LAS VEGAS-Wireless issues played second fiddle to convergence and net neutrality at last week’s United States Telecom Association’s first TelecomNext conference in Las Vegas, though a handful of executives touched on expanding wireless services during keynote addresses. Despite lacking the name cache of more established events, TelecomNext managed to attract top-level executives from across several industries for keynotes that played to standing-room-only crowds.
Cingular Wireless L.L.C. President and Chief Executive Officer Stan Sigman was the biggest wireless-specific keynote address at the conference, though his subdued presentation focused more on the carrier’s current and short-term operational plans and was notably absent of convergence plans or of the carrier’s expected return to the AT&T brand.
Sigman noted that Cingular expects to support 246 billion text messages and 500 billion voice minutes over its network this year, and that the carrier plans to add 500 bilingual stores this year, which should help Cingular continue to expand its strengthening prepaid growth.
“People have a need to connect that we just can’t turn off,” Sigman explained
Sigman also claimed the carrier was on track to shut off its legacy analog and TDMA networks by the end of 2008, which would leave it supporting its core GSM/GPRS/EDGE and expanding W-CDMA/HSDPA operations moving forward.
Dan Hesse, who is set to head Sprint Nextel Corp.’s Embarq wireline operations once they are spun off later this year, said the company plans to add wireless services to its portfolio as a mobile virtual network operator. Hesse noted the wireless service would be announced later this year and that Embarq planned to offer handsets that worked over both wide area and local area wireless networks. Hesse is regarded as a marketing pioneer in the wireless industry, when he headed AT&T Wireless Services Inc.’s launch of its Digital One Rate plan in the late 1990s.
Walt Disney Co. President and CEO Robert Iger touted the company’s early success with its Mobile ESPN L.L.C. MVNO service and hinted at the pending launch of the company’s Mobile Disney MVNO service, which is set to run over Sprint Nextel’s CDMA beginning later this year.
Convergence-heavy speeches were delivered by Verizon Communications Inc. Chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg, Time Warner Cable President and CEO Glenn Britt, AT&T Inc. Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre, and Cisco Systems Inc. President and CEO John Chambers, who took his message off the stage and into the audience Tony Roberts-style. All four execs forecast services in the future that would allow consumers to control nearly every part of their lives using every conceivable network transportation method.
Execs also touched on net neutrality issues; All hinted that while they would not want to prohibit consumer access to the Internet, most felt that they should have some control over how their networks are used for Web-based services.
“No one in this room is neutral about the networks that support the Internet,” claimed AT&T’s Whitacre. “We will not block public access to the Internet or degrade access,” but Whitacre said companies that provide access should be able to bill accordingly for services that run over their networks.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin waded into the net neutrality fray, noting that the government agency was looking closely at the issue and that “we do have authority” over a final resolution. RCR
