World Wireless Wait at Conference

N E W   Y O R K, Feb. 21, 2001 -- 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.

But otherwise, entertainment software was thin on the ground. And other than Digital Bridges, nobody seemed to be targeting their wares at teens, the voracious market which has propelled NTT DoCoMo’s i-Mode to success in Japan.

Call the Soda Machine

Ericsson partner Jalda showed off an Internet-connected soda machine and jukebox that won’t require the next-generation networks that are scheduled to be deployed late this year or in 2002. Users can add money to a virtual debit card with their personal computer, and then dial up a service that charges songs or sodas to a specific machine.

“The payment could even be on your phone bill,” said Ericsson’s Svante Rodegard.

But the rest of the cool new technologies at Internet World Wireless rely on advances in U.S. wireless carriers’ networks.

Streaming digital video from Emblaze and Packet Video may have to wait for 2003, when high-speed networks begin to appear. The striking avatars from Eyematic, cartoony virtual people who talk to you, will require either an expensive PocketPC handheld computer or a cellphone with a big, color screen if they’re adopted by wireless content companies.

Color cellphone screens should be making their way to shelves within the next year or so, industry experts say.

And Go2 and others’ location-based services can tell where your phone is and tell you where the nearest McDonald’s is — if and when your cellphone provider and phone are upgraded to support the service.

“It’s really all subject to the carrier,” Brad Schorer of Go2 said.

Though this location feature has sparked some controversy among privacy advocates, who question whether knowing where you are might give too much information to your cellphone provider, the FCC has mandated it be an opt-in feature, according to the Go2 reps.

"The user has to say 'yes, you can have my location,'" said Go2's Ian Kelly.

Ericsson representatives said they have contracts with three carriers to move to high-speed and location-finding services starting later this year; cellphone providers have said in the past that high-speed services will begin to appear in late 2001 or 2002.

Where’s the Network?

The only new handsets at the show were Ericsson’s R380s, where the keyboard flips down to reveal a big screen with black-and-white graphics and PDA-type power. Microsoft also showed off a wide range of PocketPCs with wireless modems.

But even with the newest handsets and the newest software, when Ericsson’s Ketabi tried to connect to play a wireless game, the network tried to connect — stalled — and then timed out.

“It’s going to be a long time before we get enough bandwidth” to make wireless Web more useful, Dolinov said.

Maybe next year.