OK, I foresee a time when you walk around with about 10K Gigs of storage on your person. You have your medical records, all your music, entertainment, personal correspondence, contacts, EVERYTHING  with you ALWAYS.

Too much, you say, why would I want to lug all that around with me? I'd need it to be secure so that no one could rip my data from me. There is a simple solution. You have a Personal Area Network (PAN). There are three to five layers to it, as follows:

1. WAN - Wide Area Network - This is the equivalent of today's cellular networks, wide coverage, easily/always connected, relatively small amounts of data/information being sent around. Information that you don't really mind others hearing/accessing can go over this, and normal privacy rules apply. Communication is point to point, and you have control over who you send to at any given time. It would be slow to upstream/downstream large media files over this, but because you have such a large amount of data on you at all times, it would rearely be needed.
2. NAN - Near Area Network - This is a 100 meter range around you, for accessing media intensive applications and light duty file sharing, everything from music to actual binaries and programs, good for when you are going to be in one spot or on one network for a period of time. I can forsee a time when food courts in shopping malls offer time on this type of network. Usage could be metered based off of the dollar value of items you have bought. Around the holidays you could really rack up some time on the account. New home developments might also offer it as a part of the cost of your home.
3. CAN - Car Area Network - You have a massive amount of storage in your car, a couple of drives that live in the trunk probably. They hold songs, movies, TV shows, maps and directions. Mount an antenna on the car itself and it can serve as a mobile access point for the passengers.
4. LOS - Line of Sight - I can see you, and now we can send lots of data very quickly. The closer we are, the more secure we become, as it gets harder and harder for someone on the fringe of out LOS to read off the edge of our signal.
5. TAN - Touch Area Network - This is when I make contact with someone (or something), as a means of sharing data. No more PINs, simply touch the person and share very small bits of data, or passwords that allow for much larger amounts of data to be sentvia any of the above technologies.

I hate to tase about this, but I have to run, I will finish all these thoughts and wrap them up into a cohesive whole soon, I promise.  

Reference:

wide spectrum laser networking

8:42:41 AM