New trends in telecommunications – CeBIT 2008
New trends in telecommunications – CeBIT 2008
This year’s CeBIT in Hanover – the world’s largest trade fair for IT and telecommunications – took place between 4th and 9th of March.
There were about 5900 companies (by 5 percent less than last year). For the first time in the history of the fair, China had the largest representation, surpassing in numbers the previous leader, Taiwan.
For many years CeBIT has been mapping out development of electronic industries in the world. This year we saw several forerunners of new technologies, and products that have a chance to become hits in the near future, as well.
The marked tendency revealed at the fair was increase of mobile multimedia market. Transfer rates of 100 Mbps available in mobile phones (LTE announced for 2009), OLED screens – consuming less energy, and more effective sources of energy – will mean cultural breakthrough, similar to that of GSM revolution. Low costs of broadcasting will allow the operators to offer many programs available all around the world. Video telephony and VOD will become really popular.
So far, many big companies, like Microsoft, Linksys, Netgear, promoted solutions based on fixed lines. In the future, home servers will be libraries with collections of films, music, computer games, and – at the same time – phone exchanges. Computer network will become the core of all communication and multimedia systems.
The trade fair confirmed strong position of IP cameras as important category of network devices. Majority of well known manufacturers of WLAN equipment have introduced (or will introduce) wireless cameras, as one of the main parts of the offers. Functionality of the devices will probably decide about elimination from the market of the traditional analog CCTV cameras.
Popularity of LFD (Large Format Display) will change the nature of advertising. Large screens connected to the Web and equipped with dedicated software will be able to react to the watcher changing the content (woman, man, child).
Current development of SSD (Solid State Disk) technology seems to be a turning point in their wider application. These flash-based memories will enable the designers to construct smaller, energetically efficient, and reliable mobile computers, with long life span. It is the beginning of cheap laptops and notebooks – well known companies offer them for USD 300-400, equipped with Linux or Windows OS.
Yet, the presentations of the innovations did not deny the fact that CeBIT ceased to be the main window on the world of newest technologies. There were many absentees – large corporations that did not show their offer. The producers of wireless equipment prefer Barcelona, manufacturers of consumer electronics choose CES in Las Vegas and IFA in Berlin. CeBIT becomes less attractive for the global players.
Among the notable absentees were Sony, Sharp, Philips, Lenovo, Dell and Nokia.
After several years of decrease of the number of exhibitors, the organizers decided to increase the number of conferences – to attract professionals, and shorten the event by one day – to cut the costs of exhibitors. But probably the main focus was to define the objectives of the exhibition.
Unfortunately the organization efforts didn’t seem to refresh the event. They couldn’t eliminate the feeling of deficiency, a want for new technologies and for an impulse to stop the decrease of investments in European telecommunications.
During the trade fair we could see a steady factor in European industry – expansion of red tape. The organizers, using subsidizing, invite national exhibitors that, instead of products, are showing travel brochures, and grassroots movements – promoting projects like Green IT.
In this situation the most interesting trends seen at the fair were network and mobile solutions for television – as an extension of offers of telecommunication operators. The solutions are based on technologies that improve data transfers, especially those of mobile telephony. The example is LTE technology presented by Sony Ericsson and T-Mobile.
LTE (Long Term Evolution) is the newest transmission system for mobile applications, developed according to the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). The specification accepted in January, 2008, adopts theoretical limit of 326 Mbps (practical speeds reach 100 Mbps).
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