Mobile workers are so accustomed to having continual Internet access on their smart devices at home, at work, out on business and anywhere in between – their focus has turned from coverage areas to battery range! Watch the rush for power sockets the next time you are out a trade show or waiting in an airport lounge and you’ll see what I mean… It’s like looking for network reception was in 2002.
We all know that pubs, coffee shops and hotel lobbies are often convenient places to have a quick meeting, and we immediately assume that such places will have Internet connectivity. But does the barista have a plug socket next to her espresso maker? Can I get a packet of 240v with my pint of 1664? Starbucks has apparently admitted the problem threatens their ability to seat enough customers.
With universal coverage – whether expensive and untrusted 3G/4G, or managed and locked-down WiFi – we’ve come so far in 10 years with enterprise wireless, but the same of problems of manageability, security and performance still remain within many organisations. It’s only then that the invisible network we all expect to be there starts flickering back into view.
So here’s the opportunity for resellers: to give customers a mobile IT experience that they don’t have to give another moment’s thought to, and keep the network invisible in spite of the many challenges that will – literally – show it up.
With rising energy and fuel costs, don’t expect this phenomenon to get any easier, any time soon. Like cars, devices will have to become more fuel efficient, and also we
will see users ‘driving’ them less hard. With a car you get far more miles per gallon doing 56mph on the motorway than 97, which in one sense defeats the purpose of having such a motor in the first place. The availability of speed has exceeded the rate that people wish to consume it, much like how – despite the mass availability of wireless connectivity – today you get people conserving more battery life by manually switching off the wireless signal that just a few short years ago they’d have given their eye teeth for. Could we even one day see the House of Commons debating the pricing of batteries in the same way as they are now doing with petrol, especially if we all start investing in electric cars?
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