CHICAGO-After an inauspicious debut that sent it back to rehearsals, the latest wireless extravaganza from Motorola Inc. is ready to return to prime time.
The Schaumburg, Ill., telecommunications equipment giant was expected to announce today that it has smoothed over the rough spots of its integrated dispatch enhanced network, a wireless communications system that combines multiple functions in a single telephone handset. Voice communications, paging, messaging, two-way radio dispatch and other services will be available in a single package.
“This is a multibillion-dollar opportunity for Motorola,” said Mark Lowenstein, a wireless analyst for the Yankee Group Inc. in Boston.
It’s Motorola’s second run at those billions. The first version of iDEN (called Motorola Integrated Radio System, or MIRS) produced poor telephone sound when wireless service provider Nextel Communications Inc. of Rutherford, N.J., tested it in West Coast markets two years ago.
“Basically, it didn’t work,” said Peter Bernstein, president of Infonautics Consulting Inc. in Ramsey, N.J.
Because first-generation handsets also didn’t live up to expectations, Motorola began reconfiguring the split of the channel path from 6-to-1 to 3-to-1 to improve voice quality. Nextel had slowed its marketing plans while waiting for the 3-to-1 handsets.
Motorola now believes that the system provides transmission quality equal to anything available in wireless communications. Satisfied that Motorola has solved the technical problems, Nextel is set to market the system commercially again: It will announce details of its marketing plans at its annual meeting, scheduled for Tuesday to be held in Rosemont, Ill.
Motorola and Nextel declined to comment on their plans, but industry experts say marketing will be more refined this time, eschewing the consumer market for high-volume business accounts.
This week’s announcements break a long silence that followed the disastrous debut of the system in 1994. Ballyhooed as the next great wireless telephone contender, the system didn’t live up to its billing.
“The dispatch worked well, the paging worked well, the messaging worked well, but the cellular telephony had a hollow sound,” said Michael Balhoff, senior telecommunications analyst at Legg Mason Inc. in Baltimore.
Publicly embarrassed, the companies retrenched. Nextel sought out additional capital, eventually raising $1.1 billion from cellular telephone pioneer Craig McCaw, who not long before had sold his company to AT&T Corp. Motorola acquired a 25 percent stake in Nextel in exchange for a group of licenses.
Joseph Cahill is associate editor at Crain’s Chicago Business.
