Anything that can be connected to the network, will be connected. Nortel calls this growing trend, and the innumerable possibilities
it offers,
hyperconnectivity.
hyperconnected services allow information to flow freely among people using all manner of connected devices. Since the communication in a hyperconnected network is so simple the machines will also exchange information among themselves and may also eliminate human intervention completely. With the number of mobile phones in use already nearing or exceeding 100 percent of the population, many countries are already in their early stages of hyperconnectivity. More recently, Informa reported that the world’s mobile operators operate three billion subscriptions -- but only have 2.3 billion subscribers. This situation, where the number of connected endpoints outstrips the number of people using them, is an essential part of hyperconnectivity since it is predicated on interaction between devices as well as humans. Nortel research indicates there may be as many as five billion devices connected to next-generation mobile networks by 2010. As this happens, the volume of machine-oriented traffic over the world’s networks will eventually surpass that of people-oriented traffic. With hyperconnectivity new interacytions among people and devices will improve the productivity of information workers; enable intelligent software agents to collate live data feeds, process and present them in a relevant context, and allow integration of a wide range of Web-based information services through tie-ins to evolving service oriented architectures (SOAs). Because they allow network services to be addressed in a standard way, Web service driven SOAs will be an essential part of the hyperconnected world. By linking the communications capabilities of the underlying network with applications running on that network, businesses and service providers can mix and match Web services into completely new applications without the burden of complete redevelopment. High speed metropolitan Ethernet services are already common in most large cities. And fourth-generation wireless technology (known as WiMAX), a major component of the hyperconnected world, is being deployed everywhere from India to Ireland, from Australia to Alaska, and from Taiwan to Trinidad and Tobago.