MOCOM 2020 is a non-profit initiative that analyzes the projections regarding the future of the cellphone industry. These projections are based on studies involving the international public and they reveal the way that the cellphone biz has evolved since its birth till now.
Here’s a short lesson of history and a prediction for the following 11 years, in the mobile phone industry:
Some of you might know that it all started back in 1906, when the first patent for wireless phones was approved in the US and only in 1973 a phone call was made in New York, using a mobile device. Two years later, the first mobile handset was shown in Tokyo and in 1982 Nokia also showed the world its first portable phone.
Fast forward to 1991, when the first GSM network started its operations, in Finland and then we leap to 1998, the year when the first content was delivered on a mobile phone. Mobile email went live in 1999, thanks to Blackberries, while in 2001, the first 3G network started operations in Japan. Then there was the iPhone, launched in 2007 and statistics showed that there were 3 billion mobile phone users in the world that year.
In 2008, there were 1 billion people who were able to access the Internet, 600 million of them with the aid of a mobile phone. In 2009 Facebook reaches 200 million users, while Twitter becomes a mass phenomenon and mobile phones get 4 billion adopters. Now we enter the phase of the MOCOM 2020 predictions, revealing that in 2010 online and offline media will become one, while in 2011 the GPS, ambient lighting and many other sensors will use a single chip.
In 2012, there will be no less than 1 trillion interconnected devices and a very strong M2M (machine to machine) communication, while 2013 will be the year of mobile broadband, reaching 15 Mb/s. 2014 will see the third world countries reaching a phone penetration rate of 75%, as for 2015, it will mark the era of mobile payments becoming a standard.
In 2016, New York Times will quit using paper and they’ll deliver the first E-paper at the price of 1 dollar. Mobile media will reach its peak in 2017 and it’ll also be the year when instant translation technology enters use. 2018 and 2019 will be all about security innovations, privacy protection, control of access to certain services and phone owner location detection.
Finally, in the long awaited year 2020, we’ll reach an international interactivity between all devices and users, so everyone will be interconnected through mobile handsets, having constant access to online services. Does the future sound good to you? Too good?
[via YouTube]
