As wi-fi becomes a way of life not just for techies but even an average consumer, it is increasingly difficult to imagine oneself without a network connection (cell phone or internet) for too long. However, the transition to "seamless mobility with connectivity" is not going to be easy. The same set of companies that bring us all these goodies also slow things down because they get married to their technologies (a case in point is the CDMA/GSM conflict in the US).
iProceed's vision for "seamless mobility with connectivity" is a world in which the user does not need to know what is happening in the external environment. The device is smart enough to figure it all out. I think I heard Ed Zander, the CEO of Motorola, allude to this when I attended one of his presentations on where the company is headed. But what we need for this vision to become a reality is perfect synchronization of infrastructure, devices, software, network, regulation, public policy, etc. That is a tall order! And then Wi-max is the wild card here. So I went to a friend whom I refer to as the Wireless Goddess. This is what she says:
"In my opinion, both Cellular/3G and wifi/wi-max promoters are going to fight for protection of their territories. The earliest solutions, therefore, will try to support both in one box. I know several PDA manufacturers are trying to come up with PDAs that support both but that is still very nascent. Regardless, when the first of any kind of solutions begin to come out, the manufacturers and users are going to be faced with a lot of problems, for instance:
iProceed's vision for "seamless mobility with connectivity" is a world in which the user does not need to know what is happening in the external environment. The device is smart enough to figure it all out. I think I heard Ed Zander, the CEO of Motorola, allude to this when I attended one of his presentations on where the company is headed. But what we need for this vision to become a reality is perfect synchronization of infrastructure, devices, software, network, regulation, public policy, etc. That is a tall order! And then Wi-max is the wild card here. So I went to a friend whom I refer to as the Wireless Goddess. This is what she says:
"In my opinion, both Cellular/3G and wifi/wi-max promoters are going to fight for protection of their territories. The earliest solutions, therefore, will try to support both in one box. I know several PDA manufacturers are trying to come up with PDAs that support both but that is still very nascent. Regardless, when the first of any kind of solutions begin to come out, the manufacturers and users are going to be faced with a lot of problems, for instance:
- Seamless roaming (just infrastructure is not good enough; we need smart algorithms within the user devices, e.g., PDA's and the network devices).
- Security
- Performance
- After all the basic networking problems are resolved, there are going to problems specific to certain applications such as HTTP (Web), DHCP (dynamic IP address resolution of clients), NFS (network file system). Essentially, how can we keep the top layer connections intact while the user hops from one zone to another.
- Network management/accounting
- Quality of service
We need applications on either end (user and network) to facilitate all of the above functions. I believe that there is going to be a lot of competition in the infrastructure solution area. Crowding in the application area may not start until after the initial deployment of those solutions."
So it is interesting that several companies like Sirific Wireless and Ashvattha Semiconductor are trying to come up with a simple solution. But wouldn't it be a good idea to have a consortium of companies working on it so that the resources can be pooled, standards developed, and deployment expedited.