A new feature being added to the LTE protocol that smartphones use to communicate with cellular towers will make it possible to bypass those towers altogether. Phones will be able to “talk” directly to other mobile devices and to beacons located in shops and other businesses.
Known as LTE Direct, the wireless technology has a range of up to 500
meters, far more than either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It is included in
update to the LTE standard slated for approval this year, and devices
capable of LTE Direct could appear as soon as late 2015.
LTE Direct has been pioneered by Qualcomm, which has been working on
the technology for around seven years. At the mobile chip manufacturer’s
Uplinq conference
in San Francisco this month, it announced that it’s helping partners
including Facebook and Yahoo experiment with the technology.
Researchers are, for example, testing LTE Direct as a way to allow
smartphones to automatically discover nearby people, businesses, and
other information. Some see the technology as a potential new channel
for targeted promotions or advertising.
Despite its long range, LTE Direct uses relatively little power, so a
phone could be constantly looking for nearby devices without
significantly draining its battery life. A device with LTE Direct active
might discover other phones using the technology or communicate with
beacons—fixed devices installed in businesses or integrated into the
infrastructure of an airport or train station.
“You can think of LTE Direct as a sixth sense that is always aware of
the environment around you,” said Mahesh Makhijani, technical marketing
director at Qualcomm, at a session on the technology. “The world around
you is full of information, and the phone can use that to predict and
to help you in your everyday life.”
Beacons using LTE Direct could broadcast useful information as well
as special offers. A beacon installed in an airline check-in desk, for
instance, might offer information on delays to people nearby who are
booked on an affected flight.
Facebook is exploring how the technology could be used with its
mobile app. “LTE Direct would allow us to create user experiences around
serendipitous interactions with a local business or a friend nearby,”
said Jay Parikh, Facebook’s vice president of infrastructure
engineering. “You could find out about events or do impromptu meet-ups.”
LTE Direct can be used much like the iBeacons announced by Apple last
year, which retailers including Macy’s are testing as a way to track
and connect with shoppers’ mobile devices. However, iBeacon devices use
the Bluetooth protocol, which has a much shorter range, and which not
everyone leaves switched on.
Yahoo has also begun developing apps that use LTE Direct, says
Beverly Harrison, a principal scientist at Yahoo Labs. One is a kind of
digital tour guide. If you tell the app how long you have to spare, from
10 minutes to two hours, it will suggest a route past nearby points of
interest, drawing on online information about places detected using LTE
Direct. Harrison says Yahoo plans to start testing the app in January.
LTE Direct could also help smooth out the network glitches that occur
when large numbers of users are trying to connect to the same cell
tower. R/GA, an ad agency in
New York whose clients include Nike and Beats, is designing a system
that would use LTE Direct to serve up to a million people in or around
Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Roman Kalantari, a creative director at
RG/A, says LTE Direct is the only wireless technology that could keep
devices online under such conditions.
RG/A and a technology consultancy called Control Group
are also interested in using LTE Direct to serve targeted promotions. A
smartphone could use LTE Direct to signal to nearby businesses what
types of foods or products a customer is interested in so that it can
offer customized deals, says Kalantari. “The idea that every retailer
could be observing purchase intent is extraordinary valuable,” he says.
In theory, LTE Direct could be used to create communication apps that
route all data from device to device. Some chat apps can already use
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to link up nearby phones (see “The Latest Chat App for iPhone Needs No Internet Connection”),
but LTE Direct could offer extended range and better performance.
However, carriers will control which devices on their networks can use
LTE Direct because it uses the same radio spectrum as conventional
cellular links. Wireless carriers might even gain a new stream of
revenue by charging companies that want to offer services or apps using
the technology, Qualcomm says.
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