Are we there yet? Panel touts value-add 3G wireless migration - For Starters

A few years ago, when anyone discussed 3G wireless, images of video dancing on the handset sprang to mind as the industry struggled to find the one killer application that would drive user adoption.

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Look no further, say panelists on the recent The Next-Generation Gap: Making 3G Real roundtable sponsored by Tektronix and Telecommunications[R] magazine. Moderated by Larry Swasey of Visant Strategies, the panel featured multiple wireless network leaders from Verizon Wireless, Lucent Technologies, Nortel Networks and Tektronix.

"The one true killer app is around connectivity," says Dave Murashige, vice president of marketing, Wireless Networks, at Nortel Networks. "Voice is still the big fuel and it is the service driver that makes the most sense."

There's no doubt the wireless network is evolving to 3G. Carriers in the United States and abroad, now set with their migrations paths, are looking to focus on providing new and enhanced services for both consumers and enterprises. On the CDMA side, it's a two-horse race in the United States between Sprint and Verizon, while the existing TDMA carriers (AT & T and Cingular) engage in moving on their GSM/GPRS overlays. While worldwide, GSM certainly dominates the landscape, CDMA carriers are well on their upgrade paths, and may have an early lead, rolling out both 1XRTT for enhanced voice and data and EVDO for even higher-speed data services. The lone gunman not opting for a 3G migration strategy, at least in the near term, is Nextel, which is utilizing iDEN technology.

The initial enhancement of 3G stages provides for improvements for voice service, with a clear path to develop more data-centric services. Wireless operators, for example, are finding some initial drivers for wireless data in applications such as picture phones, music downloads and new applications such as push-to-talk. Verizon, for example, has in addition to its nationwide 1XRTT network begun wireless broadband 1XEVDO service in two markets, targeting both consumers and businesses. Meanwhile, Cingular, T-Mobile and AT & T Wireless continue to roll out their respective GPRS data services for business in their various markets.

Still, for all of the wow of wireless data services, voice is still the dominant network application. "Mobile connectivity: that's what it's all about, and a common user experience is the real challenge," said Neil Haydon, director of strategy, monitoring and protocol testing for Tektronix. "The killer application is having access wherever we are in the world." Gerry Flynn, director of advanced strategy for Verizon Wireless, agrees: "There's not going to be one application that will be the killer, but rather applications will be driven by what customers value," Flynn said.

Although still probably a ways out, one can't help but wonder what lies beyond 3G, or what some call 4G. How or what 4G could potentially be is anyone's guess, but overall it will be an IP-based network, whereby a user could be accessing an Internet or voice session from either a short-haul Wi-Fi network or WAN without ever knowing which.

And labeling various stages of wireless development 2G, 2.5G or 3G defeats the value-add the user can derive from the network. "By using generational terms, it presents a hard stop for each technology," said Nortel's Murashige. "So rather than treating something like the NTT FOMA 3G service, for example, as something completely new, it should be about how this new service enhancement can improve the quality of the user experience."

COPYRIGHT 2003 Horizon House Publications, Inc.
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