Eight Trends Radically Changing Work and Play

An American business traveler awaiting a flight in Rome uses SlingBox to view last night's episode of CSI: Miami on her laptop. Wireless sensors inform workers of an equipment failure in a remote area of an oil refinery, saving the company thousands of dollars. Skype, an Internet company, shakes up the telecommunications industry by offering conferencing services for free.

"Advances in connectivity and mobility are changing everything," said Paul Gustafson, director of Computer Sciences Corporation's . Speaking about the LEF's new research report, Connected World: Redefining the Geography of Business and How We Work and Play, Gustafson says technology companies have for years boasted of "anytime, anywhere" capability, but that wasn't really the case. "Today, we're much closer to that goal and 'anything' is now part of the equation. The technology has advanced to the point that it's really not about technology. It's about imagination and reengineering to adapt to a new reality."

The report examines eight trends that illustrate what it means to live and thrive in a connected world -- a networked world marked by abundant bandwidth, powerful devices that leverage that bandwidth in new areas and to new users, and changing work styles and lifestyles that are more mobile. What business areas will be impacted? What will mobility look like in the coming years? Who is in the lead and why?

The trends are as follows:

All-IP Enterprise
The concept of network is changing from one of plumbing to platform. Using Internet Protocol (IP) at the core, companies can have a single, converged network that carries all data, voice, video and applications. In an enterprise environment, this approach unites previously disparate organizations and systems, increases performance and reliability, provides new capabilities and greatly reduces costs.
With voice absorbed into the network as just another data type -- voice over IP (VoIP) -- voice networks will become obsolete. As evidenced by Skype, VoIP can effectively eliminate long-distance and video conferencing charges. This has presented a major disruption to every telecommunications company, forcing a reinvention as market demand (both commercial and consumer) rapidly shifts to providers who can offer converged services.

Industry Crossovers
With IP the common denominator, companies are crossing into new industries and businesses, colliding as well as cooperating in staking out their digital turf. Television, music and computer companies are increasingly focusing on mobile phones as the next entertainment platform. Examples include MTV's alliance with Sprint and Google's relationship with CBS.

This crossover world was envisioned in the 1990s by computer pioneer Gordon Bell, who painted a picture of the colliding worlds of telephony, television and computing. This "triple play," which is often extended to the quadruple play when mobility is added, is obliterating stovepipe companies and services of the past, while ushering in new multi-service scenarios.

Bandwidth at the Edge
A proliferation of mobile broadband networks is providing access to the Internet and enterprise core networks at greatly increased speeds, solving bandwidth issues. Until recently, access could be likened to siphoning ocean water with a straw. Today large network pipelines are here in the form of Wi-Fi, WiMAX, 3G and soon-to-come 4G wireless broadband.

"Bandwidth has been unleashed to the edge -- to the home user, the mobile user and various remote locations," said Gustafson. "Technologies that had sufficient bandwidth have extended their reach, and technologies that had sufficient reach have gotten more bandwidth. The days of un-connectedness are just about over."

FON, a start-up company in Madrid, intends to create a global federated network of Wi-Fi hotspots. The goal is one million hotspots worldwide by 2010 or earlier.

Networks in New Places
Networks are going into new places in new ways. Organizations are bringing dormant environments to life by leveraging wireless