Most experts agree that sometimes in the next 15years or so, we would have a pervasive, highspeed and interoperable network worldwide.

Kashminder Singh

I had lunch with a very nice lady from the advertising industry last week. She had written in to express her frustration with the slow rollout of 3G services as well as the general disinterest by people to sign up for these services. The frustration wasn’t just personal; her company had been thinking of launching a service that would need 3G but had finally given up on the idea.
I attended quite a few events in the last few weeks and surprisingly, I felt almost the same kind of weary mood from quite a few people. As one of them said, it almost seemed like yesterday that the Wimax license tenders were abruptly halted. A new year is here and we haven’t moved as much forward as we could have.

That’s true but these friends need not worry that much.

I had to give a presentation at the Nokia Eseries seminar that Mobile World organised on Dec 12 where I spoke on the future. Of course a large part of my presentation was on mobility.
I looked beyond 2007 all the way to 2020 and all indications are that we will have a vastly different world by then. Most experts agree that sometime in the next 15 years or so, we would have a pervasive, highspeed and interoperable network worldwide. What this means is that we would have one huge network which would operate at speeds many times faster than what’s possible today.

And it just won’t be PCs that will be connected. Microprocessors will be in almost everything. Your car, your TV, your watch (if it’s still around then), maybe even your shirt, and your spectacles will all become very smart devices linked into this worldwide network.
We will lead fully mobile lifestyles because of this network which will allow us to move around seamlessly. It will be a borderless world as this network will not recognise manmade boundaries.

Of course, anyone looking at the current state of mobility in Malaysia could be forgiven for thinking that I am being overly optimistic. Well, I am not. We too will move ahead and there’s almost nothing anyone can do to stop this. We could hinder the process a bit but the end result will be the same.

What we are seeing now in Malaysia is, to put it bluntly, a classic case of regulators using old world principles in a new world. The 3G and Wimax license issues are good examples of this phenomenon.

I’ll illustrate what I mean.

It’s clear that the trend is towards high speed networks. Every player will have to have a high speed strategy. Our regulators should be working to assist this process. If they instead hamper this process by holding back licenses and dragging their feet on key issues, technology has a funny way of working around these artificial blocks.
EDGE technology is a classic example of what I mean. First, it was best described as 2.5G. Then it got faster and was better described as 2.75G. Anyone using both DiGi’s EDGE service and a 3G service from Maxis or Celcom will tell you that practically speaking,  the speeds do not differ much.

Now, EDGE is about to get faster. It’s called Evolved EDGE and experts say that it is a viable alternative to 3G networks. Evolved EDGE can be utilised on existing GSM spectrums so there will be no need to apply for new licenses (see what I mean?). The upgrade process is not expected to be overly expensive or complicated for telcos. It will need simple software upgrades to their existing EDGE networks. Users will need new handsets but then so will they if they move to 3G HSDPA networks.

Apparently, power utilisation on handsets is about the same as current EDGE handsets and better than 3G handsets. All in all, it is quite an exciting development for those who cannot implement 3G networks.

So not getting a 3G license is turning out to be a blessing for telcos like DiGi. They can concentrate on Evolved EDGE and have network speeds that match 3G while waiting for technologies like Wimax to become prevalent.

And if our regulators decide not to award Wimax licenses to those who should get them, my advice would be not to worry.

So no worries to all who believe things look bleak on the mobile scene. As one of my favourite stories goes, “This too shall pass” (http://www.inspirationalstories.com/1/192.html). We will see not only 3G-like but even faster mobile services become widely used.

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