You Thought BYOD Was a Big Issue. What's Next for IP NetworksYou Thought BYOD Was a Big Issue. What's Next for IP Networks

It's a good thing IPv6 is coming on line to support all the new devices that are emerging. Where we could fall short is in bandwidth.

IP devices are emerging in all shapes, sizes, applications, and mobility. Just as wireless providers are encouraging their customers to access their networks through Wi-Fi to get around wireless bandwidth bottlenecks, futurists see both the wired and wireless IP communications exploding.

A brainstorming day-long conference was hosted recently at the Wharton'School's San Francisco campus jointly organized by the school's Mack Center on Technological Innovation and the Institute for the Future. Entrepreneurs, executives, policy makers and other experts imagined what the networked world might be like in 20 years, in, "After Broadband: Imagining a Future When Connected Networks Are All-pervasive".

The attendees spent the part of the day listening to short presentations. They then separated into eight specific topic groups like health, education, and commerce, to speculate on the network environment in 20 years. The participants then regrouped to listen to the various ideas that had been developed.

One presentation by Robert Pepper of Cisco said that the near-term future in networking was relatively easy to quantify. The total network traffic over the next five years will grow 32% in the wired world and 78% in wireless because of the increasing demand for video. He anticipates that the number of Web users, mostly due to mobile devices, would nearly double to four billion, with most of the growth in emerging markets, including those in China, India and Africa.

One of the observations was that the wired networks are steadily improving. The wireless/mobile networks are still behind in improving their operation mostly due to a lack of sufficient bandwidth. Some countries are much more aggressive than the U.S. in deploying high speed Internet connections. Japan for example, is planning 10 gigabit connections to the home.

Smartphones with accompanying applications can be used novel ways. Why couldn't the smartphone with the proper attachments monitor a person's health and alert them to unhealthy behavior? The unhealthy locations, such as a fast food restaurant, can be discovered by GPS.

Consider the worker risk on many construction projects. Each worker could be monitored and when a health or accident problem occurs, there could be automated alerts and EMS response that reduce the injury's severity and save lives. Similar wireless connection could be connected to military personnel in combat. However Wi-Fi will probably not be available for these risky occupations. There may a need for a Wi-Fi concentration point that connects to a cellular service. A health or liability insurance company may lower their rates if the customer/worker was continuously monitored.

Another example is the 3D printer that can create objects. What if the printer were loaded with chocolate? Then the customer could go online or a gift can be delivered of a custom made chocolate piece. We are not their yet but it’s a possibility.

What if blind people could be connected to their smartphone containing GPS? They could be guided around with nearly the same freedom as a sighted person. A smartphone could help the deaf learn about hazards the hearing people can detect by noises. Any area that has risk could be avoided or the deaf person can be text guided in real time if there are hazards in their path.

Expensive tools and equipment could be connected to the owner and the user could be charged by usage instead of a rental or lease arrangement. Something like this is already done for expensive truck and bus tires on a manually-read meter attached to the wheels.

These new IP devices and applications will play havoc with IT departments as well as the network providers:

* We may see SaaS companies emerging to deal with specialized endpoints such as health devices.
* The mobile providers may create new wireless plans for always-on low-data-volume devices such as health monitoring endpoints.
* IT departments will need to become proficient with many new types of endpoints and applications.
* Equipment and tool manufacturers may add a business model where they offer the equipment on a usage basis with automatic charges against a credit card instead of selling the equipment outright. The equipment can be continuously monitored and located.

It is a welcome event that IPv6 is being deployed. We need the address capabilities as the number of devices per person increases. The IPv6 address scheme allows this device population growth.

What we don't have are the wired and especially the wireless bandwidth to support all the possible devices emerging. We will probably find that we can obtain the devices but that network capacity and geography will limit their success.