MARCH 2004 BROADSHEET - Constantly in Touch – All-Pervasive Communications of the Future
Would you sign up for unlimited mobile phone calls and unmetered internet access from just about anywhere for only €15 a month? Would your company like to have the benefits of a network architecture which does away with problems of updating or reorganising meetings? In our February meeting, participants were treated to fascinating glimpses of the future of communications by two enthusiastic and committed entrepreneurs. And, judging by the rate of uptake of new technologies, this future could be just around the corner.
According to Barry Shrier, founder and chief executive of Liberty European Networks, WiFi technology is “likely to be the most disruptive and revolutionary technology ever”. To back up this ambitious assumption, he surveyed the history and current options for mobile communications, in particular contrasting the situation of 3G and broadband wireless systems. Sale of 3G licences has benefited national exchequers, but left mobile telecoms companies with huge debts and no realistic likelihood of them being able to recoup the cost. Wireless broadband, on the other hand, is licence exempt, and networks are very cheap to install. Some analysts have foreseen only a limited, business-oriented role for wifi. However, Liberty European Networks’ view is that the “nearly net” it makes possible (not fully perfect service, at a low cost) will be a very attractive proposition for the population as a whole. If so, this will truly be revolutionary, and will see major telecoms companies either adapting fast or going out of business.
Matthew Bate of Essentially Different Ltd has quite another offering. His company’s SmartBlobz™ would rework network architecture, taking the best of peer-to-peer and client-server models, to form a future-proof system to handle data. A simple user interface of icons and drag and drop functionality allows users to associate objects in highly useful ways. For example, SmartBlobz™ representing various people (and all the data associated with their activities) can be simply dragged to another SmartBlob representing a meeting. The beauty of the concept is that then the sets of data are automatically updated at pre-set intervals, so that, in this example, meeting arrangements can be changed and background documents distributed with no manual intervention. This has the potential to make a step change in the efficiency of handling business data: in particular problems with versions would be a thing of the past, and the platform would be future-proof.
Not surprisingly, these presentations were followed by an animated question and discussion session before we all went away to check our mobile phone bills.
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