Here we are at the end of the first year (OK, end of year zero for those of us with neurotic tendencies) of the new millennium. It seems like only yesterday I was feverishly making plans to find a New Year's millennium party like no other (just in case the doomsayers were right - I did, they weren't). Now it's the end of another year and it's time for me to take a look into the proverbial crystal ball. Maybe I'll call up my 20/20 hindsight as well.

This month I'd like to look about 20 years ahead. Why 20 years? Mainly because I should still be around and lucid, and able to look back and see how well, or poorly, I scored.

Well, almost - I have to admit, I'm getting a bit impatient. For the last few years, I've been inundated with tempting technology and devices that are supposed to bring 3G and beyond to the masses (any day now). I've written about it, dismissed it, exalted it and even believed it. And almost every press release I get now a days, starts out with something like "Fueled by the telecommunications industry's exploding growth and demand for next-generation technology" or "X, Y, Z platform to exponentially foster omnifarious wireless connectivity." Yet, for all of the hype, pomp and circumstance, I have yet to see an infrastructure-supported device with more than an advanced messaging format or barely more than basic voice or simple data.

Attend any high-tech trade show and there is no shortage of "wannabe" NG devices. For example, Motorola has developed a new line of TLA (three-letter acronym) devices called personal interactive communicators (PICs). These devices have roughly a pager-footprint with a lighted QWERTY keyboard that allows you to send and receive full text messages from other pagers, telephones and via email.

Recently, Sony has announced a new Walkman-type device, called "Airboard" that connects wirelessly to a base-station that will enable in-house/yard mobile television watching, e-mail checking, and Web surfing. Both are neat, but hardly earthshaking advances.

OK, I'm still waiting for the wireless explosion. I'm all for creating the market if that's what it takes, but that doesn't seem to be happening. It's fairly easy for manufacturers to come out with products that offer new features into morphed devices, but without a common infrastructure or platform, they are just so much wireless junk.

Devices based on Bluetooth are rare, finding them in service is even rarer. The same goes for WAP. There does seem to be movement in the deployment of the 802.11 wireless networking platforms, but nothing to write home about. If memory serves me correctly, by 2001 there was supposed to be a wide-scale deployment of some of these platforms.

Remember the dot-coms? - You'd have to have been one of the players on Survivor and stayed on the island way too long to have missed the bloodletting of the dot-coms earlier this year. I hate to say it, but it was about time. I can't recall as much empty hype about anything (except maybe cold fusion) as there was in the dot-coms a few years, or even a few months, ago. The dot-com market blew, because the hype finally wore off, and the substance just wasn't there. I'm getting a bad feeling that the wireless industry may face some of the same issues. Of course, there isn't going to be the massive deflation of the industry as was seen with the dot-coms, but I believe that if we don't start seeing faster movement and a congealed infrastructure, we could lose momentum and see some economic carnage within the industry. Either I just don't have a grip on economics or it seems just plain foolish to me that the wireless industry isn't willing to see the potential wealth in the ubiquity of the deployment of NG wireless "computeradios" on a cooperative basis.

So what can we expect to see in the next 20 years? Well, here are what might be editorial heads for future November issues.

In the year 2005 - The first few years of the 21 superscript st Century were a technological battleground - major players slugging it out for market dominance; proprietary platforms abound. In 2005, the U.S. government finally got its frequency act together and opened up the spectrum for wide-scale deployment of digital-coded transmission devices that have been chomping at the bit for bandwidth. Everyone from 150 MHz up is happy.

The industry finally started to build the infrastructure to support 100% digital 24/7 geographic coverage (low-earth orbit satellites, or LEOs for short, finally find a home, despite Iridium) that was promised in the late 1990's. But still the battles rage for platform dominance.

By 2010 - The consumer finally got behind the wireless internetworking concept, en masse. The vast amounts of memory and storage that are required for voice recognition and holographic images is finally made available due to the development of molecular DNA-based computers running at hundreds of exahertz, with petabytes of memory in a three-dimensional DNA model. It became all voice and images - the simplicity that the consumer has been waiting for since the first bit hit the road.

By 2015 - The Internet finally has the bandwidth to serve as the common platform for worldwide interconnect (Microsoft. . . who?).

And by 2020 - Finally... it all works together seamlessly. And the new integrated industry juggernaut, currently under investigation for monopolistic practices,is a small Silicon Valley 2001 startup company called: