New techologies such as smartphones are increasing the demand for spectrum bandwidth. Telcos and government spectrum managers should be watching the US predictions for wireless spectrum with interest.
What CIOs Must Know About The Wireless ‘Spectrum Crisis’
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Wireless is becoming an increasingly important piece of the enterprise architecture.
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| ulius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is worried. Not today, or even this year, but soon, he thinks the United States won’t be able to meet the demand for broadband wireless data. “The biggest threat to the future of mobile in America is the looming spectrum crisis,” |
| Cisco, in a January report, predicted that mobile data traffic will more than double every year through 2013, at which time it will reach 2 exabytes– 2 billion GB–per month. |
| The Cisco report states that smartphones generate more than 30 times the traffic of basic cell phones; laptops with wireless modems 450 times the traffic.Read more at www.informationweek.com |
The Australian censor wants to classify smartphone apps. Its current charging structure may make many apps unavailable to Australia, as "unclassified".
As more infomation is delivered via broadband, rather than physical medium or broadcasting channels, maintaining national censorship controls will become more of an issue. Aussie censor wants power to ban iPhone apps |
The Australian censorship board wants to extend its tentacles into classifying mobile games and iPhone applications. |
But the censors might struggle to keep up with the tens of thousands of iPhone applications. It might also need to change its charging structure - it can cost over A$2,000 to apply for a certificate, a big charge for a small, start-up developer. |
| It recently refused a classification for the game Left 4 Dead 2 on grounds that there was not enough delineation between general zombies and people and “the clearly fictional ‘infected’ characters”. Read more at www.theregister.co.uk |
People view cell phones in the same category as their clothing or other personal items, not as company equipment that their employer’s IT department allows or doesn’t allow. Phones like the iPhone are strengthening the phenomenon. Elgan: There’s no such thing as a ‘business cell phone’ |
The JD Power results should force us to recognize a new reality: There’s no such thing as a business phone anymore. |
A study called “The Device Dilemma,” commissioned by Good Technology and published last month, found that more than one-quarter of enterprises have already experienced “security breaches due to employees bringing unauthorized devices.” |
Nearly half of IT decision makers “would allow users to choose their own devices if they could be assured of security and configuration.” The survey found that nearly 80% of companies saw a rise in the number of staff wanting to “bring their own devices into the workplace,” the overwhelming majority of which specified iPhones. |
The phrasing of and responses to these questions reveals a shockingly outdated view about the relationship between a company, an employee and the cell phone in every employee’s pocket. Read more at www.computerworld.com |
Case study of how a smartphone platform can enable greater customer service. Revving up with the Zipcar iPhone app |
Apple gave a green light to the free download earlier this week, so Zipcar members can now use the app to find and book available cars using GPS-enabled maps, access account and car database information, contact the company’s headquarters, and use a “virtual key fob” to lock and unlock their reserved cars. It’s the first-ever mobile endeavor for Zipcar besides text-message alerts, something that may be surprising considering the company’s outside-the-box, next-gen image. Read more at news.cnet.com |
Smartphones enable companies to develop new services using the power of the community, who participate because its a mutually beneficial thing. Government agencies need to think about how to apply the same principles. Crowdsourcing coming to iPhone apps, big time |
| the concept of crowdsourcing–defined by Jeff Howe, who literally wrote the book on the subject, as, “the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call”–is all the rage, |
For example, users can add tags to photos from the Smithsonian to bring more collective context to that museum’s huge archives; help create a huge map of kid-friendly places by finding a “playspace” and snapping a photo of it; or help the city of San Diego cut down on water wastage by reporting any city agency watering during the day or ignoring obvious leaks.
Read more at news.cnet.com |
If everyone in the world cannot own a car, can we afford everyone in the world to own a computer? This article makes the interesting observation that for many people in the world, their primary access to the Internet will be through a mobile phone. And that much of the infrastructure will be decentralised - including the power needed to run it. The Mobile Frontier - The Future of the Sustainable Network |
Everyone’s doing it - we tweet, text and surf on the go. We are constantly reaching out to the people, information and services we need to conduct our lives and businesses. We are connected 24-7, from wherever we are - anything less is unthinkable, even unacceptable. And what has all this access done? |
In countries that are energy poor, meaning they don’t have a reliable energy grid or enough supply to serve their people, a mobile network is often the only hope for connecting to the 21st century. Cell towers can be powered by wind or solar - in fact InStat estimates that by 2014 there will be 230,000 cell towers powered by solar or wind, and hopefully in the future the phones themselves will be solar powered (we have done it for calculators, why not phones). And with that connection, there is a lifeline to people, information and markets that can truly level the playing field. Read more at broadcast.oreilly.com |
Researchers are exploring the concept of a personal sensing device, using the tools built into a smartphone. Room’s Ambience Fingerprinted By Phone |
| Your smart phone may soon be able to know not only that you’re at the mall, but whether you’re in the jewelry store or the shoe store. |
| Duke University computer engineers have made use of standard cell phone features – accelerometers, cameras and microphones – to turn the unique properties of a particular space into a distinct fingerprint. |
| For example, in a bar, people spend little time moving and most time sitting, while the room is typically dark and noisy. In contrast, a Target store will be brightly lit with vibrant colors – especially red – with movement up and down aisles. SurroundSense can tell these differences.Read more at www.sciencedaily.com |
Cloud computing gathers steam with mobile devices |
The remote-storage technology is becoming more commonplace |
Consumers have tapped into cloud computing technology for years: sending messages via Hotmail, uploading photos to Facebook or editing a spreadsheet on Google Docs are just a few examples. Simply put, cloud computing moves data from a single machine, such as a personal computer, to the Internet. The technology frees users from needing to be at a specific PC to access saved information. |
ABI Research forecast that the number of mobile cloud computing users will jump from 42.8 million people in 2008 to more than 998 million in 2014, representing nearly 19 percent of wireless subscribers. |
A new source of revenue for credit check companies? Date Check turns smart phones into “sleaze detectors” |
People in the dating scene will be able to use iPhones as “sleaze detectors” to quickly check whether aspiring mates are creeps or gems.
Background-check powerhouse Intelius on Tuesday used a DEMO technology startup conference to introduce a DateCheck application that lets Apple’s globally popular smart phones be used to expose information people are hiding. |
DateCheck users armed with names and telephone numbers can mine the gargantuan Intelius database to uncover whether people seeking romantic connections fail to mention unflattering facts such as criminal pasts or current spouses. |
A Sleaze Detector feature in DateCheck finds and lists records of crimes including sexual assaults, drug arrests, and drunken driving, according to John Arnold, Intelius co-founder and executive vice president. Read more at tech.yahoo.com |
Big money seen for iPhone, smartphone app developers | Big money seen for iPhone, smartphone app developers |
Smartphone-apps revenue expected to jump to $4.2 billion by 2013
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That estimate, from Yankee Group Research Inc. in Boston, was calculated using the following factors: growth in smartphone unit sales, which Yankee Group expects to quadruple between now and 2013; an expected increase in the number of smartphone applications, and a projected jump in the average price of a single app from $1.95 today to $2.37. Yankee Group expects the number of smartphones sold to grow from 40 million in 2009 to 160 million in 2013. |
| Howe said he was most surprised by the finding that the average user has downloaded 20 applications. Games overwhelmingly led the list of downloaded apps, representing 73% of the total. Apps for search came in second, and social networking apps were third. After that, users said they picked applications to help with specific interests, such as bird watching, followed by banking apps, which were fifth. Read more at www.computerworld.com |
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What CIOs Must Know About The Wireless ‘Spectrum Crisis’
