Speaking on the sidelines of the Founders Forum Smart Nation Singapore conference, Papa envisions a world where cities will be free of massive cell towers. Instead, mobile phones will be become part of the transmission network, resulting in a decrease in dropped calls, less interference and a fewer “black spots” – areas with patchy signals.
Advances in wireless technology could see cell towers become a thing of the past, according to telecommunications experts.
“There’s no reason why your cellphone isn’t the cell tower of the future,” Steve Papa, founder of Parallel Wireless, told CNBC on Tuesday.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Founders Forum Smart Nation Singapore conference, Papa envisions a world where cities will be free of massive cell towers. Instead, mobile phones will be become part of the transmission network, resulting in a decrease in dropped calls, less interference and a fewer “black spots” – areas with patchy signals.
“We’re just on the cusp of chips coming out where a $300 chip can power an entire cell tower. When you get that far, it’s not that much further to a scenario where when you’re finished with your cellphone, you can hang it on the wall and it adds to the cellular network,” Papa said.
Major players
Qualcomm is already experimenting with technology that allows smartphones to communicate with other mobile devices up to a range of 500 meters, bypassing cell towers altogether. Called LTE Direct, it uses licensed spectrum without draining a phone’s battery life and will become commercially available in 2016, Qualcomm said.
The firm conducted a trial of the device-to-device (D2D) software in collaboration with Deutsche Telekom and Huawei earlier this year. In a white paper released in February, Qualcomm said LTE Direct can offer mobile operators “tremendous value for their licensed spectrum assets with minimal impact on resource consumption.”
Facebook also expressed interest in the technology. Jay Parikh, the company’s vice president of infrastructure engineering, was quoted last year as saying that LTE Direct can enable Facebook to “facilitate user experiences around serendipitous interactions with a local business or a friend nearby.”
Research suggests the technology’s disruptive potential is massive.
“D2D-enabled LTE devices have the potential to become competitive for fallback public safety networks that must function when cellular networks are not available or fail,” said the Wireless Networking & Communications Group (WNCG) in a paper last year.
“In principle, exploiting direct communication between nearby mobile devices will improve spectrum utilization, overall throughput, and energy efficiency.”
The importance of spectrum
Additional spectrum is needed to make this vision of wireless technology a reality, Papa said.
Recent developments in the U.S. point to a bright future for the industry. Last Friday, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved a landmark plan that allows broadband providers to use and share spectrum that was previously held by the military.
“Since they don’t make spectrum anymore, and since spectrum is the pathway of the 21st century, we have to figure out how we’re going to live with a fixed amount,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said.
Papa believes this plan – called the Citizens Broadband Radio Service– will open an enormous playground for entrepreneurs across the globe and augment cellular networks.
Moreover, increased spectrum will mean no one company will dominate device-to-device technology, Papa noted.
“Who’s going to be in charge is more of a political question than a technology or industry structure question. The reality is that technology will make spectrum less scarce. When spectrum is less scarce, there’s less of a need for a natural monopoly.”
Paul Balo is the founder of TechBooky and a highly skilled wireless communications professional with a strong background in cloud computing, offering extensive experience in designing, implementing, and managing wireless communication systems.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
