Support for mtld - Global ICT Industry Enabler
In the late 1990's, and even early in this century, people and industry had the perception that the mobile Internet, or wireless Internet, was a simple extension of the current Internet domain. Service extensions, applications, protocols, and the technologies associated with the PC/Internet culture would be reduced and simply modified to the small screens and portable devices. Transcoding, screen-scraping and stripping applications of true contextual functionality was the answer. The assumption was wrong. With the impact of over 1 billion users globally and innovative spectrum based networks delivering Voice, Data, SMS, MMS, Video, GPS, Global Roaming and more, industry has found that the unique qualities that make for mobility - on a very personal, intimate environment - requires the capacity to deal with very complex interconnectivity and interoperability. When mobile/wireless centric services are developed by leveraging the innovations present in global mobility networks supported by the Internet as a component, very powerful and empowering products have evolved. Mobile/wireless is a global technology, business and consumer cultures of its own. If we look to the future - 5 to 10 to 20 years out - we can easily see that mobile/wireless connectivity will impact all personal, home, business and community activities as a global society. The unique nature of the mobile/wireless environment requires authenticity, security, and privacy the be the highest priority when we consider the future of Body Area Networks to Personal Area Networks to LANs, WANs, etc. And, consider the new application/networks surfacing from the wearable computing industry today to the futures being described by the Wireless World Research Forum. 1 Billion users is the tip of the iceberg. Mobile/wireless application development, service and growth tied to the 'traditional' Internet domain has limited the exponential opportunity of new application cultures, new cross-industry development and new socio-economic reward. And, traditional Internet domains have not successfully shown the capabilities to nurture constraint on a personal nature - consider the impact of Spamming or launching a Worm to over 1 Billion plus individuals, let alone the mesh/ad-hoc networks and multitude of interconnected commercial and lifestyle applications that could be tied to communications devices in the next 3+ years. By limiting the tld community to wireline principles and constraint, whether through current extension sub-sets or any wireline-based strategy, the global community of 1 Billion plus users will have not been very well considered in this process nor offered the ICT evolutionary respect deserved. The ICT industry would not have progressed. We have to move forward as an ICT society. The mtld debate should not be a debate of corporate control nor monopoly - it should be about freedom to expand the horizon of communications to the next level: a wirefree world untethered and supported by a very mature wireline Internet domain. By enabling exponential growth of the mobile/wireless communications industry with mtld efforts we can open new domain industries, new global economy expansion/prosperity by opening the Internet culture to all with access to communications (as witnessed by global adoption of mobile/wireless versus wireline), and deliver to the unique mobile/wireless requirements of authenticity, security and privacy through a common governance. Support for mtld - Global ICT Industry Enabler. Sincerely, Michael J. O'Farrell Chief Executive Officer InfoComm www.infocomm.ca |