Ginn Calls For 3G Resolution>
General News From CTIA '99: Feb. 9, 1999
Ginn Calls For CPP, 3G Resolutions
If there were an anointed Wireless '99 man of the hour, AirTouch
Communications Inc. Chairman Sam Ginn might be that person.
Basking in the afterglow of Vodafone Group plc's announced plan to
acquire AirTouch, Ginn talked Monday with Wireless Week's Show
Daily about a number of policy and technology issues affecting
wireless, which he views as "a minutes factory" that will boost its share
of all telecom traffic to an estimated 25 percent by 2007 compared
with 4 percent today.
Ginn said he has spoken to top executives at Ericsson Inc. and
Qualcomm Inc. to resolve their legal fight over patents so
third-generation equipment development can proceed. "I have
encouraged both to look for solutions that would allow the industry to
be more successful than it otherwise could be," he said.
In a separate interview, Ericsson CEO Bo Dimert said, "I am hopeful
we can resolve the issue in the first half."
In the U.S. market, the lack of calling party pays and customer
confusion about multiple technologies are "training customers not to
use" wireless and negatively affecting company valuations, Ginn said. In
Europe, where CPP exists and penetration already is 40 percent to 50
percent--much higher than in the United States--analysts readily accept
projections of 60 percent penetration in the near future, boosting
valuations. Without CPP, analysts here are hesitant to believe such
rosy forecasts.
"The FCC needs to mandate CPP and solve the second issue through
3G," Ginn said. Although many observers cited the recent U.S.
Supreme Court decision shifting power from the states to the FCC as
the legal basis for possible commission action on CPP and other
wireless issues where states have asserted regulatory authority, he sees
the issue another way. "I have been more concerned about the
commission's willingness rather than its legal right to move," Ginn said.
According to Ginn, CPP actually would help the commission achieve
one of its other objectives: providing more communications options to
underserved market segments. For example, CPP allows prepaid
subscribers--who often choose preset spending limit plans because
they have less access to credit--to receive wireless calls at callers'
expense. "This is getting right at the policy issues," he said.
On other issues, Ginn said he expects PrimeCo Personal
Communications LP, the company's joint personal communications
services venture with spurned suitor Bell Atlantic, will reach
break-even next year. The executive said he's looking for "a business
solution rather than a court solution" to the lawsuit Bell Atlantic filed
against AirTouch, a suit widely viewed as a negotiating ploy in the two
carriers' attempts to reach revised roaming agreements. |
