3G - Tomorrow’s Communication Technology ?
May 15, 20053G - Tomorrow’s Communication Technology, and what about wi-max?
Ever since my last article on the 3G mobile technology - ‘Is 3G too late ?’, i have been considering my own words, and i am now lead to beleive that was probably too optimistic about wi-max and other possibilities of fourth-generation mobile technology. I envisioned wi-max as a solution for integrating voice and data communication, but the big market players probably don’t see it that way. An ideal cellular technology is one that is able to stay, compete and evolve for a period of at least 15-20 years. I still hold my original view that voice and data communication will merge perfectly into one network, but that might take longer than i hope. The companies are not viewing Wi-Max as a new medium for voice communication even though making it ultra-portable (like built into cell phones) is realistically possible. They see wi-max as just another method of internet distribution, whereas my hopes for wi-max were much more. This article by Abhishek criticises 3G and it’s use in India. But 2G GSM, the standard currently used in India has reached a saturation point and has no room for technological growth. The GSM operators (Airtel, Hutch, etc.) have two choices, completely switch over to CDMA and join their rival reliance, who is already established in the cdma market or upgrade to 3GSM. their option would be clear, upgrading to 3G would be both cheaper, and services would be better than the current generation of CDMA. If you or me were the owners of one of these GSM brands, then for profit’s sake, 3G would be the obvious choice. I personally would like to see a shift to 3G, and as far as the spectrum is concerned, i’d give the operators a preiod of time (say 10 years, to completely move to 3G and leave 2G behind, thus closing down the original spectrum for 2G, and thus making it free again for future use.
