The 30th Annual International Symposium on Forecasting

IIF Telecom Forecasting Session

Presented by The International Institute of Forecasters

San Diego, California
June 20-23, 2010

Telecom Forecasting for the 2010s

Lawrence K. Vanston, Ph.D., President, Technology Futures, Inc. (TFI)

Presentation Outline:

The last 25 years provided us a rich environment for ITC/Telecom forecasting with seismic transitions in broadband, cellular telephony, wireless data, packet switching, fiber optics, HDTV, the Internet and so on. Now that the culmination of these transitions is in sight, is there anything new and exciting left to forecast besides the details?

Plenty. Dr. Vanston's short list includes

  • Wireline broadband beyond 100 Mb/s
  • The role of wireless broadband beyond 4G
  • Getting broadband to hard-to-reach areas
  • The future of Internet video and social media
  • 3D-TV
  • Device-to-device and people-to-device communications
  • ITC/Telecom applications to problems in energy, transportation, health care, etc.

Dr. Vanston provides several examples of previous telecommunications forecasting experience that can help forecast these developments:

  • TFI's experience in forecasting HDTV can help forecast 3D-TV adoption.
  • TFI's experience forecasting broadband speeds can apply to speeds beyond 100 Mb/s.
  • TFI's wireline vs. wireless forecasting experience may tell us something about their respective roles at higher speeds.

In this presentation, Dr. Vanston presents examples, ideas and preliminary results for some of these topics and draws some general lessons and conclusions.

Updates on the conference.