Cracking open the mobile device

It used to be that mobile developer programs were for handsets: Game and application designers would cluster around the hot phone or operating system, tailoring their wares for specific devices. But as open networks become the trend in the wireless industry, a new type of developer program is emerging that focuses on the network at large.

Carriers such as AT&T, Clearwire and Verizon Wireless no longer are waiting in the wings to see which devices emerge and which applications prove popular on them. They're taking the lead, launching their own open development platforms with the aim of encouraging a broad range of consumer devices, going beyond phones to whole new categories of applications.

Last spring, Clearwire took on one of the largest of these open development initiatives, announcing it was building a test bed WiMAX network in Silicon Valley open to the developer community, which would enable hardware-makers and software programmers to try out new applications on a high-capacity mobile broadband network. Clearwire's WiMAX service today is available commercially in Atlanta, Baltimore, Las Vegas and Portland, Ore., and will soon be available in Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth, but the applications available over the network are limited primarily to broadband access. Clearwire sells data cards, WiMAX-embedded laptops, home gateway modems and a few new devices such as Samsung's Mondi Internet tablet and Novatel's MiFi router, but those devices are merely the beginning, said Todd Lewellen, director of Clearwire's Innovation Network program.

“Our goal is when we get to a much larger national footprint that we'll have an array of applications available — not just applications that already exist and have been optimized for WiMAX, but new applications that we're only envisioning today,” Lewellen said. “We don't want to just put a developer's site up and say ‘good luck.’ We want to be directly involved in the process.”

Clearwire's three initial partners in the innovation network should come as little surprise: Intel and Google are both major investors in Clearwire, while Cisco is one of Clearwire's primary vendors, supplying IP core equipment throughout its network. The initial 20-square-mile footprint of the trial network is designed to encompass all three companies' campuses in Silicon Valley, but the network is not exclusive to them, Lewellen said. In those 20 square miles are hundreds of technology companies Clearwire hopes to recruit for the project, as well as thousands of others that could use the test bed, even if they're located outside its confines.

Clearwire is courting applications with a capital ‘A.’ Rather than just looking for the hottest game on the iPhone or the latest laptop with an embedded 4G chip, Clearwire's program aims to explore application frameworks such as mobile video, location-based services, geo-fencing and, yes, gaming. But rather than just supporting the bevy of mobile games emerging for smartphones, Lewellen said, Clearwire wants to explore large-scale gaming on a WiMAX connectivity and device platform that replicates the broadband speeds and computing power available on a home PC, as well as gaming that has the added bonus of mobility.

Another example is video. New video and multimedia capabilities on a WiMAX network could be applied to consumer apps — like streaming Hulu to a laptop viewed on a bus — but it also could be used to create a video surveillance network, which not could only use 4G as a backhaul connection, but also as a means of taking a video surveillance unit mobile, mounting a live camera on every squad car and every fireman's helmet, Lewellen said.

“WiMAX is opening up a lot of horsepower on the mobile network,” Lewellen said. “It's certainly opening people's minds on how we can do things differently.”

Verizon Wireless is attacking the issue of open development from all angles. Once one of the most closed off carriers in terms of third-party access, in the last two years Verizon has opened its networks wide. Though Verizon is required by FCC mandate to allow unfettered access to outside applications on its new 4G long-term evolution (LTE) network, it has gone much further, starting first with a 3G open development program, which has resulted in dozens of new machine-to-machine devices on its CDMA 1X and EV-DO network. The 3G-embedded consumer electronics and phones have been slower to emerge from the program, but VZW has assured they are coming.

Verizon has been even more aggressive with its 4G development program. It started issuing specifications and holding its first seminars for device-makers earlier this summer, long before even its first trial LTE networks go live at the end of the year. During the first of such seminar Webcasts, Tony Lewis, vice president of open development for VZW, summed up Verizon's new religion for open networks. “Openness is the key to the future of Verizon Wireless,” he said. “We are here to partner with you. These partnerships are key to getting products to market faster.”

Verizon is taking a distinctly European approach to device certification. It will authenticate devices on the network via SIM cards and is adopting the majority of GSM's Global Certification Forum LTE rulebook. Verizon, however, is setting higher standards for receive sensitivity and output power on its devices, which will require device-makers to add some extra features to any device they want to sell over the Verizon network. But Robert Syputa, analyst with Maravedis, said the additional requirements are by no means onerous and shouldn't impede the proliferation of new 4G devices on the network.

Lastly, Verizon is attempting to move the benefits of open development down from high-end 3G and 4G data devices and smartphones to the workaday Java and BREW handsets owned by the majority of its consumer customers. Earlier this year, VZW joined the Joint Innovation Labs initiative founded by part owner Vodafone, China Mobile and Softbank Mobile. The goal of the program is to create a single platform for developers on which to build mobile widgets — lightweight Internet applications that ride on top of a phone's browser.

Bringing new apps to Verizon's feature phones has presented a problem in the past, as they run on a mishmash of different operating systems and closed application environments. But Verizon can get around that obstacle by giving developers access to its network extensions and opening up its browser, creating a common platform across the 900 million handsets running over the four operators' networks, said Ryan Hughes, vice president of business development and partner management for VZW.

“It's an ambitious project since it isn't designed around a single, common operating system,” Hughes said. “The idea is to allow developers to create once and publish everywhere.”