For whom CDPD tolls, Is the service intended for the masses?

The long-running debate over cellular digital packet data's technological readiness is subsiding. But a growing and equally contentious schism over who should ultimately be the technology's beneficiary is taking its place.

At issue is the way CDPD service is marketed and priced. Some believe the technology's characteristics make it ideal for supporting mass-market, full-range wireless access to the Internet and corporate intranets. Thus far, however, CDPD has mostly been used for vertical applications such as fleet tracking and public safety communications.

The mass-market segment remains largely untapped, although several carriers are now marketing customer devices that provide access to certain kinds of Internet, intranet or e-mail information that has been "surgically extracted" using middleware and repackaged for CDPD transmission.

Much of the contention stems from those efforts. Inet, which makes a compact CDPD modem, is a strong believer in CDPD as a wide-open path to wireless Internet access. But the company believes many wireless carriers are neither pricing nor marketing CDPD service toward that end.

"The promise of CDPD was that it was going to be an optimal cellular data solution, and it hasn't lived up to that," said Greg Yates, vice president of wireless sales at Inet. "The carriers are not marketing CDPD on that basis.

The company clearly has an interest in seeing CDPD marketed more toward individual users because the form factor of its Spider CDPD modem makes it well-suited for that market.

"We've invested millions, and we want to see cellular-based wireless data take off," Yates said. "We've proved we can develop the technology, but the market at best has been confused.

Part of the reason for that confusion, Inet believes, is the new focus on CDPD devices that allow customers to access certain information that has been mined and reformatted. The PocketNet Phone that AT&T Wireless Services is marketing is one example.

That limits CDPD's capabilities and users' ranges, and carriers appear to be pricing their CDPD services in favor of that type of access, said Kevin Keough, vice president of new business development at Inet.

"The carriers are the gatekeepers," Keough said. "What they're saying is, 'We have this wonderful infrastructure, and we're going to dictate what applications it can be used for.' The horizontal market is only going to open up when they allow CDPD to be priced at a reasonable rate.

That includes pricing the service based on the type of device the customer is using and the type of access that customer desires, he said.

"If they're trying to sell revenue time on their network, it behooves them to encourage more peripheral devices," Keough said.

AT&T Wireless acknowledges that although its networks are up and running, it has very few CDPD customers and the horizontal market has yet to blossom. But the carrier's views on the market differ from Inet's.

"We don't see CDPD as an alternative to wireline Internet access," said an AT&T Wireless spokesman. "CDPD was designed to support mobility, and in the grand sense of the word, wireless Internet access is not a mobile application.

"If you look at mobile access to an intranet, the models are very compatible," he said. "But that's not traditional wireline replacement. Our cost model is not going to support Web surfing.

Other CDPD supporters say the technology is still in its early stages and may eventually mature to a point where mass-market customers become primary targets.

"High technology always starts with a vertical market," said Susan Major, director of wireless data and paging at Ameritech Cellular Services. "I don't see this as anything abnormal to any curve.

Several variables-devices, network capabilities, applications software and pricing-still need to come together for CDPD to develop closer to a consumer level, she said. In the meantime, she believes other wireless data technologies will fill that void.

"Circuit-switched data is still very large, and it's a very easy migration from analog cellular to circuit-switched data," Major said. "You'll see that as the more horizontal market.

One industry analyst said wireless Internet could be CDPD's future, but only to the extent of corporate network and e-mail access. In addition, rates for the service are on the downswing, said Dave Chamberlain of The Bishop Co.

"Right now you are going to pay a huge amount of money, but the prices for CDPD have been coming down very fast," he said.

The CDPD Forum agrees the technology is, at least for now, not intended to facilitate an open pipe to the Internet. Carriers' pricing and marketing strategies are geared more toward the surgical extraction model, said David Sutcliffe, a member of the CDPD Forum board and president and chief executive officer of Sierra Wireless, a manufacturer of both CDPD and circuit-switched devices.

"For business applications for which there is a specific information requirement, they're pricing very cost-effectively," he said. "For surfing the Web on a general-interest basis, it's a cost-prohibitive technology today. Most business applications fit the first category.

Indeed, the way CDPD service is billed is not suitable for Internet exploration, said Willie Waung, a principal at CMT Communications, Vancouver, B.C., and technical liaison for the CDPD Forum.

"Any service that's based on usage accounting is not good to be used for random roaming," Waung said.

Despite that, Inet maintains that if carriers let the market open up by pricing CDPD more appropriately, mass-market customers would flock to the service. What could spark that, said Keough, is if one wireless carrier changes its business plan to aim more at individual end users.

"If one guy breaks ranks, the others will follow," he said.

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