In the following pages, we learn about the crowded 802.11 spaces, finding niches in the enterprise markets and exploring the next “killer app” in the wireless space. “Mobility,” cries the market, and mobility is what it gets. Do the market really need it? Why does the software geek take a break and go to the Starbucks? To continue working on his company’s project, of course! Now that we have created this anxiety about losing touch, the need to be always connected is of paramount pain in the enterprise. As long as people are connected, they will work. Of course, we need mobility. It empowers us. In the enterprise lies unspent budgets that could be lured into implementing these “empowering” solutions. Once the enterprise employees are always “on,” they are always profitable. Does this ring familiar?

A few months ago, Vocera, a mobile solutions company established a voice-driven data application for a hospital and has won kudos for the “benefits” it has delivered to the organization. This set off a train of thought. Who really needs mobile “empowering”? It may sound like a blinding flash of the obvious, but doesn’t the word “mobility” imply that it is a solution for the “immobile”? Technology’s blinkered vision is not uncommon. Examples of this abound. When the first telephones were introduced, they were probably not of great concern to people who were deaf. However, when the telephone came to dominate personal and commercial communications, the effect was devastating.

Gaining access to early, text based, computer systems were relatively straightforward for blind people. Therefore, they enjoyed enhanced access to print, communications and to new opportunities for employment. Then, when the graphical user interface became the office standard for personal computers, it severely threatened all of this progress.

As the number of users has increased, the problems of accessibility to wireless telecommunications for people with certain kinds of disabilities have raised concern. For example, most analog cellular telephones are not hearing-aid compatible (HAC) and their acoustic output is often lower than that of an ordinary wireline telephone. The fact that wireless telephones often do not couple well to the ear sometimes exacerbates this problem of low acoustic output, causing further losses of acoustic energy. Moreover, most cellular telephones do not couple acoustically to text telephones (TTY) widely used by the deaf and many do not have jacks to allow direct connection to TTY devices.

In current-generation digital cellular telephones, the situation is even more serious. Like all two-way wireless communications devices, these telephones radiate (transmit) electromagnetic fields —otherwise they would be unable to fulfill their intended purpose. However, in many implementations of this advanced digital technology, these transmissions occur as a regular series of bursts that are heard as a buzz in nearby hearing aids. These same electromagnetic fields can also render useless the telecoils that are placed in hearing aids to allow users to access ordinary telephone handsets. Depending on the type of hearing aid worn by the user and other factors, this interference may be picked up several feet away from the cellular telephone that is in use. Furthermore, and somewhat ironically, because these new digital cellular systems are primarily optimized for the transmission of the human voice, they cannot be used to transmit TTY signals.

The rapid evolution of wireless telecommunications systems and devices is significant to people with disabilities for at least two reasons. On the one hand, the evolution (some would say revolution) holds out particular promise because it can enhance both mobility and communications, two functions that are often challenging for people with disabilities. On the other hand, experience has shown that if these wireless systems and standards are not designed, developed and fabricated to be accessible to—and usable by—individuals with disabilities, then, as they become more pervasive, people with disabilities will become isolated rather than empowered.

Wireless will happen. Slowly, but surely. The Internet took ten years to get in place, before we officially called the period “a boom.” But this time, we are all doing business rather carefully. Romance with technology has not blinded us to hard dollars that are tagged to it. In this, it would be a wonderful window for all the standards-engineers (like my friend Rajeev Krishnamoorthy who now heads TZero Technologies) and inventors to think about the people who truly need to be “empowered.”

The other factor to be considered is to leave your employees alone. They have enough troubles in meeting ever rising expectations, with ever shortening budgets, and tracing out almost invisible gateways to the pot of gold at the end of your rainbow. You really don’t want to invade their privacy and push them to work on all days and hours of the week. The last month CIO panel brought home another truth: many of the CIOs did not need your wireless solution. They were happy as it is, and were in fact troubled with their Blackberrys.

Waiting for a flight at the airport? Whip out your book (oh, yes! that old fashioned medium) and read it. You will help dozens of authors out of debt, who can write another dozen engrossing novels before your next flight. Wound up at the hotel with free high speed Internet? Shut your laptop, take out your pen and write out the 10 things you always wanted to do—on the hotel stationary. Catch your flight home tomorrow, pack a bag, and go away. Your emails will wait. Safe at the office.