Written by: Eric Peterson, Editor, Ericsson Review
Why wait any longer for the world to begin? You can have your cake and eat it too.
Bob Dylan, "Lay, lady, lay"
One day last spring, my daughter, Sarah, called me at work to ask if she could attend a spur-of-the-moment birthday party and, if so, would I fetch her afterward? We negotiated a time for pickup and I asked her to write me a note with the address so I'd know where to meet her.
When I got home, I found Sarah's note. I then quickly looked up the address on the net using Google Maps and printed out directions. Later that evening I followed the directions, turn for turn, arriving precisely as planned for our rendezvous.
"Simple. Convenient. What could be easier?" I'm thinking to myself. "Still, the place seems awfully quiet. The lights are on, though. That's a good sign." But the expression on the face of the woman who greeted me at the door confirmed my doubts. Something was off:
Me: "Is this such-and-such an address?"
Woman: "Yes."
Me: "But I'm guessing this isn't the Anderson's and you're not hosting a birthday having left the party early, she was locked out of the building. party here tonight?"
Woman: "No."
Me: "Er, hmm. Clearly there has been a mix-up. My apologies for having disturbed you at this late hour."
Before the woman could close her door, my cell phone had started chirping. Sarah. To make a long story short, Sarah had unknowingly misspelled the name of the street where we were supposed to meet. A single, silent vowel had eluded her. Consequently, I had driven to the wrong address. So for a brief, anxious moment, neither of us knew where the other one was (or what to do about it). Sarah had blindly followed her friends to the party, actively engaged in conversation and without paying attention to where they were going or how they got there. And now, after
It's at moments like this that you realize just how valuable mobile broadband really is: the internet in your pocket! Solution: I pulled out my phone, opened Google Maps for Mobile, entered the correct address, and went to pick up Sarah. Simple. Convenient. What could be easier?
Mobile broadband technology is here and it works. But this is only the beginning - soon we will be able to experience completely new kinds of services anywhere, any time and from any device (see Open IPTV Forum - Toward an open IPTV standard, Network infrastructure for IPTV and Service composition in IMS). What is more, these services will be delivered to our homes (Carrier Ethernet: The native approach) and pockets (LTE-SAE architecture and performance) at blazingly fast speeds! Did somebody say cake?
