Something BREWing
Wireless OS promises to help provide compelling data services
by Patricia Brown
tele.com
06/04/01, 2:04 p.m. ET
The wireless Internet may still be in its infancy, but judging from the investment dollars that providers and manufacturers are pouring into related technology, the industry is betting big money that the market will sizzle. Carriers spent nearly $17 billion at last January's spectrum auction-and the race to build third-generation (3G) networks continues to intensify.
But when consumers and corporate types discuss their mobile phone requirements, voice remains the primary application. A recent survey by The Yankee Group (Boston) reveals that only 8 percent of mobile phone customers use wireless data services. Of those who don't, more than half said it was because they don't want or need the service. However, analysts are counting on wireless device platforms such as Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW) from Qualcomm Inc. (San Diego) to make wireless data access easier, cheaper and more compelling. Using BREW and similar operating systems (OSs), customers will be able to download applications from their wireless phones and then run the applications offline, which will let them access applications without paying for airtime.
First introduced in January, BREW is one of several OSs that will be used in the next generation of handsets.
Sun Microsystems Inc. (Palo Alto, Calif.) has its own Java-based operating system, dubbed J2ME, already embedded into some phones in the United States and Asia. Like J2ME, BREW lets customers download items such as MP3 files directly to their handsets. The software will be included at no cost for wireless equipment manufacturers with Qualcomm's code-division multiple access (CDMA) technology chip set. Given that Qualcomm controls some 90 percent of the CDMA chip set market, analysts expect a large number of wireless vendors to pick up the software. The Yankee Group expects the first BREW-enabled phones to be sold in Asia in the second half of the year and in the United States by the end of 2001.
At its developers' conference last month, Qualcomm signed a deal with security provider VeriSign Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.) to integrate VeriSign's security programming with BREW. The VeriSign software will give each downloaded application an individual identification mark to authenticate the downloaded materials so that the wireless device knows the application's integrity is intact.
Security is critical for any application that's going to be downloaded onto a wireless device, says Mahi de Silva, vice president of applied trust services at VeriSign. Gaming, for example, is a hotbed of virus distribution, he says. “Equipment manufacturers want to have control over how these applications are published on the phones.”
De Silva adds that both the handset vendor and the provider will lose business if a subscriber downloads a virus and the phone stops working.
Gina Lombardi, vice president of marketing at Qualcomm's Internet services division, says the company is working directly with software developers as well as with other handset manufacturers and carriers. Developers can write applications for CDMA handsets without incurring the costs of finding a handset partner. Handset manufacturers will be able to load BREW applications onto multiple handset models, and carriers will also be able to offer BREW applications directly from their Web sites. Partners and carriers can download the BREW Software Developers Kit (SDK) from Qualcomm's site. Verizon Communications, KDDI Corp. (Tokyo) and Korea Telecom Freetel (KT Freetel, Seoul) will start delivering BREW applications later this year, with other carriers to follow suit in 2002, says Lombardi.
Analysts say BREW will appeal to handset manufacturers because it is specifically designed for handsets and is a standard part of the Qualcomm chip set. But Phil Marshall, senior analyst at The Yankee Group, says there's still a big question about what non-CDMA manufacturers will do. “You've got the whole GSM [global system for mobile communications] handset manufacturer market out there,” he says. Qualcomm is wise to convince service providers to back BREW, Marshall adds, which in turn will push handset manufacturers to support the system.
teledotcom.com |
