There are three kinds of people in this world:

·      Those that make things happen.

·      Those who watch things happen.

·      And those who wonder "what happened?"

We all agree that the wireless industry and the new economy are making things happen, but let's at least try to be among those watching.

3G means "third generation."  The first generation in wireless was analog.  The second generation is digital.  The third generation in wireless will be a deliberate migration to faster, data-centric wireless networks.  The U.S. is trying to get to 3G in three or four years, and meanwhile we are being introduced to 2.5G systems that allow cell phones to surf the web in a very limited way.

What's important to cities and counties is that 3G requires both new handsets and new equipment at personal wireless service facilities.  Further, personal wireless service facility sites will need to be closer together to handle all these new data, so there will be an increase in deployment.

Kit Spring, a financial analyst for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter says "that 3G Networks may require up to three times the amount of sites of existing 2G Networks."  Assuming there's 100,000 sites today, that would be an additional 300,000 sites for a total of 400,000 sites.

Stephen Clark, CEO of SpectraSite, a tower builder and manager, estimates "600,000 new cell sites will be needed by year 2008."

Notice that both gentlemen use the term "sites" rather than "towers."  That's because the technology is getting smaller and smaller.  3G sites in Finland and Japan are the size of residential mailboxes and are affixed to utility poles.

But the real story is that handsets will not be getting that much smaller for 3G because they will have more software inside.  In fact, as handsets morph into PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), the appliance we carry around will become increasingly like a computer.  So some of the software that normally goes into a cell site is being transplanted into the handset.

This brings us to "what is 4G," which is like predicting the average human life span in the year 2050.  More and more futurists are thinking that the cell site will eventually reside in the handset.  That's right: "towers" become as ubiquitous as handsets which will be on 24/7 (all the time).

One technology already in development by Mesh Networks has grown out of Department of Defense applications.  In this military application, where "towers" cannot be assumed, each soldier's handset acts as the tower.  This commercial application, called ArachNet, will still need base stations.  However, much fewer points will be necessary than in today's 2G networks and even less than in the proposed conventional 3G networks.

Another concept called VDMA for "Virtual Division Multiple Access," is in the development stage in San Francisco.  The handsets could transmit as far as ten miles, but don't have to be turned on to transfer the signal.  All that each handset needs to use is a neighboring handset's battery and, off we go, hitchhiking around the continent as long as there's another handset within ten miles.  The company seeking $5 million for further development is World Wide Wireless Communications Inc and is based in, where else: San Francisco.

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Kreines & Kreines, Inc.
58 Paseo Mirasol, Tiburon, CA 94920
Phone: (415) 435-9214
Fax: (415) 435-1522
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