A little help from their friends: Lucent teams with other vendors on wireless applications

Several things are brewing in Lucent Technologies' Wireless Innovations Lab in Lisle, Ill., thanks to the help of several smaller wireless services vendors. Through Lucent's Cooperative Innovations alliances program, vendors are offering their expertise in everything from data warehousing to wireless data services in an effort to boost their own knowledge while helping Lucent offer carriers value-added and enhanced services.

"The open architecture of our wireless network will allow us to provide a portfolio of wireless applications, including mobile and fixed, voice and data," said Bob Sellinger, Lucent's director of wireless architecture.

So far the company has worked solely on the "heavy metal," or infrastructure, of its Flexent wireless network. The next step is to collaborate with vendors to manage the network and offer services that allow carriers to differentiate themselves, said George Commons, director of the Lucent Wireless Innovations Lab.

"Our mission is to offer more applications so our customers can drive up the minutes of use," he said.

In a daylong symposium on the project June 15, applications introduced included SignalSoft Corp.'s Location Sensitive Billing, which allows a carrier to offer competitive local rates for customers for a specific area such as home, work or school. This should give wireless carriers the opportunity to target new market segments and compete for wireline minutes, said David Hose, president of SignalSoft.

That vendor is working with Lucent on other location services, including enhanced 911 and localized message delivery, which can provide information such as local movie times and driving directions.

Two wireless data vendors announced that they would work with Lucent to help bring Internet access to wireless devices.

Spyglass Inc. said that Lucent would sell its Prism 2.0 product, an Internet delivery system that compresses Web content and reduces access time by caching frequently visited pages.

Unwired Planet will offer its UP.Link Server Suite to Lucent customers, providing access to e-mail, a personal organizer and Web sites.

Other new Cooperative Innovations partners include Veramark Technologies, Sema Group and Stonehouse Technologies for record management, billing and customer care services; NCR Corp. for data warehousing services; Synacom for its fraud prevention programs; and T-Netix Inc. for its voice verification and roamer validation systems.