Communications technology hopes

There is no doubt that the computing world is getting more and more mobile.  Recent smartphones are now equipped with dual core 1Ghz plus processors, a similar specification to laptops of four or five years ago.  Nvidias Tegra 3 quad core processor will undoubtedly find its way into at least one phone by the end of the year and a number of tablets too.   These devices are significant because they use native connectivity and in most cases have reduced functionality if they cannot find a connection. They have evolved from the mobile phone market rather than from the computing market, yet they provide access to simple powerful computing.

On a worldwide basis 20% of people access the internet via a traditional computing device, the other 80% use a mobile device.  Indeed in some countries mobile is pretty much the only way that you can get access to the internet.  A mobile handset, often second hand indirectly received from a westerner that perceives it to be no longer the in thing, becomes an affordable eye on the world.

There is a shadow on this bright new horizon of anywhere connection and that is the communication medium itself.  Anybody that has travelled even within their own town will realise that the current mobile communication system is flawed.  No matter how many pretty coloured maps the mobile providers give us we all know areas where there is simply no signal.  Though this is sometimes useful when the dead spot covers a pub, it undermines our ability to use centralised computing reliably.  This leads to a requirement for caching technologies to ensure that data is still available if connectivity is not.

4G Technologies such as WiMax and LTE (Long Term Evolution) are evolutions of the current technology.  Though they do provide a next step up in bandwidth they still have similar restrictions to the existing cell technology and will doubtless maintain the same dead spots and short battery life devices that we have today with UMTS technologies.  To truly enable us to become mobile we need something else, something that truly allows connection from anywhere any time.

There is some possibility of something being done in the whitespace that will result from next years digital TV switch over, but these wavebands will be hotly contested.  These frequencies travel well meaning that fewer cells could cover a larger area.  It is likely though that these frequencies will be filled with yet more television channels as governments auction them to those that will pay the most money.  Logically using them for an all pervasive IP network would provide space for Television, Communication and much more, but who said logic will be involved in the allocations?

Even this white space cannot give us what we really need which is something more akin to Star Treks sub-space communications, the ability to communicate instantly anywhere in the universe.  There is however a possibility of something that may be able to do just that nestling in the quantum plane, an effect achieved through quantum entanglement.  Now this is pretty mysterious to all but quantum specialists however the gist of it is that two particles are linked together such that an occurrence to one is reflected in the other, in theory wherever the two particles may be.  Extrapolate from this and you have the possibility for a virtual cable that links a device with a hub where ever it may be.  The longest distance I have heard of this technique being used is 144km, but that is a start and beats normal cell tower communication by a long way.  There is a long way to go yet and unlike the fictional sub-space it's still subject to speed of light issues, but there is hope. 


There would, of course, be massive military value to this technology so even if it worked now we may not know of it for some years, however this remains my only candidate so far for a truly mobile future and worry free cloud computing.