Now that CTIA’s Super Mobility Week has concluded, here are a few post-show thoughts collected as I continue to nurse three days’ worth of blisters from walking the show floor.
With so many colocated events, there seemed to be something related to just about every aspect of wireless. I heard mixed reactions from people on the timing of the show — some felt that it was a good midway point in the year that separates CTIA’s event sufficiently from the juggernauts Mobile World Congress and CES. The energy was good (if you’re bored at CTIA, you’re probably not putting much effort in), but I think there was a conspicuous lack of significant news from the large device vendors and carriers, at least of the type that causes great consumer-side anticipation and makes a show a “show-case.”
But on to what did happen last week, and what was highlighted:
—The increasingly close ties with IT: A number of trends are playing into this — mobile networks moving toward an all-IP environment, data traffic far outpacing voice, the interest in cloud and software-defined networking and network function virtualization. So it’s no surprise. But when you have news like the partnership between mobile network infrastructure vendor Ericsson and SAP being one of the major announcements coming out of a CTIA show, it’s illustrating an emphasis on IT/enterprise as well as probably tying back into what I mentioned previously about the lack of other players with “big-big-big” news.
—Apple: Oh, Apple — continuing to keep the CTIA show at arm’s-length and hosting its own shindig rather than play with the industry in Vegas … but timing its iPhone 6 announcement very carefully to coincide with the show nonetheless. Then proceeding to smash pre-sale records yet again, even as the massive influx of new devices is expected to once again cause network problems. The enthusiasm/exasperation relationship between the mobile industry and Apple continues. Sidenote: As an Android user, it is a bit satisfying to see that Apple is essentially conceding that it needs to play catch-up on phone size options beyond its standard iPhone with the iPhone 6 Plus, which will be pretty similar in dimensions to the Samsung Galaxy S5, although a bit shorter and slimmer: 5.5-inches tall vs. 5.9-inches for the S5, and a full centimeter thinner at 7.1 mm vs. 8.1 mm for the S5.
—Wearables are definitely well on their way through the hype cycle, with Apple’s Watch announcement: Apple also acquired Beats Music recently, most likely with an eye on its headphones rather than its music service. Recent reports say that Microsoft and Salesforce are entering the market as well. Amid all the wearable “wow” factor, when do we hit the “valley of disillusionment,” and what will actually stick out of all the wireless wearables being thrown at the figurative wall? Is a watch that records a driver’s heartbeat along with their rate of speed when they’re driving their Nissan going to be an enduring piece of technology? I’m thinking not. The wearables that work will have to do better than what a user can get out of their current environment — and if you can just glance at your speedometer instead of your wrist, that’s not good enough. Consumers love their phones, and I’m not sure that putting a few phone functions on a watch are enough to make that watch as much a part of their lives as the smartphone. Fitness wearables like the Fitbit extend the use of people’s smartphones rather than duplicate what phones already do, and I think the devices that succeed are going to be the ones which can do that well.
Screen size could be a major limiting factor. Consumers have already gone from tiny mobile screens to demanding ever larger, brighter and sharper screens that now take up most of the real estate on mobile devices. Will they be willing to step back to smaller, less functional screens? Not to mention that despite the amount of venture money going into health and fitness-focused wearables, there are some significant regulatory and cultural hurdles for the tech industry in the form of the Food and Drug Administration — this is not an industry used to submitting products for government review before they can be launched.
—And as RCR Wireless News’ reporter for test and measurement, it was fascinating to see where test companies are taking apps. Anite, Global Wireless Solutions and newcomer Mosaik Solutions all had some interesting demos on apps that allow various data to be collected, with minimal levels of expertise, from wireless networks. As I’ve been told, test isn’t a profit center for anyone but the test companies and the pressure has been on them to provide cheaper, simpler, more widely deployable solutions than expensive equipment that sits in a lab or in a drive-testing vehicle that costs six figures to outfit and requires an engineer or two to operate. I see this part of the industry not only responding with apps, but also starting to explore virtualization and remote access to test equipment that hopefully will expand its usefulness across organizations.
