...Webb sees speech recognition coming of age, but not on the device itself. "Your device, even if you're sending a command to it, may send that command as an analogue waveform off to the network, where a network processor works out what you said and sends it back to the device in text form or some machine-language form," he says, reasoning that this would enable both faster processing and easier updating of the central database if, for example, a new word came into widespread usage.
On the display front, Webb reckons we will see "large touchscreens that have a bit more intelligence behind them and are a lot more predictive".
"Potentially this brings great benefits, because if your mobile device can communicate with other devices in your home then it can become the one remote control for everything, and you don't need to learn, for example, how to reprogram a timer that you're using to turn the lights on and off. Your mobile phone will talk to the timer and work out its particular mode of operation and what to send it."
These smart homes form part of Webb's other big prediction — a surge in the use of Wi-Fi-based mesh networks, combined with small sensors. "We'll see home automation gradually happen over time," he says. "Some will be security sensors, some will be temperature sensors, some will be machines that have these built in and just mesh among themselves in the home and send the information back."
Webb even suggests that this sort of domestic upgrade could help realise Gordon Brown's recently stated vision of new builds being "zero-carbon". "There's potential for wireless to be helpful there because if you can coordinate the use of everything in the home that uses electricity, then you can start to automate that in an intelligent fashion," he argues. "So you can have clever systems that detect that there's nobody in the house and change the heating appropriately or whatever, to be more energy efficient."
The rise of mesh was one Webb prediction that crossed over into the remit of his job at Ofcom, where he takes a leading role in the regulator's research and development (R&D). It was this work that recently saw Ofcom announcing great potential not only for mesh networking, but also for dynamic spectrum access (DSA), a system whereby handsets would be able to automatically receive pricing information from a variety of wireless network types and choose which was cheapest or most efficient to use at the time.
Webb agrees it is somewhat ambitious to expect operators to play along with such a scheme, but insists that what Ofcom has done "is just to try and show that technically it is possible, to allow the subsequent commercial debate to start to happen, if indeed it should happen". If the operators ignore Ofcom's work, there is nothing the regulator can do except ask why. However, says Webb, if a new entrant to the wireless market ("Tesco or AOL or someone like that") finds themselves blocked by other operators from taking up DSA, then Ofcom might be able to step in on the basis of competition law.
It could be said that this demonstrates a central dilemma for the regulator as a whole. One focus of its R&D is to anticipate emerging technologies "before the lack of regulation starts to impact the ability to innovate" — ultrawideband being a case in point. However, the other focus — and a big reason why the Treasury funds this sort of R&D — is to make the use of spectrum more efficient.
Hence, while DSA has great potential to do this, Ofcom still cannot force it on the market. "Everybody would benefit" and "the Treasury would effectively get payback on their investment" (Ofcom argues that spectrum usage contributes 3 percent of the UK's GDP), but Ofcom also needs to avoid competing with industry's research, or effectively funding the research of any particular company. Instead, Webb argues, Ofcom's work on DSA is "blue sky" thinking which it hopes will "stimulate some downstream industry activities".
"For example, with cognitive radio, we wouldn't do that kind of research. We have done research in cognitive radio, but what we're doing there is more a kind of review of what is happening across the whole research space, in order to inform our policymaking," Webb says.
Either way, Webb and his research team at Ofcom are currently awaiting news on whether their spectrum efficiency work will continue to be funded by the Treasury. "Our research for five subsequent years is not guaranteed," he says.
"Our view is, that is very valuable work that generates benefits well in excess of its cost, but the final decision will rest with the Treasury on this one."
