World Wireless Wait at Conference
N E W Y O R K, Feb. 21 -- A crowd of eager conventioneers gathered outside the first Internet World Wireless show today were told by gatekeepers they couldn’t get in.
The show floor wasn’t quite ready, and that lack of readiness became a theme at the wireless Web show, where an industry seemed to be waiting for the infrastructure to make it truly compelling.
Several companies were showing off cool new ways to use your cellphone, but these advances will require handsets and high-speed networks that aren’t available in this country yet.
“The challenge we have in the U.S. is that we don’t have the networks,” said Mohammad Ketabi, project manager for Ericsson’s Cyber Lab, which was partnered with many of the most innovative companies at the show.
What’s the Killer App?
"Wireless Web" suffers from a host of problems that have limited its penetration to a tiny fraction of the U.S. population so far: slow speed, primitive cellphone browsers, and lack of truly compelling applications.
Nearly every wireless provider has dabbled in Web content, delivering news, stock quotes and e-mail to cellphones’ tiny, black and white screens and frustrating little keyboards.
They haven’t been very successful. In a May 2000 survey, Forrester Research found that 82.5 percent of mobile customers have no interest in wireless data services.
“We haven’t really figured out what the real killer app is for wireless services,” said Robert Stout, a vice president at F-Secure, which was showing antivirus software for wireless devices at the show.
Forrester analyst Maribel Dolinov suggested games, entertainment, and location-based services could drive the adoption of wireless data.
Digital Bridges produces wireless games including a virtual pet, a tank-battle game and an ambitious, multiplayer adventure game by adventure game veteran Steve Jackson, who makes dungeons and dragons type role-playing games. All of those require advanced handsets which are only now starting to hit the market in the United States. The first games will become available on U.S. networks next week, Digital Bridges’ Daryl Williams said.
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