With this year already concluded, I wanted to post a look at how the wireless world may shape up during 2007 -- and how it may look a year from now. I'll cover just a few areas this time in this "prediction list" of sorts: cellular wireless and municipal WiFi/WiMAX.
First off is cellular-based wireless systems. The FCC's advanced wireless services (AWS) auctions ended late this summer, and the big wireless players like Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Sprint Nextel and Cingular Wireless all came away with big chunks of the radio spectrum in which to develop and deploy new services (or expand existing ones). Some smaller players cam away with important wins as well.
Will the end of 2007 see better wireless coverage for our cellular networks along with the rollout of even higher-speed data networks? With Internet access becoming something -- with high-speed as a requirement -- that needs to go with many of us anywhere (in our pocket), high-speed wireless data networks will continue to flourish in 2007.
The U.S., which has often been seen as the laggard when it comes to cellular technology, is for once taking the lead in the wireless data field. The EV-DO and HSDPA networks that will cover much of the U.S. at the end of 2007 will be awesome compared to many other countries across the world. But, enough customers need to bite to make all these new services a hit.
In the Municipal WiFi space, I think that WiMAX will begin to be a hardy competitor to already-established WiFi access points (and new ones) as the technology gets even more major backing and WiMAX cards for laptops start showing up on the market -- and some laptop PC makers agree to embed WiMAX into newer machines in 2008.
Municipal WiFi is so huge by now however -- with millions of laptops already having built-in 802.11 -- that it will take some time before the benefits of WiMAX get strong enough in many minds that the technology starts becoming a real threat to standardized WiFi in cities and other locales (airports, shops,etc.).
