The ubiquitous network

Telecom Asia, Oct, 2004 by John C. Tanner

There's something refreshing about traveling to Korea--not just the world's top broadband market, but also Asia's largest Internet market per capita --and staying at the only hotel in the country with no Internet connectivity in the guest rooms. At all. Not even dial-up.

The irony was particularly striking since the hotel in question was in Busan, where ITU Telecom Asia 2004 was in progress about 5 minutes away. Even more twisted was the catch-phrase that dominated much of the exhibition floor, and surfaced repeatedly at various panel discussions: "ubiquity".

As in "ubiquitous connectivity". As in, "Access any telecoms service--voice, data or video--anywhere in the world at any time with any device."

Nothing new there--the telecoms industry has envisioned this for years. This was one of the goals of IMT-2000 back when it was known as FPLMTS. It was the marketing slogan for Iridium and Globalstar--use your mobile phone literally anywhere on earth.

But that was last century. And that was mainly about voice. Today, it's all about broadband, which can carry your voice, your high-def video, your MP3 streams, your MMS snaps, and whatever else you need.

More to the point, the options for accessing all this are on the rise. Today we have DSL, cable modem, fiber, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and (in select markets) 128-k PHS and EV-DO. We have Wi-Fi on airplanes today--by the end of next year we'll have cellphone coverage. In the US, whole cities are being covered with wireless mesh networks that link Wi-Fi hotspots together. A few markets now have broadband wireless services powered by the likes of ArrayComm, Flarion. In two years, we'll have WiMAX and TD-SCDMA. Next year, users in Korea and Japan will be able to watch satellite TV on their handsets.

Wherever you go, you can get connected. That's the name of the ubiquity game--it's not about 3G vs Wi-Fi, or WiMAX vs DSL. It's about multiple access to multiple services. It's about getting the connection you need when you need it based on availability, bandwidth requirements and/or cost parameters.

Ubiquity starts at home

Even the range of what you can connect is growing. Home networking demos were a top draw at the stands of companies like SK Telecom, KT/KTF and LG Electronics. Every major appliance in your home--from the PC and home entertainment system to the air conditioner, gas timer, washing machine and, yes, the refrigerator--will be online via Ethernet, Wi-Fi or even powerline, giving you remote control of all of them, even when you're out. Use your mobile to turn on the A/C before you get home. Program your VCR from the kitchen. Or from the office. Or from another city.

Koreans will be able to do this starting next year, according to SKT and KT. Much of the consumer gear is already for sale, and with the WMM interoperability standard from the Wi-Fi Alliance now ready to go, the first consumer electronics certified for Wi-Fi interoperability should be on the market sometime next year.

Pretty awesome, no? Yes it is. It does not get much more cutting edge than this, Jim. Trust me. The 21st century will be everything you thought it would be and more.

All that's left to do is convert everything to IP (preferably v6), integrate everyone's billing infrastructure, develop tariff plans that end-users can get their heads around, invent multi-mode devices that are aware of their networked environment and can pick, choose and hand-off between different networks while keeping the session intact, invent batteries that can power these devices for more than an hour (or devices that use as little power as possible), make all of this simple enough for anyone over the age of 30 to use regardless of educational background, come up with the additional spectrum we'll need for all the wireless access (preferably below 700 MHz), convince telcos that they can cash in on all this even if they're forced to junk their lucrative old-school business models and interconnect schemes, and convince regulators to help make all this happen without viewing it simply as a new tax source or a threat to national security.

Once that's taken care of (roughly two to ten years from now, depending on the market), we can start worrying about the inevitable "ubiquity gap" between the 10% of the planet that will be able to afford all this, and everyone else.

Nothing to it. Let the ubiquity begin.