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Time Will Tell
December 27, 2005
LAST JUNE THE CITIZNES of Caledonia, MN (the wild turkey capital of the world) buried a time capsule at their municipal auditorium to mark the city's 100th anniversary. It included letters to future residents, important documents, a DVD, a disposable camera...and a cellular telephone.
I wonder what the future caretakers of Caledonia will think when they pull a cell phone out of the time capsule 50 years from now. Did our parents and grandparents predict a day when a majority of us would all be using wireless telephones? A few employees at Motorola might have had that image dancing in their heads, but most people probably did not.
Fifty years ago the U.S. was moving beyond the specter of World War II and stepping onto the threshold of the Korean War. Our country was testing the fusion bomb and preparing for the day it may be used against us. The first jet airliner was entering commercial service, Francis Clark and James Watson were ready to discover the helical structure of DNA and Sputnik was still on the Soviets' drawing board. A lot has changed since then.
Fifty years from now wireless telephony will certainly change. Some amateur prophets predict satellite telephones will replace terrestrial-based wireless systems. Some believe land lines will vanish. Still others see a day when the computer, television, and cellular telephone will mutate into one grand device.
I'm not so sure if any of these predictions will occur. Instead, I offer my own predictions. I believe within 50 years the pay phone will vanish and become little more than a novelty. I believe wireless telephony and wireless broadband data will merge. I believe antennas will be only 25 to 40 feet above ground (except in the most rural areas) and base station equipment will be the size of miniature refrigerator (or smaller). I also believe the use of cash will become an oddity and our new cell phones will be used for monetary transactions instead of cash.
The only things certain in life are death, taxes and change. And the wireless industry is destined to change, just as it has ever since Guglielmo Marconi built the first wireless telegraph in 1896. How will it change? Time will tell. ■
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