CTIA IT wrap-up: The wireless evolution

Last week’s CTIA IT & Entertainment show in San Diego was quieter and perhaps begging to be consolidated with its larger wireless show counterpart, the spring CTIA show. But it was also interesting and informative and actually the same size — 15,000 attendees — as last year’s conference. They may be small victories, but this year’s show was a good indication of where the industry is headed: to an industry focused on the end user, data, applications and perhaps more enterprise than entertainment.

The biggest focus of the show was the always-absent Google’s plans for Android, including the launch of the Android-based Samsung Moment and a partnership with Verizon, which spent the week issuing a slew of announcements around its more open network. But CTIA also leaned heavily toward the enterprise this year, despite what Fall Out Boy’s avid Twitter-user Pete Wentz’s presence at the (smaller) mobile entertainment pre-show might have suggested.

The smart grid and health care got devoted tracks at the show, and machine-to-machine communications (M2M) also took center stage, with AT&T and Sprint ramping up their activity in the emerging space. New handsets, mobile marketing, mobile TV and, of course, application stores were still a huge area of discussion, but the focus on new industry verticals showed that the mobile operators and vendors are clearly thinking larger.

For the first time, CTIA also skipped the Friday keynote (new speakers at CTIA shows are increasingly hard to find) for a Fund Fest, in which a panel of judges heard out new start-ups on their mobile plans. GPS-enabled mobile marketing company Chyngle won the grand prize, but the audience voted TelCare, an M2M remote sensor monitoring company, the people’s choice winner.

On the keynote stage, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski took a proactive stance, with some noteworthy promises about taking action on tower-siting and adopting a “shot clock” method to speed 4G deployments. AT&T, on the other hand, assumed the defensive — maintaining the strength of innovation in an unregulated wireless industry and reassigning the blame for its much reported network problems. Still, as AT&T demonstrated with its defensive dance, the show wasn’t really about the carriers this year; it was about the end consumer. Every device, new app and service was introduced with the end user — whether it be an enterprise or consumer — in mind.

As my colleague Kevin Fitchard pointed out after the spring CTIA conference, we’re not walking away with any fundamental knowledge we didn’t have before, but CTIA IT & Entertainment was useful to find the pulse of the wireless industry. Now that I’m back from sunny San Diego, I’ll have more to say about the show — particularly around the issue of app stores and the “write once, read everywhere” promise (myth?), as well as some cool new technology advancements in the works. As it is for CTIA, new industry verticals including the grid and telemedicine will also continue to be a focus for Connected Planet in addition to our core coverage.

I’d also welcome your feedback on this year’s show. What are your thoughts on the future of the show? More importantly, what are your thoughts on the future of wireless applications, services and devices, and the players involved with each? I look forward to your hearing your perspective.

E-mail me at sarah.reedy@penton.com.