The Internet in 2020
The Mobile World Congress, held every February in Barcelona since 2006 (when it outgrew its previous home in Cannes), is truly an event of global significance. It is hard to imagine a country in the world that does not have some stake in the mobile industry and most of them – from the richest to the poorest – seem to attend.
With about 2/3 of the world’s population now using a mobile phone (the number of subscriptions is estimated at about 4.6bn globally), the focus of the discussion at Barcelona was dominated by 2 themes – (a) Mobile Broadband and (b) the Mobile Internet.
What is the difference, I hear you say?
Well, Mobile Broadband is about the provision of broadband pipes to mobile users, many of whom use laptops or netbooks to access the Internet on the move. The Mobile Internet, on the other hand, is about users accessing Internet resources from the device that is always with them, namely their handset. Most of the world’s population will be accessing the Internet by the end of the decade, but they will be doing it from their handsets not computers. Even in developed (aka “rich”) countries, while most people will still have a computer to access the Internet (using both fixed and wireless broadband), we shall also be using the mobile Internet while we are out and about. As the experience improves (in the way I discuss below), many people may choose to make this their primary form of Internet access.
Of necessity, handsets have small screens and limited keyboards, so the experience of accessing the Internet is very different from that of a laptop. For the purposes of this discussion, I shall skip over new technologies such as projection screens, wearable displays, voice recognition and haptics, all of which will change the user experience, but focus on the fact that despite the Input/Output limitations, handsets have some very positive attributes that make accessing the Internet from them a special experience. To really make the mobile phone a compelling Internet device, you need “applications” which simplify the user’s experience of accessing the Internet. Over the past 2 years we have become very familiar with mobile applications thanks to Apple’s iPhone.
Today, the majority of applications are really only available to users of Smartphones (which only about 15% of users possess today), and even in this realm Apple’s iPhone still dominates – at least as far as applications are concerned. However, my expectation is that over the decade we shall a democratisation of applications and by 2020 all users, even those with the most basic phones, will have access to applications.
So what are these applications and why are they especially important in mobile phones?
I shall try and explain by way of an example. Let’s say I want to catch a bus. Today what would happen is I would walk up to the bus stop where there would be a piece of paper with a putative schedule for the buses from that stop. I possibly could use the browser on my mobile phone to look up the bus company’s website and perhaps they may have a real-time schedule of the timing of their buses which, with a bit of effort, I could use to look up my stop and see when the next bus is due. Now fast forward to 2020. I shall have an application called “Public Transport” on my phone – not just an iPhone but any phone. I will have downloaded this application onto my phone from an “application store” which will have checked it for virus’s and spam. The application will know a lot about me: it will know where I am from the location system in the network or the phone, it will know where I am headed from my calendar, it will know who my friends are, it will know how to access (with my authorisation) my payment systems, it will know whether I am busy (from the state of my phone, my calendar). It will also know a lot about the environment I am in – for example the traffic conditions on my route to work. So when I walk up to the bus stop I shall click the application on my phone and it will give me a screen display showing me the arrival time of the next bus and the expected arrival time of that bus at my destination. It could even tell me which of my friends are likely to get on the bus and at which stop. I won’t have to do anything other than a simple one-click on the application and it will infer the rest from all the knowledge it has about me and the environment. Now let’s assume that there is an accident on the route and the bus is either running late or will be very late at my destination. Again, without requiring intervention from me, the application will give me the bus times, but it will also suggest that the nearest train station is 1km and that there is a train due at that station which will get me to my destination 15 minutes earlier than the bus, even allowing for the walk to the station.
That’s just one simple example of a myriad of possible applications on the phone that will change our lives. Already, the iPhone as a portent of things to come, has 140,000 applications available.
I think that there is little doubt that the Mobile Internet and applications are going to have a dramatic impact on our lives. The big debate in the industry at the moment, though, is who pays and who gets the returns. This is a tricky issue. Today the telecommunications industry invests approximately US$280bn per year on the infrastructure (fixed and mobile) which makes the Mobile Internet possible, namely the network and its support systems. By contrast if you look at the big application developers – Apple, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Yahoo, Amazon – they spend in total about US$21bn on all their R&D, which is less than a tenth of what is spent on infrastructure. Simple laws of economics say that unless people get a return commensurate with their investment, they stop investing in that asset class. In the case of the Mobile Internet, if the carriers stop investing they will kill the goose that is laying the golden egg. As an eternal optimist, however, I believe that the industry will work its way through these problems and by 2020 we shall have in place sensible economic and regulatory situations that incent all players in the value chain to deliver this new capability that will so dramatically enrich the lives of people in every corner of the globe.
The above are my thoughts. I, however, have some questions for you:
- Would applications make the mobile internet appealing to you?
- Do you believe that you will routinely be accessing information on the move?
- How do you think the economic and regulatory situation will work out to enable the entire value chain to be sustained?
The future sounds wonderful. But with all this mobile internet access happening, Telstra needs to provide better mobile plans. $10 for 150 mb is too much.
I’m looking to the iPad. I believe that it will provide the platform, or basis, for Mr. Bradlows vision. That is, Telstra customers will be using something like an iPad device. The smartphone is becoming too small.
The question is not whether apps will make the internet appealing, but rather, which ones. Even in the examples above there is the assumption that apps are highly valuable and will provide the reason consumers will use Telstra’s services.
wow!
Hi Hugh,
I think we will all be accessing information via mobile on the move – more and more. The question I ask is how do we make this a positive for our lives – and make sure it is not a further “anchore” to our work lives (ie. emails). Be interested in your thoughts.
Richard
Hi Hugh. I thought your views on the role of smart phones in the future was a very interesting one. I would like to ask you what you believe the role of the smart phone will play in the development of augmented reality and its use amongst our professional and personal lives. Do you believe it’s just a craze, science fiction or a very real and very exciting part of our future?
- Tony
Just watch your documentary on the XO for every child in remote areas – just wonderful to see their faces. Loved the idea of celebrities going to different places – should do more of this.