Affordable multiservice wireless networks - research challenges for the next decade

What the consumer of telecommunication services of tomorrow will expect to receive besides some vague notion of "wireless Internet" is not that clear. However, to obtain a widespread demand for wireless services, they have to be widely available, simple to purchase and access. Affordability and adaptation to user requirements, rather then revolutionary higher performance, will be the key design features of future wireless access systems. In this paper we briefly analyze the key cost drivers and discuss some architectural concepts for affordable wireless infrastructures. Some research directions & challenges for the next decade are outlined.