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Give the Dog a Phone
November 21, 2002 - source: BWCS
The head of NTT DoCoMo has been talking of his expectations for
4G wireless services, and he says that people should not be seen
as the only potential mobile users. Keiji Tachikawa, the president
and CEO of the Japanese mobile operator, told the IEEE’s GlobeCom
conference in Taiwan that anything which moves can be considered
as a possible target for the expanding communications market, and
this includes people, planes, trains, cars and even pets. Possible
solutions include telemetry devices for vehicles, mobile payment
devices in vending machines and location tracking chips for pet
collars to trace missing cats or dogs.
Tachikawa said: “The potential demand for mobile services is enormous
if services could applied to objects rather than people.” He believes
that in a country where the population is expected to reach 120
million by 2010, the future market for mobile devices could be as
much as four or five times this figure. “There will be 100 million
automobiles, 60 million motorbikes and bicycles, and 20 million
dogs and cats”, he says, and if communications chips are implanted
in electrical items such as TVs, games consoles, DVD players or
vending machines then the actual market for wireless devices will
be closer to 570 million.
To cope with this huge demand for communications services, future
mobile networks will have to offer data speeds of at least 20Mbps
while travelling, rising to 100Mbps when stationary. Tachikawa says
that networks should therefore combine a range of technologies such
as cellular, wireless and Bluetooth to offer wide coverage, high
speeds and sufficient capacity. He believes that an IP-based network
will be best suited to cope with the required volume of traffic
at the lowest cost.
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3G Motorola A920
