Editor’s Note: RCR Wireless News goes all in for “Throwback Thursdays,” tapping into our archives to resuscitate the top headlines from the past. Fire up the time machine, put on those sepia-tinted shades, set the date for #TBT and enjoy the memories!
Waiting for the “killer app”
Wireless companies in the United States are holding their breath, waiting for the widespread use of wireless data products and services, and-according to a variety of recently released reports-those companies will have to continue to wait while carriers, network designers, application and service providers and others get their act together to make it happen. According to Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, it’s going to be the applications that really drive users to wireless data services and the mobile Internet. “To be successful, the mobile Internet will need to find its own killer applications-it won’t just be the conventional Internet delivered on a handheld device,” said Eric Berg, a director at PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Technology Centre and editor-in-chief of the group’s new report, “Technology Forecast: 2001-2003.” “This is particularly true in regions where business professionals and consumers already have widespread access to PCs.” The limited nature of wireless devices, including mobile phones and personal digital assistants, do not lend themselves to large amounts of data. The only way to overcome these shortfalls, according to the report, is to offer applications that take advantage of the mobile aspect and offer users benefits despite the limitations. Besides tailored applications, PricewaterhouseCoopers echoes other solutions that have been offered by many in the industry. According to the report, business use of the mobile Internet will drive up usage and will create a way for businesses to interact with consumers, employees and business partners. … Read more
Who needs 3G?
NEW YORK-Third-generation technology is completely unnecessary for taking advantage of data opportunities, which are growing even though widespread consumer adoption may be years away, according to speakers at the recent WirelessWednesdays “Killer Mobile Applications and Opportunities” seminar. “The widespread belief that you need 3G to do meaningful things is untrue because you can do a tremendous amount with existing networks. BlackBerry runs on a paging network. I-mode, which runs at 96 kilobits per second, is hugely popular despite competitors that are orders of magnitude faster,” said Omar Javaid, chairman and co-founder of Mobilocity. Particularly given the state of wireless networks in the United States today, the most successful wireless solutions will be those that use capacity least by taking advantage of synchronization, store-and-forward and bursts of information, he said. “We are looking at newer entrants like Stick Net, a Dallas company that uses a vector-based format on the mobile side. There will be better phones in the United States as Japanese phone makers make a push here,” Javaid said. “On the applications side, the notion of whether or not 3G is implemented doesn’t matter because the 802.11b wireless LAN offers much higher bandwidth than 3G and has the potential to be disruptive to 3G.” Short message service, instant messaging and other forms of communication similar to e-mail are the killer applications for wireless data, said Frank Zammataro, chief marketing officer for w-Technologies and Bryan Colby, co-founder of Scan Inc. … Read more
UK cellular penetration reaches 68%
LONDON-About 44 percent of all U.K. households had a mobile phone in 2000, but this year, 68 percent of U.K. households have a mobile phone, according to the “2001 U.K. Mobile Telephone Customer Satisfaction Study” from J.D. Power and Associates. Nearly one in 10 households with a mobile phone has a WAP-enabled phone, yet just one in three of these WAP-equipped phones actually is used for Internet access, the study said. When users do access the Internet with these mobile phones, they primarily send and receive e-mails and browse the Web. “There has been a significant decrease this year among non-WAP phone owners expressing an interest in accessing the Internet with their mobiles,” said Gunda Lapski, director of telecommunications and utilities in Europe for J.D. Power and Associates. “The figure is down to one in four, compared with one in three in 2000. The difference may well be a reflection on the negative publicity that has surrounded WAP features and content.” … Read more
A BlackBerry with voice?
NEW YORK-Although growing use of Research In Motion’s BlackBerry e-mail service has congested wireless networks in some areas, paging carriers are not well-positioned to seize this opportunity to serve as alternative providers, said Jim Balsillie, co-chief executive officer of RIM. “Paging carriers have tried to get us to make BlackBerry for them, but we told them, `We will kill your networks.’ PageNet has 500 kilohertz (of spectrum), while VoiceStream and AT&T Wireless each have 40 megahertz,” he said recently at the New York Society of Security Analysts’ “Internet Economy Conference.” “Glenayre and Motorola hung paging companies out to dry, gave them a broadcasting bicycle and offered upgrades that are only add-ons to the bicycle. What they needed is a car, an upgrade path to a cellularized service gain.” Cellular and PCS carriers are responding to rising demand for RIM services by scaling up their cell-site capacity and adding more distributed links to RIM. Also needed is better filtering to avoid multiple transmissions of the same message and the overburdening of base stations that results, he said. Even for diehard data users, Research In Motion recognizes that voice communications remains an important feature. Consequently, the company is readying a RIM device that will offer that capability. “The voice ability is latent in them. Voice is just a software load with a $5 ear bud from RadioShack. In Europe, all kinds of people are using this in beta tests,” Balsillie said. “This has the potential to be a disruptive technology … But it’s a lot easier to put data into a voice appliance than voice into data.” … Read more
Handset complexity means more glitches
Glitches are becoming to phones what muscle spasms are to track athletes-confirmation that travel to the next generation of technologies will experience limps along with leaps. Most of the big name phone makers including Sony Corp., Nokia Corp., L.M. Ericsson, NEC Corp. and Matsushita Industrial Co. Ltd. at one time or another have sent anxiety into operator circles as software glitch after software glitch crippled their phones. “Software glitches are normal with technology migrations,” cautioned Ozgur Aytar, analyst with the Strategis Group. She said many of the problems developed with GSM-based third-generation phones because manufacturers wanted to capitalize on their earlier success with second-generation GSM products. GSM technology will migrate to the wideband CDMA protocol for 3G networks. “The decision to opt for W-CDMA offers economies of scale for European countries, especially if the demand for these services is high,” she remarked. She said the manufacturers built the GSM phones on the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands, but W-CDMA will work at 2.1 GHz, so more technology challenges should be expected. “Operators and manufacturers will experience some technical challenges as manufacturers had to start from scratch to design, build and test the system,” she said, insisting that the problems could not be overcome overnight. Analysts say GSM phones took up to four years to establish. 3G phones also are posing problems because of multimedia ambitions to provide a device that is a wallet, a diary, a database, a Walkman, a TV and a camera. … Read more
Tearing down the walled garden
Most in the wireless industry are convinced that for wireless Internet access to succeed wireless operators have to tear down their current walled-garden plans that limit customer access to a set number of wirelessly enabled Web sites. Some wireless operators have heeded said advice and introduced search engines allowing subscribers to peer beyond the walls and view Web sites of their choosing. Verizon Wireless, the country’s largest wireless operator, announced a deal in March with Pinpoint to provide wireless search capabilities allowing customers access to any Web site that is wirelessly enabled. At the time, Verizon said the announcement would foster an “open, wireless environment.” Fellow CDMA operator Sprint PCS followed suit last week, announcing a deal with Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Inc. to provide its search engine capability to Sprint PCS’ wireless Web. According to Sprint PCS, the search capability will increase the number of sites accessible from its service from 130 to more than 1.3 billion sites, or virtually every Web site Google can find. “It’s not just about opening up the walled garden,” said Nancy Sheerer, spokeswoman for Sprint PCS. “It’s allowing our customers to view all Internet pages from the Sprint Wireless Web.” The service also allows users to search and browse 2.2 million WAP-ready Web pages and conduct searches for specific content within the Sprint PCS Wireless Web menu, also known as its walled garden. Unlike Pinpoint’s search engine, Google’s search capability can access any Web site regardless of whether it is WAP-enabled or written in a code specific to wireless devices. … Read more
Check out the RCR Wireless News Archives for more stories from the past.
