If you were one of the many who stood in line to buy a copy of Windows 95 at midnight Aug. 24, (or even if you’re not one of them), you’ll appreciate this look at what happened to the great “cellular data rush” of a few years ago.
By the time 1990 became another banner year for cellular growth, a lot of industry executives were talking about how much more useful wireless communications were going to be now that data communications could be added to voice over the cellular system. In looking for new ways to penetrate larger market segments, data applications seemed like a great way to send direct sales reps out the door with a new story to tell.
In reality, the technology was not exactly ready for the story companies wanted to relate to their customers and to a degree, customers weren’t ready for the new service, at least in the form it was offered. In fact, it’s only recently that there are widespread applications of data-related communications for wireless use. What is happening today with regard to the market’s interest in wireless data transmission is nowhere near what was envisioned just five years ago.
Data communications benefits from an explanation of what it encompasses. People used to think of data and visualize a person using a cellular phone (usually a 3-watt version) hooked to a cellular modem hooked to a computer with a document of some sort that was faxed or e-mailed to another computer or fax machine. The only difference between this type of data transfer and what takes place in the office is that there is no wire between the phone and the switch that must route the call to its final destination. Instead, the cellular phone was to send the data stream over the wireless system for delivery.
Ahead of the rush
What slowed the deployment of wireless data as a common user application was, and to a degree still is, a combination of transfer standards, radio modem equipment capability and system reliability. Add in the fact that most sales teams were not adequately trained to sell this emerging technology and it is easy to see a few of the key conditions that contributed to its slow start. Just a scant few years ago, people still had only a few choices for a cellular data modem and those operated at a painfully slow throughput rate, typically 1200 to 4800 kilobits per second. Compare that with today’s modern high speed modems using compression and verification standards used on wired systems with high speed computers and state-of-the-art application software packages which can boost the transfer rate up to 56,000 kbps and beyond.
While today’s cellular modems are reaching for the 14,800 kbps range, the cellular system itself had imposed a throughput speed limit that made reliable communications difficult and time consuming due to any number of factors that might cause signal loss or interruption.
In short, there was a market need but just as Bill Gates announced Windows 95 long before he could offer it for sale, the industry may have been a bit hasty in its rush to sell what wasn’t ready to sell at the time. That was then and this is now.
A new vision
Today data transmission is looked at as a far more complex array of user applications than people were even thinking about five short years ago. For example, data transmission not only serves the average mobile user with another mode of sending or receiving a computer file, fax or e-mail anytime (and it is hoped anywhere) but it also is used to send or receive commercial type data to or from remote locations. Such messages are related to credit-card transaction and approvals with the use of special data to those equipped to receive this information, such as meter readers working for public utilities.
There are applications for delivery services such as UPS (using what they call TotalTrack on more than 50,000 delivery vehicles) trucking firms, railway companies, Federal Express and such, where a customer signature upon receipt of a delivery is instantly transmitted to a central location right from the customer’s doorstep with the push of a button.
The applications seem endless as special monitors are used in agricultural applications where information is sent from barns, storage facilities and animal shelters to a central location for evaluation. Even those expressway signs flashing information to drivers with no one there to operate the sign are controlled with the use of wireless data transmissions. The telecom industry now is using data transmission systems to speed up call billing considerations and at the same time helping with fraud control.
Security alarms, traffic reporting, remote database update, banking applications and many more uses now are part of the larger data vision the wireless industry is able to talk about. This is definitely not wireless the way it was in 1985, or in 1990!
Types of transmission
Part of the move to accommodate cellular users has been to improve the way data transmission is transferred. The first system to be offered for this was called Circuit Switched Data Transmission. This uses a dedicated circuit or channel to establish a link between two modems during a data call, just as a dedicated circuit or channel is used to establish a link between two wireless phones during a voice call.
The technology is best suited for larger data transmission-files, faxes, graphics and images-and is used also for wireless voice communications. The second is called Cellular Digital Packet Data or CDPD for short. This is an overlay system to the existing circuit switched system. CDPD breaks the data into small “packets” of digitized information and routes the data to their destination in “electronic envelopes” over idle channels.
Because a dedicated, end-to-end circuit is not required, CDPD is a “connectionless” technology and lends itself to short bursts of data, e.g., credit-card authorizations, database queries, brief e-mail messages or even utility meter readings.
It has been widely stated that CDPD offers the best plan to bring high speed, reliable, wide area mobile data communications ability to the average cellular user. However there are still a few hurdles to overcome even at this late stage of the industry’s evolution. For example, special cellular “radio modems” still are a bit pricy and will need to come to the market at prices not that much higher than standard wireline modems, particularly the PCMCIA types. PCMCIA devices are those credit-card-sized electronic marvels that slip into a slot on the side of a computer to enable a specific function to be accomplished. The acronym stands for Personal Computer Memory Card International Association. The joke around the industry is that it also stands for People Can’t Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms.
There also now are systems available that slow database inquiries from fleets of on-site service or delivery personnel (or anyone with the right equipment) using Ardis (Advanced Radio Data Information Service) or RAM (RAM Broadcasting based on the Mobitex international protocol) services set up throughout the United States. These last two considerations are focused on vertical market industrial applications, however because they’re firmly established in so many major markets, they represent a serious option to more business-type users. The point is, the industry has changed its vision of the big picture where data is concerned and part of the reason for this is that the markets served have informed industry through the years of what they want, and industry has been listening.
The applications for on-site data use are growing exponentially as more and more users are finding ways to improve the way they relate to their own customers. For example, there are some insurance companies that now have the ability to process claims and issue funds to policy holders at the claim site, not in an office somewhere else. This all is done via cellular service. Then there are medical and diagnostic applications at field sites where even seconds can spell the differenc
e between life and death.
Using lap top computers, cellular radio modems and cellular phones, it is possible to turn today’s “road warriors” into true mobile office sites with all the capabilities they have at their desks. In my training work in the cellular and paging industry, I’m on the move as much as anyone and witness computer users working on airplanes, in airports, on park benches and in their cars. The day has finally arrived where what industry can talk about and what it can deliver are one and the same.
Selling data
This brings us to a challenge related to how industry brings wireless data services to the market. Trying to explain the differences between sending/receiving wireless data is not as easy as explaining how to send or receive a cellular call. In fact, the two types of communication are different and even more so when compared with either communications function using a wired network. While the differences may not be that extreme, they require some discussion and this means sales teams are going to need training in an area of data in general. Such a program should include a background on data transmission in general, a review of the components required for data transmission, including modems and what they’re all about, a thorough understanding of the computer software programs that allow e-mail, fax and computer file transfers, and perhaps even some training on the use of a modern portable computer with its operating system requirements.
Until salespeople understand this curriculum of training, they are not going to be able to talk intelligently about the how of data, only the why of it. In the view of many cellular experts on sales and marketing, the whole arena of data offers new life for direct sales teams. This is important because as the industry changes and approaches the penetration of the mass market, it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify the overhead of a direct sales force if they’re still selling cellular activations one at a time to today’s budget-minded subscribers. After a training course on the hardware and software components, a sales team will need to be trained on what the competition is offering. This is where they’ll need to understand what Ardis and RAM (and others) are all about, who operates the services, what they offer, the costs involved and how widespread they are.
Conclusion
In summary, what happened to the rush of data sales is that, like Windows 95, the industry has had loads of great ideas and the market had plenty of pent up demand, but the two have only recently become synchronized. In short, the rush is now and industry needs to take notice so it can deliver the value customers have been waiting for.
Will Robertson is chief executive officer of Performance Strategies, Inc., an international sales & marketing development/training firm serving the cellular and paging industry. PSI can be reached at 800-242-1900.
