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Wireless Voice/Data Services: 
What Carriers Need To Know To Succeed

BY SANJIV PARIKH

Advanced wireless data services and mobile messaging products are coming onto the market at a very fast rate. These new systems promise to usher in a new era of boundless communications. But are the enhanced messaging, Short Message Service (SMS), and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)-based products used by carriers now capable of delivering a true "anytime, anywhere, any device" experience? End users and telecom carriers are finding that the answer is: Not quite yet.

We've all heard the claims and seen the advertising for mobile data services that promise amazing new features via the "wireless Web." Subscribers who sign up for WAP or SMS services quickly find that wireless data services channeled through a cell phone have little in common with the desktop Web experience. Delivering only four or five lines of text at a time, the tiny LCD screens on handsets just don't have enough real estate to deliver feature-rich Web content. The larger displays on handheld devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) do a better job of delivering visual content, but they can't provide voice or voice messaging functionality. Moreover, current mobile networks and wireless modems can only transmit at snail pace speeds of 9.6 Kbps or 14.4 Kbps.

The current advanced voice/data systems available to carriers, however, are delivering valuable experiences to subscribers. And much like the early days of the Internet, these elementary services are whetting the appetite of consumers for more advanced services down the road. Networking companies and device manufacturers are perfecting third generation (3G) products and applications that promise to bring wireless data into the mainstream within two or three years.

WHERE WE ARE TODAY
Enhanced Services And The User Experience

Many wireless carriers are providing enhanced services to their subscribers based on a unified communications model. The central value proposition is that the wireless phone or handheld should allow the user to comfortably navigate all aspects of their daily communications life: voice service, voice messaging, e-mail, and fax. These services are provided through established mobile voice technologies, and increasingly, via emerging wireless data technologies. As unified communications services become more popular, the mobile user experience is changing in fundamental ways.

It's a transition that has been under way since the early days of mobile phones. Over the past decade once-exotic features such as caller ID and call forwarding gradually made their way into the mainstream. Many mobile phone plans now include such services as standard features. Today, unified communications services such as follow-me/find-me and centralized voice mail/e-mail inboxes are becoming commonplace, especially for business subscribers at new media companies, telcos, and dot coms.

Just as today's cell phone users expect to know who is calling them before they hit the "talk" button, the mobile subscribers of 2002 will take it for granted that they can use their mobile handsets or handhelds to automatically receive calls made to their home phone and read e-mail sent to their business account.

Wireless Data
SMS
Short Message System, or SMS, doesn't receive as much attention as the more advanced Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), but it is an effective wireless data transmission platform that is being deployed by carriers around the world. SMS has several positive attributes. It is very cost effective, and offers excellent flexibility and compatibility with legacy systems. It doesn't require enormous investments in new applications or outlay for infrastructure. Virtually any mobile phone with an LCD screen can display messages delivered via SMS. Therefore, it's an excellent choice for carriers with a large installed base of users with older handsets.

With SMS, there is no need for gateway equipment or a network overlay, so it is inexpensive to deploy. And it works with virtually all mobile systems, including TDMA and CDMA (the dominant platforms in North America) and GSM (the standard mobile technology in Europe and most of Asia). However, SMS is strictly a first-generation transmission technology. Capable of delivering alphanumeric messages of only 160 characters or less, SMS offers limited bandwidth and lacks session-oriented interactions.

Even with narrow bandwidth capabilities, though, SMS enables access to e-mail and information warehouses on the corporate LAN. SMS-enabled handsets can also access Internet-based content such as stock updates, news, traffic reports, and weather information. Its limited carrying capacity means SMS will never be capable of delivering graphic content, or even the richer text-based experience possible with WAP phones. But SMS may be a better choice for carriers who would prefer to wait for broadband 3G services to come onto the market.

WAP
WAP has been hailed in many circles as the industry standard for wireless data and mobile Internet services. It delivers more sophisticated content than SMS-based mobile data systems. WAP uses session-oriented technology, which means end users can send and receive virtually unlimited amounts of data during a session -- much like a dial-up wireline PC/Internet session.

But technological shortcomings and the rise of wireless data transmission platforms that offer greater bandwidth are convincing many in the industry that WAP will eventually be used for only certain text-based wireless data services. WAP's Achilles' heel is its inability to directly deliver HTML-based content -- the basic code for the vast majority of the world's Web sites. WAP-enabled phones can only display content formatted in Wireless Markup Language (WML). Many top Web portals produce content formatted for the tiny screens on WAP-enabled handsets. But in effect, WAP restricts end users to a tiny subset of the Internet.

BIG CHANGES ON THE HORIZON
SMS and WAP have given mobile subscribers a taste of what's possible with wireless data services. New developments in handheld device technology and wireless networking could open the floodgates for a wireless revolution over the next few years.

The bigger viewing area and processing horsepower offered by handhelds have made them logical devices for mobile communications. But bandwidth limitations and lack of voice capabilities were significant drawbacks. This equation is changing, however, as greater last air mile bandwidth becomes available and service-specific networks evolve to serve handheld users. For example, OmniSky allows Palm V users to access a broad array of HTML-based Web content via its snap-on modems. Though OmniSky lacks voice and voice messaging capabilities, it is channeling more of the Web to a useful mobile environment.

For carriers, the most promising developments in the wireless data industry is the emergence of advanced second generation and third generation technologies such as GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and HSCSD (High Speed Circuit Switched Data). GPRS is a data service for GSM networks that allows transmissions of far greater bandwidth than currently possible. A packet-switched transmission format, GPRS is a second generation technology that is already being deployed in Europe. It is expected to support data transfer speeds in the range of 56 Kbps -- typical of a desktop Internet connection. HDR (High Data Rate) is a proprietary technology from QUALCOMM that enables 3G-quality data transmission rates up to 2.4 Mbps, and is expected to begin market trials in certain U.S. locations in 2001.

With the high speeds enabled by GPRS and HDR, end users will finally be able to use cell phones or handhelds equipped with HTML browsers for a graphically rich, desktop-quality Web experience. If device manufacturers can produce effective voice/data handsets that can take full advantage of this growing bandwidth, the mobile Web will become a reality.

GETTING TO TOMORROW
Getting from today's text-based wireless data services to the broadband multimedia mobile content of tomorrow will be an incremental process. Three core services will remain constant: call management, messaging, and information/data services. It will be very important for wireless carriers to adopt the technology and standards that will allow them to do these three things seamlessly across different devices and formats.

At the same time, consistency in the user interface as well as interoperability of different media services will be crucial. Carriers need to be aware that today's immature services will need to mesh with more advanced services coming online in the next couple years. The bottom line is that the current device- or service-specific networks are not going to allow carriers to tap the huge potential of revenue from the universe of the global Internet. Emerging 3G technologies will.

Sanjiv G. Parikh is a senior product manager at Centigram Communications where he concentrates on wireless data technologies and intelligent networking. Centigram is a global provider of Internet-enabled call management, WAP-based messaging, and unified communications services to mobile and landline telecom service providers. Leveraging its expertise in voice messaging, call processing and IP-enabled multimedia messaging, the company is delivering next-generation communications services that enable the transmission of voice, text, and multimedia content to wireless and wireline phones, PCs and WAP-enabled devices. The company delivers these services on the highly integrated Series 6 platform and the Centigram Short Messaging Service Center. ADC Telecommunications completed its acquisition of Centigram in July 2000.







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