Nokia imagines ubiquitous computing: Will telecom compete with or complement computing world?

Nokia House, the company's Helsinki headquarters, is entirely made of glass, designed with an eye toward modern European interior furnishings as well as state-of-the-art capabilities-including videoconferencing and a restaurant-like kitchen complete with chef-hat-wearing cooks that whip up gourmet meals.

The indoor beauty of the place must be designed to make up for what's lacking on the outside. Although the facility overlooks thick forests and a boat-filled lake, more often than not this scenery is swept by cold rain or snow. Perhaps it's the cold weather that pushes Nokians to focus on one of the company's biggest priorities of today: wireless data technologies.

A two-day visit to Nokia's facilities in Helsinki and Tampere, Finland, where its Research Center and Wireless Future Laboratory live, made it glaringly apparent that the telecom world very soon will take on the heavy hitters of the computing world, join them or somehow peacefully coexist with them.

Companies such as Microsoft and Sun Microsystems have of late dabbled in the wireless data world, exploring concepts of ubiquitous computing-the capability to access data from anywhere as well as access devices that typically don't have intelligence such as fax machines and locks.

Nokia acknowledges the significance of playing against such companies but believes it can compete because it knows mobility. "We are by no means underestimating their capabilities," said Sari Baldauf, president of Nokia Telecommunications. "Mr. Gates is a good gatekeeper."

Nokia's first steps toward creating a "wireless information society," as Baldauf calls it, lie in its development of high-speed, circuit-switched data (HSCSD). Designed for GSM networks, HSCSD can offer 28.8 kb/s data speeds by combining channels.

Nokia displayed some HSCSD capabilities in Helsinki using what it said is the first live HSCSD network. One service designed by Nokia queries the Internet for music. Jari Heiskanen, senior systems engineer of wireless data service systems for Nokia, envisions a Walkman of the future that doesn't include CDs or tapes, only the ability to access the Internet for music. Nokia also plans to use the HSCSD base station to demonstrate access to video from television or VCRs-streaming technology makes watching low-motion video on the 28.8 kb/s service just bearable. Live video camera surveillance and network games are also possibilities.

Finland's Sonera recently signed an agreement with Nokia for HSCSD, which will require new handsets. Nokia said those handsets should be available next year.

Nokia is nearing completion of a trial of mobile data services with 100 users in Dusseldorf, Germany; Milan, Italy; and Bristol, England. Using the GSM networks of carriers in those cities and backed with its own financing and support from the European Union, Nokia participated in the trial mainly to explore the types of services that users of HSCSD networks will want. Nokia is not only developing infrastructure and devices for mobile data services but also planting the roots of building a new market. As such, Nokia fills the role of "midwife" in the birth of a wireless data market, said Iikka Raiskinen, vice president of business development for Nokia Mobile Phones.

As a result of the trial, Nokia found that the most popular offering was a city information service, which allows users to access city maps and information about places such as museums and theaters via a laptop, Heiskanen said.

But HSCSD is only the tip of the iceberg for Nokia. Its Wireless Future Laboratory in Tampere is further exploring ideas of ubiquitous computing, even as far as wearable computers, a concept first spawned at MIT in the 1980s.

Nokia's vision revolves around a concept that came about as a joke around a year ago, said Hannu Nieminen, the head of Nokia's Research Center laboratory. In considering types of computing networks, Nokia defined them by size, ranging from metropolitan area networks, wide area networks, local area networks and finally, what was defined at first jokingly, personal area networks. Today Nokia is very serious about personal area networks, which travel with a person and have a radius of about 30 feet. The network registers devices within that radius that a person could use. For example, users could forward faxes from their mobile handsets to the nearest printer.

The concept rings similar to Sun Microsystem's recent announcement of Jini, an advanced software that would live in all sorts of devices and spontaneously network nearby users of laptops. Here lies one of the differences between Sun's and Nokia's approaches: Nokia believes phones will offer the platform and the power for ubiquitous computing. Mobile phones are quickly becoming ubiquitous, Nieminen said, so they offer a logical platform for ubiquitous computing.

It is yet unclear if the computing and telecommunications worlds will work together or against each other to achieve the vision. Nonetheless, the overlap of research that results from the two industries approaching the vision from their own vantage points can only be beneficial because it encourages discussion, Raiskinen said.

Because handsets and laptops have different advantages, they may complement each other rather than compete. "Since the two have different characteristics and different requirements, it looks more like there will be synergies," said Naqi Jaffrey, wireless analyst for Dataquest.

Ironically, the computing and telecom worlds are moving in opposite directions to create their future products. PC manufacturers are dumbing down their products into hand-held devices, and handset manufacturers are making their products smarter, said David Cooperstein, senior analyst of telecom strategies for Forrester Research.

Although PC manufacturers are interested in wireless data when it becomes viable, they aren't talking about adding telephony capabilities to their products, he said. He believes that the future will see a proliferation, not a consolidation, of devices, so consumers will use both types of products.

In addition to developing the path toward higher data rates in GSM networks-from HSCSD to general packet radio services, enhanced data rate for GSM evolution and finally third generation-Nokia is involved with three partnerships to pursue its ubiquitous computing vision. Bluetooth, a special interest group initially formed by Nokia, Ericsson, IBM, Intel and Toshiba, is developing a short-range communications standard to link intelligent devices. Bluetooth aims to enable the mobile phone-to-nearby fax communication. While Bluetooth solutions will operate in unlicensed frequencies to transmit information, network operators could design applications around Bluetooth capabilities for added revenue opportunities.

Bluetooth may also act as a catalyst, pushing carriers to deploy higher bandwidth capabilities, Jaffrey said. If users know that their phones can forward a fax or other data to a nearby printer, they will demand the capability to receive data to their handsets.

Nokia is also involved with the Wireless Application Protocol Forum, which will foster the development of Internet access applications using the longer range, licensed frequencies.

Symbian, a joint venture with Ericsson, Psion and Nokia, essentially is developing an operating system for handsets. Symbian competes with Windows CE, Jaffrey said, but is much more focused on optimizing for handsets. "The point is, handsets are increasingly going to be used for Internet access, a role that traditionally computers have performed," Jaffrey said.

European users and others that use GSM networks likely will be the first to access wireless data services. But although time division multiple access and code division multiple access are behind in data services development, GSM's data has its drawbacks. HSCSD, for example, requires network operators to combine channels, so data services will use large amounts of capacity, Jaffrey noted.

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