Beyond the mobile frontier

• Article 4 of 7
• iSight, January 2006
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Increasing subscriber numbers will support this expansion. Fixed-line providers face little competition from mobile providers at the moment, since mobile’s costs, quality and bandwidth make it less desirable in most situations. But, broadband uptake remains poor in Western Europe. Even in the US, little over 30% of households have cable or DSL-based connections. Market share will, therefore, be fought over content and capability.

One area of interest is machine-to-machine communications, whereby household appliances talk to each other via home networks and to manufacturers, service companies and others via the Internet. Fridges could order food to be delivered when they sense their stocks are low, or washing machines could request a repair call when they detect impending part-failures. Content will be able to move from device to device – subject to licensing restrictions – with television content jumping from set-top box to DVD recorder to PC to mobile and vice versa. Technologies such as WiFi, WiMAX and Ultra Wide Band will make these home networks a reality.

Another battleground will be Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), which delivers broadcast-quality TV over broadband and provides a single integrated phone, Internet and TV package. Unlike cable, which delivers multiple streams of data to a set-top box, IPTV sends only the programme, or stream of data, that the customer has requested. Telcos claim this will allow them to provide greater amounts of bandwidth, while detractors say the likely multiple users in homes will actually put greater demands on the backbone.

Jim Olson of SkyStream says: “IP is a unifying technology. The Internet grew up around IP: it gives choice, control, interactivity and portability between devices. It’s causing more and more competition among various service providers. But the biggest IPTV activity is in the telco space, since it’s easiest for them to implement.”

Such developments underpin the notion of Web 2.0, in which a whole set of new applications and services will emerge now that the web is established as a high-speed platform. “The post-broadband era is underway,” says Nick Kingsbury, global software head and partner, 3i. And that will require a seamlessness that is only available through ubiquitous broadband access – whether that is through wireless or fixed lines.

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