The future of mobile phones

There have been a couple of stories recently that have got me thinking about mobile phone technology and where it's heading.

The first one was the announcement of the iPod Touch; essentially an iPhone without the phone, or to look at it another way, a touchscreen iPod with wireless internet capabilities. This led to speculation about whether it would be able to connect to a microphone and run VOIP software like Skype, which allows telephone calls to be made over the internet. There are rumours that the iPod Touch has bluetooth capabilities, although whether the hardware is actually present as it is in the iPhone isn't yet confirmed (it seems unlikely though.) However, even if it isn't then it seems that there's no technical reason that it couldn't be able to pair up with a headset of some sort and be used to connect to the internet as a VOIP telephone.

Obviously, that sort of competition would be somewhat disappointing to the mobile telephone networks, as VOIP is much cheaper than using a land line to make calls, let alone mobile calls (especially long distance calls.) It would also significantly undermine the partnership between Apple and various cellular netoworks in selling the iPhone— announced earlier this week to be released in the UK in November on the O2 network. But, if speculation is to be believed, it seems that Steve Jobs wouldn't be too bothered by ruffling some feathers.

The way the existing mobile phone networks work (or rather, mobile phones since 1984) is based around cells; each cell covers a certain area, with handsets connecting to one while monitoring the neighbouring cells. This means that if a phone moves out of range of a cell, it can switch to another cell without the caller even noticing. As a number of cells can overlap, if one cell uses it's entire range of frequencies and has as many phones camped on it as it can take, other handsets can camp onto other cells instead. There are basically two types of networks in use; GSM and UMTS (3G).

3G technology has been fairly slow to take off; when the network licences were first sold, they came under criticism for being overpriced; as a result, 3G phones were seen as being very expensive. Also, 3G networks are reported to use more battery power, resulting in either bulkier or poorer performance from the handsets. In addition, the networks were marketed as being primarily for video; downloading video clips or making videophone calls— functionality not seen as being particularly useful by most people. Whether internet access would have been a more appealing marketing hook is debatable; as a gadget lover myself, I know that I would have been much more interested in an internet phone than a video phone (I've personally been using web browsers on 2G phones since about 2002, with varying degrees of success and always at frustratingly slow speeds and high costs.)

The second item that got me thinking about the next generation of mobile phones, and an alternative possibility to the idea of cellular phones is raised in an interesting story on the BBC last week, about a Swedish company who has designed a new type of mobile phone network. Apparently inspired when on safari in Tanzania and unable to call his friends in a jeep just a few metres away, the network uses handsets instead of base stations as network nodes, so instead of calls being relayed through a centralised network, information is transmitted between handsets with a range of about 1km, with handsets then relaying communications and working as a peer-to-peer network (technically, much like those used for filesharing on the internet, particularly well-known for their use in illegal sharing of music and videos.)

The designer of the system said that large mobile firms did not like the idea of using a peer-to-peer model to make calls.

"One of the biggest things against us is that the big operators and technology providers are really pushing against us, saying this technology doesn't work and it doesn't have a business model [...] This is fine - just join us in Lund and see how the technology works, and ask our customers how our business model works."

He also said that mobile phone manufacturer Ericsson had invested around £3m in TerraNet, and this indicated that the business model for the network is sound.

A possible reason for this reaction from the networks is that the collaborative nature of the network means that, in theory at least, there are no running costs for the network to operate; meaning an obvious threat to the networks' own business models...

It's designed for remote areas, where base stations are uneconomical or unfeasible, so in more built-up areas, there are problems with the frequency range available. This raises an interesting possibility; in built up areas, it's more likely that cellular networks or WiFi internet access will be available; whether this wireless peer-to-peer networking would be able to be integrated with an internet-based phone network like Skype (which also happens to be built around a Peer-to-peer network), or simply with existing cellular networks is a challenge that I would guess would be more political than technical.

Of course, there is an alternative on the horizon; as analog television is being moved over to digital (beginning soon in the UK in Whitehaven, Cumbria in October 2007), the frequency bands currently being used for broadcasting analog TV channels will be available for other uses. It's thought that these will be the last part of the spectrum with the capabilities necessary for creating a wireless broadband network.

There is some speculation that Google or Apple could be bidding for a share of the frequency bands when they go on auction in the US— which could make it a very interesting auction to watch…