The LiveWire at CTIA's Wireless 2001: Show Wrap-up

Show me the money

by Michael T. Burr, Telecom Business 

LAS VEGAS-- The term “revenue” has become a buzzword.

All over the show floor at CTIA Wireless 2001, companies were touting the revenue-generating capabilities of their products. From intelligent antennas to wearable devices, the industry is focused on turning cool ideas into cold, hard cash –it is business as it should be.

THE LIVE WIRE:  Wireless 2001 VIDEO INTERVIEWS Click here to view one-on-one interviews with the top plays in the wireless market TOP NEWS FRIDAY, MARCH 23 SHOW WRAP-UP THURSDAY, MARCH 22 WEDNESDAY,MARCH 21 TUESDAY, MARCH 20 NEWS BRIEFS THE VIEW from our editors RELATED INFO THE VIEW from our editors Thursday, 3.22 Answer cloudy—ask again later by Brian Quinton, Upstart    Wednesday, 3.21 Blinded by the lights by Jason Meyers Telephony/Upstart Tuesday, 3.20 Silicon Summit III? by Rhonda L. Wickham Wireless Review Monday, 3.19 All bets are off by Dan O'Shea TelecomClick return to top RELATED INFO From Telephony (3.19.01) Sevis puts SS7 on guard by Tim McElligott SPECIAL REPORT: M-commerce

Most of this focus is directed on new technology, whether it’s hardware or software. Missing from this discussion, however, is the business model question.

Telecom carriers have traditionally been slow movers. Emerging service providers challenge this tradition with higher degrees of innovation and entrepreneurship, but they’ve also suffered from shallow market penetration, minimal name recognition and low or even negative cash flow. 

Mounting ambitious test-marketing programs and deploying innovative new wireless technologies is pretty risky for such companies, especially as capital markets remain tight.

That leaves the market wide open for bigger players that are indeed taking advantage of this opportunity. From AT&T to Verizon, major wireless carriers are testing the waters of everything from location-based services to voice portals.

These companies, however, fall into the slow-mover category. Their cycle time for market validation, product testing, marketing and full deployment is glacially slow. By the time they get a new product into the market, a quicker player could have moved through the same territory and into greener fields.

AT&T’s PocketNet service is a good example. The technology isn’t exactly new. Yet access is available on a spotty basis, the service is unreliable (not to mention slow) and it only supports two handsets. Both of these handsets are huge, clunky and short on features compared to newer models.

No wonder PocketNet service has had a cool reception in the market.

New technology is a wonderful thing. The Wireless 2001 show demonstrated how broadly and deeply innovation runs in this business. But getting great ideas off the drawing board and into people’s lives is a painfully slow process that must accelerate.

Technology innovation challenges carriers to innovate in terms of their own cultures and business models. Carriers must be quick on their feet and precise in their execution. it's the only way that they will be able to turn their innovative ideas into real revenue streams.
Michael T. Burr is editor in chief of Telecom Business magazine. He can be reached at michael_burr@intertec.com.

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TOP NEWS
Show wrap-up
Connecting the dots
of mobile apps
Michael T. Burr
Telecom Business

LG, Emblaze enter 
the U.S. market
Michael T. Burr
Telecom Business

Friday, March 23
bcgi targets 
wireless carriers
Amalia D. Parthenios Telephony

Lucent introduces
software for 3G
Amalia D. Parthenios Telephony

Telcordia, CTI2 take
a unified approach
Amalia D. Parthenios Telephony

THURSDAY, MARCH 22
Online Exclusive
VoiceStream gets in the game 
Vince Vittore, Executive Editor

Gemplus makes secure move
by Dan O'Shea, TelecomClick

Keynote address
Wireless leaders rub elbows with Jimmy Carter
by Kelly Carroll, Telephony

E-911 handset asset to industry
by Maggie Chaffee
Wireless Review 

vVault Wins WAPPY Best of Show
by Rhonda Wickham
Wireless Review

Verizon, Pinpoint simplify Web access
by Rhonda L. Wickham
Wireless Review 

LGC has The Venetian covered
by Marcia Martinek
Wireless Review

Location services coming
to leading global carriers
by John Rockhold
Wireless Review

Tracking handset performance
by Marcia Martinek
Wireless Review

Penetration, churn rates 
vary across U.S.
by Vincent Ryan, Telephony

Alcatel locates a market
by Dan O'Shea, TelecomClick

Vendors make case for churn software
by Deborah Young
Wireless Review

Cingular launches Hispanic WAP portal
by Nikki Swartz, Wireless Review

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21
PacketVideo, Symbian announce smartphone partnership
by Chris Goldman
Wireless Review

Vyyo rolls the dice on 3.5 GHz broadband system
by Jason Ankeny, Upstart

VC money drying up
by Vincent Ryan, Telephony

TSI announces W-Internet service
by Deborah Young
Wireless Review

EDS rolls out LAN offering
by Toby Weber, Telephony

Ericsson drives WCDMA technology
by Kelly Carroll, Telephony

Keynote session
The customer still is king
by Kelly Carroll, Telephony

SMS crosses interface divide
by Vince Vittore, Telephony

Location-based road trip to Las Vegas
by John Rockhold
Wireless Review

3Com simplifies Internet connectivity
by Marcia Martinek
Wireless Review

Mixing an E-911 Phase II solution
by John Rockhold
Wireless Review

AirNet steps up to the EDGE
by Michael Hanley
Telephony

GiantBear hugs Savos  
Brian Quinton, Upstart

A New Alternative
to Handsets
by Maggie Chaffee
Wireless Review 

TrinTel looks toward future
by Mary Corcoran
Wireless Review 

Common ground
Intel, IBM announce standardization efforts for wireless devices
by Michael Hanley
Telephony

MySkyWeb introduces adaptive browsing app
by Nikki Swartz
Wireless Review

HiddenMind reveals new app development platform
By Chris Goldman
Wireless Review

FunMail announces animated messaging platforms
by Nikki Swartz
Wireless Review

A Cingular approach
by Kevin Fitchard
TelecomClick

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TUESDAY, MARCH 20
Yahoo! Everywhere, Verizon Wireless ink deal
Vince Vittore,Telephony

Lucent wins $5 billion Verizon contract
by Kevin Fitchard,TelecomClick

Sonera turns up Zed
by Vincent Ryan,Telephony

Air2Web flies intointernational skies
by Jason Ankeny,Upstart

Nokia promotes xHTML
as future of WAP
by Kelly Carroll,Telephony

Nextel confirms1X deployment
by Lynnette Luna,Telephony

Billing and settlement capability announced
by Amalia D. Parthenios,Telephony

IFR unveils new RF digitizer
by Toby Weber,Telephony

Metawave shines spotlight on smart antennas
by Mary Corcoran, Wireless Review

Sprint PCS boasts migration strategy to 3G
by Kelly Carroll, Telephony

2Roam blossoms with new deal
by Vince Vittore, Telephony

Dell’s a LAN man
by Dan O'Shea, TelecomClick

Kick-off session
They have a dream
by Jason Meyers Telephony/Upstart

Winphoria targets
wireless core switching
by Brian Quinton, Upstart 

Caucus to Aid Carriers with Wireless Internet
by Rhonda L. Wickham, Wireless Review

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NEWS BRIEFS

TUESDAY, MARCH 27
He’s still waiting for his visa to arrive so he can work in the ’States, but Malcolm Cowan is on the job as the new CEO at Sevis Systems Inc.

Formerly president and COO of GN Net Test–and a longtime Nortel executive before that–Cowan was attracted to Sevis because he sees a bright future for its products, which simplify number portability and offer security enhancements to protect telecom networks.--Michael T. Burr, Telecom Business

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THURSDAY, MARCH 22
Antenna company EMS Wireless announced its new line of SlimGEM low-profile antennas designed to help carriers comply with zoning issues. The new antennas are up to 60% smaller than many existing solutions, but do not sacrifice performance. The SlimGEM line is already available domestically, and will be available globally by mid-year.

The company also unveiled a new PCS tower mounted amplifier product. EMS’s TMA product can be deployed stand-alone, or can be integrated with panel antennas and compact cell sites.--Dan O'Shea, TelecomClick

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Gravitate, a provider of a voice-activated location-based services platform, inked a deal with Bandai, the leading supplier of wireless Internet applications to NTT DoCoMo. Bandai will conduct a real-market evaluation of the Gravitate platform’s ability to location-enable Bandai applications, especially those that involve connecting wireless users who are near each other. Gravitate determines an X,Y coordinate for the wireless user via location-determining technologies from US Wireless and SigmaOne.--John Rockhold, Wireless Review

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21
Fabless semiconductor company Tropian announced it is partnering with PrairieComm, a baseband and software product developer for wireless devices, to produce next-generation, multimode chipsets for wireless phones and base stations. The chipsets will combine PrairieComm’s baseband integrated circuit platforms with Tropian’s multimode RF technology, which is based on polar modulation and non-linear power amplification.

The Tropian technology, called Polar Impact, allows for more efficient power use and “spectrum purity,” which enables more handsets to simultaneously talk to a base station, said Richard Lodge, Tropian’s director of European marketing and applications. The chips will be used in handsets that support any combination of GSM, ANSI-136, EDGE, AMPS and UMTS. Tropian expects to begin sampling products late in the second quarter, with handset manufacturer rollouts six to nine months later.--Vincent Ryan, Telephony

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TUESDAY, MARCH 20
Motorola and UK-based applications developer magic4 are demonstrating the Motorola V.series 100 messaging device using magic4's advanced messaging client, g@te. The software developed by magic4 allows rich multimedia content and forms-based transactions to 

be delivered over a packet medium such as mobile SMS. Motorola launched the V.series 100 last November with a large screen and keyboard designed to simplify SMS usage. Motorola said it plans to incorporate g@te into its other mobile to be launched later this year.--Dan O'Shea, TelecomClick

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Sprint PCS and Motorola wasted no time Monday as the Wireless 2001 pre-show conference session began. The pair announced they will team up for upcoming lab trials of the vendor’s J2ME platform based on the Java 2 micro edition standard. Sprint PCS is the first major CDMA carrier to perform an in-house lab trial, which will begin later this month in Sprint PCS' lab in Kansas City, and will run for about three months. The key focus of the trial is to explore downloading wireless applications over-the-air. Motorola is targeting J2ME at interactive applications mobile users might download to lend personalization to their mobile experience, or to upgrade their phones’ capabilities on the fly. The J2ME standard is a derivation of Java designed for small handheld devices, such as mobile phones and PDAs.--Dan O'Shea, TelecomClick

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Wireless Online, a developer of smart wireless infrastructure, has announced a partnership with interWAVE Communications International to jointly develop a GSM/GPRS solution integrating Wireless Online’s smart antenna system and interWAVE’s base stations.

Initial field tests of the combined solution have been conducted in the San Francisco area. In this test, coverage gains were reported to be more than 100%, and capacity gains were more than 200%, according to Wireless Online.

The products integrated through the partnership are interWAVE’s WAVEXpress and Wireless Online’s ClearBeam smart antenna equipment. Following further testing, the combined solution will be generally available later this year.--Dan O'Shea, TelecomClick

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Paragon Networks has launched its BROADway network access platform to help carriers better manage voice and data traffic being routed across their networks. The BROADway system integrates much of the functionality of Sonet ADMs, high-speed IP edge routers, digital cross-connects, integrated access devices, DSLAMs and other equipment.

The system delivers transport, edge routing and switching intelligence at the network access point to relieve traffic bottlenecks between the network core, cell sites and customer devices. Paragon plans to have beta tests with Verizon Wireless and other carriers over the next couple of months before BROADway’s general availability in June.--Dan O'Shea, TelecomClick

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