Wireless and Mobile Commerce is the Brave New World of Business.

The events of September 11 illustrate the great impact of wireless communication on our lives, its possibilities and its challenges. Wireless and cellular services offer the promise to connect us to people and information from anywhere ­ even the epicenter of a disaster. Wireless applications range from locating people and products to videoconferencing, from teaching classes through streaming audio and video to participating in real-time auctions. In fact, the technologies to embed wireless devices in glasses, to use voice activation or biometric readings of the eye to access systems or to find locations with help of the global positioning system satellite are under development or already in use. However, many of these applications remain unavailable to most individuals because of cost and unappealing to businesses because of the bottom line.

In the wake of September 11, some of these applications will become mainstream, predicts Upkar Varshney, an expert on wireless telecommunications and assistant professor of computer information systems (CIS) in the Robinson College of Business. For example, two U.S. wireless providers already have put in place a system to give priority status to emergency personnel.

"No one expected September 11," Varshney says. However, in his work, which combines technical research and wireless applications, Varshney has come to expect the unexpected. "Technology has to be forward thinking and anticipatory to work," he explains. "Most technical research is very futuristic, even visionary. We are looking into the future to see what will be needed and how it can be done."

WIRELESS AROUND THE WORLD

No one needs a crystal ball to see that the wireless industry is expanding exponentially and rapidly. In the next 10 to 20 years, Varshney estimates that nearly everyone will have access to a mobile device. "You'll be able to go anywhere at any time and have access to your computer," he says.

Experts predict the number of mobile devices in use will top one billion in 2002, exceeding the total number of all other computing appliances. Out of a current world population of six billion, 800 million currently own a mobile device such as a Palm Pilot.

According to Varshney, the United States lags behind Europe and Japan by two to three years in the development of its wireless networks. "Our wired infrastructure is so good that wireless is an extension rather than a necessity for us," Varshney explains. By contrast, in heavily populated areas of continental Europe such as London, the waiting time for a wired line may take years whereas wireless service can be obtained quickly and inexpensively.

Another contributing factor to advances in wireless technologies in Europe and Asia is governmental investments in wireless infrastructures leading to establishment of a single standard. Governments in Scandinavia, Germany, Italy, France, Japan and elsewhere commonly own and regulate telecommunications companies, usually granting a license agreement to only one provider. The United States, on the other hand, has no generic protocol or standard. Competition and a variety of operating systems drive the eight or nine major service providers here, with U.S. consumers facing expensive costs to switch from one provider to another because of incompatible technologies.

Around the world, the ramifications for the growth of wireless communications are many, particularly for business. Wireless technology is making us more mobile for one thing, letting co-workers find us as easily in the cafeteria as at our desks ­ or, for that matter, as easily in Singapore as Atlanta. Wireless is also giving us more speed, increasing efficiency and productivity. And wireless is expanding the possibilities for making money, taking products from a local to a global marketplace and presenting us with an array of new applications. Mobile commerce, with all its possibilities and challenges, has become the next business frontier.

One study has estimated that the annual mobile commerce market may rise to $200 billion by 2004. Other figures put the amount of mobile commerce in Europe at $23.6 billion by 2003 while the total for the United States will be a much lower $3 billion.

BUT WHAT CAN IT DO?

The author of many papers on dependable wireless networks, mobile commerce, wireless multicast and other topics, Varshney can converse at length on 3G (third-generation wireless systems), WAP (wireless application protocol) and wireless LANs (local area networks). His background is technical, and he holds a MS degree in computer science and a doctorate in telecommunications and computer networking, both from the University of Missouri ­ Kansas City. However, when Varshney joined the Robinson faculty, the question he heard from students and other faculty was "how do we apply it?" rather than "how does it work?" Now, an important facet of Varshney's research focuses on developing and tracking new wireless applications.

One of the professor's favorite examples of a wireless application involves the hunt for a product. "Imagine you are in your car, and you want to find the nearest location and the best price for a 27 inch Sony television," he explains. "You can use your Palm Pilot or a similar device to send a query, and then and there find out which store at which location has what you want." The list of products and stores might also provide the distance from the user's location to the stores, and in the case of multiple vendors, the consumer might be able to bargain for instant discounts.

Location-based wireless services are not limited to products. Varshney is working on applications that could track people as well. "This application is my wife's dream," he says. "She calls me several times a day, asking, Where are you? What are you doing? With this application, she can see my location by tracking my Palm Pilot." The system must account for privacy concerns and allow users to block their movements if desired. However, once those issues are met, a program could be useful for tracking friends you hope to meet for lunch or for more serious occasions when emergency personnel need to pinpoint your exact location. Other emerging applications might help you choose a dining spot based on how crowded local restaurants are or locate a parking space in downtown lots.

Mobile inventory management, another emerging wireless application, tracks the location of goods, services and people to determine delivery times, improving customer service and enhancing a company's competitive edge. Shipping companies, airlines, assembly plants and supermarket chains could use rolling inventory management, where multiple trucks carry large amounts of inventory that companies could access for just-in-time delivery, thereby reducing inventory space and cost.

"Specifically, the system's wireless network would embed inexpensive radio-wave and microwave devices (chips) somewhere in the delivery truck to track goods," Varshney wrote in a recent issue of Computer. "Since satellite signals may not work well inside a truck, each vehicle would have a separate onboard wireless LAN for intra-truck communication and tracking."

Still other emerging wireless applications include mobile auctions for offering, selling and bidding on products and mobile entertainment services such as video or music on demand. For the mobile office, businesspeople could access traffic reports, airport information, and products and services. In the classroom, students could attend classes without ever leaving home through distance learning programs that use streaming audio and video to deliver course content.

For any of these developing applications to be put into practical everyday use, the wireless industry must build business and consumer trust, much of which depends on dependability and reliability.