ATLANTA-Wireless data’s success in the future depends on how easily users can access it, said some wireless executives last week at SuperComm ’98.
Key executives from the wireless industry’s largest companies participated in a panel addressing the direction of the wireless industry in 2000 and beyond. While third-generation networks and advancements to current second-generation networks will give way to high-speed data networks, concern exists about how much consumers would use data services in light of the slow growth in this area to date.
To see the opportunities for wireless data, one can look to the wireline industry as an example, said Matthew Desch, president of Northern Telecom Inc.’s Wireless Networks division. “Data on wireline has overwhelmed voice and is growing 10 times more than voice. Internet traffic is doubling every 10 days,” he said. Currently, “less than 3 percent of the world is using wireless data … That will change. The killer application for wireless data is access to the Internet or intranet.”
But the complexity of using wireless data services is one roadblock, and most executives on the panel agreed that access to the Internet must become an easier process for customers in order to drive its use.
“Applications aren’t user-friendly. It’s harder to access data when you’re mobile and find out which ones fit for the mobile environment,” said Andrew Sukawaty, chief executive officer of Sprint PCS. “Interconnection is difficult.”
Today’s access to the Internet is not ready for critical transmission, said Desch, and connection is low speed, unsecured and requires the user to log on and off. To drive wireless data usage, the world must move to anywhere, anytime Internet Protocol access that is always ready and available, and service must be delivered by rugged and secure networks, he said. Mobile users must have two-way access, intelligent information and an interactive multimedia experience.
Dan Hesse, president and CEO of AT&T Wireless Services Inc., said the market for wireless data is taking off slowly, and he does not see a large market for wireless data services by 2000. Packetized voice, however, will allow for new capabilities and services. “There will be a device for voice, and data speeds will make voice service stronger,” he said.
Executives also see wireless service beginning to displace wireline service at a fast rate. Sprint PCS’s Sukawaty said mobile phone service is increasingly becoming a retail product and estimates 45-percent to 55-percent penetration in the United States by around 2005.
“The nature of usage growth in wireless and wireline are similar. Minutes of use in voice is increasing and wireless is starting to cut into the growth of wireline. More people are using wireless for a second line,” he said. “Applications drive both fixed and wireless. We are competing [with landline companies] for minutes of use more than access lines.”
Tax laws, Federal Communications Commission regulations and price are a few of the roadblocks to wireless service replacing wireline service in the future, but when the price of wireless drops three to one to wireline service, wireless accounts for almost 60 percent of voice traffic, said Sukawaty.
Hesse said the replacement of wireline service with wireless service depends on the premium of wireless vs. landline and in-building coverage. As the industry moves from deploying microcells to using picocells in buildings, the cost of deploying this service will fall, he said.
