by Angela Guess

According to a new press release, “Today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that it will invest more than $400 million over the next seven years to support fundamental wireless research and to develop platforms for advanced wireless research in support of the White House’s Advanced Wireless Research Initiative. These investments will support the research community in experimenting with and testing novel technologies, applications and services capable of making wireless communication faster, smarter, more responsive and more robust.”

The release continues, “In the last decade, wireless usage across the U.S. has expanded dramatically, with nearly 350 million smartphones, connected tablets and wearable devices in use — more than double the number from a decade ago — carrying more than 100,000 times the traffic they supported in 2008. Experts anticipate as many as 200 billion connected devices globally by 2020. The need for ultra-high-speed, high-bandwidth and low-latency (rapid-response) wireless connectivity will only increase.”

NSF Director France Córdova commented, “NSF is a leader in catalyzing and supporting our nation’s academic research community to advance scientific discovery and innovation… In the area of computer networking and communication, NSF has nurtured communities of researchers, experimenters and developers from the very beginning. The efforts of the Advanced Wireless Research Initiative will continue this progress and have profound implications for science and society in the years to come.”

Read more at NSF.gov.

Photo credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University