[Ben]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/05/new_spectrum_licences/

This interesting article from The Register describes why there may never be another mobile technology as widespread as GSM.


The success of GSM can be attributed to the way a particular technology was mandated, along with the frequencies at which it operated; initially 900MHz, allowing mass production of equipment which drove down the cost of handsets as well as network infrastructure. The use of the same technical standard on neighbouring frequencies (licensed by different operators) also reduces the chance of interference, as the standard incorporates limits on broadcast power as well as interference-avoidance techniques, making life much easier for the regulator.
It's a near miracle, to be sure, that world wide GSM compatibility is as good as it is. It's not hard to imagine that, now there are so many different, competing technologies, future mobile systems will be rather more fragmented.

When there's no clear 'winner' technology, this sort of thing happens:


With GSM the regulator hit the nail on the head but, in the UK, T-Mobile, Orange, 3, and O2 all paid for 5MHz blocks of spectrum (from 1.9GHz to 1.92GHz) to deploy Time Division Duplexed 3G services, but no such services were ever developed and even now the spectrum stands empty.
But perhaps the author of the article is missing the point. Perhaps OFCOM's new licensing plans, as described in the article, which will probably encourage a flurry of competing technologies to emerge, is the only way a true successor to GSM will evolve. Mobile is a competitive world, or so we're always being told, so allowing market forces to dictate our future mobile technologies could be a way forward.

There's a damn good chance that different countries will end up using wildly different technologies even in the long term, which could certainly leave us all longing for the GSM days, but it has to be better than some stuffy organisations trying to pick winners that the rest of us are subjected to for years.

[gorilla]

It's going to be all about mobile internet and getting access to it. Whether we realise it or not, we live in a global market. Many of us will never venture beyond our own shores i.e. americans! but the handset makers and operators all own a piece of the action on a global scale. They should be able to deploy the technology that gives their customers the easiest access to voice and data services.

[Hands0n]

If not for the data element the actual need for 3G is irrelevant. 2G GSM would satisfy Voice and Text requirements for as many years as copper wires have satisfied basic telephony. The success of GSM is that it had a very simple mandate - wireless telephony. SMS really was only a sidebar benefit that was, initially, not marketed and then priced punitively. SMS has only been a success since being brought down in price to commodity levels. The kicker is that , to the networks, it costs nothing to implement - every text message these days is pure profit.

3G, on the other hand, is a new and emerging technology - still developing rapidly, and could very well replace GSM in due course as its remit is not too much wider than GSM.

Never again? Wow! That is a very bold claim. Perhaps not as hugely enabling as GSM its current successor could do much to bring voice, text and data to the world of users. And it is the data that is likely to cause a global revolution for the masses. See how mobile is penetrating third-world nations that have no infrastructure - wireless mobile is a natural, copper wire would be a disaster.

No, I think we will indeed see technology to have such a profound effect as GSM. But we may have to wait a while

[Ben]

Of course, even if a single technology wins out, it may have to exist in so many different frequency bands that todays quad-band world phone may need to support 20 or so bands in the future! Of course very few phones would... phones would just become more localised and, as gorilla points out, for most people that'll be fine. It'll push up costs to the manufacturer, though.

[Hands0n]

Indeed, roaming is going to be a huge issue for those that do travel. With 2G/GSM the Japanese and Americans ended up in a corner of their own [protectionist] making. With 3G history is being repeated. But other nations have taken on the [GSM] technology as is and it has been of massive benefit to not only the manufacturers. The consumer has benefited too by being able to roam freely across the majority of the mobile globe.

Will technologies other than 3G and 2G need to be able to roam? What about WiMAX? It has not, seemingly, followed the tight radio frequency patterns of WiFi - while the technology standard is consistent the frequencies are not. Although that may well be changing (http://wimaxnetnews.com/archives/2007/10/wimax_gets_itu.html) as time moves on. It certainly needs to.

But these are generally transmission technologies - it is what you can do over them that is the differentiator. GSM did what it set out to do, it made voice communications mobile to the masses for the first time. As such that is going to be a hard act to follow. Successive technologies (3G, WiMAX) are really only going to carry that particular model forward.

For something to truly "be another GSM" it has to be as revolutionary. 3G and WiMAX don't make the grade in that respect.

So, what could be as revolutionary that we do not already have in our modern consumer society?