For the mobile phone there is seemingly no limit to its usefulness and capabilities. But its future will almost certainly centre around convergence. The mobile phone will still play a key part in the way we communicate but it will be in tandem with other devices such as laptop, palmtop or fixed line - and we'll choose. Convergence is the current communication industry buzz word - providing the solutions to meet people's needs as cost effectively as possible, by combining the best of fixed and the best of mobile.
The next main target in future mobile communications is the Universal Mobile Telephony System - UMTS - a third generation (3G) technology that will underpin full-function mobile multimedia networks based on broadband wireless technologies.
These could revolutionise telecommunications by placing Internet access right on your mobile - at 2Mbit/s - around 50 times faster than today's 56kbit/s modems. That would make video streaming of Internet content a real possibility, for instance.
Using a 3G device, Internet access could become almost instantaneous, without any gateway delays. The 3G user will be on the Net all the time, since the phone will be permanently connected (always on). An economic model for funding this lavish level of provision has yet to be devised, however, especially with operators having paid governments immense sums for their 3G licences and needing to invest billions of pounds more in new facilities and equipment.
If 3G proves too expensive, some networks may decide to provide mobile data service using General Packet Radio Services (GPRS). GPRS is also called 2.5G, because its capability falls halfway between the present GSM and the ultimate UMTS.
Like UMTS, GPRS will be 'always on' (permanently connected) with no need to wait to log on to the Internet - but initially speeds will be slow (about the same as a 28kbit/s modem).
However, enhanced modulation technologies such as Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) could increase network capacity and data rates up to 384kbit/s . That would allow operators without a 3G licence to offer similar data services - but much cheaper and more quickly.
'Bluetooth' is a way of using wireless to communicate data and voice over short distances of a few yards or so.
The protocol specifies how mobile phones, wireless devices, computers and PDAs interconnect with each other, with computers and with office or home telephones.
Using Bluetooth, for instance, all a user would need to carry would be a headset and keypad - these would be linked to the phone or other devices in a pocket or bag.
The first generation of Bluetooth devices exchange data at a rate of up to 1Mbit/s, regardless of possible interference. The system transmits and receives via a short-range radio link on frequencies set aside globally (the 2.4GHz licence-free band).
Every mobile phone network needs an infrastructure of masts, antennas and base stations to transmit and receive calls. Nobody knows exactly how many there are - but probably more than 35,000, supporting around 25 million mobiles, in the UK.
In 2002 there were around 40 million cell phones in use and by 2008 the operators expect just about everyone over the age of 12 (60 million people) to have one. At the same time GPRS and UMTS phones could be carrying huge amounts of data and pictures via the Internet, needing an even denser infrastructure of base stations and antenna towers.
Add in a separate emergency services mobile network and it adds up to the prospect of a spreading forest of masts and transmitters spoiling the countryside and cityscape, just as telegraph and telephone poles threatened to do in the 19th century.
But it may not happen. Antenna structures are becoming smaller and easier to conceal - and the operators are learning to share transmitter sites.
