CTIA Wireless

Las Vegas
April 2009

CTIA Wireless, the biggest national wireless event had its spring show in Las Vegas on April 1-3. The pre-show events, including Mobile Entertainment Live were held on March 31. The attendance was definitely down from last year's Spring Show. Some said it was as low as 40% but we still thought it was a great show and, as always, a great opportunity to network with the industry's best and brightest. Sadly, our industry lost one of its best and brightest, Mark Desautels, CTIA's VP of Wireless Internet Development. He passed away on March 30th. Mark was a wonderful friend, colleague, and supporter and we will miss him dearly. We'd also like to acknowledge his team for running a very smooth show and programming despite grieving their huge loss.

Despite the challenging economic times, the US wireless revenue stood at $148B in 2008, up by $9B from the prior year. At end of 2008, there were 270M wireless subscribers in the US, having exercised their talk muscles to the tune of 2.2 trillion minutes, and their thumb muscles by 1 trillion text messages, and 9.3 B multimedia messages.

The absolute must-see keynotes of the show were: Day 2's Wireless Health by Dr. Eric J. Topol, Director of Scripps Translational Science Institute & Chief Academic Officer at Scripps Health, and Day 3's Smarter Planet by Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States & 2007 Noble Peace Prize Winner.

Smarter Planet Taking Advantage of Wireless Technologies

Al Gore's keynote on Day 3 described the history of communication technologies, including the fact that when he and Bill Clinton went to White House in Jan 1993, there were only 50 sites on the Internet. Gore focused on the 3 major crises facing us today: climate, economic, and security. He said these three crises all share a common thread, our dependency on carbon-based fuels. If we pull on this thread, we can help resolve all these three major crises. He talked about how wireless technologies can help in various ways to lower our dependency on carbon-based fuels, including their use in smart grids.

Wireless Health: Ripe With Opportunities or Bogged Down with Challenges?

Day 2's keynote on "Wireless Health" by Dr. Topol was absolutely inspiring. First, he started by describing some of the problems with the current system. US is ranked 19th globally in quality of healthcare. There is a lot of waste in current prescription medication. According to Topol, Lipitor, the best-selling drug in the world, only helps one out of a hundred patients. There is a tremendous amount of waste since the prescribed medication is not customized.

Topol then went on to showcase a number of different ways in which wireless technologies can improve the healthcare system. He demonstrated the use of a smart band aid, which presumably he was wearing, that was transmitting his electrocardiogram in real-time to the screen and to his iPhone. He talked about wireless-based innovations across the continuum of care from pre-hospital to emergency room to ICU to hospital and back at home care. He talked about innovations for home and remote health monitoring, across ages from premature babies to senior citizens, pharmaceutical drug delivery, targeting diseases like Alzheimer's, asthma, breast cancer, depression, and obesity.

Later, we attended the healthcare panel and the outlook was much more cautious. Most agreed that there were a lot of good ideas using wireless technologies but when you dig down, there are a lot of issues. Some believed the biggest challenge in the US is the non-socialized medicine and competition between insurance companies and others in the ecosystem. Some said the biggest impediment is nailing down the business model, so companies will have an incentive to push for this. For example, for remote doctors and nurses or home health, it is unclear how the services should get charged and how to share that revenue. There are also big liability, security, and privacy issues that have to be addressed. So, when it comes to health IT, projects may not be as "shovel-ready" as one would hope for.

Cameraphone Code Scanning: Are We There Yet?

The session we are most proud of was Azita's panel on Cameraphone Code Scanning Marketing Opportunities. We all know advertising is a huge business. It is the holy grail of monetization as we move from physical world into online and mobile worlds. Cameraphone or 2-dimensional code scanning is a groundbreaking capability and a novel approach to advertising and marketing that sits at the cusp of physical, online, and mobile worlds. The panel included representatives of different parts of the ecosystem. Different models of 2D code scanning, including direct, indirect, and MMS methods were discussed. The biggest challenge for this opportunity is to have a bar code reader application on the phone. The application can be either downloaded by the user or pre-loaded by the phone vendor and/or the mobile carrier. The MMS approach avoids this challenge but has other limitations. The reward for users has to be high if we expect them to change their behavior: notice the barcode, take a picture of it with their phone, and receive relevant content like a good discount or a chance to talk to favorite celebrity.

Mobile App Stores: What Is New?

We have talked about mobile app stores extensively in the past. At this show, RIM formally launched the Blackberry Application World; not a big surprise. The App World has about 500 applications and is limited to Paypal purchases only. Nokia restated its plans to launch Ovi application store in early May. Microsoft talked about its upcoming Application Marketplace with 20 thousand applications and self serve refund.

Mobile carriers are not sitting idle. Verizon is partnering with China Unicom, Softbank, and Vodafone on Joint Innovation Laboratory (JIL) initiative to provide developers with a platform that enables them to offer widgets to subscribers across the globe. AT&T announced its Apps Beta initiative that enables the developers to test applications with AT&T customers and receive feedback before the formal launch.

Mobile Broadband Coming To You In Many Flavors

Verizon is on schedule with the deployment of its 4th generation high-speed network, Long Term Evolution (LTE). It will roll out LTE to 2 trial markets by end of this year and to 25-30 markets by end of 2010. AT&T is advancing its 3G network by installing High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) networks with LTE further out. T-Mobile, the laggard to the game, is expanding its relatively new 3G (WCDMA) network from 100 markets at end of 2008 to covering 207 million people by end of 2009. Clearwire corp. was touting its WiMAX network at the show, with a keynote address by the firm's co-chairman Ben Wolff. Wolff focused on the "depth" of spectrum that enables higher capacity on the network. Clearwire has 120 MHz of spectrum across major US markets that, according to him is "very deep" and enables great capacity fully dedicated to 4G services. Clearwire has deployed WiMAX only in two cities at this point, namely Portland, Oregon and Baltimore, Maryland. It plans to launch to more than 80 markets by end of 2010.

Meanwhile, Cox Communications is building its own mobile broadband network, supposedly offering 3G wireless data. Details are sketchy but it's a questionable move.

For the Gadget Freak in You:

The most exciting device at the show was Palm Pre that was being privately demonstrated at the Sprint Lounge. The device was first introduced at the Consumer Electronic Show in January. Palm has been silent about it ever since. Pre is certainly the most innovative cell phone we have seen since the iPhone. First thing you notice is how pleasing the Pre is to the eyes: from its sleek "river rock" shape to its touch stone slanted charger to its vivid half VGA screen. Next, the live applications that can be swapped in and out of the screen with a swipe of a finger, and the integrated email, calendar, and contact, and a whole lot more. We were impressed by Pre's attention to details: if the phone is set on the charger and it rings, it automatically answers the call when you pick it up and hold it to your ear. When you are talking and you set it on the charger, it automatically goes to the speaker phone. We couldn't hold the Pre and test it ourselves so it may still be not be robust enough. The launch date is first half of 2009 and pricing is TBD.

We also liked Clear Spot, which is a WiMAX to WiFi router that allows up to 8 WiFi devices to connect. This personal hotspot device is priced at $139 and will be launching in a few months.

In addition, we liked Siso Tablo by Hantech. Siso Tablo turns any laptop to a tablet PC. It consists of a receiver that you install at the top of the screen and a special pen that you use to write on the screen. It is compatible with Power Point and Adobe Photoshop. Price is around $100, currently sold in Canada.

And One More Thing ...

There is a limit to the unlimited data plans. Next time you are wondering if you should buy that cute little net book, think about how much data you'll be using. All those You Tube videos are heavy data gobblers while the "unlimited" 3G data plans are capped at 5 GB per month. It can get ugly after that.

Non-traditional mobile devices are getting attention of the US mobile carriers. Verizon Wireless has approved 36 devices under its Open Development Initiative. AT&T is starting a similar activity under the management of Glenn Lurie.