Looking at the Future of Wireless

At Wireless@KTH, a centre set up by the Royal Institute of Technology, researchers work at answering this question. The centre in Stockholm's Kista district conducts world-leading, vision-driven research to identify the issues that will dominate the future of the wireless industry.

The focus of Wireless@KTH is on wireless systems and services. The centre carries out strategic research to determine how these can be provided in a way that makes them accessible to as many people as possible. The questions being asked here are vital for Sweden: the country is home to the world's largest supplier of network equipment, Ericsson, and a myriad of related businesses that have sprung up in its wake.

A major role for the centre is to work out how services and systems can be developed in a commercially sustainable way.

Professor Jens Zander is the centre's director. He says that unlike the revolutions of the past, the next stage of development will be incremental.

"The way forward to get affordable, high-speed data is to exploit what we already have."

He says the next generation of infrastructure will be able to handle much higher data rates than present GSM and 3G infrastructures. The problem is that the laws of physics mean that for people to be able to use such base stations they will need to be physically closer to the base stations than they currently need to be to access 3G. Consequently, the number of base stations required to provide coverage will be significantly larger, leading to more expensive systems and services.

There are some ways to extend the range of these base stations, such as using directional antenna, but these are unlikely to be enough to give universal coverage at a reasonable cost level.

Zander and his colleagues are examining ways to target such services so that they can be offered by a limited number of base stations.

"What we're saying is that you won't be able to get 100 MB everywhere, but let's be smart."

One way of tackling the problem is to link particular services to particular places - to localize services, in other words, through use of a new kind of hotspot.

"You offer coverage with very high data rates in some places, and normal data rates elsewhere. It is affordable to deploy a very dense net of access points at places like shopping centres or railway stations, where there are lots of people. The challenge is to design terminals and applications so that they efficiently exploit the wireless access around them," says Zander.

As networks change, so will our mobile phones. They will be able to switch function automatically, from GSM to WLAN, for example, depending on what is most appropriate at a particular time and place.

"My vision of the terminal of the future is a cross between a mobile, a PDA and an iPod. They will have a very high storage capacity and offer lots of functions offline."
Operators will eventually warm to the idea of phones that can change automatically between different types of network, says Zander, "as they will see in the long term that they can provide a better service. They will see that otherwise providing high date-rate coverage will be impossible."

Ultimately, though, it won't be operators making money in the way they used to, it will be content and service providers, Zander thinks.

"I believe in applications that make life simpler for people and organizations: maps, yellow pages, directions, working on the move"

In terms of the Swedish ICT industry, Ericsson will remain dominant, says Zander.
"The Swedish success story is and will continue to be in the field of infrastructure. Ericsson is on top and will continue to be so in the years to come."

But the country's gaming industry is also likely to grow rapidly.

"We have the potential here to be really successful in mobile terminal gaming. We also have the possibility to excel in applications such as IT in healthcare or exploiting mobility in construction or transportation. We have an abundance of technology and a society that is receptive to new technological solutions."

Determining how these and other new solutions can be taken into the marketplace and commercialized is one of the main roles of Wireless@KTH. The centre's partnership with major international companies including Ericsson, Telia Sonera and Chinese Huawei Technologies mean that it has a constant link to the commercial world.

"The key area where we are leading is in making the connection between business and technology. We have an abundance of technology out there, but the question is how those systems can make money."

The hope is that the research from Wireless@KTH will be able to help point to answers to this question.