Latest NYT article on wireless (which, as usual, completely ignores or mischaracterizes or trashes everything having to do with CDMA and Qualcomm (for example : SnapTrack))
Here is the text of the caption for an illustration (which will not "copy and paste," so I am typing it out) :
"A new AT&T Wireless service, not yet widely available, lets a cellphone operate as a wireless modem, giving Internet access to a laptop computer."
NEW ??? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE ??? (NYT reporters)
Sprint PCS (an all CDMA network) has had this for at least several years (and totally nationwide on their system).
How do I know -- I use it all the time. And, it works perfectly.
*********************
October 8, 2001
What Now for Wireless?
By SIMON ROMERO
In Manhattan last June, Discover magazine
convened a panel of technology experts
from companies that included I.B.M.
(news/quote), Walt Disney and Nokia
(news/quote) to hold forth on the future of
wireless technology.
[Guess who owns Discover magazine ? Disney. Guess who blew it big time in wireless (by not signing up with Qualcomm quickly enough) ? Nokia. Great panel of experts ... Ha !]
Among the blue-sky predictions were
cellphones that would let prospective home
buyers find a house's price simply by pointing
the device at the building. Another brainstorm
involved a wireless toaster that would burn an
image of the day's weather forecast right onto
a piece of bread.
These days, such a giddy gathering is hard to
imagine. Last month's terrorist attacks and the
mounting evidence of a recession have had a
sobering effect on many businesses. The
wireless communications industry, in
particular, has been forced to curb its
futurism.
Instead of house-hunting gimmicks, executives
in the wireless industry are now talking about
more mundane services like simple text
messaging. Rather than weather reports on
toast, wireless officials are concentrating on
making their networks robust enough to handle
more callers in peak periods.
Much of the new pragmatism comes from
wireless technology's prominent role on Sept.
11, when people spoke to one another or sent
short e-mail messages by cellphone or pager.
The utility of wireless communications was
made even more dramatically clear by victims
who called their families from hijacked
airplanes and from inside the burning World
Trade Center towers.
But some of the wireless industry's
shortcomings were also highlighted.
So far, for example, few wireless subscribers
even know they have text- messaging, let alone
how to use it. And in many cases, so many
people tried simultaneously to make cellphone
calls that no one could get through.
[Ever heard of the spectral efficiency superiority of CDMA ?]
"I plead guilty to being one of the
spokespersons for the fanciful things wireless
technology promised," said Dennis Roberson,
chief technology officer of Motorola
(news/quote). "The events of Sept. 11
convinced me of the overwhelming importance
of communications on a basic level."
The new pragmatism is most apparent among
industry executives and analysts. But venture
capitalists, formerly willing to finance even
fanciful projects, are taking note. Earlier this
year, for example, ComVentures, an
investment firm in Palo Alto, Calif., decided to
avoid financing start-ups that focus on
unproven wireless services.
Instead, ComVentures is backing companies
that are seeking to improve existing wireless
technology. One of its main investments is in
Littlefeet, a San Diego company whose
products are designed to extend the reach and
improve the sound quality of cellular systems.
"Voice is and will continue to be the killer
application of the wireless industry," said
Michael Rolnick, general partner of
ComVentures. "We're realizing that the national
networks don't provide national coverage,
leaving a lot of rural areas and small cities off
the grid. There's a lot that needs to be done to
improve what's out there."
One example of carriers' eagerness to build on
what already works was a $100 million joint
venture announced last Friday by Sprint PCS
and the Virgin Group of Britain. Virgin will use
its brand name to sell wireless service in the United States operating on Sprint's
network. Virgin will be providing services like entertainment-related text
messages, but the emphasis of the venture is on basic voice service.
From the industry's standpoint, a major obstacle to improving wireless services is
a shortage of available radio spectrum — the airwaves that carry the calls and
messages.
[Sprint PCS and Leap Wireless are not whining about spectrum ...]
"The congestion on Sept. 11 showed how every wireless carrier could have used
twice the spectrum they had in lower Manhattan after the attacks," said Ivan
Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications (news/quote), the parent
of Verizon Wireless.
Currently, though, Verizon and many other wireless companies are in a spectrum
standoff with the federal government. Last January, the Federal Communications
Commission made additional airwave capacity available by auctioning spectrum
licenses belonging to the bankrupt NextWave Telecom. But after the industry bid
a total of $16 billion for airwaves covered by NextWave's licenses, a federal
appeals court ruled that the F.C.C. had no right to seize the licenses.
A settlement is expected soon, but even the NextWave spectrum would not meet
the industry's future needs. Most of the additional airwaves that carriers covet
are either in the hands of the military or being held as extra television channels by
broadcasters, which can be expected to make wireless carriers pay dearly to use
them.
[CDMA carriers do not need the "additional airwaves." Only the TDMA and GSM carriers].
The capacity constraints pose a problem for cellular companies because the
industry has had trouble attracting new subscribers to the wireless world. Unlike
Japan and some European countries, in which more than 60 percent of the
population uses cellphones, the 109.5 million cellular subscribers in the United
States represent only about 39 percent of the population. And while the rate of
new sign-ups picked up early this year, lately the rocky economy has
discouraged many potential customers, despite reports of a flurry of cellphone
buying in the week after Sept. 11.
[So, the week after 9/11/01 was great, Radio Shack just reported that wireless sales are still going great, but ... the NYT knows better ...]
If the carriers are hoping that consumers' new interest in emergency
communications will stimulate demand, the industry is falling short in at least one
regard, according to the F.C.C.
[No. The carriers who have not adopted Qualcomm's SnapTrack technology are the only ones falling short].
For years, the agency has been pushing for Enhanced 911, or E-911, service as a
way to improve the precision of locating people who make emergency calls from
cellphones. Current technology enables emergency officials to determine the
location of a wireless caller to within approximately 500 feet. With its E-911
initiative, the F.C.C. wants to improve the accuracy to about 150 feet for at least
two-thirds of calls and 450 feet for 95 percent of calls.
Under the original timetable, carriers were supposed to have plans in place this
month gradually to phase in E-911 the next few years. But many carriers say the
more precise systems are too expensive and the F.C.C.'s timetable is unrealistic.
Last Friday, the F.C.C. said only four carriers, Verizon Wireless, Sprint PCS,
Nextel Communications (news/quote) and VoiceStream Communications, had
met its preliminary requirements for phasing in E-911 services. The F.C.C. put
two other large carriers, Cingular Wireless and AT&T Wireless (news/quote),
under review for disciplinary action for failing to meet the guidelines.
It was not so long ago that industry entrepreneurs were promoting wireless
location capabilities as a marvelous marketing tool — a way for retailers to
pinpoint the location of mobile customers, messaging them with special offers
on, say, lattes when they strolled by a Starbucks (news/quote).
Even before Sept. 11, economic concerns were forcing industry executives to
think more practically. They were all too aware of the financial woes of large
wireless carriers in Europe, which had gone deeply in debt by agreeing last year
to spend a combined $150 billion on licenses to provide so-called third-
generation, or 3G, services. (The first generation was the original
analog-transmission networks of the 1980's and early 90's. The second
generation refers to current digital wireless networks.)
[CDMA carriers won't need ANY new spectrum to use for 3G services].
Third-generation networks, their supporters say, will usher in high-speed,
Internet- inspired services on mobile phones. With 3G services, for example,
users could swap digital photographs or download movie trailers on cellphones
— assuming someone would want to do that. Just as important, from a capacity
standpoint, 3G networks are supposed to use spectrum more efficiently and
increase the speeds with which people can transmit basic data on wireless
devices.
But in light of the hammering the global telecommunications industry has taken
the last year, the European wireless companies have been trying to find ways to
free themselves from some of the license obligations.
Wireless carriers in the United States were spared some of the Europeans' pain
because network ambitions and construction have tended to trail those in Europe.
[HUH ? Sprint PCS and Verizon will have their 3G systems open for business shortly].
Even where American carriers have cautiously proceeded with plans to offer
more advanced wireless services, the projects are rather modest. In July, for
example, AT&T Wireless, became the nation's first company to offer 2.5G
services — so called because they are a half-step toward true 3G. But so far, it
has offered the service only to business customers in Seattle, and the company
has declined to say how many have actually signed up.
In Seattle, AT&T Wireless charges a minimum of $50 a month for 400 voice
minutes and one megabyte of data. One megabyte may sound like a lot, but in
practice it is a pittance. Without exceeding the one-megabyte allotment, a user of
a wireless device could do little more than book some airline reservations, check
stock prices or read a few short news articles.
Some customers use the service as a kind of wireless modem, linking their
cellphones with a cable to a laptop computer. That provides access to the more
sophisticated services that full-blown fast Internet access can provide. But it can
also become expensive when incremental data charges are taken into account.
[Using my Sprint PCS handset as a wireless modem is not expensive at all].
In Tokyo last week, NTT DoCoMo rolled out what it called the world's first true
3G wireless network. But even in Japan, where wireless phones are much more
popular than in the United States, consumers seem to be approaching the pricey
service with caution.
[In Korea, over a million people are already using the 3G networks available there].
Closer to home, the wireless companies' new sobriety is manifesting itself in
many ways. Consider the example of Nortel Networks (news/quote), the big
Canadian maker of equipment for wireless networks.
Before Sept. 11, Nortel, promoting the wireless Internet's potential, was running
a TV commercial in the United States, in which an executive delivered a speech
dictated to him from an assistant over a video connection on a hand-held
computer. (No such technology is commercially available.)
After the terrorist attacks, Nortel dropped the commercial. The company has
donated the rest of it TV ad budget for the year, worth about $3.5 million, to the
Red Cross.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company |
