The emergence of new wireless broadband standards in 2004 will shake things up in the wireless industry for the better, says Herb Woods, chairman of the Ottawa Wireless Cluster.

The year will also see the convergence of data, voice and video in all types of networks, including telephony, cable and wireless, he says. OBJ reporter Scott Foster spoke to Woods about his outlook on 2004.

THE BACKGROUND: "One of the biggest highlights in 2003 was the rapid growth and rollout of 802.11 wi-fi spots. The number of devices sold for homes, business and public places surpassed everyone's expectations going into 2003.

It's nice to see an enthusiastic backing by all areas from manufacturers like Cisco to service providers like Bell that have stepped up and embraced wi-fi.

As well, the wireless broadband standard for building broadband connections to the Internet (802.16a, or wi-max) was approved last January.

"The other thing that has happened in the past year is the emergence of voice over IP products for businesses, for the most part rolled out as wireline products. But voice over IP on wireless LANs has also been experimented with. And there's quality of service products coming along that will make that work really well.

"One of the other things is the adoption of picture phones around the world and the higher bandwidth networks that are evolving. A year ago, they were kind of rare and now it's commonplace."

THE GOOD NEWS: "2003 was the year of wi-fi and 2004 will be the year of wi-max. There's going to be 802.16a chip sets introduced in Q1. The first products using those chip sets will emerge in the second quarter and with that ... mesh networks will start to become a reality as they're tested for different applications. 3G networks will continue to roll out in Europe and Asia and will create a new demand for infrastructure, as we see with Nortel's many announcements.

"So the wireless market will stay reasonably alive with this emergence of 3G networks around the world and with wi-max networks coming out."

THE BAD NEWS: "One of the concerns for 2004 is there's no proven business model for public wi-fi, which may limit its public access rollout and growth. I don't think anyone really has the model right to make money with this. The newer model in the United States with bundling DSL services with wi-fi subscriptions is also an unproven model. And people are taking that on. I think everybody in the wireless business hopes that this does succeed. The dollars for funding startups and the amount of dollars put into the industry, in both Canada and the U.S. next year, will remain low compared to other years. And that will hold back part of our industry. We are likely to lose some companies in the next year, in addition to creating quite a few new ones in the Ottawa area. Finally, I don't think there will be a large increase in employment in the high-tech sector, which isn't good news for those who have been displaced in the last few years."

THE BIG PICTURE: "In 2004, we will see convergence of data, voice and video in all types of networks: telephony, cable and wireless. And broadband wireless will be tested for these converged services on local distributions. So wi-max will start early testing in the next year as an alternative local loop. It has the potential to change the competitive landscape, literally, for local access.

"Wi-max is going to be very significant because it can provide new back-haul infrastructure for WISPs (wireless Internet service providers). It also provides a longer-distance broadband wireless standard that can transmit up to 35 miles. And it's really significant to see how that plays out.

"I've mentioned wireless mesh networks is going to become a commercial reality over the next few years where links between user stations or access points form a network path out of the community to a high bandwidth Internet access point. This is a self-healing network. On top of that, there's going to be sensor networks that will emerge as specialty networks or using a network form from people's residences, businesses and even personal devices that will form into a mesh network. From that, we can monitor things like water quality, security, traffic and traffic lights. These things can dramatically affect the way people live. I think wireless will play an increasingly large role in developing countries, countries that don't have a wireline infrastructure. Wireless is becoming a principal form of home and personal communications and that's providing big opportunities, particularly infrastructure and handset manufacturers, and that's where a lot of their business is coming from."

Scott Foster can be reached at scott.foster@transcontinental.ca