Tech Trends
Ubiquitous Connection. What are the Limitations?
The accessibility to data plans and connected devices has had a resounding effect on the work and leisure habits of most of Americans. It is also changing the way in which we consume business tools and services.
The affordability of data plans has fueled the growth in demand for wireless services. The growth in consumers has increased the market for services and products. The iPhone and iPad continue to be rapidly adopted, and Android devices have their own momentum with up to 500,000 activations per day now according to TechCrunch.
Innovations in mobile devices are fast and furious and the industry has become a multi-million dollar industry. The global mobile applications industry is projected to be worth $25 billion in 2015 in the report World Mobile Applications Market – Advanced Technologies, Global Forecast (2010 – 2015) by marketsandmarkets.com.
From the shift to social sharing and spread of the virtual office, the proliferation of wireless devices and subscriptions continues to grow. Over the last four years, the number of mobile phone subscribers has grown three-fold and the number of telecom jobs has grown five-fold. Will this growth rate continue?
Consider that there are almost 7 billion people worldwide; two-thirds of them do not have Internet yet, 95% do not have smartphone or tablet devices yet. With every passing year, computing power gets more accessible, and penetrates further. (My second grader has just finished a PowerPoint for her end of the year project and updated her wiki). Yes, this incredible technology growth has a lot of wind in its sails.
Another shift has taken place in how businesses consume IT products and services. More and more companies who previously invested in expensive hardware and proprietary software licenses are now turning to subscription based pay-as-you-go models for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and cloud computing. The on-demand nature, lower capital investment, cost management and resource flexibility, afford much more control over IT resources.
In 2011 SaaS revenue is forecast to grow 21% and worldwide revenues to reach $12.1 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. IDC projects that the SaaS market will reach $40.5 billion by 2014. Market research firm ABI Research forecasts the North American market for hosted services will account for $11.6 billion in 2012. The IaaS market is forecast to hit $4 billion within the next four years, according to In-Stat.
So with all this connectivity, what are the limits? The FCC has projected the need for 637 MHz of spectrum by 2013, and 822 MHz of spectrum by 2014. There is a National Broadband Plan to address the spectrum limitations with a plan to make 300 MHz of spectrum available for wireless broadband use within the next five years, and another 200 MHz in the five years after that.
But what if DIDO can unlock the power to provide each wireless user on a network the full data capacity of shared spectrum simultaneously with many other users? Steve Perlman, of Reardon Companies, recently released a whitepaper explaining how Distributed-Input-Distributed-Output (DIDO) Wireless Technology can eliminate the interference between users sharing the same spectrum, creating a “cloud wireless system.” Innovation continues – The sky’s the limit!
Related Tech Trend Articles:
The Future of Spectrum, Brookings Institute
At 2011′s Midpoint, Three Good Tech Trends and Three Not-So-Good Trends to Watch, by Ajay Chopra
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