ORLANDO, Fla.-In the sun-draped city of Orlando, with its springtime spurts of rain and dreamy lakes, the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium drew a mixed crowd of wireless vendors, operators, developers and analysts to re-energize interest in its brand of technology and to contemplate strategies to scale hurdles in the sojourn to the next generation of technologies.
Keynote addresses and panel discussions often gravitated toward the right kind of devices, location-based services, Bluetooth and GAIT, a new network being built by Cingular Wireless and AT&T Wireless Services Inc. as part of interim solutions before the full bloom of wideband CDMA technology. GAIT combines both TDMA and GSM into one complex network. Phones for the network may be on the way soon.
In his keynote address, Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association President Tom Wheeler suggested the right approach by the wireless industry to the uncertainties of 3G and the current economy might be as an army in a state of war.
“Are we standing on the edge of an abyss or about to climb to the mountain top?” asked Wheeler as he made reference to the Civil War in fitting anecdotes to illustrate how the wireless industry needs to employ innovation, timeliness, the right decisions and a grasp of the issues in order to succeed.
He referred to how the Confederate Army was able to deliver a huge route of the Union Army at the Battle of Manassas with the use of the innovation of the train at the right time even after the Union Army had begun to declare victory.
He said these principles should be used in managing voice, data and the wireless Internet.
“Determining the scope of battle is just as important as fighting it,” he said.
He also referred to the tension between the industry and the Pentagon over freeing up more bands for 3G services. He alluded to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s recent comment that the Pentagon needed $300 billion for defense spending, and quipped: “They’ve got spectrum and need money, but we’ve got money and need spectrum.”
The GAIT technology was the main surprise of the conference with both Cingular and AT&T Wireless, the largest supporters of TDMA and GSM in the United States, announcing that they had made progress in building the networks and were happy with the results so far.
Kameron Coursey, Cingular’s director of networking development, said the company earmarked 18 months to build its network and it would be ready either by the fourth quarter of this year or early in 2002. He also hinted that German phone maker Siemens AG was working on GAIT phones, but was not sure when they would be rolled out.
Rob Nelson, chief technology officer for AT&T Wireless, also hinted that his company was building GAIT networks. AT&T Wireless had announced in the fourth quarter of 2000 that it would overlay its TDMA networks with GSM technology.
Coursey said Cingular was being driven to the GAIT route partly because of some of the uncertainties associated with the gravitation to 3G and also the need to cater to some of its roaming customers who have had to use GSM carrier’s facilities when they travel outside Cingular’s penetration areas.
Another issue that generated interest was whether the future belongs to just one device or several devices for different needs and applications.
Mitesh Desai, Compaq’s vice president of marketing, sparked the debate by asserting that end users would be more interested in using one device that envelopes all applications.
But Lucent Technologies Inc.’s Chief Technology Officer Paul Mankiewich said it would be difficult to develop that kind of device, while noting that the market could support different families of devices each of which catered to specific demographics. So an adult who also is a parent, uses office-oriented applications and plays golf may use one device for one activity and use another for something else. The problem, both Desai and Mankiewich agreed, would be whether the networks would be able to reconcile the applications in one family of device with the other when the user switches from one device to the other.
Most of the panels referred to location-based services as the killer application, but questions were raised as to how the networks would handle the surge of such technologies as 802.11 and Bluetooth.
Issues also were raised as to how users could reconnect with the networks once they moved out of the coverage areas of these technologies.
International roaming and the need to tap the vast commercial potential of that market as well as managing the obstacles of fraud, operator-to-operator reconciliation of accounts and privacy were topics participants chewed as they looked into a future where the world seems inevitably bound toward wireless.
A recent Strategis Group study showed that the TDMA market could rake in up to $712 million from U.S.-originated travelers to selected countries by 2003. Mexico alone would generate $611 million of that money, according to the report. Other countries covered in the report are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong and Venezuela.
The study, conducted by Bayardo Gonzalez, showed that potential revenue per traveler would rise from $90 in 2000 to $156 in 2003, representing a 73-percent leap.
“This study provides a solid rationale for more intensive implementation of international TDMA roaming,” said Richard Downes, UWCC’s director for Latin America and the Caribbean.
EDGE and GPRS received a lot of attention, with EDGE recurring more in abstract conversation as panelists tried to imagine the future.
And Wheeler seemed to encapsulate that future in his question: In the future, how would the wireless industry handle a world where there is greater penetration than households, adults and youths? The CTIA chieftain seems to go back to the Civil War and the need to be prepared.
