The communications industry is striving to make the transition from proprietary solutions to standard modular communications. The overriding aim is to fulfil the promise of a wireless world.

Yet to do this, all comms players must work together to ensure all devices converge. If they fail to do so, the very future of wireless will be jeopardised.

After all, what's the point in owning a mobile device if you can't get the applications or services you want to run on it?

This means that the development and deployment of wireless devices, applications and services needs to be carried out within a framework of pre-agreed and highly robust standards.

Marketing programmes also need to be jointly developed and technical assistance needs to be offered across the board to improve user experience.

It's by developing and adopting a truly interconnected, standardised world that the communications mobile ecosystem will improve product offerings and user experience, and ultimately result in the pervasive adoption of wireless communications.

At the moment, although we have PDAs, for example, they don't allow us to send large files and carry out all business functions while on the move.

Similarly, even the slimmest of laptops is still too bulky to allow true mobility. And that's without the continuing problem of slimming down on battery size while maintaining performance for long periods of time.

In essence, although the mobile ecosystem is striving towards a genuinely converged world, true mobility is still a thing of the future.

However, we are fast approaching that future. Moore's Law has driven cheap, powerful and pervasive processing power, which has found its way into servers, PCs, notebooks, PDAs, phones, network processors and the heart of telecoms infrastructure. At the same time, the construction of wireless communications has boomed.

This means that intelligent computing, ubiquitous communications and intuitive interfaces already exist. In addition, telecoms infrastructures and open, accessible standards and platforms are also in place to make convergence possible.

Now the telecoms industry is making use of, and adding to, this situation. A number of technology developments are set to have a very positive domino effect on the mobile ecosystem.

For example, the new IEEE 802.16 standard, more commonly known as WiMAX, will provide wide-radius, high-bandwidth wireless coverage, solving many of the existing challenges of broadband provision.

Then there's Edge, an emerging technology that sends and receives data two to three times faster than today's GSM/GPRS (2.5G) networks, making higher-quality multimedia and other applications a reality for mobile phone users.

And of course, everyone's aware of the imminent rollout of third-generation (3G) networks across Europe.

It will also be important for the ecosystem to develop relevant, user-friendly applications and devices, or technological advances will be wasted. We need to learn from mobile ecosystem disappointments such as the well-documented demise of Wap, to ensure that what goes to market is wanted and needed.

Take 3G. A number of small businesses are starting to use it, but not because 3G phones make wireless video possible. Instead, they are making use of the effective data capabilities of the standard, and in particular the Qwerty handsets that can be found on many 3G devices.

From the consumer perspective, it will be the gaming function that will propel mass-market adoption of 3G, rather than the possibility of speaking to friends 'face-to-face' over the phone.

Researching exactly what the market wants will take the mobile ecosystem a long way towards the realisation of a wireless world.

So what's in store for the mobile ecosystem? Soon it will bring about ubiquitous wireless access for businesses and consumers alike.

We'll be able to connect the requisite devices to the requisite networks at the requisite speeds, to do the job we want where we want and when we want.

Ultimately, the mobile ecosystem will allow all users from all walks of life to make their own choices about the way they communicate.

Alex Ward is a wireless product marketing engineer at Intel UK.