Q&A: AT&T’s de la Vega discusses the three-screens of the future

Q: Do you foresee any other challenges?

A: We have to work closer together to make sure as we move toward this future. We don’t want to begin to create islands of incompatibility so that things work fine in certain environments, but once you step outside of that environment connectivity and applications stop working. That’s one of my fears. Look at how we’re tying applications to operating systems today. Only certain applications work with certain operating systems. As you move between different operating systems, you have different choices of applications. To me, that’s like buying a TV that only gets certain channels. If you bought a different brand of TV you would get a different set of channels.

Q: What about the issue of capacity? Will there be enough spectrum to support what potentially will be enormous demands for bandwidth?

A: The key is to have a regulatory environment that harmonizes spectrum. I think the US made a very wise choice in clearing the spectrum as a result of digital TV. I think we’ve mined the digital TV dividend very well. It’s given us 700 MHz, which is great spectrum with deep coverage to penetrate buildings. We have plenty of capacity for the foreseeable future, but we can’t stop there. The work that CTIA is doing to work with the government, to work with industry, to look for more harmonized spectrum is something we’re going to have to continue to do. I think there will be ways in the future to get at new spectrum.

Q: Is AT&T looking at ways to preserve capacity by offloading traffic from the wide-area network?

A: There will always be a mixing of fiber and spectrum. For example as we deploy our U-Verse technology, we’ll be taking high-bandwidth services to the home. When you’re in your home, there’s no reason to use a wireless network. You have a broadband connection at the home you can use with WiFi. There are ways to offload networks using WiFi and therefore minimize the need for additional spectrum or additional bandwidth.

You’re definitely going to see more femtocells or WiFi that will allow traffic to be sent through a fixed network rather than just ending everything over wireless. That jury is still out. In the end, it’s not going to be one thing; it will be a combination of things: taking fiber closer to the home, WiFi and femtocells—a combination of all of those is going to help us manage bandwidth and provide a great experience to our customers no matter where they connect.

Q: How will mobile devices evolve?

A: It’s not just about wireless-enabling your PC. I think almost every consumer electronics device that will be available by that timeframe will be somewhere connected wirelessly to a network or to other devices. I don’t think you will be able to go to a consumer electronics show and find a device that can’t be wirelessly networked in some way, shape or form. That has huge implications. First or all, if you’re not up to speed, you’re going to be left in the digital dust very quickly. People using this kind of capability will be much more productive and effective. I think the world will change at a much faster pace once we have that connectivity.

I think the devices of the future are going to much less rigid than we see today. There won’t be the same choices as we have today between say a big computer or a small computer, or a touch screen versus a non-touch screen. If you look at the research going on today, you can easily imagine a screen that can be rolled up like a piece of paper. You can open it and lay it out to any size you want. People will be able to manipulate their data with so much more ease.

Q: What do you think will be the next big turning point in wireless, the next big innovation?

A: It’s sitting in front of our eyes: The potential to wirelessly connect TVs, set-top boxes, PCs, mobile Internet devices, personal navigation devices and mobile phones is huge. But we’re not looking at that. I think there are very few companies looking at how to connect all of these elements, particularly the TV. I think you’re going to see AT&T--particularly because of the TV assets that we have—become very focused on breaking through the roadblocks that are keeping customers from being able to interact with their TVs in significantly different ways than they do today. We’re just in the beginning stages, but I would suggest the TV is the next big thing to go wireless.