TORONTO – If you thought the mobile communications revolution had already transformed the world, well, we’re still just seeing the tip of the iceberg.
That was the basic message Peggy Johnson delivered in a keynote address at the Canadian Telecom Summit at the Toronto Congress Centre on Monday morning. Johnson, executive vice president and president of global market development for Qualcomm, spent some time spouting facts, figures and forecasts to show how much mobile usage has grown over the past few years, how much more it will continue to grow over the rest of the decade and what that all could mean.
For instance, to highlight how much wireless usage is continuing to grow, Johnson noted mobile users have now downloaded more than 30 billion data apps onto their handheld devices across the world, with the 60-billion mark not too far off. She also noted that the wireless business now produces about US$1.5 trillion in revenues globally, enough to account for about 2% of global GDP.
Johnson focused on three major wireless trends that she sees going forward. First, she argued, the mobility movement is totally re-shaping the computing business, with such increasingly sophisticated devices as tablets and smartphones making PCs and laptops all but obsolete in the future. “We’re redefining computing by leaving laptops behind” and using tablets and smartphones, she said. “The world of computing has gone mobile… We’re starting to demand things in our pockets that used to be on our desktops.”
To buttress her point, Johnson cited forecasts that 7.5 billion smartphones “will go out the door” worldwide over the next five years, joining the 1.5 billion smartphones already in consumers’ hands. She noted that one million new smartphones now go out the door every day, about three times the number of babies born on earth each day.
“Kids will be born mobile,” she said. “These devices are going to have such an effect on the world.”
Second, Johnson said, mobile data usage will grow at even greater exponential rates over the next few years as emerging markets catch up to the developed world in device adoption rates and more and more devices get connected and learn how to talk to each other. Noting that mobile data consumption has already been at least doubling every year, she predicted that usage will skyrocket an astounding 1,000% over the next 10 years.
“Everything wants to get connected in our environment today, everything wants to talk,” she said, citing other predictions that there will be 25 billion connected devices globally by 2020. “It’s just an onslaught.”
Lastly, Johnson foresees the development of a “digital sixth sense,” or “a merging of the physical and digital worlds,” well on the way. With sensing monitors now starting to be installed into mobile handsets, she believes that wireless devices will increasingly enable users to “augment” their reality with “overlapping metadata.”
For example, Johnson envisions people in remote locations using mobile devices and medical sensors on their bodies to collect and send vital health information to doctors hundreds of miles away. She also noted the current effort to develop a Star Trek-like medical tricorder that could scan the body for a variety of health problems and conditions without touching the skin. “The processors in our pockets and the sensors on our bodies could transform things,” she said, particularly for patients with chronic conditions. “A simple device [like the tricorder] could be very transforming.”
In addition to the health field, Johnson sees great potential for mobile devices in education. In contrast to most schools’ policies, she’s advocating the use of cell phones in the classroom to promote a more active and collaborative learning environment.
The Canadian Telecom Summit continues Tuesday and Wednesday.
