Wireless replay

A good lineup of wireless carrier CEOs at the CTIA's Wireless '04 opening session this morning appeared to do the trick of keeping a large number of show attendees around for the show's final day. But the discussion by the sizable panel--top executives from Nextel, Alltel, Sprint, Cingular, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless joined CTIA President and CEO Steve Largent onstage--essentially rehashed a lot of issues that were likely very familiar to the crowd they were addressing. Topics like carrier consolidation, consumer confidence and the overall state of the industry are hardly the buzz-worthy topics I was expecting the mobile carrier elite to tackle. (Speaking of tackling--or not tackling, rather--Largent's other onstage guest was New Orleans Saints receiver Joe Horn, who was fined $30,000 last season for hiding a cell phone in the end zone and making a call after he scored a touchdown. The stunt was just one of several football allusions Largent, an NFL Hall of Famer, made during this week's show.)

That said, there were some interesting moments. On the heels of the announced acquisition of AT&T Wireless by Cingular Wireless, Verizon Wireless president and CEO Denny Strigl made some statements that contradicted the industry's conventional wisdom about M&A activity. "I don't think consolidation has any impact on this business at all," Strigl said. "Choice remains huge. Having one fewer competitor is nothing." Nextel CEO Tim Donahue responded by neither agreeing nor disagreeing. "As a result of the AWE/Cingular merger, you're probably going to have a better network," he said. Cingular Wireless CEO Stan Sigman said nothing at all.

A lot of the talk throughout this year's show was about how things in wireless are starting to seem like the good old days, and this morning's opening session was no different. Back then, a lot of industry banter centered around the air interface "holy wars" between CDMA, TDMA, GSM, etc. This morning, T-Mobile Chairman John Stanton said, "Customers don't care what the technology platform is, and we do a disservice by trying to sell them technologies," Stanton said. "In the end, frankly, I don't think they matter." Stanton's declaration easily could have been uttered at the CTIA's Wireless '97 show--and probably was.

That said, there was a fair amount of entertaining sparring among the panelists, all of whom are competitors in one way or another. Strigl of Verizon Wireless ribbed Largent twice about his line of questioning, saying "Steve, do you have any tough questions on that list?" and "Are there any questions we aren't all going to agree on?" Later, after Nextel's Donahue said that he's confident that his company will retain its supremacy in push-to-talk despite growing competition, Alltel CEO Scott Ford said "I think you're right. Relax. I wouldn't give it another thought." Finally, during the industry consolidation portion of the discussion, Donahue joked, "Listen, we can't wait to buy Strigl."

E-mail me at jmeyers@primediabusiness.com