Predicting the future, a complete waste of time

I was asked to play the role of futurologist for a CVL newsletter this month, so I reached for inspiration on style of predictions; I went straight to the wise words of my favourite author on the subject, Scott Adams. He writes in the The Dilbert Future!, “There are many methods for predicting the future. For example, you can read horoscopes, tea leaves, tarot cards, or crystal balls. Collectively, these methods are known as ‘nutty methods’. Or you can put well-researched facts into sophisticated computer models, more commonly referred to as ‘a complete waste of time’.”

Shift happens!

So with all that said here is what I think will happen in the next ten years?

Bill’s Prediction No.1 – we’ll be hiding from the data deluge

We’ve been riding the broadband wave for at least 6 years and will continue to do so for several years in our pursuit of ‘always on’ high speed access. The telecoms world has been obsessed with how many households and users have broadband access and how fast that access is, but we will get bored of these figures when we have something else more interesting to talk about.

Fixed line access speeds will improve and the emerging mobile broadband technologies mean we will have enough bandwidth for all our needs wherever we are – but with all this fast access at our fingertips in 10 years what we will really want is to be ‘sometimes off’.

Broadband speeds of 10Mb will be the norm even on the move, but more of us will be seeking out blind spots to hide from the constant deluge of data.

Bill’s Prediction No.2 – where did I put my invisible communication device?

Currently, fashionable trends seem to take about twenty to thirty years before they appear again – just look at how many kids today are wearing skinny jeans, going to open air rock concerts and think that Paul Weller, Chopper bicycles and Blake’s 7 are cool. We could see 1998 technology becoming fashionable again in 2018. What does that mean? It means you and I will be using the latest micro-sized devices and the kids of the day will be showing off their brick-sized mobile phones.

Everyone will have mobile phones and most of us will have a selection to choose from, depending on our mood and what we are doing that day. There’ll even be options to build your phone into your clothes, and some early adopters will be integrating their communications devices into their own bodies to create a cyborg solution.

Bill’s Prediction No.3 – the telly will always be on

Our pattern of TV viewing is on the verge of a major shift – and shift is the key word here – from the ‘sit back and receive’ style we grew up with to a mode in which we enjoy more control over what we watch and when we watch it. As the Personal Video Recorder (PVR) becomes more commonplace in our living rooms more of us are watching ‘timeshift TV’, i.e. watching our favourite programmes when it suits us rather than as scheduled. Within 10 years we will benefit from the ability to enjoy ‘placeshift TV’, i.e. take our TV schedule with us when we travel so those favourite programmes are available on a TV, PC or mobile device wherever we are.

Bill’s Prediction No.4 – shopping only for experiences

As the technology improves, and as we get more and more comfortable with the security and reliability of the ordering and delivery processes, we will do all our ordering online. The actual shopping experience will be much more interesting as stores become showrooms and more retailers focus on creating ‘experience stores’ like this extreme sports store in Florida.

Bill’s Prediction No.5 – these, and all other predictions, will turn out to be entirely untrue

The one thing that is certain with predictions is that they will not be right. History is littered with awsome predictive errors including some made by the most prestigious of scientists Try this for British technological foresight at its finest:

“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.”

- Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.

The future of wireless broadband

I recently stumbled across some research offering the 2006 Outlook for wireless operators, my eye was caught by the following statement in the summary; “alternative wireless broadband technologies will start to build momentum (but not Mobile WiMAX) and the growing community of VoIP users cannot be ignored for much longer”.

Here is the story…

With c. 3 million 3G PC card users worldwide, cellular operators are starting to bring on board meaningful high-speed Internet access revenue streams. Alongside traditional PC card services, 2005 also saw a number of operators bring W-CDMA modem/routers to the residential market, most notably O2 and Vodafone in Germany. As an alternative to a multi-megabit fixed broadband service capable of delivering multimedia services, cellular networks are clearly fighting a losing battle, but a number of operators see a niche for lower-user broadband or dial-up customers where mobility may also be an appeal. Young low-occupancy households have been an early target where the user may not want to pay for a broadband subscription they are rarely at home to use.

Service opportunities in this area are clearly boosted by the availability of flat-rate plans, which are generally still limited to the US at this point in time (flat-rate plans in other regions typically carry a usage cap). They will be enhanced further by the growing availability in 2006 of CDMA2000 1x EV-DO services and the launch of HSDPA services – both able to offer average download speeds around the 500kbps mark. Strategy Analytics expects to see more marketing of cellular-only packages into the younger end of the market in 2006, combining the cellphone with either a PC card or 3G modem/router.

However, as cellular operators look for some fixed Internet replacement business, alternative mobile broadband will also gain traction and impact 3G offers. Mobile WiMAX will not happen in 2006. With the 802.16e standard only ratified in the last few weeks of December 2005, we do not expect to see any commercial deployments this year. However the alternatives do exist and are growing in use:

• With UK Broadband still yet to mobilize its TDD service, IPWireless did deliver a number of mobile broadband UMTS TDD networks to Eastern Europe in 2005 (Lithuania, Czech Republic). 2006 will be a big year for UMTS TDD though, with Japan’s IPMobile planning an October launch and SprintNextel currently trialing the technology using its 2.5GHz spectrum in Washington DC;
• SprintNextel is also understood to be planning a trial of WiBro with Samsung. WiBro services will see their first commercial launch in Korea in the Spring, from both Korea Telecom and SK Telecom (the 3rd licensee Hanaro Telecom has already returned its WiBro license to the government). These launches will be watched closely for an indication of the potential of Mobile WiMAX, which will be fully compatible with WiBro;
• Qualcomm’s US$600 million acquisition of Flarion is expected to complete in late January 2006. Flarion’s Flash-OFDM technology had mixed fortunes in 2005. Nextel’s extended trial was halted following its acquisition by Sprint, though it was boosted by a network launch in Slovakia and a license win in Finland;
• ArrayComm’s iBurst solution also remains in the running in the mobile broadband arena, with Australia and South Africa both with live iBurst networks.

SprintNextel’s activities in the 2.5GHz band are of particular interest here. With a “use or lose” clause added to this holding in order to get FCC clearance for the merger, they are required to offer services to 15 million consumers within four years and 30 million within six years. The company is clearly investing a lot of effort at present to pick the best technology.

While much of the debate centers on the extent to which Mobile WiMAX will supersede these technologies or the extent to which EV-DO or HSDPA (and their future iterations) offer a better alternative, the US and Taiwan set to work building their WiFi cities. Major city deployments include Taipei and Philadelphia, with many smaller towns and cities (predominantly in the US) also joining in. Of most interest are Google’s WiFi plans. It already has approval for blanket coverage of its home town of Mountain View, CA and has proposed a network covering San Francisco, all offering free access for all. Cellular has always won in terms of ubiquitous coverage with no history to date of successful limited mobility wireless networks, but WiFi is refusing to lie down in the battle for mobile users.

So I asked around a bit and the word I got was keep your eye on WiMAX it’s going to be a very important development, maybe not in ’06 but probably in ’07.