There will be 1 trillion devices connected to the Internet by 2013, said Cisco Chief Technology Officer Padma Warrior during her Wednesday keynote address at CTIA.
Warrior argued the boom in connected devices, applications and mobile broadband would not only change the wireless industry but society in general.
"The Internet is no longer just an information superhighway, it's a platform," Warrior said, citing the increased adoption of M2M technologies and the exponential growth of apps, which will hit 1.5 million by 2013.
To prove her point, Warrior moved through a series of technology demonstrations with a Cisco colleague that detailed what it would be like to interact with next-generation mobile technology.
The pair showed off augmented reality in a subway system; location-based advertising and mobile coupons; and a mobile telepresence app. "The next big revolution that will happen is the Internet of things," Warrior said.
Cisco is aggressively pushing its next-generation M2M technologies, including a smart cities initiative with the state of Colorado which was announced Wednesday.