Paring Down Internet Access

About five years ago, every major cellular carrier sported a new division within its sales organization. Designed to be advanced, forward thinking and innovative, this small but well-funded group of individuals was to redefine the carrier services for the next decade. Armed with millions of dollars worth of infrastructure-building budget, these people set out to "save" their organizations' dwindling average-revenue-per-subscriber statistics and redefine the value proposition for wireless. They were -- The Data Team.

Most such teams have broken up. Most of the data teams have been replaced with new titles such as business development or advanced services.

It was revealing to dust off a few file cabinets and look back five years to see what all of these data teams were talking about. There it was in black and white -- the killer wireless data applications were e-mail and wireless Internet access.

Were all of these people wrong? Or is it just that the market hasn't happened yet and that perhaps next year will be the year that consumers jump aboard?

DEFINITIONS VARYThis question cannot be answered simply. You need to be specific in defining an application space. It turns out that words such as e-mail and Internet access mean different things to different people, and these varying definitions radically alter the list of appropriate hardware/software/service options they should consider. To make matters worse, many people lump e-mail in with wireless Internet access as if they were one application. This is anything but true.

In an early CDPD seminar, a (now unemployed) CDPD proponent exclaimed in delight that he was going to satisfy his customers' requirements for wireless Web browsing. "Look here," he said. "I can pull up today's weather right here on the screen so I can prepare for my drive later this afternoon. I can then click here and get a map to my meeting, and I can even book my hotel room that I'll need this evening. And I can do all of this sitting right here in this meeting. That's Internet access; that's the future."

Not exactly. It's time to pin down the term Internet access. Ask what people want to access from the Internet today via a wireless device. What specific applications are they likely to pay for, and what form factors will they demand for those applications? It helps to frame all of this in the context of mass-market opportunities instead of niche applications that require customized hardware and software to function.

MASS MARKET OR BUSTThat vertical market space likely will be compelling for many more years, but the reason the large data teams no longer exist is because carriers are focused on pushing product through the mainline distribution channels. Although carriers can act as project managers on customer wireless integration opportunities, the carrier community largely has rejected this vertical strategy. If wireless carriers are going to sell data, they are going to go through the retail sales channel, or they won't sell it at all.

Given that mass-market-or-nothing mentality, consider what applications the Internet exposes to the general public today and gauge the general public's receptivity to accessing those services with a wireless device. Think about what is on the market today and whether it can sell given the right marketing plan.

When people think about the Internet, they often think about e-mail. Although it's true that e-mail messages travel over the Internet, they often reside in safe havens outside of the Internet. Corporate e-mail is linked to complex e-mail packages and productivity suites, which need to be synchronized more so than accessed.

E-CHATA more compelling subset of e-mail can be called e-chat. E-chat is non-critical e-mail. It typically is short, non-sophisticated, somewhat impulsive and maybe even fun. The e-chat application on the wired Internet space is going great guns. Check out Yahoo Messenger, for example. It already has millions of users and is growing. Selling wireless e-chat requires a pricing model that is not usage sensitive and a device that is instant-on, portable (like a pager) and requires little effort to set up.

The e-chat applications on the Internet also offer voice chat (v-chat) services, for free of course. The subscriber can click on his buddy who he knows is on-line and converse. Although it would seem that there is no wireless analogy to this, think about Nextel's feature set, complete with group talk for conferencing and private interconnect. For example, a voice-activated v-chat system in a car would be a powerful application.

Most people don't surf the Internet anymore because they are too busy. They use the Internet as a tool to obtain information from a few reliable sources. The question is, what information do these people get and do they demand that information while untethered from their desks?

The first type of information that comes to mind is stock trading. More individuals are invested in the stock market now than at any other time in history, and Internet stock trading is booming. A marketing campaign that gently reminds a prospect that he is out of touch with the stock market and provides a solution would be compelling. Again, the device needs to be instant-on, lightweight and resemble the form factor of a pager.

Another hot Internet application is the portal. The portal is the jumping-off point for the Internet, and it does something implicitly that would be useful on a wireless device: it pre-fetches important information. Because a user customizes a portal with his preferences for various types of information such as weather, news and stocks, the information is waiting any time the subscriber wants to look at it. An auto-scrolling display on a portable wireless phone would make a nice portal.

Then there is the straightforward access to search engines, where the user types in text and gets results. He visits those pages and reads information that he needs. This is Web browsing in its purest form, and it requires a link to an ISP and a laptop or palmtop.

Other Internet applications might have even more applicability in the wireless space. Think about it. The key is not to wrap up separate applications into nebulous concepts such as "Internet access." The Internet is an enabler for applications, not an application in itself.

Southern LINC is gearing up to provide its customers with access to their corporate databases as well as the Internet in the fourth quarter. In preparation, it is beta testing wireless data capabilities across its 127,000-square-mile network that includes both major metro and rural areas throughout Alabama, Georgia, Southeast Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle.

It has licensed the Phone.com Up.Link server and plans to offer a suite of wireless data and Internet services on the Motorola iDEN handsets, which run the Phone.com WAP-compatible microbrowser. These services will be combined with Southern LINC's 2-way radio, phone, text and numeric paging and will be integrated into one handset that can be used throughout Southern LINC's coverage area.

Southern LINC customers will be able to access e-mail, contacts, calendar, travel directions, weather/traffic, stock quotes and news.