Telecommunication infrastructure deployment, in
contrast to the rest of the communication area, is a slow
and costly process, demanding a long-range strategic
perspective in decision making. Determining key issues
for strategic research in this area is thus very important.
This paper describes detailed work to that aim, within
the PCC project. The aim was to find possible scenarios
for the 4th Generation Wireless Infrastructures (4GW)
around year 2010 and to determine their implications on
the direction of research in wireless communications.
In this scenario work, a number of trends were created
based on the current state of technology, economy and
politics. These trends are verified by using Delphi
methods. Based on these trends and additional research,
three vivid scenarios are built, which picture different
ways the trends may develop, The scenarios are called:
"Big Brother Scenario", "Anything-Goes Scenario" and
"Pocket Computing Scenario". At the end, the paper
discusses the implications of the scenarios on the
wireless communication research areas. In particular, the
working assumptions and key research problems in each
work package in the 4th Generation Wireless
Infrastructure project are verified and prioritized
according to the scenarios.