Thursday, February 07, 2002

Boingo's Dayton, VoiceStream's Stanton to keynote at CTIA's Wireless 2002 You read it here first:  Sky Dayton, founder of Boingo Wireless and Earthlink, and John Stanton, chairman and CEO of VoiceStream Wireless, will be among the keynote speakers on the first day of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association's (CTIA) Wireless 2002 conference and exposition.  Dayton and Stanton will be on stage on March 18, the first day of the three-day event at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. Dayton and Stanton probably will be competitors.  I say "probably" because VoiceStream hasn't officially announced that it has purchased MobileStar, the 802.11 network company that's in Chapter XI proceedings.  VoiceStream has put in a bid for MobileStar, and everyone is waiting for the final legal approvals to make it official. Boingo is aggregating most of the other public access 802.11 networks across the U.S., so Boingo and VoiceStream (if/when it buys MobileStar) will be going head-to-head to capture the hearts and subscription fees of traveling executives who want true high-speed wireless Internet while on the road.  Dayton and Stanton won't be going head-to-ahead during the keynote event.  Each keynoter is given his moment in the sun with Thomas Wheeler, the smart, sharp and politically-savvy president of the CTIA.  A keynote "presentation" is actually a one-on-one discussion with Wheeler.  Once the discussion ends, the keynoter goes backstage, and another keynoter takes the chair.  So, don't count on any on-stage debates between WiFi competitors, though there might be some interesting discussions in the off-stage waiting room! A bit of involvement I had a bit of a hand in helping to arrange participation by one of these executives.  Also, for the sixth year, I'm going to help conduct Wireless Data University, a day-long pre-conference workshop, and one of the roundtable discussions will be about wireless local area and wireless personal area networks.  The one-hour roundtable will delve into the tough, practical issues of technologically and economically integrating 802.11, cellular and also Bluetooth. As I've written previously, the CTIA's annual conference is the wireless show to attend in the U.S.  Wireless 2002 will have even more famous keynoters, such as Intel chairman Andy Grove, NTT DoCoMo president and CEO Dr. Keiji Tachikawa, former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev and FCC chairman Michael Powell.  There are other big names, too. 1:12:19 PM

Wireless data acronym alert: 1xEV-DO for faster rates Just as we're incorporating GSM GPRS and CDMA 1xRTT into our wireless data vocabulary, there's another acronym that is rearing it's not-so-ugly head.  1xEV-DO is a CDMA data protocol for faster speeds over dedicated channels.  The maximum theoretical data rate is 2.4M bps. While it's unlikely anyone will get that rate (no one gets the "up to" speeds hyped in the misleading press releases), 1xEV-DO should indeed offer significantly faster data rates.  Currently, 1xRTT (voice + data) provides speeds of about 40K - 70K bps, depending upon the implementation and the operator that's implementing it.  Korean subscribers can get the higher data rate.  In the U.S., Verizon Wireless and SprintPCS will offer 40K - 60K bps (if we're lucky) at the outset. Korea is pioneering CDMA development, and also is manufacturing CDMA hardware.  InfoSync, a very good Web site for wireless articles, has posted an item today about GTRAN Wireless' new DotSurfer 1xEV-DO PC Card.  The Type II card supports the usual Microsoft operating systems as well as Linux, according to the article.  1xEV-DO in the U.S. The DotSurfer will be deployed this year in Korea in at least four cities by SK Telecom in time for the World Cup soccer games (no, I don't know when they are and I don't care).  I do care, however, that the article says GTRAN is working with U.S. cellular operators to start trials of 1xEV-DO in the third quarter of this year.  My take is it's possible for Sprint and/or Verizon to offer 1xEV-DO service late in 2003.  These carriers are still, however, in the early stages of 1xRTT, and that will be the main priority for some time. 10:49:25 AM

AT&T's mLife:  Yawn During the Super Bowl (I never watch it) AT&T Wireless began touting its new mLife services.  The mLife Web site wasn't working during much of the game.  What does that say about a multibillion dollar company and its multimillion dollar ad campaigns?  But the lack of access wasn't, alas, much of a loss. Frankly, an imaginative high school kid with a flair for design could have done as well.  It's a ho-hum "front door" that links to the existing AT&T Wireless Web site.  In addition, the home page introductory text is poorly written.  Can't AT&T find a decent copywriter?  It's pathetic. "What is mLife?" the Web site asks.  "mLife is your life made truly mobile.  It brings you new, more wonderful ways of communicating with people and information you care about most.  It's wireless reinvented."  ["...information you care about most" -- talk about an awkward sentence!] What is mLife? Alan Reiter asks.  mLife is what just about every other cellular carrier is doing or will do:  two-way SMS, downloadable ring tones and a voice recognition service for obtaining generic information (news, sports, stocks, traffic, horoscopes). The voice service is provided by Tellme Networks, a well known voice portal.  The AT&T service is free (you pay for per-minute airtime), but you have to listen to advertisements.  Tellme could be useful.  It's been around for about three years, so the AT&T offering is hardly revolutionary or unique. For a good look at mLife and services from other operators, read Leonard Fischer's column in USA Today. A faint glimmer of hope I am glad AT&T and most of the other cellular operators are finally beginning to advertise something besides the extent of their coverage, the quality of voice and low prices.  As this year progresses, there will be a lot of advertising about supposedly new and exciting services.  Most of them will be neither.  I hope they are advertised in a more exciting and competent way than mLife has been.  But with enough time and money -- and even a modicum of brains -- a lackluster campaign can be improved. With the new GSM GPRS and CDMA 1xRTT packet data networks in the U.S. on track this year, there should be a fair number of interesting and useful products. 12:00:20 AM