Projecting the growth of cellular communications

The tremendous success of cellular technology has fundamentally changed the way people communicate and prompted the evolution of a new multibillion dollar wireless communications industry. Linking service areas, wireless communications has altered the way business is conducted. For instance, with a laptop computer, a PCMCIA modem and a cellular phone, a real estate agent can contact his or her office and clients, check sales listings and arrange appointments while traveling. Field service and sales people can, from customer locations, access corporate databases to check inventory status, prepare up-to-the-minute price and delivery quotes, and cut orders directly to the factory. Two-way paging services allow a firm's workforce to stay in close contact, even when traditional wired communication services are not available. Hand-held hybrids of phone-computer-fax machines feed information to wireless communication networks, allowing an executive to make decisions while watching a little league baseball game.