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What future mobile technologies? Is WiFi the end?

Tomorrow's Mobile IT seminar here in Estrella Del Mar, in the Spanish province of Murcia, kicks off with a look into the future of wireless as the mainspring of mobile data services. Ultra-Wide Band, even satellite technology, will be discussed in the light of the recent study by West Technology Research Solutions.

The latest report from WTRS suggests that WiFi and Bluetooth are both doomed, and that Ultra-Wide band will prove to be more suitable for use inside domestic buildings, because of its ability to penetrate walls and floors.

It will beat Bluetooth in personal area networking, mostly because of its speed, the report adds.

Keynote speaker is the Editor of NewsWireless.Net, Guy Kewney; other contributors include seminar partner Kelvin Robinson, an expert on financial futures.

News from the seminar is likely to be sparse.

"What we're hoping for, is a sort of brain dump by all participants, from which we'll be able to go on and lay out directions of future research and analysis for the Mobile Campaign," said Robinson. "I'm not aiming to produce new and exciting headlines, and we'll be really happy if we can come up with strategy ideas."

Key discussion areas will include non-technology issues; primarily, the looming "traffic jam" of unlicensed wireless, as too many people set up access points in the same area. Social protocols, rather than communications protocols, will have to change.

The seminar is small; only seven participants. It would have been nice to get more, but that wasn't really the aim, said Robinson. "As long as delegates come away with some original ideas, and feed them back to us, we'll be really pleased with this pioneer effort, and next year we may be able to report on developments from the first seminar, at the second."