Cecelia Kang has an interesting piece in the Post today (“A Nation Outnumbered by Gadgets”, Washington Post, October 12, 2011) that highlights a couple of intriguing trends in the communications technology space: the fact that the number of mobile devices in use has exceeded the total number of Americans and the fact that Americans have up to two dozen digital devices in their homes that connect to the Internet.
These are significant trends but I think Cecelia is overlooking some deeper trends and implications in this same vein. I mentioned many of them in a post I did a number of months ago and they are worth highlighting again.
First, while the number of digital devices that connect to the Internet is important, the capabilities of these devices and the way they are used is what is fundamentally different and important. After all, we’ve had electronic devices in the home since the 1970’s (some estimates are that homes had 8 or more devices in 1975) but the functionality and use of these devices – not to mention their number – is quite different now with important impacts on networks, applications, software and creativity. As I said in my original blog post:
Consumers today simply have more electronic devices of all kinds in their homes and these devices – unlike the case just a couple of decades ago – are all digital, many can communicate with each other and share data, and many have lots of memory, processing power and customizable interfaces. Today, some estimates are that many homes have upwards of 30 digital devices and these are just the communications devices in the home.
More importantly, Cecelia’s article completely skips over other devices in the home that will be or in some cases already are networked. As I said in my post:
These figures do not include devices like dishwashers that are also becoming intelligent and in some cases networked too. In fact, devices like dishwashers will communicate more and more in the future as machine to machine connections multiply. Because all of these devices communicate or can exchange data in many cases, consumer demand for bandwidth is growing. Consumers can create more information of all kinds from video to audio to written content. Information can take many forms and people can communicate in many ways due in part to the many devices they have to interact with the data and entertainment that is on the Internet and the cloud today.
Already, there are more than 62 million machine to machine devices – many in use outside the home to monitor gas pipelines, security and the like – with projections this could grow to well over 2 billion such devices in less than a decade. So, while the fact that the number of mobile devices exceeds the total number of people in our country is amazing, machine to machine devices are at least as significant a trend, although they may not get as much attention.
Missing too in this discussion is how other mainstays of our lives – particularly cars – will be and are being transformed by digitally connected, mobile devices. Here is how I put it in my post of a few months ago:
Third is the evolution of cheap sensor technologies of all kinds. I mentioned machine to machine communications but sensors are keys to making machine to machine applications work and making them valuable in the lives of consumers and businesses. Sensors are already installed in cars (some 30 computer devices including sensors are in cars today) sending back valuable information to other devices in the car and even sending data back to repair and emergency centers. Sensors can detect anomalies, report on the status of devices, record information about how a device is working, keep track of inventory and the like. When connected together with smart networks and servers to analyze data and assess information, imagine what can be accomplished. Some have talked about the refrigerator with the Internet panel on the outside that will tell you when milk needs to be replaced. But think about sensors in a home electrical system that can detect shorts or potentially fatal electrical faults that could catch a home on fire if not corrected. Or a dishwasher with sensors that can report on when a water line is getting weak and might spring a leak. Sensors combined with networks combined with servers and monitoring computers can help improve lives, save lives, and help us manage our home energy use better just to name a few things. Machine to machine communications is at the heart of all of this and clearly the traffic on machine to machine systems will soon dwarf what is occurring today on social networks.
Finally, I think all of these devices, applications and innovations will help transform many other aspects of our lives. This is particularly true with regard to health care and energy conservation and management. This new Verizon ad and information program (“The Power of Plus”) provides a wealth of ideas regarding what mobile and landline communications can do to transform these two vital areas of society.
Cecelia’s piece was intriguing and highlighted some interesting trends. I just think there is far more to the transformation story regarding mobile and data communications networks that seldom gets much attention.