Time to market: also a speed aspect   

As we have seen, technology has a number of clever tricks up its sleeve which we can use to increase the bandwidths and the speed of mobile communications. It quickly becomes clear that this will not happen at a single stroke; an entire series of ingredients is required, and they must be combined with one ­another in a suitable manner. It is well known that approaching the ­limits increases complexity². Network operators must face up to this reality. This is especially the case if they want to migrate current networks to the next generation. The diverse prerequisites for a more efficient new technology will be expanded by peripheral conditions from the existing networks, increasing complexity even further. So it is advisable to plan and propagate the implementation periods conservatively and to be cautious in marketing the increase in performance capability. All of the ­mobile network generations implemented in the past have required approximately the same amount of time from the lab stage to commercial maturity. This will be no different for ­systems of the 4th generation. In fact, we can consider ourselves lucky if it does not increase!   

To sum up: the increase in speed in telecommunications is an attractive and desirable development, especially in the mobile environment. But dreams and reality can end up far away from each other if we do not understand or if we ignore the ­peripheral conditions that exist. As in many other sectors, scarcity necessitates a particular level of responsibility in utilizing resources.  Technology can contribute to this philosophy, it is important to understand these opportunities and to use them correctly. This is not magic. The provision of broadband communications for all sectors remains a task for skilled craftsmanship which demands the use of the available transmission resources in a ­synergetic way. Provisioning these under reasonable economic aspects are political, regulatory and technical tasks. There is still much to do in this sense. Just as many different mechanisms must mesh together in technology if the optimal performance is to be obtained from a system, a broad range of common efforts in politics and business is required.   

Let us hope that the message is received.

1 DMR Access Networks of Tomorrow, 4/2007