Wireless data 101

Wireless data requires a whole new way of thinking, and there are so many different ways to think.

Last year's CTIA show ushered in a tidal wave of new wireless data firms, catching much of the industry off-guard. We scrambled to understand what it meant. Few had a grasp of the real direction of the industry's evolution.

Today, I'm proud to say that I now know the difference between a W-ISP, W-ASP and wireless enabler. I like to think I know what I'm talking about when I rattle off that fancy wireless-data lingo. Yet we are still inching toward a better understanding of this market. It will be a long time before we really get it.

The wireless world was so comfortable before. Operators know their bread-and-butter voice business inside and out, having had more than a decade to figure it out. The worries of this world surrounded issues like undercutting competition in price and choosing the right air interface technology. Controversies surrounded the TDMA vs. CDMA political fights of the day.

Wireless data requires a whole new way of thinking, and there are so many different ways to think.

Last year at this time, carriers were trying to figure out their business models, understand what the customer wanted and determine how to charge for it. This year they are trying to figure out business models, understand what the customer wants and determine how to charge for it. Things haven't changed much on the surface, but underneath they have changed entirely.

Vendors, too, are scrambling to change their business models. They know they can't just plop down base stations for customers and leave. The name of the game is end-to-end solutions. Chris Gilbert, corporate vice president and general manager of Motorola's telecom carrier solutions group, says vendors once sold equipment to the chief technology officer of any given wireless operator. Now they sell to the CEO, and the conversation changes to how vendors can help carriers market and sell services.

There are some things we have figured out. Most of us know carriers can't control access to the wireless Internet with a walled-garden approach. Vodafone, for example, has backed off, says Ray DeRenzo, group director of Internet content and applications with the Vodafone global platform and Internet services group.

The philosophy has evolved, he says. To be successful requires broader communities. You have to let people go where they want to go.

We've also come to understand that wireless Internet access can't be a copycat version of the wired Internet. Customers don't like surfing the Internet on a postage-stamp-sized screen.

These revelations mean carriers must work even harder to find a compelling value proposition. As a result, they are paying more attention to complex proposals such as highly personalized content automatically pushed to the customer, location-based services, m-commerce and e-wallets running over more graphic-intensive devices.

At the same time, there is a distraction around deploying newer data-specific networks such as 2.5G and 3G. Operators see GPRS as a significant enabler because of the always-on packetized data nature of the service, but they are still waiting for the handsets, which already are years late. The promise of 3G systems will be realized later than expected because of unstable standards and lack of infrastructure and handsets.

I'm confident the light bulb will come on for all of us some day. Investors have been too quick to jump off the wireless data bandwagon, disappointed that the services aren't making a bigger impact on carriers' bottom lines. Success will require aggressive trial and error, offering a slew of new applications.

The wireless voice market wasn't an overnight success either. Don't forget about all the analysts who predicted that voice over the airwaves would never fly.

Contact Lynnette Luna at lyluna@qwest.net