The advent of a mobile, wireless, data-communications infrastructure marks a new phase of the Internet. The Internet was created to link networks of computers. These networks all ran over a communication infrastructure based on wires. Some people envisage a new "wireless Internet" developing alongside the wired Internet. We believe this is mistaken. We believe, on the contrary, that wireless technology will trigger a new generation of linked networks — including wireless and wired telephony, data, satellite, television (cable and broadcast) and radio communications. The combination of these networks creates a greater whole, which we term the "Supranet."

The key to the Supranet lies in linking the variety of communications networks — voice and data, TV and computer — which have to date been independent networks. This is more than a networking issue. User interactions that span these networks will be multimodal, involving many devices interacting in many ways.

Not only does wireless create the demand for multimodal multimedia interactions, but it also has sufficient economic force to precipitate this convergence, which has previously been forecast but has yet to materialize in a substantial way. The value of wireless immediacy to the user and the scale of vendors' investment are sufficient reasons to launch a new form of computing and communication infrastructure. This impetus will incorporate other media, such as voice and paper, which have only been loosely linked to the computing domain until now.

The Supranet Defined

Supranet is a Gartner term describing the emerging ubiquitous network infrastructure that links the "e-world" (electronic devices such as computers, phones, televisions and cameras) and the "p-world" (the physical world that includes paper, people, houses and vehicles). The Supranet is enabled by four key phenomena:

• Embedded computers in many everyday objects
• Next-generation wireless networking, providing global indoor and outdoor connectivity to the Internet
• Interfacing technologies enabling bidirectional communication between p-world and e-world components (e.g., barcode scanning, speech recognition and electronic identification)
• Design of applications that satisfy user needs in a natural way with combinations of media and devices

The impact of wireless data communications will be enormous. Next-generation wireless phones and connected personal digital assistants (PDAs) will support data and voice communications. Wireless data communication devices will outnumber PCs connected to the Internet by 2003 (0.9 probability). Many people accustomed to today's Internet assume these devices will provide a limited form of Internet experience.

The wired Web is characterized by high-bandwidth connections, large-format devices for output and input, and rich multimedia content. The wireless Web will have less bandwidth, typically small-format devices and limited content. While it will soon be much faster than today's 9.6/14.4Kbps connection, possibly reaching 256Kbps by 2005, the wireless Web remains a slower and limited version of the wired Web. On this view, the limitations of the wireless Web will be mitigated by immediacy and convenience of connection.

The Supranet perspective, on the other hand, suggests that few satisfying user experiences will be created using wireless access alone. People will use phones and other wireless connected-devices as part of a larger interaction. At minimum, this will involve setting up profile and interest data to make phone-based interaction viable; but much more substantially, we expect wireless access will be used in travel, financial, task management, entertainment and shopping applications as just one element of a broader user experience. Wireless interactions that are part of such larger user experiences will offer great power for users and suppliers; by themselves, such interactions will frequently lead to limited and frustrating experiences.

The key to this next stage of Internet evolution — incorporating wireless — will be the design of user experiences and the applications that underpin them. These experiences and supporting applications will encompass wired and wireless, and large and small format, going beyond just wire-based and wireless Web transactions. The mobile-wireless dimension of the Web will force a wider vision of the fundamental nature of the Web as an information and communication network.

More Than Wireless

With wireless (not only cellular, but also Bluetooth and radio LANs) plus scanning technologies, the connection of the Web to the physical world can dramatically expand, linking "sub-networks" not previously considered part of the Internet. The "papernet" — consisting of documents, books, postal mail and paper memos — has existed for hundreds of years. The voice telephony network is only 100 years old, but is also ubiquitous. Other extensions of the traditional Internet are evolving — the TV set-top box, the Internet phone and the Webcam. Wireless is the catalyst that will drive all this to a new set of integrated user experiences.

The integration of these networks will occur in many forms: unified messaging, voice portals, and output notified via one medium and delivered by another — e.g., driving directions requested from a phone will be returned by fax, short message system (SMS), map or voice instructions. The multiple media may be used alongside one another or linked in a series, as when a telephone call moves between the Internet (VoIP) and the switched telephone network. A more-advanced example is the idea of using a subchannel to deliver alerts to a screen phone while a call is in progress (e.g., advertising food and allowing an order to be placed while a lengthy call is in progress). Wireless has a special value in being able to create a thread of continuity in interactions because the wireless device removes the constraint of fixed location of a terminal. It also allows this flexibility of location to be used as a feature of the interaction, enabling services to be based on the user's current location.

The Supranet concept encompasses all these mechanisms for interconnectedness. Only this broad perspective will enable enterprises to create and deliver the mixed-mode user experiences that will be genuinely useful and compelling once the Web is untethered from the desktop. First-generation applications exploiting wireless Internet access attempt to stay within the wireless domain. Next-generation applications will expand to the Supranet.

Supranet Success

The key to successful design of Supranet applications will be to create a compelling and convenient composite from many elements. The platform for delivering these applications will combine wired and wireless, voice and data, paper and electronic media. This is not just a case of supporting people using mobile devices; machine interconnection becomes more important (e.g., buy a train ticket or a drink using the link from a phone to the vending machine, with the vending machine connected to the Internet by wire or wireless).

The development of location-conscious applications is a key feature of the Supranet. This capability, together with the potential ubiquity of access, is powerful but also threatening. The user experiences on the Supranet must consider privacy demands and user control of information-push to avoid a substantial backlash.

Accessing the Supranet

For a user, the Supranet is defined by the combination and integration of multiple modes of communication and by access via multiple devices. These devices will not only be PCs and phones. The user experiences we envision include use of cameras, music players, global positioning systems, cars and public facilities such as kiosks and wireless LANs. There will be no standard "Supranet terminal," but there will be a mix of devices, sometimes stand-alone and sometimes linked in temporary composites — with short-range wireless via Bluetooth and radio LANs (IEEE 802.11) playing a major role here.

This device diversity has substantial implications for the underlying network. Current communication architectures stovepipe communications. IP-based machines, voice telephony and mobile telephony are distinct at the transport level. The Supranet is more than the union of these otherwise independent systems. It requires creating architectures that genuinely link these stovepipes. These are just emerging via Bluetooth, Unified Messaging, JINI, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), VoiceXML and so on.

The point is not to add a mobile printer to a phone and extend the capabilities of that stovepipe, but it is to have an interaction (viewed from a user perspective) that uses a phone and a printer, which just happen to be nearby. This requires addressing and connectivity mechanisms that do not exist today. The early stages of this Supranet capability are already emerging in the form of ad hoc linkages. The bigger challenge is to create applications that truly have this multimodal, multichannel character. Most of the early experiments are terrible, but they will not stop the attraction of wireless. The immediacy of wireless technology is too great.

The Supranet Requires Global-Class Computing

We have previously described the evolution of Internet computing platforms from enterprise class to global class (see Research Note COM-10-1234, "Global Class Blows the Walls Off the E-Business Enterprise"). The computing and telecommunication infrastructure to support the Supranet will be a major driver for global-class computing. Global-class computing deals with the complexities of systems, business and people interactions that result from ubiquitous and heterogeneous Internet usage. The transition of the Internet to a pervasive infrastructure goes hand-in-hand with its becoming a utility, as it takes on the same character as the voice telephone system. This ubiquity and pervasiveness are essential to incorporating the Internet infrastructure into the fabric of the business "ecosystem" rather than its continued existence as a technology supporting specific business projects. Global-class computing is a requirement for the Supranet to succeed.

Illustrations and Examples

The Supranet is not a specific artifact that will arrive on a certain date. Some applications already represent an early manifestation of this vision, albeit assembled on an ad hoc basis. Examples are:

• Voice calling from PC to PTT telephone

• Message sent by e-mail and delivered as postal mail

• Information requested via a voice telephone call and returned by fax

• Availability of a special price notified via Web and purchase transaction committed via WAP

• Take a photograph with a digital camera, call your grandmother from a mobile phone, tell her to turn on her TV to see the picture just taken. She then goes to a photo shop, points her mobile phone at a machine and it prints a copy of the picture. She receives a message from her bank saying there was no charge to her, it had been billed to her grandson.

• Your daughter calls from a foreign country where she has run out of money. She goes to an automated teller machine (ATM) and calls you on a mobile phone. You authorize a cash withdrawal, and the ATM dispenses the cash to your daughter.

• You need driving directions. From your mobile phone in your car, you request a route from a menu selection. The response indicates your expected destination based on your current schedule. You indicate you need a different entry (due to a delay), and the system asks you to confirm your current location. Directions are sent to your car and spoken, via interruption to the radio program you are listening to, as needed based on your progress.

The vision described here is being articulated in part from many sources, and many vendors see huge opportunities in realizing it. Indeed, many vendors — in particular those supplying infrastructure in the form of chips, networks and software platforms — have an important role in creating the Supranet. However, the fundamental challenge of the Supranet is to create coherent, useful and satisfying experiences for users. The primary drivers of this new phase of the Internet will not be technology vendors, but will be the enterprises supplying goods and services that must create new forms of interaction with their customers and clients. The challenges of the first wave of Internet-based e-commerce are limited in comparison with the Supranet.

Bottom Line: Enterprises that recognize the opportunity and challenge presented by the Supranet will participate in the next major phase of the Internet as a global-class computing phenomenon. Those that treat wireless access to the Internet as just another terminal device and protocol set to worry about will be left far behind, just as those that thought the Internet was not relevant to their industry or community. Enterprises planning investments in wireless Internet projects should rescope these as Supranet projects, accounting for incorporating better multimodal and multidevice user interactions.

Gartner's Internet Strategies Commentary COM-11-4853, 11 September 2000.

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