Cell phones should be simple, says inventor

BOSTON: He invented the cell phone more than 35 years back. And ever since the revolutionary invention, the wireless world underwent many changes, redefining the concept of communication.

But Dr. Martin Cooper, the father of the invention called cell phone, is not happy with all these advents. He thinks the wireless industry has many problems and complexities and offers solutions to overcome it.

While delivering the keynote address at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston recently, the inventor of cell phone pointed out five problems of the wireless industry.

While noting that the cell phone and wireless connectivity have made us mobile and changed the way we think, Dr Cooper said though the vast majority of conversations happen indoors the base stations are outdoors, thus wasting power and impeding bandwidth reuse.

He said this issue can be tackled by the use of femtocells and microcells installed in buildings.

Cooper said the technology known as multi-antennae signal processing, or ‘smart antennas’ would be helpful and with this a cell tower could calculate a user's position and focus its signal in that direction.

He said the mindset of cell phone industry's service providers is a holdover from the days of AT&T and wired phones, providing a "walled garden", which according to him impedes innovation and makes the customer adapt to the product, instead of vice versa.

According to him, the progress of the mobile industry has been blocked by "upside down" and "backward" practices. He said we need open methods where different devices can be connected, not beholden to the service provider.

However, he said things are changing and carriers and software developers are slowly becoming more open. He pointed to the announcement of Verizon about the plans to open its network to outside devices and applications.

Cooper also pointed to Android operating system from Google as an example of the sort of open operating system that would allow for the full potential of wireless devices. However, he severely criticized smart phones that Android runs on and also the trendy iPhone for its complexity.

The trend towards a combination-function, universal handset that does voice, video, music, data, and more burden both the handset designer and the end-user, and the product doesn't do any of these really well.

Pointing out the necessity of user-friendliness and simplicity, he cited the example of the ultra-simple Jitterbug cell phone he carries -  a basic cell phone, no menus, no camera, simple keys for each of its few functions.

"Good technology is transparent; the best technology is invisible," the father of the cell phone reminded the designers.

How do you react to the observations of the cell phone inventor about the concept of simplicity of the gadget?