Get it? Got it!

It all seemed fitting. On the last evening of the recently concluded Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association show in New Orleans, there was a magnificent coincidence. At the annual CTIA gala in the convention center, the former high priestess of Motown, Diana Ross, was the featured attraction for the assembled ministers of the wireless industry. Taking place simultaneously on Canal Street was the parade of the Druids-named after those mystical and mysterious priests and ministers that ruled ancient England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and northern France.

Although a huge fan of Ms. Ross, I chose the excitement of the mob over a trip down memory lane. Ms. Ross was supposedly terrific, but listening to a fading superstar after sitting through a bunch of awards given to people I don't know just didn't seem appealing.

The confluence of images from the two events was a useful metaphor for assessing the current state of the wireless industry. Both were attempts to pump new life into ancient rites-presided over by mysterious and autocratic priesthoods-that while glamorous and seemingly healthy to the outside world, have gone stale. New Orleans, long in economic decay, is burnishing its tarnished reputation by putting more pleasure and a feeling of virtual safety back into Mardi Gras. The wireless industry, facing commoditization of its voice cash cow, is in fast embrace of Internet protocol and the Web. After a decade of false starts, the industry may actually reinvigorate its margins by offering ubiquitous and inexpensive wireless data in 1999.

As I watched a phalanx of mounted police charge into a boisterous group of teenagers-virtual safety can go only so far-it seemed that the crowds needed to trade places. The street needed a touch less chaos. The wireless industry needs to regain its early entrepreneurial zeal and leverage risk-taking into finding profitable answers.

That same morning CTIA President and CEO Thomas Wheeler asked a four-vendor panel to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 whether the carriers "get IT." ("5" being "they really get IT"). The "IT" is the need to move rapidly to IP and other packet technologies to accommodate the introduction of new media-rich services, and the concomitant need to make networks "friendly" to new generation hand-held devices that will help drive this. The three "C's" (coverage, connectivity and cost) have emerged as the mantra of the wireless data/multiple media world just as they were the mantra that drove voice.

Of the four panel members, who like the rest of us "thought leaders" are all new to the IP religion in the wireless realm, only one had the temerity to give the carriers a "4." Everyone else gave them a "5." The dissent was based on the proposition that there isn't anything "to get" given how fast things are changing. This vendor opined that the lack of business models given the dynamics of the convergence of wireless, wireline and the Internet makes grading a difficult job.

Underscoring this unwillingness to chastise the service provider community about its lack of marketing prowess and penchant for risk aversion, or the introspection to admit that vendor "value propositions" may be askew, was a comment by a service provider leaving the hall: "I wonder what new services they are talking about?" he said. "I haven't seen or heard of any here. I hope it isn't just cheap voice and bundling us with everything else!"

It reminded me of an AT&T executive who explained the company's plight to me years ago: "Our biggest problem," he said, "is that our customers do not want to buy our services the way we want to sell them."

Flat-rate service is becoming the norm for keeping down churn and going after wired minutes of use, if not the way to fatter margins. The Internet with its longer holding times, standardization issues and expectation that any new service should be free, is no panacea either.

So, in this crowded world, how is a self-respecting service provider going to make money? The answers are supposed to come from careful listening at trade shows. Unfortunately, amidst the miasma of self-congratulatory frivolity there were none to be found. There was no place to "get IT." However, CTIA is coming back to New Orleans in 2000. Got it? I hope by then somebody in the industry will get it and be able to give it to you.