San Francisco, CA. IMS 2016 kicked off here this week with a quote, not from James Clerk Maxwell, but, unexpectedly, from Dylan Thomas: “But oh, San Francisco! It is and has everything—you wouldn’t think that such a place as San Francisco could exist.” Indeed, as plenary session chair Dr. Jin Bains pointed out, the more than 3,000 expected registered technical attendees must enjoy the charms of the city while avoiding distraction from the main theme of the event: “Gateway to the Wireless Future.”
Passing through that gateway will require a global effort. Dr. Wolfgang Heinrich, president of the European Microwave Association, emphasized the global effort in his remarks during the plenary session. Alluding to the upcoming “Brexit” vote in the UK, he said the EU may be shaken. Based on supposed simulations he’s performed combining continental drift with a look 10,000 years ahead, he suggested England may end up in the Atlantic located halfway between the United States and Europe. Nevertheless, he said, the European microwave community stands firmly with its global partners to support the development of 5G and the Internet of Things. “Let us explore together the gateway to a wireless future with a truly global approach,” he concluded.
The plenary session highlight was the keynote by Dr. Martin Cooper—the “father of the cellphone,” who predicted the cellphone’s death. “Cooper’s Law” is said to be the spectrum-efficiency equivalent of Moore’s Law. Spectrum, Cooper said in his comments, is thought to be the equivalent to beachfront property—when it’s all sold off, it’s gone. That’s just not the case, he said (before being interrupted by a false fire alarm—perhaps suggesting that our intelligent IoT devices such as connected fire alarms aren’t as intelligent as we might hope). The traditional view of spectrum is that you command a 700-MHz band over a 10-mile radius (for example) for your voice calls. Many magnitudes of improvement are possible, he said, drawing comparisons to today’s data rates vs. those achieved by Marconi.
The original cellphone in 1973, Cooper said, weighed over a kilogram. Battery life was about 20 minutes, but that was ok, because you wouldn’t want to hold it up to your ear for longer than that.
Today’s smartphone, he said, embodies amazing technology, but hasn’t achieved the revolutionary status he foresees.
The revolution would first address healthcare. “We don’t have a healthcare system,” he said. “We have a sick-care system. We wait until you get sick and then try to cure you.” He contended that every disease is curable if you catch it early enough. “I get an annual physical every five years whether I need it or not,” he joked, while emphasizing that a “physical” every minute would be within the realm of possibility with the appropriate mobile device.
In addition to healthcare, he said that education and collaboration were areas in need of revolution. In pursuit of revolution, the cellphone is a blunt instrument. It does almost everything, he said, but doesn’t do anything optimally. Which is better—Android or iOS? That’s the wrong question, he said. Put enough intelligence in the phone, and it will figure out what functions you need. And it won’t necessarily be a phone—if you have a heart condition, for example, it will be—at least in part—a patch that measures cardiac parameters.
The death of the cellphone may take a generation or two, but when it happens, he concluded, “Remember, Marty told you about it.”
