hertz or in other words 70 Mbps on a 20 MHz channel is more realistic. The WiMAX specification provides symmetrical bandwidth over many kilometers and range with stronger encryption (TDES or AES) and typically less interference. Wi-Fi is short range (approximately 10's of meters) has WEP or WPP encryption and suffers from interference as in metropolitan areas where there are many users. Wi-Fi Hotspots are typically backhauled over ADSL in most coffee shops therefore Wi-Fi access is typically highly contended and has poor upload speeds between the router and the Internet. It provides connectivity between network endpoints without the need for direct line of sight in favorable circumstances. The non-line-of-sight propagation (NLOS) performance requires the .16d or .16e revisions, since the lower frequencies are needed. It relies upon multi-path signals, somewhat in the manner of 802.11n.

Mobile applications:

Mobile WiMAX is an all-IP broadband service that could offer 3 Mbps to 5 Mbps service over the next few years, very much in line with where wireless LANs are going, but using fewer and larger base stations than today's hot spots.

Mobile WiMAX will be the source of great controversy for at least the next year as the standard is yet to be finalized. We'll have to wait for production systems before we know what mobile WiMAX can really do. Some cellular companies are evaluating WiMAX as a means of increasing bandwidth for a variety of data-intensive applications. Indeed, Sprint Nextel had announced in mid-2006 that it would be investing about US$ 3 billion in a WiMAX technology build out over the next few years.

Initially it’s going to be the smaller operators that deploy WiMAX, because they are faster moving. They might have more pressing needs. But for the larger operators it will just take a little bit longer. So I think that you will see – especially for mobile WiMAX – the real growth just starting in 2008 and 2009. That’s when you’ll really see the volumes (and reaching critical mass by 2012).

I feel the stage is now set for WiMAX to dominate for the next few years. So if I have to bet on one wireless technology to dominate in the next five years, it would be WiMAX.

A consortium of big tech firms are rushing to develop devices that detect temporarily unused TV signals to move broadband in and out of your computer, home entertainment system, or Local Area Network. Engineers call this fallow spectrum "white space." The firms include Microsoft, Philips, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Google. They hope to hit the market running by February 2009. In their recent filings with the Federal Communications Commission, they call themselves the "White Space Coalition."

Why is this technology surfacing now?

The Federal Communications Commission has ordered all TV manufacturers to complete the analog to digital transition by February 17th of 2009. This transition and other FCC actions have already made some spectrum space in the 700 megahertz band available for various new uses, with more to come.

Add to this shift advances in spectrum sensory technologies—satellite geo-location devices and other sensors that can pick up the location of unused spectrum and route it to your computer—and you've got a powerful new way to broadcast and receive voice, data, text, and video.

These devices "will offer longer transmission ranges using the same power, less risk of signal attenuation or harmful interference, and less power consumption at the same range than Wi-Fi," the Coalition wrote to the FCC on January 31st.

What will these "white space" devices look like? What will they do?

Microsoft has been submitting prototype photos and schematics for these machines to the FCC, and right now they look pretty darn ugly. They'll get spruced up by the time they get to the market, though. Once they get final approval from the FCC's Office of Engineering Technology (OET), the plan is to market them for:

• Community Mesh Networks. Essentially big matrices of Local Area Networks, these "mesh" systems could allow entire neighborhoods, business, or institutional networks [think fire, hospital, or police] to build communication systems equivalent to lower power FM radio or TV stations.
• Office systems. White space broadband could rapidly accelerate the speed and efficiency of office communications networks—linking printing, voice and video conferencing with greater speed and flexibility.
• Home entertainment systems. This new technology will allow the various components of a home entertainment system—computer, TV, and stereo/radio—to receive and transmit data back and forth to each other within a home setting.

Yes. The roadblocks are called the National Association of Broadcasters and the Association for Maximum Service Television, the latter a consortium of big TV station owners. They groups claim that these devices will interfere with established TV signals, and therefore should only be permitted on a licensed basis—licensed with the FCC, that is. That will make them much more difficult for the public to easily obtain.

But the release of these devices in an unlicensed context has strong support from the mentioned software giants, public interest groups, and from the Federal Communications Commission itself, whose five Commissioners unanimously fast tracked the project in October of 2006.

"In many contexts - " FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said after the decision, "as with the enormously successful bands that support today’s Wi-Fi networks - unlicensed uses most closely approach the ideal of the people’s airwaves, to be used in direct service of the public interest."

And FCC planners have already suggested that unlicensed devices be used in the creation of a new emergency services network in the 700 MHz band.

What does the rollout schedule look like?

The FCC's OET has laid out the following timeline for moving the project forward:

• From March through July 2007 the FCC will test for and then specify final technical requirements for unlicensed devices that would run in various TV bands.
• In December of 2007 the FCC will accept applications for the certification of such devices.
• In February of 2009 unlicensed products will begin to sell on the retail market—at the same time as the analog-to-digital TV transition is scheduled for completion.

Does this mean that you'll be able to walk into Best Buy in March of 2009 and buy a "white space detector" for your home? Perhaps, or perhaps not, given the usual legal, procedural, and technological snafus. But on balance, most parties are thinking forward on this technology, not backward. So I expect the term "white space" to move beyond the blogosphere pretty soon.

Matthew Lasar