* Mix-and-match wireless future ahead, says expert
Last month, Network World took to the road with its Wireless & Mobility Technology Tour, where keynoter Craig Mathias, principal of the Farpoint Group, offered a glimpse into our wireless future.
A theme I think I heard in Mathias’ musings had to do with the eventual mix-and-match nature of equipment and protocols, with items like smart cards and software-defined radios (SDR) determining the personality of a handheld device or piece of infrastructure equipment.
For example, Mathias implied that we might see a revival of the so-called “thin client” on mobile and wireless devices. The reason is that the value of information now far exceeds the value of the device that carries it, and users need to get to the information from wherever they are and using whatever device is available. Mathias suggested that someday, users might simply opt to tote around smart cards with their authentication information and use them with whatever device is handy or most appropriate.
SDRs, of course, are emerging to shift the wireless equipment design model from dedicated hardware components to software that can be simply reprogrammed to change a radio’s nature. A cell phone, for example, could be entirely independent of the pesky protocols we’ve been arguing over for so long – GSM, CDMA, UMTS, HSDPA and on and on. Rather, loading the appropriate software for the network service desired might eventually do the trick.
Mathias says we might not see SDR-based handsets till 2010, though, primarily because of battery-life issues associated with building powerful digital signal processors to handle analog-to-digital conversion.
The tour was sponsored by wireless LAN companies Bluesocket, Colubris Networks, Foundry Networks, Meru Networks, Siemens, and Symbol Technologies. Also exhibiting was Xirrus, a newcomer that recently launched a set of antennas, 16 802.11a radios, and WLAN switch in a handy, all-in-one device that looks like a very large smoke detector or very small spaceship, depending on your point of view.
