Wendell Bishop

In the stuff of futuristic dreams, the videophone once ranked alongside the flying jet car as exciting inventions that would change our lives someday. Yet to the quiet disappointment of those whose youthful imaginations were stoked by such ideas decades back (myself included), neither creation had come to pass by the new millennium. So in a slow economy, why should visions of something like wireless mobile video be dancing in anyone's head? Start with these reasons: the potential for demand and the necessity for return on investment. Two huge developments - one ongoing, one new - provide reason to sit up and take notice. The first, subscriber uptake in mobile communications services, has been climbing steadily for years. The research firm Yankee Group predicts the worldwide penetration rate for wireless subscribership will reach 21% in 2006. Yankee further projects ... (more)