Keeping the faith

We should be thankful that digital wireless technology has been a source of rich debate over the years. As an industry, we have propped up potential digital technology standards to battle each other in a death match that was at times intense, entertaining, frustrating, silly and horribly redundant. While none of them died, some may be in better health than others.

As media observers or experts in the field, we questioned the performance claims of these technologies even as they were being substantially deployed worldwide. In the course of this debate, we often have never considered the reasons why certain deployment commitments were made.

We thought at the time that we were talking about technology and its deployment, but in reality we were talking much more about vendors than technologies. Despite what they said at the time, it now looks like people were anti-Qualcomm or anti-Ericsson more than anything else.

What prompts this observation is the empty feeling that I'm left with as I look at the current technology landscape and the future of 3G.

For instance, GSM is stronger than ever worldwide but still lacks presence in a few important American cities. The GSM Alliance is trying to change that now, but such an alliance did not exist two years ago when GSMers were putting their energy into politics rather than marketing.

Likewise, the CDMA crowd was too busy making blanket statements about the viability of CDMA rather than pointing it toward the particular types of markets where it could work best, such as the dense, tricky Asian markets where it is now so popular. Instead, they insisted on sticking to old advertising claims as their main message.

And what has it all come down to? Now, with 3G opportunities ahead, CDMA supporters are actually looking more like the single-standard enforcers we once thought GSM supporters to be, and GSMers are suddenly champions of diversity. Apparently positioning amounts to nothing. The sides have switched, and now all our past words sound terribly ironic.

This tends to prove that competition between technologies can block what is really important-the competitive success of service providers.

In this issue of PCS Edge, our cover story talks about the deep impact that CDMA finally is having worldwide, but the focus is on a deployment case, not a technology contest. How we use technologies can teach us more than debating about them can, especially when it becomes so easy for us to change our positions.

The "how we use it" theme also describes our other stories in this issue: With energetic and imaginative marketing, BellSouth is making prepaid service work for both its cellular and PCS operations. Also, innovative carriers are putting warehouses of customer data to work for them with targeted database marketing practices. Elsewhere, Nextel has written itself a unique success story with niche marketing and now looks to broaden its horizons. In addition, we pose to industry experts the idea that service level agreements could be applicable to the wireless industry-with mixed results.

As we prepare for the annual PCS Showcase Sept. 23-25 in Orlando, Fla., I have a feeling that the hype will be all about method, a contradiction in terms since method is all about realism and hype is all about romance. However, if the PCS industry wants to be taken seriously-a battle it is losing, by the way-it will leave the hype and its debate notes behind on this trip.