6. Cut those wires!
Everyone can see the appeal of wireless Internet accessâ€"who wants to festoon their living space with cables just so they can surf the Net from every room in the house? Two distinct areas of development have emerged: local wireless access to fixed line networks using standards such as Bluetooth and WiFi (802.11b), and more ubiquitous wireless broadband services via third-generation (3G) mobile phone spectrum.
The only real restriction on rolling out 802.11b services has been lingering concerns over the ease with which these networks can be accessed by intruders. However, most observers agree that this is a procedural rather than a technological problem. -Security for wireless networks isn't a problem, provided people remember to switch it on," says Richard Miller, an enterprise consultant with VeriSign.
Despite initial enthusiasm, wireless access via 3G hasn't lived up to its early hype, and certainly hasn't been adopted at the same rate as local wireless networks. Having invested billions of dollars in purchasing 3G spectrum, the actual future of the services is far from clear, as telcos struggle to come up with services that corporates are willing to pay for. (At current pricing levels, only insanely well-off consumers would even consider most 3G services.) -Rolling out a 3G network to provide multimedia applications to a large number of people over a wide coverage area requires huge investment and, as things stand, this looks to offer a fairly poor return," notes Ovum analyst Julian Hewett. -Instead, operators must roll out 3G gradually in traffic hotspots, such as capital cities, where many 2G networks are already feeling the strain.
-It comes down to deploying 3G as a critical complement to the 2G network, not as a replacement nor as a standalone premium service platform," says Hewett. By 2007, Ovum estimates that 3G will account for 14.3 percent of global mobile connections. This is a major leap from the current penetration of 0.3 percent, but hardly a dominant position. Having already failed to excite users with the potential of WAP, telcos are taking advice such as Hewett's to heart. The recent launch of multimedia messaging services (MMS) will provide perhaps the first clear indicator of how willing consumers are to pay extra money for enhanced communications services.
7. And what about the Internet fridge?
For many years, the notion of an Internet-enabled fridge has been a staple of discussions about how Net technologies will become pervasive in our lives. LG Electronics, which was the first company to actually get one of these broadband-enabled food cooling devices onto the market, has even gone so far as to posit that an Internet-enabled fridge will serve as the hub for all of a house's digital activities. -In the future, everything in the house will be tied together through the refrigerator since it's the only appliance on 24 hours a day," predicts LG vice president Sonny Marak. (Personally, we thought the PC might do that as well, but never mind.)
-The Internet refrigerator does more than just chill food and dispense ice cubes," Marak continues. -Consumers can use the Internet refrigerator as a TV, radio, Web appliance, videophone, bulletin board, calendar, and digital camera." This enthusiasm for Net access with a side order of bacteria-free salad has even infected the minds of normally staid companies such as Telstra. -In terms of telecommunications, the fridge is a wonderful thing. It's a data bank, messaging system, notification device, scheduler . . . and a number of other things," Telstra manager of mobility services Garth Price predicted at the launch of an Internet fridge prototype in 1999. To date, the fridge-based-data bank remains in the lab, and those -other things" remain tantalisingly undisclosed.
The question of whether you'd want to take a fridge with you on holidays to use its photographic capabilities aside, the main danger of obsessing over the Internet fridge is that it's actually one of the least useful appliances to add Internet access to. While futurists have been happy to discuss the notion that a suitably equipped fridge could automatically order new items of food as they get eaten, that concept is meaningless until supermarkets themselves become equipped to accept such orders. Having an air conditioner or heater which you can send an e-mail instructing to heat the house for your imminent return is actually rather more useful, but for some reason Internet air conditioners just don't get the column inches. To be fair, an Internet-enabled fridge still makes more sense than another concept, the Internet-enabled washing machine. Do you really need to download specific wash cycles for every new piece of clothing you buy?
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