Wireless dim sum

Wireless '97 success, regret. Reflecting the tremendous energy in the exploding wireless industry, the CTIA's Wireless '97 event, held last week in San Francisco's dismal Moscone Center dungeon, was a big hit.

Anything associated with wireless should be a hit this year, of course.

After all, the PCS buildout is proceeding at breakneck speed. The cellular industry, far from resting on its existing strengths, is pushing toward all-digital status nearly as fast as the PCS operators are building infrastructure. And the future of fixed wireless is the pressing topic of the day.

But Wireless '97 could have been better if the CTIA had done its part a little better.

Like plan. Like look. Like think.

The biggest problem was the venue. San Francisco is great, but the Moscone cellar is a disaster. Built underground and on two sides of a major downtown street, access is poor. Worse still, it is difficult to get from one part of the facility to another.

Many exhibitors complained that although Wireless '97's attendance figures were great, traffic on the floor was disappointing because of the tortured layout of the hall. They were right.

Why would a city with such beautiful architecture choose to model its contemporary convention center after a Cold War bomb shelter? Why would the CTIA choose to bury attendees and exhibitors in the worst facility in North America? Who is paying attention? Hello.... CTIA.... It seems our call is breaking up....

*** Angels everywhere. Project Angel-AT&T's fixed wireless local loop technology-was subject number one in San Francisco.

The big question, directed at both operators and technology developers, was: Are you planning to be there, too? Candor, alas, was not the order of the day.

Conclusion: Don't be distracted by all the dissembling. Everyone who can get into the fixed wireless game by the end of the decade will be in. If you're not in, the presumption will be that you simply aren't a serious telecommunications company.

Remember about 15 years ago when some big carriers and some big technology developers acted as if data communications would inhabit one world and voice communications another? Or remember ten years or so ago when some big carriers and some big technology developers, comfortable with existing commercial relationships, behaved as if mobile communications were one thing and fixed communications were something entirely different? Now everyone is in everything. Big change. What counts now is not what distinguishes forms of communications but what connects them.

Catch up to it or be left at the wrong stop on the subway.

*** Finis forever. Regular readers of this space have heard this before, so apologies are in order. You should pass on by without regret.

For everyone else, let's get this down once and for all. The opposition is not between cellular and PCS. It's between analog and digital.

Got it? Get it? Good! Wireless makes no sense if you don't.

*** Hottest stuff-behind the curtain. Was The City full of talk about new switches, new standards, new RF technology, satellites? Not at all.

Why: It's business case time, not physics time. It's build time.

So what's hot on the technology front? OSS technology. How is all this powerful stuff integrated? How do we recognize good customers and identify bad ones? How do we differentiate services? How do we bill accurately? Support the network? Use management software to make fundamental resource-allocation decisions? The technology action is hot, but not visible to the consumer.

No drama? Far from it. Behind the scenes, off-stage, the winners and losers are making the critical choices.

*** Face up, no air. Here's a pop quiz: What will the grave look like? Like the Moscone Center.

How is the Moscone Center different from the grave? You can leave Moscone and be in San Francisco; no such option from six feet deep.

Why visit the Moscone Center? To be buried.

Why exhibit in the Moscone Center? The association messed up.

Is resurrection possible? Sure, anywhere else. You can't stop wireless-in fact, you can't even hope to contain it.