Speaker: Pair WAP with Bluetooth

New York City (Telephony) — The wireless Internet industry might be in its infancy, but the first Internet World Wireless 2001 show has provided those within it a chance to explore how it might grow and become as common as telephony itself.

In this morning's final keynote speech, Skip Bryan, director of technology market development for Ericsson Mobile Phone and Terminals, explored how the convergence of wireless application protocol (WAP) and Bluetooth technology within devices could drive the wireless Internet, most notably mobile commerce.

"The cable replacement idea was only the beginning for Bluetooth," Bryan said. "In areas of communication, WAP fits into wide area networking where Bluetooth fits into personal area networking. We see these two interfaces at different ends coming together."

While WAP was and is intended to bring telephony and data together, Bluetooth combined with WAP could bring about an always-on personal device because connectivity at a short distance is what Bluetooth is all about, Bryan said.

Moreover, operators working with WAP can manage their subscribers in an automated fashion, provide differentiation and seek new revenue streams. There are about 139 carriers who have or are in the process of implementing WAP, according to Bryan.

"WAP provides the prospect that application developers can create apps with the appropriate tags so that they can be targeted to distinct users and across various device types," he said.

Bryan also suggested that WAP over Bluetooth addresses m-commerce. For instance, if a mall has a network of access points within it, and a golf store inside the mall wants to interact with customers that have a specified interest in golf, that store can market to those customers directly via their WAP-enabled phone with embedded Bluetooth technology.

Another possibility would be if consumers want to call their personal gateways at home and get access to all of the Bluetooth-enabled devices in the home that they might want to control remotely, such as a VCR.

"This could provide consumers with the possibility of not being tethered to time schedules," Bryan said. "This is an example of the benefits that can come from having WAP in a mobile environment mixed with WAP and Bluetooth in a local environment."

Ericsson expects to have WAP-enabled, GPRS-capable phones with embedded Bluetooth technology on the market by the second quarter of this year, he said.

Though Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia may have found it necessary to outsource the production of their mobile phone businesses, Bryan does not see this as a challenge to the further evolution of mobile device capabilities.

"It is a tighter marketplace and by outsourcing our manufacturing we might be saying that we are not the best manufacturer," he said. "However, we are working to add a different type of value and creating additional opportunities for manufacturers to spin products the way consumers may want them."