It was lunch time. I took a walk down the Helsinki center, and for a moment stopped to just look and think. Pressing the button to make my camera record the moment, I thought about how would a technology like 4G change our city?

People, traffic signs, rails, concrete, smiles, curiosity, tourists, shops, signs, ads, and birds. Objects either being stationary or moving about in the sweet city porridge. What essentially the 4G technology brings is more power to consume information. It enables people to use much more powerful mobile services in the blink of an eye. Of course it remains to be seen how the implementation takes place, and whether there are technical problems with bandwidth quality or other factors. The history tells us that at first, yes. But in the long run, the diamond will be polished.

What services, you ask! A simple thing and a good example is the map. You know that tourists
are always being picked up from crowds since they wave biig paper maps in front of them. It is a good appliance, in fact. Nothing so far beats the legibility of the traditional map. Yet it contains always outdated information: once you’ve printed it out, the
data stays there. It doesn’t reflect changes in the real environment anymore. Now electronic maps are completely different. They excel at providing up-to-date information.
They point you into interesting POIs, they show you experiences other people have had.
You can check out even pricing and contact information from an electronic map.

As cellulars have become computer-like, they require updates. I was walking today
the last 500m to work, and trying to update my phone’s application. It took too much
time and trouble, so I didn’t manage to do it eventually. With the expected increase
of 30..100 x current speeds, updating a program should be very easy.

But the real question is, will people benefit from the technology? It does give out
all the keys for improved user experience including better speeds. It remains to be
seen. I sure keep my thumbs up for this technology.