“The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.”
William Gibson
Today I woke up with a scenario in my head where I could travel all around the world being able to contact my friends and family, watch TV, listen to music, transfer files, contact my customers, pay my bills, look for maps, read the news, go shopping, take pictures, record videos, read books, play some games, pay my drinks, no matter where, no matter when with one single device.
Well, the future is here! One device, one network, one standard. The device is called PDA, the network is Internet and the standard is WiMAX.
Today, I saw the announcement of NXP (the world’s 10th biggest chip maker):
“The design is extremely small and it can live off battery power. There are companies working on similar integrated chips, but we’re already in mass production,” said WiMAX Marketing Manager Ruud van den Brink.
This chip fully supports 802.16e, which is the IEEE WiMAX standard for mobility. Hand-off/Handover is fully supported, so you can move freely with your portable device without loosing connection.
Imagine a massive adoption, like the GSM adoption in Europe, where you could move from different countries “roaming” your internet connection and using all the services mentioned above. Imagine just having to pay your internet access and being able to get in contact with other people for free.
Well, there are right now entire cities covered with WiMAX, there are right now the mobile devices to connect to these networks. All the content is out there: books, internet banking, web shops, YouTube (now Google’s), internet radio, Skype, etc… It’s just distribution missing, and when it is about technology, it is fast! So start making some savings because these devices are not cheap but they worth every cent you pay.