Data steals the show: PCS '99 focuses on adoption

Data was the talk of last week's PCS '99 show in New Orleans as several operators announced impending data service launches and vendors unveiled strategies to encourage data adoption.

Work clearly needs to be done to raise awareness in the marketplace about wireless data services - only 4% of all wireless traffic was data last year, said Jay Kitchen, president and CEO of the Personal Communications Industry Association.Customer knowledge, however, of how they might use devices o ther than PCs for data applications is low, according to a recent Yankee Group study. The report showed that few wireless users considered their wireless phones or personal digital assistants as devices that could be used for accessing data.

Operators also will need to make it easier for application developers to create products for the wireless industry. The wireless application development atmosphere, however, pales when compared with the computing environment. Although Palm Computing has 20,000 developers creating products based on the Palm OS, AT&T Wireless has only 150 solutions partners for its cellular digital packet data (CDPD) network.

Transitioning to IP-based networks should encourage more development in the wireless world, though. "It will bring the rapid service creation environment of the Internet to telecom," said Merle Gilmore, president of communications enterprise at Motorola. Meanwhile, Nokia is one of many vendors with a partner program for third parties to develop to its Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) products. Nokia has seen 20,000 downloads of its partner package, which includes the capability to test products on its WAP server.

AT&T Wireless may attract more solution developers when it relaunches its CDPD PocketNet service within the next two months, especially because those applications will transfer to EDGE. The operator plans to have EDGE throughout its network by 2003, which should encourage greater data acceptance.

"The lack of a pervasive footprint has held data back," said Kendra VanderMeulen, senior vice president of product strategy and development for AT&T Wireless.

BellSouth Cellular is launching a trial of WAP services with several hundred users. Its goal is to discover the types of services users will want and to study usage patterns. "We don't know what will be issues - there are no givens here," said Carlton Hill, director of product development for BellSouth Cellular. She believes the recent surge in the data buzz coincides with operators' purchasing decisions. Customers won't see benefits or begin to use data regularly for another two years, she said. "In 2001 we'll start seeing revenue streams to write home about.