It looks like the code word for the year 2008 is going to be Wireless. All of a sudden, everything is sailing in that direction. It really isn’t “sudden” of course, it just seems that way because of the way that it has come to the top of the publicity pack.
Wireless itself isn’t new, but it’s the adaption of it to a variety of uses that is making it more visible these days. The wireless telephone systems are reaching that point of reliability and saturation that we’ve been waiting for. Now, if you have cell phone service with one of the major providers, you can make and receive phone calls easily and almost anywhere.
Now that most of the big-time providers have pretty much finished with their mergers and sorting out various obstacles to smooth operations, the telephone service has made the transition from novelty to normality. With the engineering platform solidly in place, it’s time for the really neat stuff to start happening.
The big growth right now is in the internet connectivity business. After tinkering around with Wi-Fi for a few years, the telephone firms are switching directly over to their cell frequencies to deliver the web. They’ve been doing this to a small degree already with their ability to have your phone connect to certain web pages and the more advanced phone devices (such as Blackberry). For the past year they’ve been refining the methods of linking your portable laptop computer with this system. You’re starting to see the wireless companies running tv advertisements for the service now. You just turn on your computer and it’s instantly connected to the full web.
FossilMedic has been riding along with this technology for about a year now. He’s a man-on-the-move, spending a lot of time on planes and in terminals, hotels and conference centers. Maybe I can get him to bring us up to speed on this phase of the technology after he finishes the revisions to his textbook. Basically that service is here now…… internet wherever you happen to be (almost).
Coming right on the heels of this is television programming. The more progressive stations are already streaming some of their transmissions over their websites, and a few of the cable tv networks are offering complete programs (currently re-runs) over their’s. I believe this one is really going to expand rapidly over the next 8 months or so.
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We in the fire and rescue business have been using radio communications for the past 60 years, growing with the advances in radio technology. Since we’re always pushing the system to the limits, it seems like we are always having “radio problems.” But that’s because we are more or less pioneers in pressing the technology into hostile uses. As an example, this is being used in many departments where radio send-and-recieve is wired right into the firefighter’s helmet.
What else have we got coming out in the fire and rescue field that will be utilizing radio frequencies in new and innovative ways? Imagination now has an outlet and it won’t take long for us to find out.
But we still have to check out the equipment every morning. So let’s get started and I’ll go make a fresh pot.
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