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There is no question that wireless and the internet are converging. The question is whether this will result in a lifelong honeymoon or a catastrophic train wreck. Wireless data (which has morphed into the wireless internet) has long been next year’s technology. Next year we will have the bandwidth, the devices, the consumer interest, the applications and the standards, but when will the industry be able to say, “Now, we finally have it! Next year has finally arrived”?
Surfing the internet using a browser like Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer is what the internet means to many people. There is no doubt that a 21 inch monitor with a cable modem or DSL link can almost drown the surfer in colorful and animated information. But, is the wireless pond simply too small and restrictive to attract consumers to even get their feet wet?
Some useful information can be provided on wireless phones with enhanced screens, perhaps 10 lines of text and some simple graphics. But, they suffer from lack of content that is adapted for the new medium, a cumbersome input device (numeric keypad) and slow data rates. It would help consumers a lot if there were websites with virtual WAP terminals that could be test-driven, to overcome the reluctance of consumers to dive into this new technology. But this would not guarantee consumers would like what they see.
WAP may prove to be a useful addition to wireless phones, but it is never going to be a full-blown internet experience. One of the major limitations is that in order to make a call, the device’s screen has to be placed facing away from the user’s ear, where it cannot be of any use. This eliminates the possibility of having integrated internet and calling capabilities. An ear bud with dangling microphone will be a necessity to provide true phone/internet integrated applications. However, even if this is done, the limited screen real estate and keyboard will make a PDA with wireless capabilities a better bet for many applications.
While PDA’s are obviously limited in functionality, their enormous base of dedicated users has proven the utility of their input, display and processing capabilities. With a PDA, integrated applications such as queuing a list of contacts to call, and being able to take notes while on the phone, will seem quite natural. In fact, all call control could be from the PDA, using the contact list or a simulated keyboard. Again, the PDA must not come with a built in microphone and earpiece or its utility for integrated features will be eliminated.
Email is a practical application for wireless because it is largely text-based, one that existed quite happily on the internet in the days of 9600 bps modems which, in a pinch, will still do quite nicely. Setting aside the issue of large attachments, and assuming that quick, reliable and easy synchronization with desktop computers exists, there is no reason that email cannot be a useful app for WAP devices and a real killer for a PDA. The removal of the microphone and earpiece from the phone will again be necessary to allow full and seamless integration of email with phone capabilities. For example, it should be possible to compose an email when listening to voice mail, or take notes during a conversation that could result in an email to a third party.
Email is more adaptable to the restricted environment that wireless provides because it can accept a lower quality of service, being a non-realtime service. Furthermore, older email software was quite well adapted to a low bit-rate environment, through such techniques as downloading email headers first, and allowing the recipient to specify which should be downloaded, deleted or continue to be stored on the server.
The younger and hipper sibling of email is instant messaging, used by millions of (generally young and hip) people. This application is well suited for wireless because it benefits from mobility and its bandwidth requirements are quite modest. It does, however, demand a higher quality of service because of the real-time nature of the communications.
Web surfing, email and instant messaging are just the tip of the iceberg, there is much more that consumers are unable to see, but which will prove critical for wireless internet success. Will the Good Ship Wireless sail merrily past the iceberg, or crash and sink titanically to the bottom of the ocean of failed good ideas?
The amount of bandwidth that can be provided by cellular and PCS standards is steadily increasing, but that does not mean that carriers are going to want to throw bandwidth at their customers. A voice call consumes only 8-13 kbps (thousands of bits per second), so it may not be economical to provide much higher bandwidths for data users. Even 64 kbps, which is considered glacially slow by cable modem and DSL users, requires 4-5 times the bandwidth of a voice user. Will carriers be able to charge 4-5 times as much per minute for a 64 kbps data service, or will they sell bits to data users for a fraction of the price they obtain from voice users?
With some internet services, a lower quality of service can be provided. Non-realtime services such as email can in theory be restricted to the bandwidth left over by other users, although in practice this may mean that these services would be unusable during busy calling times. If this complex resource rationing problem can be solved, it could provide some justification for selling bits to data users at a lower cost than demanded from voice and high QoS data users.
A simplistic approach to billing is to assume that airtime billing and internet billing are completely separate. However, services such as NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode have shown that integrated billing allows some content providers access to revenue that they could not afford to bill for directly, and leaves the carrier in the enviable positioning of charging a fee for the routing of charges from many providers to many customers. There are many lucrative opportunities for carriers acting as billing agents for internet content providers, but integration will prove a challenge, at least in part because internet charging is usually terribly unsophisticated, generally running no farther than either an ‘all you can eat’ or advertising-supported model. Charging to a specific service is still relatively uncommon, yet some business models will demand this.
Just like billing, security for wireless and security for the internet can be seen as two completely separate issues, however gaps in security will result in the possibility of security breaches. A server that has to unencrypt data from a wireless system and re-encrypt it for the internet is an accident waiting for the first corrupt employee or hacker break-in to happen. End-to-end security will require integration of security algorithms, a job that has been started by WAP’s WTLS. While seamless security will be optional for many applications, wireless e-commerce will demand it.
Signaling is data generated and consumed by wireless carriers, and is today mainly exchanged (invisibly to users) on SS7 networks. Carrying this data on the internet will allow carriers to consolidate their networks to an all-IP solution, resulting in lower costs. This will partly be due to consolidation of network facilities, but more because IP-compatible equipment markets are larger and more competitive than SS7, so equipment prices are considerably lower.
There are many facets to wireless/internet integration. Some are obvious to consumers, but many, like the bulk of an iceberg, lay hidden below the surface. Wireless is slowly and inexorably turning in the direction of the internet, but it will be a long time before the voyage is completed.
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