By Glenn Drexhage

You’d never guess it from his demeanour, but Wade Oosterman has the zeal of a wireless prophet.

During a recent Backbone interview, Oosterman spoke quietly but that didn’t mask his explosive enthusiasm for the future of untethered communications.

“Wireless is going to be the largest industry in the whole wide world in the next 10 years,” said the executive vicepresident of sales and marketing at Telus Mobility. “There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it.”

Granted, Oosterman pitches for one of Canada’s main wireless firms. But the numbers are compelling. At the beginning of the 1990s there were about 10 million mobile phone subscribers globally. By 2001, that number had ballooned to 736 million (including 244 million new subscribers in 2000 alone), according to IDC Canada. And cellphones weren’t even invented until the early ’80s. Amazingly, it took traditional fixed-line carriers more than 120 years to match such growth.

IDC also notes that by the end of 2001, there were 10.7 million cellphone users in Canada—or about 35 per cent of the population.

And about 60 per cent of Canadian adult Internet users own a cellphone, according to research firm NFO CFGroup.

Although the growth is undeniable, the path ahead is less clear, as competing technologies, standards and strategies compete for attention in an era of corporate belt-tightening.

Here, Backbone examines some key themes and highlights predictions for 2002 and beyond.

The next generation

The biggest wireless story is the coming introduction of third-generation (3G) technology: bigger, faster networks that will allow mobile devices to handle all sorts of functions.With more bandwidth, voice will just be part of the picture as 3G users send e-mail, surf Web sites and even download streaming video files at speeds unheard of today.

That’s one vision, anyway. A different one comes from IDC Canada, which predicts that the commercial launch of 3G networks is years away, and won’t have a “material impact” on Canadian wireless carriers until after 2005.

That hasn’t stopped Canada’s major players—Bell Mobility, Rogers AT&T Wireless, Telus Mobility and Microcell Telecommunications—from upgrading their networks. In February, Bell Mobility unveiled its 1x wireless network, touting it as the first and fastest of its kind in Canada. Shaun Randall, group manager of wireless data and Internet at Bell Mobility, refers to 1x as the “first phase” of 3G. At press time, Telus also planned to introduce its 1x network soon.

As it stands, businesses will see the real bang of 1x and other comparable networks in their ability to provide mobile employees with speedier access to data, email, corporate intranets and colleagues through a range of devices. The providers are convinced the business case is strong, and it had better be, considering the required network and research investments.

There are some true believers already, including Dominic Micieli, vice-president of business development at Kilobytes Wireless Data in Woodbridge, Ont. Micieli recently tried out Bell’s 1x applications on a phone and a handheld device. “I’ve been playing with wireless since ’93, and this has been the most euphoric experience,” he said. “It gives me access to my office in real time.”

Jumping ahead

While the wait for true 3G capability continues, more North American businesses are jumping the queue to another technology—wireless local area networks (WLANs). These typically use an unlicensed standard called 802.11b (or Wi-Fi) to provide high-speed connections for mobile workers in a specified area, or Internet access in locales such as coffee shops.

WLAN growth has been impressive. According to IDC Canada, the global market grew to more than US$1 billion in 2000, an 80 per cent increase over the previous year. With revenues predicted to triple to US$3.2 billion in 2005, it’s no wonder that powerhouse vendors such as IBM and Cisco Systems are keenly interested.

But security remains an issue.Witness the “war driving” phenomenon—armed with the right software, a laptop and an antenna, expert hackers have driven around city centres and easily cracked vulnerable networks.

Wearing wireless

Now for the truly futuristic stuff: wearable computing has entered the workforce.

After a successful trial, Bell Canada outfitted 300 of its coin telephone technicians with the MA V, a product developed by U.S.-based Xybernaut that has wireless functionality.

Previously, the workers had to use two separate heavy devices; now, everything’s combined in a single wearable computer housed in a shoulder pouch that holds a scanner and an electronic key. Plus, the device’s drop-down daylight-readable screen lets a technician work with both hands free.

According to Brad Chitty, director of mobile communications at Bell Canada, this added efficiency saved technicians about 52 minutes a day during the MA V trial run.That’s cool—but can we expect common folk to stroll down the sidewalk sporting trendy wireless devices on their appendages? “I just can’t see people strapping computers on their bodies,” said Alex Dhanjal, a senior manager at Deloitte Consulting. “You know, get a life.”

Yet the wearable contingent is out there.“No one thought that cellphones would be popular either,” Chitty said.

Steve Mann, a faculty member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, certainly doesn’t harbour doubts. He’s worked on his WearComp (wearable computer) project for more than 20 years and has developed a set of glasses that house an Internet-ready camera. “Like most inventions, it takes time,” he said via e-mail. “Thirty years ago, people thought my idea was crazy. But now I don’t need to care anymore what people think of it.”

Mann’s outlook may not be so far-fetched—research group Gartner predicts that by 2010, always-on, wearable computing and communications devices will be common in the developed world.

W i r e l e s s W e b

Bell Canada/Bell Mobility http://www.bell.ca
CSI Wireless http://www.csi-wireless.com
Deloitte Consulting http://www.dc.com
Gartner http://www.gartner.com
IDC Canada http://www.idc.ca
Kilobytes Wireless Data http://www.kbytes.com
Steve Mann http://www.wearcam.org
Microcell Telecommunications http://www.microcell.com
NFO CFGroup http://www.nfocfgroup.com
Rogers AT&T Wireless http://www.rogers.com
Telus Mobility http://www.telusmobility.com
Xybernaut http://www.xybernaut.com