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About four months ago we decided to enable WAP users to access our
communications portal, TMCnet.com. As you may recall, the year 2000 was
supposed to be the beginning of the Age of WAP. Analysts projected that in
the next few years more WAP users would access the Internet than desktop
users. Somewhere in the middle of that same year, new research showed that
wireless devices are difficult to use, have screens that are difficult to
read, and predicted that perhaps the wireless Internet revolution wouldn't
be taking off as quickly as people had originally thought.
While the market researchers were trying to manage our expectations
downward regarding wireless data, last year was a big wireless year for me.
I finally purchased a WAP enabled phone to go along with the wireless Palm
VII that I purchased soon after they became available. I was very excited
about having TMCnet.com accessed by wireless phones, and I made my feelings
known to our Webmaster.
Our Webmaster, Robert Hashemian, wrote a column
in the September 2000 issue of this magazine about how excited he was to
implement WAP access to our site. I am sure he was not half as excited as I
was. You see, Robert doesn't subscribe to "the more gadgets, the
better" school of thought, in fact he often brags that he doesn't even
have a cell phone! I on the other hand, love my gadgets. I even have an MP3
player with 128 MB of storage in addition to the other gadgets listed above
and I plan on adding to my arsenal in the immediate future (perhaps Compaq
will be nice enough to send me a wireless enabled iPAQ for a long-term
evaluation?).
BE PRODUCTIVE
MP3 player aside, there is a serious business reason behind my love of
gadgets. I am always trying to wring out the maximum amount of productivity
out of every moment of my life. Business is war, and whether you work for
yourself or someone else, your success in business is usually linked to your
level of productivity. Many businesses such as those based on information
require rapid reaction to changing market conditions. Certainly, information
is at the heart of being successful in business, and having rapid access to
this information is invaluable. By information, I don't mean just news.
E-mail has become a crucial method of increasing corporate productivity and
this productivity increase only works when you read your messages. Of course
there are exceptions, but I have found that in my experience those people
who respond to e-mail the fastest are the ones that are most likely to get
ahead. When you respond promptly, people believe they can depend on you.
This includes both your customers and, whether they are external or
internal, your coworkers.
Productivity is just as crucial in a slowing economic environment, if not
more so. I recently read articles on MSNBC.com
that discussed how companies in response to slowing sales are beginning to
cut many benefits such as free coffee, free meals, paid magazine
subscriptions, and there was even an example of a famous copier manufacturer
encouraging its employees not to make copies unless absolutely necessary!
The article went on to say that these types of changes in a corporate
environment can lead to decreasing morale. That doesn't even take into
account the morale levels of companies that are laying people off.
I wonder if these companies and others are looking to ways to make their
workers more productive. This topic brings to mind the latest TV commercial
for the Wall Street Journal where they show two CEOs, one that encourages
his workers to read the Wall Street Journal and one that doesn't. In a few
years the former company is celebrating incredible growth while the latter
is going through salary cuts, etc. The point of the commercial is very well
made: Knowledge is power -- it allows you to be more productive and allows
you to make more informed business decisions.
Now you might be thinking that only your top management needs immediate
access to information but think about the rest of your employees as well.
For example, if sales people were kept up to date on news about their
customers, they could frequently use this information as an icebreaker in an
e-mail or phone call. Imagine how elated your customers would be if they
realized that your sales team cares enough to follow the latest news on
their company and congratulate them on the good news! It is certainly more
effective than calling and saying "Hey, we have some great prices on
this year's widgets, do you want to order some?"
I know that recently, many people in my company (including myself) have
been able to walk the aisles of industry events and discuss product
announcements that they just read on their WAP phones, while browsing TMCnet.com.
Customers are always impressed when you know about their announcements and
news. I must admit I've spooked a few companies by telling them news about
their company before they even knew about it!
I know I too have become much better informed since I started using my
Palm computer to surf the Web and more importantly, I haven't lost any time
in the process. There are so many times when I am sitting idle, waiting for
something or someone, and I can use this time to glean nuggets of bite-size
info from an appropriate site. Of course there are the times when you have a
scheduled meeting and you're the first to show up in a conference room (an
infrequent event for me). I used to get upset when I was kept waiting; now I
just use the time to catch up on important news.
SURVEY@tmcnet.com
If I'm so interested in wireless Web access, it makes sense that other must
be interested in as well, right? Well that is exactly what I wanted to find
out, so I asked my Web team to put up a survey online asking our readers if
they would use WAP to access TMCnet.com. A few weeks later I received an
e-mail from our Web team telling me that the survey results were very poor,
that in fact just over 30 percent of our readers would use WAP to access our
site. I was immediately depressed that others didn't share my enthusiasm for
accessing information via wireless devices. But then I started to think. I
figured that less than 30 percent of all people have WAP enabled phones
(although I suspect TMCnet.com readers are above average in this
department). So in fact this is a great number of positive respondents. As
it turns out the survey eventually revealed that 40 of the 156 respondents
would indeed read a WAP enabled TMCnet.com, which I believe, is extremely
impressive, and bodes well for the future of this technology. I would
consider readers of TMC publications as early adopters of wireless Internet
access and other communications technology.
CONSOLIDATE!
Still, I have to ask myself what the tradeoffs are. Perhaps the biggest
problem I am experiencing as a result of the productivity explosion my
various gadgets afford me is that it becomes extremely cumbersome to carry
around so many devices on a business trip. Between a laptop, a CDROM drive
for the laptop, a Palm VII, a foldable Palm keyboard, a cell phone, a
charger for the laptop, a rapid charger for the cell phone, and a car
charger for the cell phone, I am about to break my shoulder from the sheer
bulk of the bag. I don't think I'll make another business trip at this
rate... We need device consolidation of some kind. We also need
consolidation of user interfaces and standards. Check out associate editor
Mike von Wahlde's interesting September 2000 column on usability and
converging wireless formats and interfaces: "The
Killer App is Dead. Long Live Usability" from TMCnet.com for a look
at how we use our wireless devices.
We all know that these devices will continue to get smaller and that
pretty soon we will be able to have all of these gadgets fit in a wristwatch
or a pen, but theory is one thing and practice is totally different.
Deployment of new technology usually takes place at a controlled pace as the
user interface to technology has a great impact on its acceptance. I
believe that the next step in general communications productivity will come
from the convergence of handheld computers and telephones. We already have
phones with built in Palm computers but these aren't very popular. The next
thing to try of course is to IP- or packet-telephony-enable a Palm or
handheld computer. A few companies have released products that will make
this happen or are about to.
This is a good place to point out that Handspring has a very small
VisorPhone module that plugs into their handheld computers, allowing the
combined device to give you much better call control that your cell phone.
In addition, you can keep a single contact database instead of two. As an
added advantage, you can use the VisorPhone module as a wireless modem.
Handspring has partnerships with Pacific Bell Wireless, BellSouth Mobility,
Powertel, and VoiceStream, allowing users of their devices the ability to
access voice service throughout the country.
ACCEPT IT
The long and the short is that the world is going wireless. The simple fact
of the matter is that as our communications technologies converge they will
then become wireless. As mobile bandwidth issues are resolved, and
interfaces made more user-friendly, adoption of expanded services such as
WAP and wireless IP telephony will become wide scale. The effects will be
felt throughout society: First, if corporations do not do everything in
their power to make their employees more productive, they will fail; second,
wireless converged services are an excellent step in making this a
possibility. How can I be sure? Wireless IP telephony is an excellent litmus
test for the future of wireless communications convergence.
I decided to ask a few questions about the future of this technology from
two of the companies that have made announcements in this space. Stacey
Reineccius, the President and CEO of Quicknet
Technologies and Steve Makofsky, Sr., Engineering Manager of BSQUARE
were gracious enough to respond.
RT: Is the processing power of today's handhelds sufficient to
allow wireless IP telephony users adequate voice quality?
SR: Generally not. But the issue has multiple causes: (a) most of
the Operating Systems are designed for low power, not real time operations;
(b) the memory in the units is very tightly constrained; (c) wireless
bandwidth for handhelds is very low (usually topping out at 9600 bps) and
usually lower than necessary for a VoIP call at present; and (d) the latency
in most wireless networks is very high because they are "stealing"
bandwidth out of underused portions of the operator's available spectrum.
DSP enhanced devices could solve the CPU horsepower issue and some of the
memory issues. Power will be tougher. Bandwidth is the present killer.
SM: The quality is less than that on a telephone, similar to an AM
radio. It is similar to when cellular phones were first introduced. We are
early in the technology development curve.
RT: If so, can a user run crunch spreadsheets or perform
queries while simultaneously using the wireless IP telephony capability
built in?
SR: See above.
SM: Not at this time. However, as processors get faster, this will
change.
RT: Is the quality of today's wireless data networks sufficient
to allow wireless IP telephony users adequate voice quality? If so, can a
user surf the Web while simultaneously using the wireless IP telephony
capability built in?
SR: Quality can improve, but the latency issue is the tougher one
to address.
If you are using wireless networks that are really PC LAN substitutes
like 802.11, etc. then there would be no problem on the bandwidth or latency
side. Devices for offices or homes should certainly be feasible.
As for the second part of your question, regarding surfing the Web while
simultaneously using wireless IP telephony, it's not really feasible at
present. You CAN do this on a PC though.
SM: At this time, it is not possible to surf while using the
telephone simultaneously due to bandwidth issues. Again, as wireless
bandwidth increases over the next two to three years, we will see major
advances in this arena.
RT: Although this may not be your forte, which areas of the
world are able to allow users to take advantage of wireless IP telephony on
a Windows CE device?
SR: The biggest signal that it will be possible is when wireless
providers can deliver low latency, higher bandwidth connections. The magic
numbers are under 100-millisecond latency from the wireless provider and at
least a 28.8 Kbps full duplex data rate.
SM: Anywhere in the world where users can access wireless IP, they
can take advantage of IP telephony.
RT: What is the biggest limitation to this technology?
SR: The bandwidth of wireless used by PDAs and the latency of that
bandwidth.
SM: Processor speed and network bandwidth are the major
limitations. We do, however, expect these limitations to diminish over time.
RT: Why should anyone adopt this technology today?
SR: For internal network (i.e., in office, in home) it can save a
lot of infrastructure costs and operational costs. For general replacement
of a cell phone, however, I would say, not yet.
SM: This is cutting-edge technology, which is for both mobile and
non-mobile devices. Several devices now, for example, can definitely benefit
from incorporating this technology, which is offered in products such as
BSQUARE's bInTouch Voice Over IP. Voice over IP is useful on more robust
devices right now, such as Web Pads or Internet terminals such as the MSN
Companions. As handhelds advance, and processor speed and wireless bandwidth
improve, Voice over IP will definitely be the "killer application"
for these devices.
RT: What hurdles do you expect us to jump in the near future?
SR: Power requirements have to reduce, CPU handling of real time
events has to happen, and network providers have to provide more bandwidth
(See ricochet.com for an example of
who has increased bandwidth recently but not reduced latency.)
SM: Bandwidth is the biggest hurdle at the moment. With speeds
currently at 56K, you can achieve AM radio quality. With speeds escalating
to 128Kbps, telephone-like quality will improve significantly.
Sincerely,
Rich Tehrani
Group Publisher
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