The eye of the storm

Last year at this time, as Hurricane Georges threatened to swamp Florida, the organizers of PCS '98 in Orlando blamed the storm for poor attendance and an overall lackluster show. Because Hurricane Floyd is nowhere near New Orleans, you have to wonder what will be the scapegoat for the quality of this week's PCS '99 event.

It's unfortunate that the importance of the Personal Communications Industry Association's annual event has diminished so sharply during the past few years. In the early days of PCS licensing - all of about five years ago - the show was in its heyday. The PCIA seemed to have successfully transformed itself from a paging industry association to one capable of representing the rebellious, energetic and youthful PCS upstarts.

But as the new wireless industry developed, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association proved that maturity and experience are more important than flash and attitude. The group has maintained its firm roots in the "legacy" cellular sector while attracting the interest of industry newcomers. The CTIA's annual show has become the event that no respectable wireless organization would miss and the time for major equipment suppliers and carriers to announce new strategies, products and services. If recent years are any indication, the same can not be said of the PCIA's event.

Industry scuttlebutt has long held that the CTIA and PCIA would merge, combining lobbying forces and membership and, presumably, annual trade shows into a single power. At this point in the evolution of the wireless industry, an association merger appears to be the best possible strategic move.

Wireless has reached a developmental crossroads. Mobile voice has all but become a commodity. Several digital wireless formats have proved worthy of succeeding analog. Wireless data applications are still waiting for supporting technology platforms to catch up, but efforts to develop and standardize third generation, data-oriented architectures are in high gear. The industry's broadband fixed wireless cousin is finding early recognition in several carrier categories.

For most of those same reasons, however, the wireless sector seems to be experiencing a lull. Everyone is waiting for the next thing to happen. For example, the fate of digital technology used to be in question. Now that it has proved its capacity and quality improvement claims, what will it do next? Broadband fixed wireless applications used to be the ugly stepchild of wireless. Now they appear to be all the rage, but they haven't yet been deployed to any great extent.

What awaits wireless on the other side of this lull? My assessment is that wireless is poised to enter the next millennium as one of the strongest and most technologically varied industry sectors. This is one of the most competitive parts of the communications industry. The leading wireless companies have grappled with spectrum allocation issues and many other regulatory hurdles and emerged successful. They have built their networks quickly and effectively, and they have found a wide variety of uses for technology and service platforms.

I predict that wireless platforms eventually will become the de facto standards for supporting straight voice applications because of the mobility factor. Fixed wireless architectures, meanwhile, will dominate the market for broadband connections in the last mile. And mobile data will remain a laggard for some time, but eventually, wireless IP applications - in the form of fast wireless access to specific Internet and intranet data - will become standard issue for any mobile professional.

It has become all but impossible for any communications service provider to exist and compete without some form of wireless strategy. That goes for interexchange carriers with nationwide mobility networks, local carriers with regional wireless footprints and any form of service provider employing broadband wireless technology.

What does that all mean for the wireless industry's two major associations? They must work together to remove the remaining barriers that artificially separate them from one another and keep them from representing all corners of the wireless industry as thoroughly as they can. Wireless is no longer a sector made up of cellular, PCS, data and broadband subdivisions. It should be represented as a united whole.

In the meantime, if this year's PCS event bombs like last year's, maybe the PCIA can blame the hurricanes on Bourbon Street for soaking its show.