Exploring the power of 4G
I moderated a panel at this event organized by the Northern Virginia Tech Council (NVTC). The panel was nicely balanced between the Telcos and users. After an initial discussion about what is 4G, the discussion focused on what applications does the audience see enabled by 4G. Most of the discussion was focused on new applications for mobile, not essentially requiring 4G.

Here is a short list of some of the ideas that came up:

• Mobile Payments
• Viewing mobile invoices on handsets
• Real-time translation of conversation from one language to another
• Better usage statistics captured by the network
• Faster delivery of analytics and visualization of data for better decision making
  
• etc.

Video Conferencing Demo: The session ended by Dr Andy Barbash, Head of Neurology at Holy Cross Hospital setting up a live video conference with 5 of his colleagues from across the country. The quality was choppy at times but one can see the mobile bandwidth is rising to a level where mobile video-conferencing will soon be a reality.

We also discussed the need for standards for application and data portability on smart phones.

Overall, it was a very interesting discussion.