Australia’s premiere Information and Communications Technology event, CeBIT, opened with a distinctly wireless flavour.

The organiser's choice of a distinctly mobile celebrity speaker confirms mobility has become a key driver in the Australian industry.

Almost every one of the 700 plus stands at CeBIT has at least one aspect of mobility, whether it’s the traditional mobile devices, wireless connectivity options, or remote access to business and enterprise applications.

The opening ceremony even featured the mobile world heavily with organiser Hanover Fairs Managing Director Jackie Taranto introducing a mobile phone pioneer Professor Joe McGeehan from Bristol University.

A pioneering researched credited with key aspects of mobile phone development and named one of the top ten inventors in the world, McGeehan will speak at CeBit Wednesday on future wireless developments.

Speaking at the event's opening ceremony in response to talk about the industry being in the doldrums since the dotcom crash, McGeehan said: "To me it has been somewhat disappointing that some have been negative about [the ICT] sector. I have never thought that and I never will."

McGeehan spoke about the pioneering R&D that happens in Australia pointing out that the multi-antenna technology built into the next generation wireless technology 802.11n depends on key research done in Australia.

And while most of the industry is talking about 802.11n, HSPDA GSM, WiMax and UWB, the Professor is looking well down the track.

"That's now, how about the future," he said. "Is anything left to be done?"
McGeehan feels there's much that can be done to enhance mobility. He spoke about the industry being at the beginning of a journey rather than arriving at a destination.

A long time ago I began thinking about a radio that no matter where you were in the world it would work, he said. Such a device would sense what services are available in a particular place and configure itself to take best advantage of the services and spectrum available.

Today we talk a lot about convergence and that is very difficult task to achieve, but when you talk about cognitive radio the challenge grows so much larger he said.

That is going to require a great deal of work from different technical areas with very different cultures, he explained.

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