An Inside Look at Wireless

The wireless industry has a long and storied history of getting ahead of itself. It's probably no different from any other industry that, like wireless, is propelled by business leaders with big ideas that have an unfortunate tendency to get sucked into a sometimes inextricable cycle of hype. But the upshot in wireless can often be particularly damaging: When mobile multimedia capabilities, for example, are promised years before they're technologically feasible, people tend to notice.

Perhaps the most damaging and enduring of all wireless claims and promises is that of ubiquitous coverage. Somewhere in the ongoing development and redevelopment of networks, applications and devices that are worthy of being labeled “next generation,” the wireless industry forgot to remember to solve the problems that would make their services useable everywhere, despite the fact that they trained consumers to have that expectation. The world's wireless expectations are now such that expressions like “dropped calls” are already archaic. Wireless communication is already so ingrained in everyday existence that mobile consumers simply don't expect to lose their connections — and are mystified and enraged when they do.

Enter the development of an entire industry sector dedicated to ensuring that wireless signals will make it anywhere — that wireless will penetrate or otherwise find its way inside any building, conference room, elevator shaft, basement, backyard and tunnel, thereby guaranteeing that no mobile user will ever be unwillingly cut off again. The business of RF distribution and in-building coverage is booming, owing in large part to the often unreasonable and sometimes impossible expectations that the wireless industry itself helped foster.

The business of one of the players in that wireless extension game is the subject of this issue's cover story. To research it, we twisted the arm of roving writer, Web editor and wannabe high-roller Jason Ankeny to return to what is for him well-worn ground: the Mirage casino in Las Vegas, the epicenter of SpectraSite's effort to add wireless service to the menu of amenities that are available anytime, anywhere in Sin City. His story, which begins on page 28, explores the complexities of making a major consumer venue wireless-friendly.

If the wireless industry is notorious for making promises too early, it also is fairly good at catching up. Efforts like those of SpectraSite ensure not only that the mobile communications sector will continue to develop and thrive, but also that all the ingenuity and innovation that goes into creating cutting-edge systems, services and gadgets will be able to get precisely where it was designed to go: to the paying public.