IT Infrastructure

With the success of the iPhone, and new releases by Google and Blackberry, it is clear that the next generation of phones will find their way into business users’ hands. What does this mean for application development team members?

First, a little opinionated history of the telephone industry. As a mandated monopoly for many years, telco technology was stagnated until it were forcibly separated. Technologies like the cell phone were created after they were forced to compete. The recent re-consolidation of the "Baby Bells" is showing that profit is more important than innovation. Fortunately, companies like Apple and Google are pushing the technology.

Unlike other countries, the U.S. has large population bases spread out over thousands of miles. There are many areas today without Internet or cell phone coverage. "The last mile" installation has been a hotly contested issue for a while now. Countries in Europe and Asia have exceedingly fast networks. For example, Japan is working on pushing HD movies on demand to the phone. Russia has created its own WiMax service that gives their country better service and coverage.

On the good side, it means there are new interesting applications to develop. I wrote about some applications in an earlier post. These were consumer applications, but could easily be adapted for business. Locating field staff graphically would have a big use in business. Taking a picture of a part, and having the server recognize the part and send a replacement would another example of using the new technology in unforeseen ways. Technologies like Flex and  JavaFX will make life for application development team members easier to create the next generation applications.

On the bad side however, is the US cell phone infrastructure. Unreliable, slow networks and conflicting technologies will limit the usage and types of applications written. Application development team members will be frustrated in writing applications that don’t have enough bandwidth to perform.

Will it improve? Time will tell. Clearly the existing service providers are not interested with improving service, and would even like to charge more for access. Once business demands better service, things could improve. The new president is looking to give Internet access for all children. For that to happen, we would need a network that is comparable to the rest of the world. Some even think this issue is so important to our country, a "mobile space race" is necessary.

I think it has to happen, or we will be left behind economically. More workers can telework if the infrastructure is there. That saves valuable energy, and also changes how and even where people live. A federally funded initiative would create a lot of jobs in developing IT infratstructure, networking, and application development, and would greatly benefit not only business, but all of this country.