Techno Babble
Created | Updated Jun 6, 2002
This weeks' article is a mixture of current technology, rumour of developing technology and conjecture. Last week in Oxford there was a story in the local paper about some mobile phone masts being installed on the roof of the local telephone exchange, in a densely populated area, near a couple of schools, without any consultation with the local residents, and their fight to try and stop it. I won't go into why they thought that these masts were bad for their health, because I don't really know anything about that, but I will describe what technology we may have available to us in a few years time which may make these masts in residential areas pretty redundant.
Current Technology
Wireless network cards are starting to make their mark in our homes and in our work places. They have a range of around a hundred yards and the base stations for these are quite small, given the way that technology moves everything towards being smaller and more powerful, we can imagine that, in a few years, a wireless network link will be able to cover at least a couple of hundred yards, if not more.
Hand held computers are starting to be as usable as desktop or laptop computers. They run some of the same programmes and are able to access the Internet, albeit a tad slowly, through their own internal modems.
G3, or third generation mobile phones work, from what I can gather talking to a chap whose job it is to design their networks, on the principle of an always-on connection, but that connection is shared between the numbers of phones within each cell. Or, in terms I can understand, the more people near one of these new mobile phone masts, the worse signal you'll get. Your Internet connection on a G3 phone may well be slower than you were led to believe and, in the worst case, the bandwidth available may even be shared so thinly that it is even incapable of supporting a speech connection.
Future Conjecture
Taking a handheld computer and mixing it with a mobile phone seems to be almost what's happening already; we have handhelds that already have their internal modems, so they are already accessing the mobile phone network. All we'd need to do is to add in the number buttons and a microphone and speaker. Some mobile phones are already coming along with small, full colour screens that allow you to access the Internet, all they'd need to do is stick in some software that allows you to run some of the other programmes a handheld does.
Now, stick into these a couple of wireless network cards to allow for roaming. Apparently to allow you to use a mobile phone whilst walking along you need one receiver to connect to the strongest signal, another receiver to keep searching for the next strongest signal, and then a bit of software to switch when the next strongest becomes the strongest.
So you now have a mobile computer/phone which is capable of roaming. Then you need a network for it to roam along. Wireless base stations, as has already been said, aren't that large, so there is no need for them to have their own mast. They could quite easily be mounted on lampposts. Currently it would take for one to be mounted on every third lamppost on England's* streets to allow for coverage but, in a few years time it could well be every five, six, ten lampposts. There is also no danger from a wireless network box so local residents wouldn't be up in arms.
Then you need something to run this wireless network that you've built. Seeing as how powerful and cheap computer is becoming, let alone how small, there is no reason why the servers for this network couldn't be installed in the local loop boxes. That's the telephone boxes in the streets that are the first exchange that your telephone line goes through. Then you hook this network straight into the Internet backbone and you've given yourself a very fast connection.
With the right software to run it, you would then be able to walk along the streets using your mobile computer/phone to access the Internet at high speed and use the same, always-on connection to phone your mates.
In rural areas, where the coverage would need to be further afield between each receiver than is possible, there would be no reason not to have the device revert back to the G3 network because there would also be less people around to share the connection.
Another thing about this style of network is that there is no reason why it has to be limited to handheld computer/phones. Laptops, and even stationary desktops could well be able to log into it. Identification would be able to work on the same principle as the SIM card installed in a mobile phone. Selling plug-in wireless network cards with SIMs in them would allow a computer to be able to take advantage of the network.
The technology is already there, although not all together. There is no reason why we may not see this sort of set up in a few years time, except for the one it always comes down to... Money. But when you think of the comparative costs of a wireless network and the microwave phone masts, installing wireless receivers and paying court costs and compensation to angry residents, it could well be that the money argument might argue itself flat.
