The Ever Growing Space of Wireless Technologies... Or, Lets Not Forget The Users...

by C. Enrique Ortiz, December 16, 2004

The wireless technology space is an area of incredible growth and innovation. Just to name a few of these technologies in today's space:

Wi-Fi, WiMax, Bluetooth, UWB, ZigBee, IEEE 802.x, LAN, WLAN, WAN, MAN, PAN, CAN, CDMA2000, CDMA2000 1x, 1xRTT, 1xEV (1xEV-DO & 1xEV-DV), GPRS, GSM / TDMA / CDMA, EDGE, 2.5G, 3G, 4G... And here I just mentioned wireless network technologies; there also are architectures, deployment, APIs, cost and other implications that I don't even bring up. See Know Your Wireless for a decent (but not completely accurate) list of wireless terms.

Some of these are specific to cellular networks, others to local or wide are networks, others to personal networks, while others apply to embedded devices.

But at the end of the day, regardless of the wireless technology that is used, it is about two things:

  1. Consumer Users
  2. Business Users

I like to separate or classify users as I did above, as each group or audience have their own set of usage requirements or interests. Furthermore, it is about the usage patterns which can be summarized as follows:

  1. Access to People, where the wireless apparatus is about better communication. Don't forget the huge social implications (and opportunities) this brings. Note that for many users, all they care is voice-access to people and nothing else.
  2. Access to Information, and the integration, security, and presentation implications, just to name a few.
  3. Entertainment, and the challenges of creating innovative games on mobile (and often constraint) devices. Don't forget about leveraging the social aspects that wireless/mobility brings to the picture.

From the handset perspective, handsets need to allow or enable the above use cases, through affordable multi-function devices.

So in short.... let's not forget the user! At the end of the day, they are the ones paying for what we create/develop...

 

 

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