Edholm's law

Edholm's law, proposed by and named after Phil Edholm, refers to the observation that the three categories of telecommunication, namely wireless (mobile), nomadic (wireless without mobility) and wired networks (fixed), are in lockstep and gradually converging. Edholm's law also holds that data rates for these telecommunications categories increase on similar exponential curves, with the slower rates trailing the faster ones by a predictable time lag. Edholm's law predicts that the bandwidth and data rates double every 18 months, which has proven to be true since the 1970s. The trend is evident in the cases of Internet, cellular (mobile), wireless LAN and wireless personal area networks. Edholm's law was proposed by Phil Edholm of Nortel Networks. He observed that telecommunication bandwidth (including Internet access bandwidth) was doubling every 18 months, since the late 1970s through to the early 2000s. This is similar to Moore's law, which predicts an exponential rate of growth for transistor counts. He also found that there was a gradual convergence between wired (e.g. Ethernet), nomadic (e.g. modem and Wi-Fi) and wireless networks (e.g. cellular networks). The name "Edholm's law" was coined by his colleague, John H. Yoakum, who presented it at a 2004 Internet telephony press conference. Slower communications channels like cellphones and radio modems were predicted to eclipse the capacity of early Ethernet, due to developments in the standards known as UMTS and MIMO, which boosted bandwidth by maximizing antenna usage. Extrapolating forward indicates a convergence between the rates of nomadic and wireless technologies around 2030. In addition, wireless technology could end wireline communication if the cost of the latter's infrastructure remains high. In 2009, Renuka P. Jindal observed the bandwidths of online communication networks rising from bits per second to terabits per second, doubling every 18 months, as predicted by Edholm's law. Jindal identified the following three major underlying factors that have enabled the exponential growth of communication bandwidth.