Radio will win. The only question is when and what? In the end, not even that. Wireless is better than wired: it’s quicker to deploy, costs less to maintain, has less to go wrong and is far more flexible. Wherever there’s a choice between the two technologies, wireless wins. In the early days of telephones they were used to deliver music and news to subscribers, but as soon as broadcast radio came along the economics of one-to-many proved overwhelming. Open air is always cheaper than buried copper.
The lead broadband wireless technology at the moment is WiMax, 802.16’s market-friendly name. Promoted at the moment as the key technology for remote, rural and otherwise unwireable locations, it promises up to 70Mbps and up to 70km range. It won’t reach this in practice, but the engineering behind it is building on the enormous amount of experience the industry has from 802.11b and other wireless deployments. It’ll work well enough.

802.20 is another broadband wireless standard, which focus on mobile users. Designed to deliver around 1Mbps to devices on the move at speeds of up to 250kph, the standards committee have been looking particularly closely at the way it works with 802.11. It’s a lovely idea, being able to switch from hot spot to high-speed mobile service and back again without noticing, even if nobody can quite explain why it’s such a similar idea to 802.16e. WiMax uses a slightly different set of frequencies and has some slightly more restrictive speed limits.
The mobile phone industry is anxious not to be left out. It invented mobile data, after all, even if it’s been bad at working out how to sell it or upgrade it much past the 9600bps with which GSM was born. Even though the faster data rates of GPRS, Edge and 3G networks have been hindered by indifferent coverage, the next generation is already being prepared. High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSPDA) is Nokia’s big idea, and is promoted as being capable of boosting 3G speeds to 10Mbps or even more. It lives alongside existing installations, just as Edge does with GSM, and is just as dependent on the networks getting it right.

The third generation of wireless broadband will be the final integration of the telephone and data networks. You can already have a voice over IP phone that looks like a mobile phone but uses a combination of the SIP protocol and Wi-Fi to route your calls over the internet whenever it finds a hot spot. Add the mobile broadband stuff, and that phone will not only act as a mobile broadband terminal but it will act as a local gateway across 802.11 and the forthcoming Ultrawideband standards.
It is funny that one of the primary benefits touted for the 3 and 4G wireless mobile networks by the wireless carriers will be their ability to broadcast Audio and video advertisements to mobile phone users such as: imagine, advertiser supported phone calls, Wireless IP-enabled radio and watch TV.
The economics will demand less and less human management of the system and put more and more smarts in the boxes themselves.

There are a few issues to be addressed before we can achieve a fully mobile lifestyle:
Powerful, dependable clients: Mobile devices must be easy to use, secure, light and easy to carry, with design features to suit the user’s needs and personal tastes. They must work reliably wherever the user takes them, and they must have the power to access and support robust, secure applications.
Connectivity: Early wireless devices and networks had limited coverage and range. For full mobility, users must be able to connect easily, regardless of device or locale, and they must be able to roam without interruption across wireless networks and hotspots in their homes, schools, businesses, and public spaces.
Mobilized applications: The mobile lifestyle requires a new class of applications that use location and user profile information to securely deliver customized, personalized service to users across a diverse array of devices and networks.

Part of the thesis: Wireless IP, The Killer Application !?