New Opportunity for the Mobile Internet via IPv6 or v7?

One of the most interesting opportunities for mobile broadband is to better incorporate the mobility capabilities into new applications. In the last post, I discuss how mobile broadband is a platform to deliver value across the its 3 main capabilities: 1) Information processing 2) Information transfer 3) Mobility.

There is precedence for this. The PC was a platform for information processing. It delivered maximum value after the introduction of the killer application Visicalc (spreadsheets.) The Internet was a platform for information processing and transfer. It had two waves of diffusion. The first came when email or file transfer applications delivered increased value. The second came when the Internet delivered a new wave of value after the introduction of the killer applications Mosaic and Netscape (graphics based browsers.) Today, wireless broadband can be a platform for mobile information processing and transfer. We are still waiting to see what killer application will deliver value by taking advantage of all three capabilities. Location based services? Something else I haven't thought of?

I was reading an interesting article in the NY times today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/weekinreview/15markoff.html


There is all this new effort to design a new, more secure Internet - basically through new protocols like IPv6. Early indications seem to point to a future Internet where, in exchange for more security, we give up some of our anonymity. Bad news for the libertarian pioneers of the open internet (sorry Richard Stallman) but potentially good news for new emerging Internet technologies (you are welcome LTE and WiMAX.) New Internet protocols could standardize a platform incorporating mobility into the next iteration of the Internet applications. At this point, it sounds like mostly government and academic researchers are shaping the protocols. I wonder how long until AT&T, Clearwire, Intel and the other big stakeholders try to make their voices heard.