Telecom & Internet Revolution

While Telecoms across the world have enabled data services on their platforms, they are struggling to monetize this investment. They are charging exorbitant rates to justify their huge investments and this is turn is hurting user adoption there by prompting for even higher rates.

While this dead lock continues to plague end user experience and Telecoms alike, a new model is emerging to keep all parties happy by carving a new role for Telecoms as transaction enablers. Surprisingly this model is very common among Web 2.0 enterprises such as Amazon. Amazon, etc. offer their services free and pay their bills by brokering user attention and transactions and so will future Telecoms.

How many times did we come across a situation where there were multiple WiFi networks in range but were private and inaccessible? How often did we wish that may be we can borrow a little WiFi time from them! The need is mutual and reciprocal when it comes to others wishing to access the internet through our WiFi network. Can't we share a fraction of our internet bandwidth with others and in turn access internet from others networks when we are away from our home?

I believe there is a solution to this problem and I call it PeerNet - A Cooperative WiFi Sharing Framework. The idea is simple, share a fraction of your bandwidth with others and in turn enjoy surfing from any other participating WiFi network.

Most of the WiFi routers available today can support more than one WiFi network i.e. one primary WLAN and a few more virtual WLANs that we can configure for other purposes. A custom firmware is needed though to support all the functions of PeerNet.

This framework mandates an open virtual WLAN on every participating WiFi network for anybody to connect to. However this virtual WLAN shall have full isolation and require every user to login with their home SSID and passkey to access internet so as to prevent foul play and free riding.

PeerNet servers track every participating WiFi network for how much data it shares with others and allow its owners to access proportionally equivalent data from other participating networks. I suggest a 2:1 ratio i.e. for every 2 bytes shared from your home network, you get 1 byte from participating networks. The excess can then be used to sell WiFi access and support development and maintenance of the service.

Smart this and smart that! Every device and machine with us and around us is adopting a smart layer and will soon enable us to live in a completely connected ecosystem. But getting 'Smart' means more than being able to run apps and act as a platform, it means sensing the environment, communicating with other smart agents and acting in response to the above.

Many dub this development as 'Internet of Things' but trying to constrain our devices to communicate only through the internet or some form of pre-established infrastructure could be a limiting factor for this whole thing. We may be ignoring the potential in peer to peer ad-hoc communication between our devices.

'Spontaneous Ad-Hoc Networks' are much more efficient for communication in close proximity and the technology required to enable such activity is already available and mature. WLan Ad-Hoc Mode or IBSS Mode essentially allows P2P communication between devices/agents in range and can bring interesting possibilities to our digital ecosystem. Completely dynamic and completely set-up free!

Imagine cars on the highway exchanging information for a safer commute! Imagine your TV automatically muting itself or your DVR pausing the show when your mobile phone rings; it may even show the caller details for you! Things will be even more interesting when they can learn to cooperate and serve us better!

Welcome the 'Flutter', a tiny cheap (20 USD) wireless control and sensing module for anything you can think of! Yes, anything! It can be seen as the next generation communication fabric for the rest of our devices with incredible range (~1000m), enough bandwidth (~1 mbps), handsome security (256 bit AES) and smart brains (ARM Arduino) to control and automate most of them! Want more? Its meshable and a single flutter mesh network can span and control a neighbourhood if you want! Awesome!

Many existing technologies rely on a pre-existing infrastructure such as WiFi, Cellular, etc. to communicate but Flutter can be seen as an Ad-Hoc self-extending network enabling seamless communication between our devices.

As discussed previously on this topic WiFi IBSS enables high-bandwidth ad-hoc communication in close vicinity whereas Flutter enables long range low-bandwidth ad-hoc communication. These technologies perfectly compliment each other. Moreover, Flutter goes one step ahead and packs security and meshing right into the core making development and deployment a piece of cake.

Flutter, even though conceived for the hobbyist, promises an affordable, open-source, modular and scalable framework bringing the possibility of a smart home, office, building, road, park or even a city one step closer to reality and is in active development now!

http://www.flutterwireless.com/

Mobile Money is a fast evolving alternate payment method where consumers use their mobile phone to pay for a wide range of services and goods (both digital and material). Instead of paying by cash, check, or credit cards, a consumer can now use his ever present companion, the mobile phone, to complete the transaction.Primarily there are four models for Mobile Money Services:

* SMS Based
* Direct Mobile Billing
* Mobile Web Payments (WAP)
* Contactless NFC (Near Field Communication)

Many telecom operators are planning to hit huge with this unfolding phenomenon but Nokia, an early entrant into this market has already closed its mobile money services.

"Tethering" is the use of your cell phone - or other Internet-enabled mobile device - as a modem for another device, usually a notebook or PDA. The connection is made either with a cable (USB or serial) or wirelessly through bluetooth or Wi-Fi (or, in the good old days, via infrared or IrDA).

http://www.androidcentral.com/android-internet-tether

Recently M-PESA, a mobile money service for the African continent, proclaimed that nearly 31% of Kenya's GDP flows through mobile phones. Now that's a phenomenally disruptive development in a rather unexpected corner of the world.

Nearly 70% of Africans have no access to banking and 70% of them already use mobile phones which is why mobile money services struck gold there. Often mobile telephone is the only service you can count on in Africa.

Now what does this move foretell for the developed and rapidly developing economies? Mobile money services are yet to make an impact here and that is partly due to lack of integration with traditional banking services. We already have a system in place and legacy fixed line based banking (payments through credit and checking accounts/cards) have delayed the adoption of these new age services.

Nevertheless, innovative approaches such as Square ( http://www.squareup.com ) are bridging this gap and breaking the ice for Mobile Money.

A brief history of Internet. Sometimes its important to look back to imagine the future...

Its hard to imagine how these billions of connected devices will shape our world..... but its already happening.