Telecommunications companies show off their new products

DALLAS -- More than half of American households have yet to make contact with the growing world of wireless communications, but telecommunications giant Ericsson is hoping to help change that by featuring its products in an upcoming James Bond movie.

At the Personal Communications Showcase at the Dallas Convention Center last week, Ericsson announced that its products will be the favorite communicator for British secret agent 007 in the upcoming film Tomorrow Never Dies, starring Pierce Brosnan.

"James Bond is known for being equipped with the best high-tech gadgetry," said Dave Korb, sales and marketing director for Ericsson North America. "Now Bond will be equipped with an Ericsson phone." Ericsson was by no means alone in exposing new products and ways to reach more consumers. About 41 percent of households use wireless communications, according to the Personal Communications Industry Association, based in Alexandria, Va. For Ericsson, the new marketing tactic is an effort to build the company's brand recognition and join the rest of the wireless industry's attempt to get a wireless phone, paging device or other mobile communications unit in the hands of every consumer. Typically, brand names in Bond movies have been reserved for cars, such as Aston Martin and BMW, or guns -- his trusty Walther PPK. But bringing a wireless phone into the picture could help thrust the telecommunications industry into the forefront for consumers. Similarly, after Nokia introduced its 9000 Communicator last year, the company had arranged to have it featured in the action movie The Saint, featuring Val Kilmer. Nokia debuted its 9000i Communicator at the Dallas show. The 9000i is about the size of a telephone and acts as two-way pager, wireless phone, personal computer and Internet browser and can make conference calls. It will begin reaching stores on Oct. 14 and sell for less than $1,000. "It is the smallest portable fax machine in the world," Nokia spokeswoman Megan Matthews said. New telecommunications systems being launched by both Ericsson and Lucent Technologies, based in Murry Hill, N.J., could change the way people do business. Ericsson announced that it will test in Japan a new radio access technology called Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, which allows computer users to perform up to six tasks at once. Using a personal computer linked to a wireless phone system, a user could browse the Internet while having a video conference on the same system. E-mail messages sent to the user would continue to arrive on screen. The experimental system will be installed in Tokyo in December and should arrive in the United States by 2001, said Boguslaw Piekarski, vice president of business development and strategic marketing for Ericsson. Lucent, meanwhile, showed off some technology the company has developed with some of its smaller high-tech business partners. With Cerulean, a software developer based in Marlborough, Mass., Lucent is working on a system that can connect via radio or wireless phone contacts to send instant crime information to laptop computers mounted in police patrol cars. And if you think that gives the police a lowdown on the bad guys, Lucent and MeterVision of Old Hickory, Tenn., have developed a product to watch the not-so-bad guys. MeterVision has designed a parking meter with visual sensors that can tell when a car is parked past its time in a metered spot. The meter sends a wireless signal vai Lucent's system to the parking cops, who can locate the vehicle instantly.

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