Alain Rossmann, founder of Phone.com, told the opening session audience at CTIA’s Wireless I.T. conference last week in Santa Clara, Calif., that the wireless data industry has moved beyond the technology issues and now must address the business model.
While Rossmann may be a bit ahead of himself, his point is well taken. Industry seems to have a cohesive vision of what wireless data should be-the ability to communicate information in a way that is easy to get and easy to use. The visions differ on how to communicate that information to the end user.
Wireless carriers, content providers, ISPs, device manufacturers and others all will battle over who owns the customer. Rossmann predicted carriers will have to forge alliances with a variety of partners to maintain a stake in this soon-to-explode industry.
I’ll leave it to the visionaries to sort out how the business model for wireless data will develop. But I want to take a stab at some of the social implications that could come out of this new industry. Addressing these issues may make the business-model puzzle look easy.
For example, Bill Joy, founder of Sun Microsystems, foresees the day where there will be more intelligent data-enabled devices than people. Joy has a dog that tends to get lost, and Joy envisions a GPS collar on the dog so he can track it. Makes sense. My vet has tried to sell me a chip that can be implanted in my cat in case he ever gets lost. However, the vet’s chip is only effective if someone finds the cat and turns him into the pound.
Ericsson’s Skip Bryan mentioned a Nanny cam and a Granny cam. I like both ideas. My father had Alzheimer’s disease, and Alzheimer’s victims tend to get lost. A few weeks back, a 3-year-old boy left his father’s sight for 15 minutes while hiking in the Colorado mountains and now is presumed dead. Are children and those with mental illnesses candidates for chips (attached to tennis shoes, say)?
What happens when network coverage fails? Would the carrier be liable?
Will carriers differentiate themselves along moral issues? For example, one of the more popular uses in the early stages of the wireless data industry will be gambling. Could carrier A differentiate itself from carriers B, C, D and E because it does not offer a gaming app? (But using a location-based service, it will track your daughter, who is dating that good-for-nothing guy from school, through her wireless phone).
And will companies that want to be listed first in databases have to pay for that privilege? Will carriers disclose that to the end user?
… On another note, I need to clarify a point in my column criticizing “20/20” for only testing analog phones. I did not mean to imply that digital phones were safe (nor am I implying they are unsafe!); I’m no scientist. I am, however, a journalist, and testing only analog phones, which generally emit more RF than their digital counterparts, would most likely produce a more sensational result for the TV audience.
