The Technological Foundation for

An Open Mobile
Ecosystem
For over a decade, growth in wireless communication and devices has been hampered
by a lack of open standards and programmable devices. But quickly evolving innovation
in wireless communication will transform wired networks and mobile devices, providing
more flexibility to consumers in terms of choice of operators, equipment, and applica-
tions. This mobility explosion is driving investment and innovation in mobile technolo-
gies. Three sets of innovations will form the foundation of a mobile ecosystem of plat-
forms, applications, services and providers:

• Powerful and inexpensive mobile devices

• User-programmable mobile devices
• Open wireless networks
 T h e T e c hnolo g i c a l F oundation fo r an O pen M ob i le E cosys tem 1

Powerful and Inexpensive Mobile Devices

Smart phones and other communication devices that provide powerful computing capability are
becoming more popular and cheaper by the day. In fact, the mobile phones that we carry in our
pockets today are more powerful than the most powerful desktop computer of the 1990s. Accord-
ing to Nielsen research, the use of smart phones in the United States doubled in the past year.� In
Japan, the third generation (3G) of mobile phone standards, which enable high-speed data ex-
change, has reached 90% penetration.� iPhone-like devices from Samsung, LG, and other manufac-
turers already sell for $79 to $199. We expect that the price for smart phones will continue to drop,
and demand for these phones will grow across the world. iPhone and Blackberry are becoming
popular among business users in India, China, and other emerging economies.

User-programmable Mobile Devices

Mobile devices are becoming programmable by users, making it easier to build large, diverse developer
communities. More than 100,000 developers downloaded the iPhone SDK in the first four days of the re-
lease. Within a month of release, already 1000 applications had become available. By the end of November
2008, about 10,000 iPhone applications were available in the application store.

Many applications are free, as are thousands of purely web-based applications for iPhone that don’t
require any special application downloads. Ironically, Apple’s iTunes service, which also provides iPhone
applications to users, vets every application before making it available—a classic walled garden.

Nokia, the world leader in the sale of smart phones, recognizes that mobile phones are morphing into
personal web devices. Most Nokia phones use open source operating systems like Linux and Symbian
(Symbian was proprietary software before Nokia purchased it). Together with a consortium of other mo-
bile technology companies, Nokia made Symbian available as an open source system. This is good news
for developers who can now create applications for the Symbian operating environment. As a result, we can expect to see a flood
of interesting new mobile applications and services on Nokia devices.

Internet giant Google also recently made its foray into the world of mobile computing with its version of an open source mobile
operating system, Android. Google has also gathered a consortium of technology companies and wireless carriers to create
the Open Handset Alliance. Members of the Alliance are developing handsets, applications, and services optimized to work on
Google’s Android system.

Open Wireless Networks

As powerful web-enabled programmable devices proliferate, they will no longer depend solely
on enabled wireless networks from specific carriers and community providers. With the diffu-
sion of these new devices into the marketplace, they will provide a platform for an open mobile
ecosystem. This ecosystem will be fundamentally different from what we have today, as it will
not be constrained by devices and operators. Users will be not be tethered by the restrictions
that wireless operators and phone manufacturers currently enforce, and will have more choices
to customize their cell phones.

Devices will operate portably across different kinds of wireless networks such as mesh networks,
WiFi, and WiMax.
 T he T e c h nolo gi c a l Foundation fo r an O pen M o b i l e E cosystem 2

Wi-Fi
International Spotlight: Wi-Fi’s commercial success over the last decade has occurred almost entirely
The Battle Over outside the legacy frameworks governing wireless communications. Operat-
Standards in China ing in an unlicensed microwave band reserved for experimental use, Wi-Fi is a
The Chinese government has powerful demonstration of the innovation possible when new players from the
committed itself to setting its own information technology sector are permitted to aggressively enter the wireless
standards for mobile technology to hardware market. Traditionally viewed as the “junk” spectrum, 2.4 Ghz is now the
ensure that Chinese companies can band most consumers associate with flexible, free, and high-performance wire-
make more profit than international less communication.
competitors, control large markets,
and avoid costly licensing fees. Most Over the next decade, we will increasingly look back at Wi-Fi as a sort of quaint
experts agree that, apart from sup- ancestor of a multitude of highly-optimized wireless “species,” each occupying
porting the industry, the Chinese a portion of a widening pie of the unlicensed spectrum made available through
government wants to have a say in a broad political coalition of free marketers and commons activists. These will
setting global standards so it can include:
embed monitoring technology.
• New flavors of Wi-Fi, such as 802.11n coupled with MIMO, which use smart
Currently China has two major 2G antennas to exploit multi-path propagation of microwave signals to increase
wireless networks: China Mobile’s bandwidth.
GSM network and China Unicom, • ZigBee, a low-bandwidth, very low-power protocol optimized for sensors.
which supports both GSM and CDMA
technology. China has set its own • UltraWideband, a very high-bandwidth LAN protocol designed to operate in a
new TD-SCMA standard for 3G wire- light, non-interfering method on existing licensed frequencies.
less requiring handsets to have mul- • Wi-Max, a wide-area version of Wi-Fi, originally intended to be unlicensed, but
timode chipsets to support multiple near-term deployments are mostly limited to licensed use. A number of carriers
standards. worldwide are deploying wireless networks.

The Chinese government has also

Mobile Mesh Networks
battled with international organi-
zations concerning wireless LAN Today, almost all wireless networks are merely edge extensions of large, legacy
standards. The International Orga- wired infrastructures that aggregate and transport traffic along fiber backbones.
nization of Standardization rejected
the Chinese LAN standard, WAPI, in On the other hand, mobile mesh networks use mobile devices or base stations
2006 after the Chinese government rather than fixed ones, thus reducing dependence on wired infrastructure.
refused to allow experts access to Rather than extensive cabling to connect every wireless node to the wired back-
evaluate their proprietary encryption bone, some nodes serve as relay stations for more outlying nodes, working like
scheme. The international organiza- a digital bucket brigade.This technology is used in military applications to sup-
tion believed that the encryption port highly mobile troops, but consumer mobile meshes took a big leap forward
scheme was a back door the govern- with the introduction of One Laptop Per Child’s XO laptop, which incorporates
ment left open for the purposes of mobile mesh technology.
surveillance.
Over the next decade, mobile mesh technology will
Regardless, two Chinese wireless net- evolve, driven by two factors. First, since the costs of
work integrators recently agreed to upgrading infrastructure can be moved to the de-
use WAPI as their preferred standard. vice rather than absorbed in network infrastructure
Once China implements WAPI tech- upgrades, mesh technology is especially suited to a
nology at a large scale, a new Chinese fast-changing wireless technology arena. Second, mo-
brand of communication technolo- bile meshes are ideally suited to vehicles, which are
gies will emerge that, over time, can becoming increasingly important nodes in personal
become competitive and pose seri- media and communications ecologies.
ous challenges to other international
standards like WiFi and WiMax.
 T he T e c h no lo gi c a l Foundation for an O pen M o b i le E co system 3

Forecasts
The following are forecasts which we have shown in the form of short videos. These videos bring the for-
casts, our visions of the future, to life. Below are descriptions of each. You can view them at www.iftf.org.

Moving to …

< Increased Transparency

As the ability to stream data and information in real time across multiple channels becomes more per-
vasive, we will move towards increased transparency. People will record and share their lives and the
lives of those around them, providing power to grass roots voices in the process. It will often pit gov-
ernments and those in control against voices coming from the bottom up, and the two sides will play a
cat and mouse game with each other trying to make sure their version of the story is the one we hear.

Amplified Networks >

The power of a mobile device in everyone’s pocket will lead to increased global interaction in commu-
nities of all kinds: faith, culture, politics, diasporas, and more. This amplification of networks will provide
people and communities with increasingly affordable presence and connectivity. A look at the lives
of three different mobile individuals helps give us some perspective on how amplified networks are
improving the quality of people’s lives.

< Networking the Environment

Embedded sensors and pervasive computing will equip things and environments with their own
persistent streams, allowing us to engage with our environments on a more human scale. By giving
voices and personalities to objects in our environment, we will bring sentience and presence to the
inanimate.

Formalizing the Informal >

As the cost of mobile connectivity and devices continues to decline, the mobile phone will becomes an
indispensible social tool for those at the bottom of the pyramid. The mobile phone will emerge as an im-
portant source of identity with the mobile number acting like a social security number for the poor across
the globe. It will also provide opportunities to those at the bottom of the pyramid to participate in local,
regional and global economy through mobile banking, mobile health and other commercial transactions.

< Homeward Bound

Migration from rural areas to urban areas is a worldwide trend. In developing nations, mobile technolo-
gies are often the only way migrants can stay in touch with their families and social networks back in
their hometowns.
 T he T e c h nolo gi c a l Foundation fo r an O pen M o b i l e E co sys tem 4

About the …

Technology Horizons Program

The Technology Horizons Program combines a deep understanding of technology and societal forces
to identify and evaluate discontinuities and innovations in the next three to ten years. Our approach
to technology forecasting is unique—we put people at the center of our forecasts. Understanding
humans as consumers, workers, householders, and community members allows IFTF to help compa-
nies look beyond technical feasibility to identify the value in new technologies, forecast adoption and
diffusion patterns, and discover new market opportunities and threats.

The Institute for the Future

The Institute for the Future is an independent, nonprofit strategic research group with 40 years of
forecasting experience. The core of our work is identifying emerging trends and discontinuities that
will transform global society and the global marketplace. We provide our members with insights
into business strategy, design process, innovation, and social dilemmas. Our research generates the
foresight needed to create insights that lead to action. Our research spans a broad territory of deeply
transformative trends, from health and health care to technology, the workplace, and human identity.
The Institute for the Future is located in Palo Alto, California.

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