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Monday February 28
11:15 PM EST
Wireless Internet: Still Ahead of Its TimeElinor Abreu(Industry Standard) Before it's commonplace to see people whip out their cell phone to buy a book from Amazon.com, a few things have to happen - transmission speeds have to improve, subscriber costs have to come down, phones have to be easier to type on and equipped to send and receive Internet content, and more Web content has to be converted to a low-bandwidth format accessible by mobile devices. Yet from the look of announcements at this week's Wireless 2000 conference in New Orleans, the mobile Internet-access business is heating up. AOL is partnering with Sprint PCS, BellSouth, Motorola, Nokia, wireless devicemaker Research in Motion of Canada and paging-services provider Arch Communications to offer wireless access to its content and services. Microsoft is offering its MSN Mobile 2.0 to Pocket PCs and Palms as well as to subscribers of Nextel, AirTouch, WebLink and Totally Free Paging, and Sony is developing a Net-enabled phone using Microsoft Mobile Explorer software. Sprint will offer EarthLink services and shopping comparisons on its mobile phones, and Amazon has launched a new shopping portal for mobile-device users. IBM and AT&T are teaming to offer wireless Internet access for corporations, while Motorola is partnering with nearly 20 content providers. Ericsson is creating a new personal digital appliance, Xerox is developing software that will enable business users to retrieve faxes and other documents via mobile devices, and Oracle has created a new mobile company and portal. With all that activity, no wonder analysts are bullish on the wireless market. The 1.8 million U.S. subscribers to wireless data in 1999, mostly private networks for vertical markets such as field sales, is expected to grow to nearly 4 million by the end of 2000, according to the Yankee Group. By 2003, Yankee predicts that there will be 1 billion mobile devices in the world, and IDC foretells as many as 40 million mobile devices used for Internet access in the U.S. Meanwhile, Lehman Brothers has raised its estimate of wireless-data penetration, from 25 percent of voice subscribers to 50 percent by 2007. "If you take most projections out there, probably including our own, and add a year to 18 months to them," you'll get a more accurate prediction for the technology, says David Kerr, VP of wireless services at research firm Strategy Analytics. But there's plenty of hype. Companies jumping on the wireless bandwagon make browsing the Web via a cell phone sound as easy as calling directory assistance. John Zeglis, chairman and CEO of AT&T's Wireless Group, talked about the wireless "revolution" at the Wireless 2000 conference. "In the future, my PocketNet traveling companion will know where I am every minute during the day," Zeglis says. "It will compute the distance from where I am to the airport. Check to see if the flight is on time. ... It will let me know when it's time to go to the airport and tell me the best route to take." At the same time, Zeglis noted that the U.S. wireless market is at about the same place TV was in 1955, with only a 30 percent penetration rate. Other executives concede that technology barriers, for now, stand in the way of mainstream use. One hurdle is being overcome fairly quickly. Mobile phone companies are ramping up their Net-capable phones. Thirty percent of mobile phones shipped this year in the U.S. are expected to have a browser and 80 percent of the mobile phones will in two years, according to predictions from Yankee and Strategy Analytics, respectively. Phonemakers see benefits for themselves in building more Web-enabled phones, said Janiece Webb, senior VP of Motorola's Personal Networks Group. "All of a sudden, life for these service providers and carriers is really simple because they can download software updates and things the consumer wants right from the phone," she says. "It lowers our costs tremendously as an operator." Motorola plans to ship 80 million Web phones worldwide this year, she added. However, the speed of transmissions will limit widespread adoption of mobile Internet use until cellular phones are able to handle speeds of 56 Kbps and 64 Kbps, said Mark Lowenstein, head of wireless-access research at Yankee. Currently, many phones receive data as slow as 9600 baud or 14.4 Kbps, he said. Higher-speed phones will be commercially available next year, Lowenstein predicted. However, Charles Levine, chief sales and marketing officer for Sprint PCS, the most aggressive carrier to roll out wireless Internet services, said transmission rates will pick up before the end of 2000. Industry execs also counter that the way people will use the Web on their mobile devices will require less bandwidth than what they need on their PCs. People on wireless devices will use the Internet primarily to get quick information, such as e-mail or stock quotes, Levine said. They'll surf and download graphics on PCs, not cell phones, which have small screens, he said. For some, price is the biggest obstacle. "What's going to really push things is going to be packet-based data networks, which allow carriers to offer flat-rate pricing," says Tole Hart, senior analyst at Dataquest-Gartner Group. On packet-based networks, like the Internet, bandwidth is only used up when data is being transferred; traditional circuit-based phone networks tie up a voice channel for the duration of a call. Again, Sprint says it's not that bad. As with wireless voice service, prices for data access will drop, Levine said. But, he added, the costs probably won't follow the Internet model because people won't be using their phones on the Web the way they use their PCs. "I don't think you'll see people sitting around just surfing the Web the way they do at home on the Internet," he says. A popular pricing plan for Sprint PCS customers is $50 for 500 minutes of voice per month and $9.99 for 50 minutes of data plus 50 Internet updates on things like stocks and sports scores, according to Levine. An obvious hurdle, the limitation of mobile phone screens and touchpads, also is being tackled to make them more Web-friendly. Alternative input technologies will let people use a pointing device to type on a screen keyboard, Levine said. In addition, more and more Web sites are creating mobile versions of their content or reformatting it for users of devices with small screens and limited bandwidth, eliminating graphics and shortening text. More than 300 Web sites already have wireless versions, he said. Some of the early players in wireless content are the major portals. Yahoo offers wireless service for personal digital assistants such as the Palm VII, Windows-based CE devices and Motorola phones over Sprint networks. ExciteAtHome will make its content available to AT&T wireless subscribers mid-year. Smaller companies also are cropping up to create the wireless framework for the Web. Phone.com offers a browser used in many wireless phones. AirFlash is building a mobile portal for ExciteAtHome and launching a location-based service for AT&T's network in a few months that will allow people to find restaurants and stores in their vicinity and avoid traffic accidents. The customer will pay AT&T about $10 per month for the service, said AirFlash CEO Rama Aysola. AvantGo offers a free service that allows Palm, CE and Motorola phone users access to any of about 2,000 sites tailored for wireless devices and other Web sites, said Stuart Read, AvantGo VP of marketing. Since the service launched in May 1999, 500,000 people have subscribed, Read said. "I don't think the real question is how many Internet-enabled devices will be in place," says Read, implying that user behavior will dictate progress. "The real question is how many people will use them on the Web?" More
Portals Jump Into the Free-ISP Game Copyright (c) 2000 The Industry Standard
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