Driving Ms. Denwa: the super-fast future of mobile phones: a new book analyzes the technologies and apps that will transform your telephone. Here, its author calls in to explain - Feature

Japan, Inc., Dec, 2003 by Jeffrey L. Funk

Introduction

The old adage about whether the glass is half empty or half full is as applicable as ever in the mobile industry. Although US and especially European markets are now experiencing strong growth in entertainment contents, the initial failures with business-oriented services are preventing many Westerners from understanding the full potential of the mobile Internet. On the other hand, continued growth in the Japanese market (see Table 1), in particular the continuous appearance of improved phones, services, contents and applications, has convinced many Japanese firms that the mobile Internet is one of the most important technologies of the early 21st century.

This article is based on my recent book, Mobile Disruption: Key Technologies and Applications that are Driving the Mobile Internet, and describes the basis for my optimism.

Technological improvements, which I describe in terms of technological trajectories, are expanding the applications for the mobile Internet. The initial success of entertainment contents in 1999 caused manufacturers to introduce phones with color displays, polyphonic tones, cameras and Java programs, and these functions are supported by other technological improvements like faster microprocessors, larger memory, faster network speeds and infrared and smart card functions.

Some of these technological trajectories will quickly fizzle out as customer needs are quickly satisfied. For example, increases in the number of polyphonic tones appear to have stopped at about 40, and color displays appear to have reached their limit at 250,000 different colors. Although some camera phones now contain more than 1 million pixels, 2 million pixels will provide quality that is equivalent to what is found in traditional photographs and will probably enable camera phones to read and process finely printed URLs, mail addresses and bar codes. On the other hand, other technological trajectories will likely continue for many years, making the phone a portable entertainment player, a new marketing tool for retailers and manufacturers, a multi-channel shopping device, a navigation tool, a new type of ticket and money and a new mobile Intranet device.

Larger displays

Japanese firms have increased the size of phone displays from a maximum of 2.0 inches (on the diagonal) in 1999 to 2.4 inches in 2003. New technologies will likely continue this trend. For example, displays based on EL (Electro Luminescence) are expected to be widely used by early 2004. These displays are thinner and thus 20-30 percent lighter than TFT-based displays because they produce their own light and thus do not require a separate light source. Displays that are based on light emitting polymers (LEP) also create their own light; more importantly, by applying a thin polymer film to a plastic substrate, firms can make displays that are thinner than one-10th of an inch and can be rolled and folded. It may be possible to double, triple or even quadruple the size of existing phone displays over the next five years.

Processing and network speeds

More immediate effects are expected from increases in processing power, memory and network speeds since they can improve the user interface without increases in the size of the display. Increased processing and memory capabilities reflect Moore's Law. Decreasing semiconductor line widths have caused computing speed and memory size to roughly double every 18 months for the last 40 years. Similar trends are already seen in the mobile Internet, where the need for lower power consumption requires different circuit designs. Phones released in 2003 had speeds in the 100 MHz to 200 MHz range, and speeds greater than 500 MHz are expected by 2005. Phones with more than 5 megabytes of internal memory were also released; some could save 2,000 photos (taken with a 300,000 pixel camera), 2,000 ringtones (with 40 polyphonic tones) or 100 Java programs.

Network speeds will also increase primarily through the diffusion of third generation services. According to Qualcomm, these services may cause packet charges to fall as low as $0.022 per megabyte, or 1/500 of current i-mode charges. If data charges were to fall as low as $0.022 per megabyte, a three minute MP3 file could be delivered for as little as $0.07, and a two-minute, medium resolution video clip could be delivered for a cost of approximately $0.13.

We can also expect other forms of networks to play an important role in the mobile Internet. For example, phones with infrared functions that use the IrMC standard are already being used in Japan to connect phones with cash registers, concert ticket machines and each other (to play games and exchange name cards), and control televisions and karaoke machines.

New infrared standards like IrFM enable credit card information to be securely transferred between phones and cash registers. Non-contact smart cards relying on short-range radio transmission are used for transportation, concert tickets and pre-paid cards (at less than $50); phones containing these functions are expected as early as 2004.