If you're looking for the place where things are popping, the wireless space is where it's at for the next five years. And companies are already profiting as this journey kicks off.

From a recent press release:

Worldwide wireless LAN [local area networks] switch ports jumped 52 percent to 170,000, and revenue grew 55 percent to $80.8 million between the first and second quarters of 2005 and is expected to top $735 million by 2008, according to Infonetics Research's quarterly report, Wireless LAN Equipment .

The overall WLAN equipment market is holding steady, with worldwide revenue dipping 1 percent to $733 million between 1Q05 and 2Q05, and unit shipments increasing 7 percent. Annual revenue is expected to increase to $4.1 billion in 2008 as WLANs continue to gain traction across all regions."

Worldwide revenue for WLANs, just a facet of the wireless world, is around $2.8 billion already.

This technology will completely change the face of telecommunications and the companies that are its beneficiaries. At this point, the most vulnerable industries will be the legacy phone companies.

While the Baby Bells--or what's left of them--have been relatively quick to jump on the VoIP bandwagon, these services are commoditized in a wireless world, and all that infrastructure maintenance, etc. will be a great burden to old telephony types.

Also, the cellular phone companies--some of the largest of which are subsidiaries of the big phone companies--will also lose serious market share during the coming years.

The Register (www.theregister.co.uk) recently published an article addressing this issue. Click here to read the article

In following issues, I'll discuss each of the wireless technologies more specifically. But I want to address the 800-pound gorilla first--WiFi.

This is the wireless Internet connection you get in Starbucks (NSDQ: SBUX; www.starbucks.com), airports and Paneras (NSDQ: PNRA; www.panerabread.com--even some cities now. Tempe, Ariz., is about to get hot"--that's figuratively, since it's already hot literally. Philadelphia is also looking at bids; San Francisco, South Lake, Tex., Malden, Mass., and Fullerton, Calif., are all connected. Check out www.muniwireless.com for more news on who's getting hot and who's not.

WiFi stands for Wireless Fidelity, a play on the HiFi or High Fidelity of bygone days when kids bought albums, not disks, and turntables were a necessity, not solely hip-hop DJ accoutrements.

Anyway, when you're out and about and spy a café or bookstore that says it's a hot spot," you've found an open wireless network where your computer, PDA or Web-capable phone connect, often times without fees. The immediate goal is to maintain an umbrella of connectivity that's as broad as possible.

On one level, a traveler in an airport might want to check his/her e-mails, look at current sales reports or do research on a potential client. On a broader level, municipalities can keep their employees connected to one another, so a child services worker visiting a house can send video or conduct interviews that the supervisor can see at the home office. And the supervisor can be sending the most current information on the family to the case worker as he/she sits with the family.

Instead of going through all the scenarios and advantages, just use your imagination to visualize your town--or your country--where you would have constant access to high-speed Internet. It's going to be revolutionary for the winners and the losers. And it will happen.

Already on the telephony side, Vonage (www.vonage.com) is looking to have about 1 million subscribers to its VoIP phone system by year end. It's also entering into strategic partnership with TowerStream (www.towerstream.com) to expand its commercial business on a wireless platform into major metropolitan areas already covered by TowerStream's fixed wireless. And the younger generation is signing up to Skype (www.skype.com) and Google's (NSDQ: GOOG; www.google.com) VoIP service by the tens of millions.

For now, the public companies that are seeing the most from the current WiFi movement are the switching companies: Cisco Systems (NSDQ: CSCO, www.cisco.com), D-Link (Taiwan: 2332.TW, www.dlink.com) and NETGEAR (NSDQ: NTGR, www.netgear.com). There are also a number of smaller private companies that are heating up cities all over the country.