Wake Up & Smell the Data

New products are nice, demos are fine, but the real reason you attend shows like Wireless 2001 is to collect business-critical information. And, lucky for you, if you look carefully, beyond all the glitz and glimmer of new-product announcements and application demos, you’ll find some valuable market data this week.

Telephia, a company that tracks and provides competitive market intelligence to the wireless industry, will announce key findings about what wireless consumers want, what they’ll pay and carriers’ market share in major U.S. cities (visit #8060 or www.telephia.com). (See Figure 1.)

When asked how willing they were to receive advertising for products or services on their wireless devices, 53% of Telephia’s standing panel of phone, PDA, laptop and 2-way pager users — the largest dedicated panel of wireless data consumers in the country — were at least somewhat enthusiastic. The other 47% of respondents were resistant to accepting ads on their devices.

But the study also found that consumers’ interest in receiving ads increases when they are given some incentives and control. Many of those who initially are not open to accepting ads change their minds when presented with the opportunity to obtain some sort of compensation and/or control of the advertisements in exchange, said Alan Brune, Telephia vice president of marketing.

Telephia asked only those who described themselves as “somewhat,” “not very” or “not at all” willing to accept advertising whether the opportunity to obtain discounts on products or services in exchange for receiving ads would change their minds. This possibility of tangible compensation convinced 19% of this subgroup of respondents to join either the “extremely willing” category (5%) or the “very willing” category (14%).

Telephia also isolated a smaller subgroup, comprising those who still weren’t “very” or “extremely” open to the idea of receiving ads, and asked whether the ability to limit which companies had permission to send these discounts would influence their decisions.

And, when presented with the chance to have greater control over the flow of such information to their devices, an additional 17% of users changed their responses to either “extremely willing” (2%) or “very willing” (15%).

These findings indicate that there is a significant opportunity for advertising to play a vital role in the future of the wireless industry, if carriers present it to subscribers with the right degrees of control and compensation.

“The jury is still out with regard to wireless advertising, but we are pleased to see already such a high level of consumer interest, which increases significantly when consumers are offered compensation and other incentives,” said John Dee Fair, Telephia vice president of research and development.

According to Fair, future opportunities such as location-based advertising and promotions also look bright.

The advertising numbers are just some of the conclusions about wireless trends that Telephia has gleaned from its ongoing wireless data and Internet survey. Telephia also will introduce key market-share studies, including the top carriers in the top-20 U.S. markets gleaned from data from Market~Trac, which evaluates shifts in carrier marketshare and customer-acquisition rates on a monthly basis. Such critical knowledge provides insight into how a carrier’s business compares to that of its competitors in the top U.S. markets.

Telephia also will release key market data on carriers’ daily pricing plans, as provided by its Pricing~Trac product, which monitors, analyzes and compares different carriers’ rate plans and promotional activity at the market level.

More at the Show:
• BitFlash’s content-delivery suite allows ISPs and carriers to deliver mobile Internet content and services. The suite is made up of several software components — the content server, the suite of browsers for PDAs and smart phones, and a filter SDK — that deliver visual content to the screen.

The content server optimizes data from different sources for delivery to Internet-enabled platforms. The browser allows mobile Internet-enabled platform users to view and interact with content from the server. Finally, the filter SDK adds support for file formats that are not supported off the shelf by the content server. This allows customers to add support for file formats they need to publish.
Visit #3569 or www.bitflash.com

• Delivering the power of wireless data to the mobile community, Nextcell, a wireless data-solutions company, has introduced the PocketSpider. PocketSpider is a wireless Internet protocol device designed to fit in a CompactFlash slot of a PDA.

Using a PDA with Microsoft’s PocketPC or Palm operating system, the Pocket-Spider supports e-mail, Web browsing, messaging and enterprise solutions. Because the PocketSpider has its own LCD screen, all status information is displayed on the modem screen without taking valuable screen space from the user’s application.
Visit # 559 or www.nextcell.com

• Livemind’s personal-access centers (PACs) are application templates designed for smart phones. These frameworks allow wireless carriers to combine content, commerce activities and network services into personalized applications that meet the needs of different customer groups. Livemind PACs embed commerce activities and network services into user-requested content such as team scores or sports news to create a targeted and intuitive data application.

Wireless carriers have the flexibility to define the content and commerce feeds used within a given PAC based on their partnerships and the customer base they are targeting.
Visit #2168 or www.livemind.com

• Indiqu has joined forces with TELUS Mobility to bring OnTheSnow.com, powered by Indiqu, to digital wireless customers across Canada.

The strategic agreement calls for Indiqu to deliver up-to-the minute snow-sport information, such as snow and weather reports, ski-resort profiles and snow-sport events and entertainment, from snow resorts across North America to the Web-ready phones of TELUS Mobility’s PCS and Mike customers.

Powered by its technology platform, quServe, Indiqu can acquire information, data and services in a variety of configurations and deploy them on any wireless device.

QuServe supports all major mobile browsers and gateway vendors, and can work on pre-WAP-, WAP- and SMS-based platforms. It also offers a flexible authentication mode that can add personalization, security and billing to its services.
Visit #6001 or www.indiqu.com

• PacketVideo’s PVPlatform 2.0 is the enhanced MPEG-4-compliant solution for delivering wireless multimedia. PVPlatform 2.0 comprises encoding, transmission and decoding software products that enable the delivery of audio, video, branded content and applications to wireless devices.

Based on carrier field trials from around the world, PVPlatform 2.0 enables wireless carriers to deliver relevant information to subscribers in a compelling visual format.

One of the most significant enhancements to the platform is the introduction of PacketVideo’s FrameTrack dynamic rate-control technology. FrameTrack provides uninterrupted video and audio streaming at the best quality in wireless, error-prone networks with varying bit rates. PVServer uses FrameTrack to adjust the frame rate automatically for each individual subscriber based on video-quality information detected by PVPlayer in real time.
Visit #6015 or www.pv.com

• Sierra Wireless has teamed with GoAmerica to provide wireless data and Internet access for the Handspring Visor hand-held computer.

The wireless solution will combine Go America’s Go.Web service with the Handspring Visor and a new wireless adapter developed by Sierra Wireless that will be designed specifically to interface with the Visor’s Springboard slot. GoAmerica has entered into an initial supply agreement with Sierra Wireless for its new Springboard Adapter.
Visit #6000 or www.sierrawireless.com