Osmani has over 25 years of industry experience
dating back to being a Senior Engineer for the team that designed
the first commercial cellular phone at Motorola.Subsequently, he led several teams in design of breakthrough products and chipsets in the AMPS, TDMA, GSM, CDMA and UMTS areas. He received the "Distinguished Innovator" award in 1999 and the "Technical IP Valuation" award in 2004. Rashid holds 13 US Patents and has authored technical papers for IEEE Transactions on MTT and other journals. Osmani has participated in Industry Panel Discussions and has contributed to IS-54 standards. He has also been Adjunct Faculty for Harper College and IIT (Chicago), where he taught transmission line theory and other EE
courses.
Interoperability Across Various Access Forms
The cellular industry as such is 25 years old and the
reality is that there are always going to be multiple
standards. It is difficult to envision any single uniform
standard dominating as a whole. There has always been a desire among the key players in the telecommunication
industry value chain to have interoperable
capabilities across every standard, but historically
that has never really worked out. Such desires have
never been grounded in firm business competitive
dynamics and so multiple standards are bound
to stay.
Access devices are evolving all the time and their
intersection with various platforms and networks is
creating even more challenges. There are a lot of
developments occurring in WLAN and Bluetooth
wireless technologies with interesting natural bearings
for the market for power amplifiers, GPS chipsets and
related solutions for wireless infrastructure. Standards
evolving in these domains will decide the next level of
growth for handsets and applications. Of course, the
new standards coming into play in WiMAX, Super
3G etc. will dictate the commercial acceptance of
many futuristic wireless technologies.
A number of scenarios are unfolding where possible
collaborations between mobile operators and handset
manufacturers will be the order of the day. At the outset,
it must be pointed out that operators are looking to
address a whole spectrum of issues from providing services to having a say in handset "tech specs" based on
emerging consumer needs and behavioral dynamics. This, in the long run, however could prove to be somewhat
of a dampener as the operators act like the main gateway for services. Therefore, only if they develop the
characteristics of utility companies, will it lead to many
players interested in developing next generation applications
for cellular phones to enter the market. This
will increase faster adoption of "rich-featured" phones
by customers. Also, presently for applications to go all
the way through to end-user acceptance or commercialization,
there are barriers in the form of certifications
and various approvals. Thus no single player can dominate
all aspects of the growing convergence in the wireless industry.
Actually, the more closely one studies mature markets
of Europe and North America and even fast growing
markets of Asia, the more commonalities one sees,
than actual differences amongst users of cellular technologies
in different regions. While the segmentation clearly spans high-end, mid-tier and low -tier, one finds
that that the aspirations of people and the natural
desire to own phones are almost the same. The usage
dynamics are based more on lifestyle patterns rather
than any unique personalization characteristics. Of
course, users in Asia tend to prefer small-sized phones
compared to users in America, but in terms of aesthetic
appeal and design appeal, a lot of surprising similarities
can be observed.
Increased convergence, personalization
and complexity of terminal devices
The way we look at convergence is the quest to have
multiple functions in a single device which seamlessly
operates across a number of platforms and networks.
Essentially that is how convergence will generally be
accepted. But the key will be to have ease-of-use and navigability in the next generation phones or smart
phones. Otherwise, the perception that these features
or application-heavy phones are only for techno geeks
or the elite classes will always remain. We believe the
key to greater mass acceptance is ease-of-use and navigability across functions. Without ease- of- use, multifunction
devices will never have mass acceptance.
Research has shown that 70 % of the users find
most of the multi function phones quite intimidating
and don't go beyond basic usage for voice and some
data services. Thus software innovation enabling better and easier use of richer applications apart from
encouraging intuitive use will hold the key to fastpaced
adoption by a larger base of customers. This
will call for the development of highly integrated products bundling a large number of services and
applications. We will be seeing a lot of innovations on the software
side and with hardware costs expected to come
down even more, these innovations will drive acceptance.
Streaming of applications will happen at a faster
rate. Options will be available in terms of downloading
applications in non-peak hours or storing and playing
later at leisure. With television expected to be the next
"killer app" over mobile, one of the biggest problems
for players will be to isolate television technology from
voice technology. Once that happens, then the ability
to move back and forth from a call and watching clips,
trailers, games etc. will be easier and push the sales of next generation phones. A lot of portability issues also
have to be addressed and standards bodies will have to
push for faster and uniform acceptance of standards.
The key features will be dependent on the quality
of the screen, the quality of the display, the clarity and
crispness of voice to allow for engaging and riveting
viewing experiences for users. This will open up whole
new possibilities for content providers, media and
entertainment companies. Thus the evolution of next
generation access devices will bring in an array of
services and applications for consumers.
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