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[Tamer]

Report from the future" Part One

Long but OUTSTANDING article about telecom future. GREAT read.
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50585309
Report from the future
Anonymous
America`s Network (Duluth) Vol. 104 Issue 3 Feb 15, 2000
SOURCE TYPE: PERIODICAL
PM_ID: 10138 ISSN: 10755292

AN takes a look at telecoms trends for the new century.

As you`ve probably heard by now, the future of telecommunications is a very exciting place - now that the conspiracy theorists have been proven dead wrong about the Y2K bug destroying civilization as we know it.

Luckily, they are wrong, for America`s Network has seen the future, in which new telecoms technologies - and, more importantly, the services they enable have transformed the way the world communicates. Whether such transformations will be for the better or for the worst is, as always, a matter of interpretation. It is also irrelevant, since concern over the possible consequences of a technology have rarely, if ever, stalled its development. And technology is evolving faster than ever. The advances in the last 15 years have easily outpaced those of the last 100 years. At this rate, imagine how far technology will have progressed by the next millennium.

That`s what we`ve done. What follows is our list of the top key trends that the telecoms industry will experience in the new century. Some may take longer than others to arrive; some may come to pass before the first decade of the 21st century is out. Either way, the telecoms industry is charting a course toward a future of all-optical packet networks, where every appliance imaginable will connect via Internet Protocol (IP) to the network. Wired broadband access will be overshadowed by competitive wireless alternatives. Mobile phones will become personal companions, and one-size-fits-all marketing will give way to personal brands. Until we all start communicating via telepathy, of course.

Don`t believe it? Read on, and see the future for yourself.

THE MASS MARKET OF ONE

The rules of traditional marketing will not apply in the new millennium as the rise of electronic commerce and the emergence of a cashless society leads to a world where most transactions will occur online. Whether people do their shopping at home on their PC or at point-of-sale outlets about town, the global Internet will be the medium through which most people do business. This will not only change the way people live, shop and communicate, but it will also bring about a profound change in the way businesses interact with customers.

Even before the Internet became popular, the paradigm of the mass market was already showing signs of obsolescence in certain sectors of the media industry. Magazines have been targeting slim, niche demographics for years. The proliferation of cable television has given birth to niche programming that has divided up audience shares into smaller portions that would otherwise be disastrous in traditional mass-market terms.

This trend is already starting to manifest itself in other telecoms services in the form of a paradigm shift in traditional market drivers. As markets become more infrastructure-rich and competitive, and as technologies become standardized, the key driver for service providers is not any given techtional market drivers. As markets become standardized, the key driver for service providers is not any given technology, but the applications and services it enables.

Case in point: Global System for Mobilization (GSM) and Personal Communications Service (PCS) operators are already looking to the latest technology in order to deliver personalized services to customers. Those services are designed to effectively highlight the customers` personal traits and preferences. For example, rather than forcing customers to pick between prebundled services, a small but growing number of `cellcos` are trying out SIM-card technology that allows customers to pick and choose their own services. The applications for services can be downloaded over the air onto their SIM-cards and discarded at will to make room for other applications when needed.

The Internet is also taking the nichemarketing concept further. We don`t just mean the wealth of specialized content on the Web. Because everything is digital on the `Net, advanced data warehousing solutions and data-mining tools allow any business or service provider to get to know their customers better.

They will be able to identify customer buying patterns, dining habits and probably what time they get up every morning, simply by looking at which services each customer subscribes to, which ticketing agent he uses and what hour the customer likes his wake-up call.

All of this applies offline as well as online. The market will no longer be a mass of faceless individuals, but will evolve to an entity featuring an indefinite number of different variables, dictating distinct needs and desires. Each user in the networked world will effectively be a mass market of one.

As service providers scramble to identify with their customers, the information itself will be a valuable commodity. In the new millennium, information will not only be power, but also money. Service providers will be valued as much for their customer information as their applications and services. Which should work out well for telcos, which will need to come up with new, customized, valueadded services of some kind in order to survive as their margins erode on basic telephony services.

Simply providing the connection doesn`t pay like it used to, and will pay less as time goes on. It`s not surprising that fixed network operators are teaming up with content providers. Telcos need content to draw subscribers to new multimedia services. The content providers need those subscribers - and their consumer data - in order to sell the advertising that often pays for content, as is already the case with free Internet access services and portal services such as email and unified messaging.

SONET YIELDS TO THE TRUE OPTICAL NETWORK

The all-optical fiber network, a.k.a. fiber to the home (FTTH), has been a pipe dream (so to speak) since the 1980s. While telcos worldwide have been fortifying their core networks with optical fiber, the all-optical push has been stonewalled on several fronts. The most formidable obstacle has been the local loop, thanks to the drastic expense of converting the copper local loop to fiber. Another obstacle has been the development of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, which offers telcos a cheaper broadband alternative to FTTH.

As for the rest of the global network, fiber optic cable may be commonplace, but that doesn`t necessarily mean that the global PSTN is a truly optical network. Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology, long considered a first step toward this goal, has not yet enjoyed widespread deployment. Key components, such as optical cross-connects and routers capable of handling multiple wavelengths, have been missing from the equation until recently.

Exacerbating the problem has been the ubiquitous popularity of synchronous optical network/synchronous digital hierarchy (Sonet/SDH) technology, the very presence of which prevents the all-optical network from being realized, according to critics. If nothing else, Sonet/SDH`s inflexible topology makes adoption of DWDM - by design a point-to-point technology - costly and complicated, especially for short-haul metropolitan configurations. But don`t be fooled - the all-optical network may be on hold, but it`s far from forgotten. Such problems are setbacks at worst, and numerous companies are already offering a host of technological solutions. Some vendors have addressed the Sonet/SDH issue with dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) equipment and terabit routers offering `virtual Sonet`- putting Sonet/SDH functionality into the switch or router itself. According to DWDM vendors, this not only eliminates the need to deploy more Sonet boxes in the central offices (where shelf space is precious enough as it is), it also gives telcos the flexibility to deploy meshed network configurations as well as point-to-point.

However it`s done, a virtual alternative to Sonet/SDH could also aid deployment of metro WDM networks. Vendors such as Cisco Systems and Optical Networks argue that metro WDM networks need qualities similar to an enterprise local area network (LAN), where customers can create point-to-point, ring or meshed networks.

Certainly, these are all just possible approaches. During the next few decades, telcos could find other ways to push for all-optical infrastructure. For example, DWDM isn`t the only optical technology out there. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in conjunction with Bell Labs and Digital Equipment, has been experimenting with other forms of optical transmission methods. One such method is the so-called `slotted TDM/ a packet-switching version of circuitswitched time division multiplexing (TDM) that purportedly enables optical transmission speeds as fast as 100 Gbps. Toward this end, MIT and others have been experimenting with soliton transmission, short-pulse fiber loop storage and all-optical pulse width and wavelength conversion technologies.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on whom you ask. The most anticipated consequence of the all optical network is the commoditization of bandwidth as operators find themselves with terabits worth of capacity. On the other hand, analyst firm IDC estimates that the expected bandwidth glut is a non-issue. Not only are telcos already being forced to refocus as markets become more service-driven rather than technology-driven (thanks to increased competition, says IDC), but the apps that are eventually developed will require the kind of bandwidth that network operators are being asked to build out.

Admittedly, the road to the all-optical network is still a long one, but then you can get a lot done in a millennium. In fact, don`t be surprised when eventually megabit G.lite and cable modems will not suffice. By that time, perhaps the cost of deploying FTTH will become affordable, and the long-sought vision of an all-fiber planet will become the new big thing.

IP EVERYWHERE

In the new century - probably before the first decade is out - IP is going to rule the network, if for no other reason than that so many people are convinced that it already does. Even industry analysts expect that IP will dominate the network from the core to the device before the first decade of the 21st century is out. Indeed, the future of the PSTN is inevitably packet-switched. Data traffic already outpaces circuit-switched voice traffic in North America, and it is expected to do so in most of Asia sometime over the next five years as well as worldwide before the first decade of the 21st century is complete.

That in itself doesn`t necessarily mean that IP will rule the network. However, market analysts and IP product vendors estimate that the core network will inevitably become an all-purpose IP network in order to better support the huge growth in IP-enabled devices connecting to the network. The signs are certainly there. Thanks to the World Wide Web, more and more new Internet subscribers are inviting IP connectivity into their homes. Even more significantly, corporate intranet use is on the rise, driving the demand for IP-based applications one of which is starting to be voice over IP (VOIP). Private branch exchanges (PBXs) with IP capabilities will reportedly be hitting the market sometime this year. Computer telephony companies are developing ways to transport IP over Signaling System 7 (SS7) to enable enhanced IP voice applications such as call conferencing.

VOIP has already found its way into the consumer international distance dialing (IDD) market as well. Granted, VOIP is said by analyst firms like IDC to only account for no more than 4% of international voice minutes. On the other hand, two years ago, IP telephony was a feature for PC enthusiasts; it was more popular for its novelty than its quality. IP still has some quality of service (QoS) and class-of-service issues to be worked out, but those issues are already being addressed by standards bodies. Whether on its own or combined with asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) via multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), IP`s reliability as a protocol for real-time traffic is becoming more defined as time as goes on.

Consequently, IP is already attractive to service providers looking to run voice and data over the same packet network. New carriers like Level 3 and Qwest are already one step ahead of this game, and other carriers are taking preliminary steps to introduce more IP-based services and capabilities into their networks. Moreover, numerous companies are already developing IP-based access devices, starting with fixed-line telephones. (The fact that a number of the companies developing such devices are telecoms vendors should be another dead giveaway.)

Up next for IP will be automobile dashboards, building ventilation air-conditioning systems and home appliances - from stereo equipment and refrigerators to dimmer switches and coffee makers. All of these devices will be online and accessible on the home LAN PC or even a remote PC, all via the Web browser of your choice.

None of this should be taken to imply that IP is "the end of protocol history," as some companies are claiming. On the contrary, at the very least IP will eventually evolve into something we can`t even begin to imagine - just as networks and communications will evolve. In all likelihood, by this time next century, IP may be a significant but distant blip on the protocol time line. Until then, better get used to it, because one way or another, sometime this century, it`s going to be an IP world.

THE MOBILE PHONE AS NETWORKED COMPANION

Mobile phones are becoming more powerful with each new product release. Advances in chip, memory, battery and software technology are making handsets smaller and capable of more features and applications. At the rate the industry seems to be going, the mobile phone will become an all-in-one package for the networked world.

Already, mobile phones come with extra features, such as phone books, games, call records and personal information organizers. Pretty soon, the technology will be available to give handsets the common features of today`s desktop computers. But are users really going to want a handset-sized PC? While phone makers are starting to give mobile phones such capabilities, empirical evidence shows that most people are not actually using them. Standard features such as phone books are popular, but more advanced features (e.g., schedulers) are not favored by even the nerdiest user.

And it`s no surprise, for it`s not easy to use a phone like a computer. The text input system on today`s phones makes it user-hostile for any but the most basic functions. Screens are small, and battery life is short and incapable of supporting extended periods of computer-like operations. Mobile phone manufacturers are touting new form factors, such as Nokia`s Communicator, and they promise solutions that will solve all current issues.

For example, better text input systems, such as Tegic`s T9, should dramatically improve the way people enter information into phones. Eventually, voice recognition could replace the need for a keypad altogether. New display technology will bring color to today`s handset screens. Still pictures and live video will be possible. Batteries will soon be upgraded to more sophisticated materials, such as lithium polymer, which could turn the whole outer shell of a phone into a power source.

More powerful, as well as power-efficient, microprocessors, bigger memory and better displays will effectively transform the mobile phone into a mobile information companion with the processing power of a full-featured desktop computer.

But that doesn`t mean people are going to use their mobile phones the way they use their PCs. In fact, they probably won`t. For a short time, people may be excited over the arrival of powerful phone and information organizer combinations. Ultimately, people will get fed up with the limitations, particularly size. Increased processing power is fine, but since handsets still have to be small enough to fit into a jacket pocket, or purse, they are going to be judged more by their human interface capabilities. And there`s only so much interaction you can do on a 132 mm x 47 mm handset, even if a Palm-style touchscreen takes up most of the space.

Instead, mobile phones will take on the role of the mobile-networked companion, supplementing voice services with access to information and disposable applications via browsers. This approach should be even easier as 2.5 and 3G wireless technologies boost wireless data transmission speeds. Indeed, this has already started, with Wireless Application Protocol services making this possible.

Ultimately, up-and-coming technologies such as text-to-speech and speech-to-text could take the handset companion revolution further. Once handset designers realize they no longer have to worry about how users will physically enter input into their phone books or the size of the screen, handset design could more freely enter the wearable stage. Perhaps the term "handset" will become an anachronism as mobile phones become Star Trek-style broaches on shirt-fronts, or simply chips embedded into the skin of users. Mobile phones will then be free to become anything that allows users to connect to the global communications grid.

GO TO PART 2 FOR REST OF ARTICLE
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[Newnoise]

Und nu?

Tschö NewNoise

[Mastablasta]

Do legs`d di nieder und stehst nimma auf!

servas Mastablasta

[Odradek]

Hi,

kleine Info:

OTI: GMS= Gasoline Management System
nix GSM und Handy.

ABER: auch dort wird OTI vermutlich reinkommen.

Gruß, Odradek

[Edelmax]

Oh, Herr im Himmel, schicke Hirn!
Oti hat es geschafft, eine Smartcard zum Betanken von Mobiltelefonen zu erfinden?! Da dürften sie aber ihren Konkurrenten wirklich Jahre voraus sein! Handys mit integrierten Verbrennungsmotoren für den Einsatz in Gebieten, wo es keinen Strom gibt! Jawoll! Wenn das nicht smart ist!?

Edelmax

Ps: WO sollte unbedingt einen kopfschüttelnden Smilie erfinden. Der hätte in letzter Zeit Hochbetrieb!