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Tremendous changes are occurring in the area of wireless communications, so much so that the mobile phone of yesterday is rapidly turning into a sophisticated mobile device capable of more applications than PCs were capable of only a few years ago. For example, the data rates provided by the initial High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) extension to 3G networks enable a user to wirelessly access the Internet at speeds up to 1.8 MBits/second. Further enhancements in HSDPA modulation schemes will soon increase this speed to greater than 10MBits/second. So downloading your latest e-mails with a 5 MB Powerpoint™ attachment outside of the office is no longer a frustrating and time-consuming exercise. In fact, it is just as fast as when you are in the office.

It is the need and desire of people to access the Internet from anywhere in the world that is driving many of the new changes that are occurring in the largest consumer market ever — the wireless mobile device market. In Figure 1 we look at the mobile device view and see that there are three main routes to wirelessly access the Internet. Voice is still the main use of mobile devices and the GSM and CDMA networks around the world now connect over 2.3 billion wireless subscribers. The cellular standards are evolving to add high speed data connections, and cellular remains the way we connect from remote locations many miles away from a base station.

For local connections Bluetooth“ is rapidly becoming a common feature in mobile devices with almost 30 percent attachment rate expected in 2006. This attachment rate is expected to grow to more than 50 percent over the next three years. Today we are seeing other radios being combined with Bluetooth, such as WiFi, FM radio and Near Field Communications (NFC). Soon we will see combination Bluetooth and Ultra-wideband (UWB) devices to further enhance the wireless distribution of multimedia content. It will not be long before that 5 MB presentation will be beamed to an UWB-enabled plasma monitor in the conference room or displayed directly in real time onto your colleagues’ mobile device at the table.