Planes, Trains & Ferris Wheels

A private pilot calls homefrom 12,000 feet to tell his family he'll be late for dinner. A young mother pulls cash from a mobile wireless automatic teller machine (ATM) on the state fair grounds so her daughters can have one more round of cotton candy. A downtown railroad-crossing signal malfunctions at 2 a.m. but is back up and running within hours without incident, thanks to a wireless remote monitoring system.

Aviation, banking and remote monitoring are but a handful of the intriguing niche markets available to wireless service providers pursuing new sales channels. Some of these markets offer a simple boost in airtime, while others can open doors to entirely new customer segments.

In the case of cash machines, for example, new digital wireless ATMs that run on CDPD air links actually cut down on airtime, making them attractive to banks as alternatives to circuit-switched cellular or landline units. Airtime charges average about $90 to $110 per month per CDPD-linked ATM machine vs. $4,000 to $6,000 per month per machine in a circuit-switched environment. But carriers still can cash in on the technology, according to Jim Solomon, president & CEO of GOOItech, which has developed and trademarked a "wireless electronic commerce" technology that allows ATMs to work wherever CDPD exists.

"What's in it for the carrier is that they can offer this type of packaged solution to a corporate customer, such as a bank, that they may not have had entry with otherwise," he said. "Once they have the cus-tomer's attention, they wind up not only selling the placement of an ATM with a CDPD circuit line, but in many instances a point-of-sale, credit-card authorization device as well as, strangely enough, being able to sell phone service at the same time."

The CDPD cash machines already are up and running on riverboat casinos. Other potential venues include cruise ships, festivals, concerts and sporting events to name just a few. AT&T Wireless, Bell Atlantic Mobile, GTE, Sprint and Vanguard are among carriers already working with GOOItech on the banking application, according to Solomon.

Other applications for wireless electronic commerce include the taxi/limousine industry and "door-step" point-of-sale transactions for home grocery delivery, plumbers, electricians, carpet cleaners and other services, Solomon said. For example, when an insurance agent makes a sale at someone's home, he may ask for a check for the customer's initial deposit. Two to three weeks later, the cash is available to the insurance company. But if the agent could accept a credit or debit card on site for the initial payment, the dollars would be available within 24 hours, Solomon said.

"This can turn into a significant opportunity for the carrier," Solomon said. "Major insurance companies have hundreds of agents on the streets within a given community. Not only will they want to use the data side, but they also may need voice capabilities. This approach offers the potential to lock up a large corporate client for voice service based on data activity."

Market in the Sky Some carriers are looking skyward toward another potentially lucrative wireless market -- air-to-ground phone service. Frequent fliers on commercial airlines are familiar with the air-to-ground service provided primarily by GTE and AT&T. But the second-tier aviation market that consists of corporate jets, twin-engine aircraft and single-engine planes is still up for grabs.

One company going after that market is AirCell, which has developed a proprietary technology that reuses cellular frequencies to provide a high-altitude "overlay" of 800MHz coverage specifically for in-flight use. AirCell has been operating under an experimental license for the past four years and hopes to receive permanent FCC approval in the near future.

AirCell's goal, according to founder & co-chairman Jimmy Ray, is "to provide low-cost voice and data communications for all general aircraft, from a Cessna 172 to a Gulfstream V." The company is competing in some ways with the larger carriers that provide air-to-ground service on commercial jetliners, but is hoping to attract smaller customers with a lower-priced, lighter-weight system, according to Geoffrey Hoppe, vice president sales and marketing.

Carriers currently working with AirCell include U.S. Cellular, which holds a small equity stake in the company, as well as Cell-com, Comcast, First Cellular of Illinois, Kansas Cellular and Vanguard.

"From a cellular provider's standpoint, we're a reseller into a market to which they don't currently have access," Hoppe said. "They might have a cell site out in the boondocks that they're running at a loss. We put our antenna at the site, buy airtime from them and give them an average of $300,000 to $400,000 a year in revenue they wouldn't have had otherwise."

For voice service alone, AirCell is hoping to capture about 60 million airtime minutes per year from the business jet and general aviation (non-scheduled) market nationwide, according to Hoppe. That number would increase significantly if the company adds data services, such as weather maps and other graphics. AirCell projects average airtime revenues of $200 to $250 per month per phone, based on charges of $45 per month plus $1.75 per minute for air phone service and $25 per month plus $1.75 per minute for ground phone service. AirCell executives project that the company will have about 30,000 customers when its service is fully deployed in about five years.

"The market ranges on the low side from a guy who's flying a $25,000 aircraft and putting on 30 to 40 hours a year to the high-end guy who's flying a $35-million jet and putting on 500 hours a year," Hoppe said.

Amoco Oil is one of AirCell's current customers.

"They get a group of three or four executives on the jet, and the first thing they all do is get on the phone," Hoppe noted. "Part of our concept here is to help turn the 'office in the sky' concept into a reality."

One of AirCell's greatest challenges is to ensure that its 800MHz signal is completely compatible with existing terrestrial cellular systems. Four cellular carriers -- AirTouch, AT&T, BellSouth and GTE -- recently filed a petition with the FCC charging that AirCell's service caused interference with the terrestrial network and that the company was commercializing its service while under experimental license. As of early December, AirCell was under a temporary "freeze" by the agency. But Hoppe was optimistic that the company's service would be back up and running early this year.

In requesting permanent FCC authority in late October, AirCell said it had demonstrated that its system would not interfere with ground-based cellular systems. The company also said that it could actually decrease interference from regular cellular phones used illegally in aircraft by offering an alternative for use in smaller planes.

"Independent studies have shown that cellular phones are used illegally on 12% of all flights nationwide," he said. "That's very scary because it means there is a tremendous amount of interference taking place all over the country from these illegal users."

Beyond Vehicle Location Back on the ground, a number of carriers also are discovering the revenue potential of wireless remote monitoring services such as a BellSouth-patented technology. The technology, marketed as Cellemetry Data Service, allows remote monitoring of equipment by using the control channels of a cellular carrier's existing network. The service works by mimicking a roaming cellular phone, according to Carol Kennemore, Cellemetry marketing manager.

Applications range from remote monitoring of railroad-crossing signals to monitoring stand-by power-supply units commonly used by cable TV companies to the remote collection of billing information from individual utility meters. Other apps include remote monitoring of office photocopiers, oil and gas pipelines, security systems and even vending machines.

What do these low-volume, low-frequency applications mean to a carrier's bottom line?

"Basically, this technology turns an under-utilized resource -- control channels -- into a revenue-generating architecture that addresses significant pent-up demand," Kennemore said. "It expands a carrier's wireless data portfolio while reducing resource requirements for the carrier."

Among North American carriers using Cellemetry Service to build additional revenue streams on their existing networks are AirTouch, BellSouth, Bell Mobility (Canada), CommNet Cellular, Frontier Cellular, Kansas Cellular, Rural Cellular, Sygnet, US West NewVector and Vanguard.

Whether by ground, air or sea, the number of niche markets for wireless technology only will continue to grow. Hoppe of AirCell predicted that an increasing number of wireless technologies would employ frequency reuse, opening even more new revenue channels in the future.

"Finding innovative ways to reuse existing spectrum benefits the people already managing that spectrum such as the cellular providers," he noted. "There is a tendency in this industry to be very protective and say, 'That's my spectrum. You can't come in here.' But the real pioneers are saying, 'Hey, this is another way to serve the public as well as our shareholders.'"