What if tomorrow they turn off cellular communication?

Attention! This is not a topic about survival in a fallen meteorite, a revolution or a sharp warming to plus forty thousand degrees. Just let's take the latest report on the mobile market and try to present a situation on its basis, what will happen if the connection just takes and disappears. It is clear that such a selective extinction is impossible, but it will serve as a good illustration of what cellular communication now means for the market.

Panic

In the early days, there was panic and confusion: first, a third of the population experienced wild stress about the lack of a telephone, to which everyone was accustomed. It is easiest for the elderly, and the generation of 30-year-olds to take it: the former do not always understand why they need cellular communications, the latter remember the world without mobile phones. The hardest thing will have young people, since childhood, perceive the world so that you can contact anyone. Residents of large cities are understandably more upset than residents, such as villages. Dozens of dissertations about abstinence syndrome will be written.

Walkie talkies

Immediately after the fall of the network, demand for radios will rise sharply. Most likely, in the first days the prices will be wildly bullying, but later, after a month or two, productive Chinese help out all the suffering. First of all, radios will be bought for business: you need to somehow coordinate the employees. Parents, too, will not stand aside: it is still difficult for them to imagine how a child can reach a school without communication. Young people instead of “shut up” will say “free the channel” even in personal communication.
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City phones

A seemingly forgotten fixed connection will begin to develop again. Lines for connecting a home phone line up, most likely - private telephony companies appear. The role of home computers as a means of communication will immediately grow: messages on social networks partially replace the call, Skype’s traffic is growing strongly, and it is possible that local chats and city forums come to life. Gradually, the communication function falls on the computer to the same extent as a fixed telephone. At the same time, a large number of people leaving social networks leave for them only through the mobile Internet.

Wi-Fi

New cafes with Wi-Fi are opening on the streets, perhaps - Wi-Fi-poles and automatic machines are appearing. Later on in the elite restaurants, tablets are served for guests along with dessert. Food and communication are almost synonymous.

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The number of accidents with a negative outcome is sharply increasing: after all, mobile communication is a means of calling rescuers or an ambulance. Security agencies are starting a wide sale of alarm buttons with a radio channel to individuals.

In regions with a high risk of hurricane, earthquakes, tsunamis or other problems, loudspeakers are installed on the streets - so as not to walk twice, in most cases, right on the former places of cellular antennas.

Network replacements

Someone is centrally trying to deploy Wi-Fi-networks (first, peer-to-peer, later - with a large infrastructure). At the same time, attempts are being made to revive the paging connection. Fixed-line operators introduce automatic forwarding of calls to different numbers on a schedule: in the morning the call gets home, in the afternoon - to the office. Calls with a request to change call forwarding are the most frequent cases of contacting technical support (developed web applications help advanced ones, the rest routinely call support). Not one at a time, but two or three lines in the regions are coming up to the apartment house so that the household could also talk. In megacities easier - the voice has long been through IP.

"Carcasses" of phones

"Green" in a panic: you have to recycle a bunch of equipment and 290 million phones. Fortunately, it quickly turns out that about half of the phones no one is going to throw away: it’s at least a clock, and in general a mini-tablet, player, alarm clock and other devices. Manufacturers of watches, music players and radio quietly happy. Cellular salons are closed or quickly retrain. Like mushrooms grow startups “let's turn cell into fashionable”, “buy your battery”. From the cell they begin to do everything for the house: DIY materials appear in the spirit of the Vogue player and a plastic bottle named after Bakhmetyev.

Tablet makers understand that the market for mobile devices is theirs: after all, now you don’t need to carry a device in your pocket, you can also shift it into a bag. In broad everyday use, models are worn on the forearm.

Global implications are calculated:

• GDP will fall by 4.9% - this is the level of the contribution of the mobile communications market to Russia's GDP.
• By the end of the year, 240 billion rubles in taxes will be lost . For comparison, the volume of taxes of Russian Railways amounted to 253 billion rubles in 2010.
• 450,000 people will be unemployed (directly and indirectly). This is the economically active population of a fairly large city. Some of them will work in new areas (for example, hanging up the loudspeakers and laying the cable).
• Trunk providers will suffer - at first 95 PB of traffic per year will not replace anything. True, they will quickly recover by increasing the load on fixed channels.
• The advertising market will collapse : there is minus 10.4 billion rubles in turnover.
• Logists will go crazy : the control of the load will need to build in a new way.
• The dream about a universal identifier based on a mobile phone will be postponed . Considering that many actively used mobile banking, the phrase “You don’t see, we have lunch” will be heard more often in the whole country.
• On the highways between cities the level of crime will increase , because the nearest connection is in the nearest city.
• Regional markets , often dependent on operational price controls, will change . On average, for example, agricultural products become more expensive by 5-10%. A year later, the situation is normalized due to the spread of fixed-line communications.
• The investment attractiveness of the country will decrease : now an increase in mobile penetration by 1% corresponds to an increase in the volume of foreign direct investment by 0.5-0.6%.
• Remote locations will suffer greatly : many schools and government institutions were connected to the mobile Internet. The men will begin to drink moonshine and be glad that at least electricity and gas remained in the village.
• Business will grow more slowly . Business processes will change: now you cannot just take and call someone in the company: you need either a new intercom system for fixed access, or (in the case of top management) the decision-making process will slow down. This will primarily affect the dynamics of small business growth.
• All M2M services will fall : the number of fires will grow, plus you need to review security on a variety of objects, because the sensors were connected via cellular communication. Now - pull the cable or set the radio.
• Tourism of Altai, Kamchatka and Karelia will suffer : cellular communication was one of the most important factors for the comfort of tourists in these regions. No one wants to walk in the woods with a piece of polyethylene, but without a telephone.

Social behavior patterns will change:

• The level of responsibility of those who make an appointment will increase : now we need to decide once and immediately at home, where and when. And to be late by no more than five to ten minutes, which for many becomes a real problem. At first, appointments are made not under the clock, but around the pay phones: “Has it already left? Still painting ?! ”
• Students stop taking exams smoothly . At least the day after the fall of the connection, but then nothing, get out.
• Culture artists are rubbing their hands : no calls during a chamber orchestra performance or in the library. At business meetings, too, are not distracted. Given that the person is no longer in the “remote access” mode, psychologists have noted an improvement in the situation as a whole. Personal meetings becomes a little more.
• For contacts, new notebooks will be required : some of the issues will be solved by tablets, and partly by a new fashion for business cards. Even children will carry paper cards with them.
• Drivers' confidence drops . Suddenly, experienced taxi drivers will become very valuable. Many have maps and navigation, but the ability to predict traffic jams in large cities will become something instinctive. Later, Wi-Fi and traffic informers will appear at the traffic lights.
• Children will finally be able to walk quietly in the yard . Parents will not find a place for themselves until the child returns home. True, they quickly get used to it: in their childhood they walked without any phones at all.
• Gopnik at first will be upset , but then they will begin to watch, tablets and e-books. Considering that most ATMs have worked with mobile access, there will be more cash in the population, which will please delights.
• The demand for netbooks will increase slightly : the smartphone replaced the computer in case of problems, for example, with power. Similarly, the demand for flashlights and bottle openers for beer will increase slightly. There is a rebirth in the door market: they will become necessary again. But the broken intercom will become a problem, about which the guest will notify the whole yard with a shout.
• In restaurants, the turnover on the cards will fall : many have checked the charges on the cellular, and now they feel a loss of control.
• Marriage will be stronger : after all, reading her husband's mail is more difficult than SMS.
• In the family, a frequent case will be “until you have undressed, run to the store for milk and bread, we are over” - you can’t call and remind you anymore.
• It will become a little harder to buy : now you will not be able to ask for advice at the sight of a potentially necessary thing.
• The most interesting things will start in love relationships : “caring calls” (which are “how are you?”), Informational messages (“turn on the TV!”), Control (“yes, honey, I love you”, “yes, honey, I got to the office "). The number of seemingly useless but very important emotional contacts in the spirit of “Where are you?”, “Are you doing well?”, “I miss you” and so on will decrease. In the future, this will affect the fact that social networks will assume almost all the functions of emotional support. We'll have to like every activity of our second half.

In general, it will be fun.

_{The material was prepared on the basis of Yevgeny Solomatin’s analytical report on the 20th anniversary of cellular communications in the Russian Federation. Method - inverting the main findings of the report.}

PS On March 17th there will be an excursion to the data center in Moscow.
PPS Calm, only calm! This is not a methodical investigation, not a threat or a description of a catastrophe, but simply a hypothetical version.