Virtual Society: 2005

2005 was the year the world woke up to 3G. While CDMA2000-based 3G systems had been deployed by vendors such as KDDI (Japan), SK Telecom (South Korea), Sprint (USA) and Verizon Wireless (USA) for years, UMTS had long been delayed. Vodafone's 2004 launch of UMTS in Europe proved successful, and other mobile companies were quick to try to catch up. UMTS systems were deployed in most countries very quickly. CDMA2000 companies responded to the new preasure by deploying CDMA2000 1X-EV-DO, an even faster verrsion of the technology. Mergers continued in the industry as those who fell behind were swallowed by those companies which most successfully capitalized on the potential of these technologies. For customers, the competition meant prices quickly came down to affordable levels. The early, bulky UMTS handsets with poor battery life were quickly forgotten. New sleek, powerful handsets based on Symbian and Microsoft platforms came to market. Consumers began getting all sorts of information on their handsets. The ability to get email and web access on the go proved very popular. By the end of 2005, about one third of the market in developed countries was using 3G.

Some other technologies continued to grow in 2005. HDTV sets dropped in price and proved popular. More programming became available in HDTV. Digital Video Recorders like TiVo also grew in popularity. American cable and sattelite TV companies were offering these for free with new service. They also were beginning to appear outside North America. These devices further accelorated the convergance of television and the PC. Some people found ways to take programmes they had recorded on their DVRs and transfer them to their computers. As both devices were usually part of the same home network, this proved fairly easy to do. They then shared them on P2P services. Entertainment companies were outraged, and sued everyone they could find (DVR makers, cable companies, ISPs, individual users) but failed to stem the tide of media swapping. Despite lengthy download times, the ability to download HDTV quality video over the net proved popular.

Technology development continued to grow in India and China. Increasing immigration restrictions in Europe and America only hastened the pace of this shift. One of the more interesting products coming onto the market from these technology centres in 2005 was the first WiMax devices. However, the networks were still only present in a few cities and the costs very high. While an interesting technology, most people chose to embrace 3G and traditional 802.11 WiFi.