This spring's CTIA wireless conference focused on new approaches by carriers to work more closely with potential suppliers, especially developers of wireless applications and services.

Howdy Pardners! There were tacos and fajitas, a rodeo reception, and Texas-sized sessions at the CTIA WirelessAgenda held this May in Dallas, Texas. The conference focused on steak rather than sizzle since much of the hype in the wireless data industry has sizzled out over the last few months. The quality of the sessions reached a new high, but attendance was low. Last year U.S. carriers were buzzing about 3G. This year applications and partnerships were on center stage, and 3G was rarely mentioned.

When Mark Desautels, VP of Internet development, took on the management of the first WirelessAgenda conference last year for CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association), he accepted a daunting task and turned it into a mission. Desautels wanted to raise the standard for all conference content. He wanted more than slide shows and printouts for attendees. He asked prospective speakers to submit thoughtful, detailed white papers and bet the conference that speakers would take the time to write publishable materials. But would they? Would he have a conference at all?

It turned out to be a good bet. Last year's conference was highly successful, but this year's was even better, receiving an "embarrassment of riches," according to Desautels. With 50 speaking slots available, he received more than 270 excellent white papers covering business, marketing, and technical issues facing the wireless industry today.

The sessions I attended were a cut above many I've been to, but even more important, the "phone book-sized treasure trove" of materials including the white papers will be a lasting reference and useful guide until next year. I suggested he make the white papers available on the CTIA Web site (www.wow-com.com/index.cfm), and learned he was way ahead of me, and "would soon be offering the materials in several ways."

Unfortunately, the attendance was disappointing. "A bummer," said Desautels. "The recent tech downturn reached us as well." But he remained optimistic that the wireless industry, in general, and the WirelessAgenda conference, in particular, would succeed because, according to Desautels, "The industry needs what this conference provides - an annual strategy, partnering, and business development event with content that's a cut above."

Here's my sampler of the WirelessAgenda conference, with a taste of the sessions, speakers, exhibitors, and attendees from this influential conference. Check the CTIA Web site for availability of materials if you want the full "Texas spread" of wireless data information.

I spoke with Barney Dewey, of Andrew Seybold Group "fame" (www.outlook4mobility.com/index.html). He presented the University 4Mobility session prior to the conference, for attendees who want to brush up on their knowledge of wireless basics and the industry. "We're happy with the attendance to our session," said Dewey. "There's an ever-growing group of people who want to know more about wireless data."

Even though his newsletter has been warning about the hype for months, he felt positive about the industry. "The idea that the U.S. is behind Europe and Asia in wireless is not really true. Carriers in the U.S. and, more importantly, their suppliers, are moving quickly to bring new services and networks online. I believe people are going to be surprised at the progress the U.S. will make in the next 12 months."

This sounds like the story of the "Space Race." At first the U.S. was perceived as a follower, because the Soviet Union launched the first satellite, and the first human, into orbit. But the U.S., once committed, became an irrepressible force in space exploration. And the U.S. is certainly committed to 3G wireless networks.

Tom Wheeler, president of CTIA, also took a positive tone in his keynote address: "NTT DoCoMo took off in times of incredible economic duress in Japan. These times are now an opportunity for the wireless industry." He said a major role of CTIA is to "create an association for carriers and service providers to meet and have dialogue. We'll extend that to an electronic 'virtual association' so that this dialogue can be archived and indexed. We hope this will encourage cross-sector pollination that will add music, entertainment, and advertising to the mix." Wheeler also announced that CTIA would take a more global position in the coming months.

Janice Webb, SVP and general manager of Motorola, said, "Over half of carrier revenues will be from mobile phones by 2005, and the mobile Internet alone will account for 15% of that."

General Sessions Cut the Hype
Hype got the cowboy "boot." A general session panel was asked, "From now on should the term 3G be stricken from all marketing materials?" The panel was split, two for striking the term, two against, but the "against" votes were still in favor of continuing discussions about the evolution to high-speed networks and the need for suppliers to carriers and application developers to prepare for it. They felt the term 3G was so overused that it had lost its meaning.

The general sessions focused on new approaches by carriers to work more closely with potential suppliers, especially developers of the new wave of wireless applications and services. Carrier representatives said they need to work closely with third parties to provide the new, useful, and exciting services their customers want.

Of course location-based services received a good deal of attention. Carriers have been mandated to provide the location of individual handsets for 911 emergency purposes. Of course knowing where a device and its customer is located opens a Pandora's box of opportunities for marketers. Location information is the first of many personalization issues that the cellular industry needs to address, and the sessions on location-based services took it head-on.

John Yuzdepski, VP and general manager for Sprint PCS, said, "The carriers must provide content to mobile devices in a personal fashion. In order to do so, carriers must think quite unlike a telephone company. This includes using interoperable components and a desktop environment that supports the mobile applications, and providing an operating system, file system, and hardware platform that supports and encourages third-party interaction."

The discussions at the general sessions made it clear that carriers, device manufacturers, and suppliers are finding ways to work together to provide simple, workable applications, based on personalization and location. Even revenue sharing, an unthinkable concept a year ago, is now a discussion point with carriers.

Session Highlights
The break-out sessions were divided into five tracks: Business Strategy, The New Market, Platforms, The Mobile Enterprise, and Developers' Workshop. Attendees seemed happy to lug the book of white papers home for future reference, since it was impossible to attend every session of interest.

David Bell-Freedman (18), CEO of Chasma, the world's largest teen-run company, was the moderator for the "Taking Gen Y Wireless" session in The New Market track. Dave manages his studies at Nashua (New Hampshire) High School while leading Chasma. He and his CTO, Andrew Eross (17), said they have paying clients who want to know what the teen market expects from a 3G network and, the company is profitable, thank you very much. Their mission is to take interactive entertainment wireless. Bell-Freedman and Eross were articulate, insightful, and eerily grounded for teenage entrepreneurs, until we started talking about vintage game players and fast cars.

"The PC is a wired digital hub for teens," said Bell-Freedman. "The wireless handset will become a 'mobile hub' that can be turned into a portable jukebox." Chasma has a good grip on both what teens want and also what can be delivered over the next few years because Bell-Freedman and Eross were invited to Lucent Labs to see the next generation (and next-next generation) wireless devices, networks, and services. Expect to hear more about Chasma and Bell-Freedman as he figures out what Gen Y wants as it grows into 20- and 30-year olds.

One of the developer workshops covered BREW, the exciting wireless application development and distribution system from Qualcomm. BREW stands for Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless. According to Jason Kenagy, director of product management at Qualcomm, it provides "Š a much-needed common ground for the development and execution of wireless data applications (and) serves as a catalyst for the entire industry." BREW includes an innovative application distribution system. Similar to NTT DoCoMo's Internet service, the BREW system takes care of downloading a preview copy, collecting the payment once a customer decides to keep it on his or her device, and distributing the revenues to the developers. The contentious aspect of BREW is that it's a closed system. It only works on phones with Qualcomm chips installed, and applications have to be certified by the carrier to ensure network security and handset stability.

Customer retention is a challenge, and partnerships are a key part of the answer. H. Seth Berlin's panel addressed who's responsible for retention, and how "churn," customers switching services, could be reduced. "Though the cost to retain a customer is much lower than the cost to acquire a new one, the wireless industry has focused on customer acquisition rather than retention," said Berlin, who runs the successful Performance Thinking and Technologies in Minneapolis, Minnesota. "Customer demographics," he added,"are evolving from a single-service, sole subscriber model to a bundled-service, multisubscriber model. New data services create new revenue opportunities that can be sold more easily to existing customers."

Billing settlement and systems as an exciting topic? It was a key issue at this year's conference. Carriers are moving to packet-based rather than "minute-based" networks, and billing systems must add billing by the packet in order to provide games, promotions, music downloads, and other services.

Iain Gillot, of iGillot Research in Austin, Texas, led a lively panel covering how business models must work with carriers to provide advertising, pay-per-view, pay-per-play, premium subscriptions, sponsored content, and MVNOs (Mobile, Virtual Network Operators). All of these business models depend on carrier billing systems to be successful, and the carriers, especially in the U.S., do not have systems that support them. Once again, according to Gillot and his panel, partnerships are the answer. As Gillot says in his white paper, "If the operators wish to remain in the value chain over the long term, then it is critical that they support (these) functionsŠ But if the operators do not step up to this role, others likely will, including the brand-name Internet portals."

Now that carriers are ready to talk to third parties, there are fewer candidates to meet. I stopped by the JP Mobile (formerly JP Systems) booth at the exposition. Last year there were many start-ups who provided content transformation, intelligent delivery, and mobilization of applications. Many of these companies have gone the way of the dot-coms. Others, such as JP Mobile, have reinvented themselves as suppliers for the enterprise. They're competing with large suppliers, like Oracle, who provides Oracle Mobile, but that hasn't stopped JP Mobile from offering (and having customers for) their SureWave Mobile Server and MDK (Mobile Developer's Toolkit), a framework for building mobile applications. According to Farlin Halsey, VP of marketing, who met with me at their booth, "Our technology helps the New York Stock Exchange guarantee a transaction time within seconds. Just as the Web server takes information to the Internet, SureWave Mobile Server takes the same information to the handheld world." More information on JP Mobile, headquartered in Dallas, can be found at www.jpmobile.com.

The attendees I met got the message. John Harkola, CEO of Retrieval Dynamics Corporation, Sarasota, Florida (www.retrievaldynamics.com), was there to find partners for his new product, Qxprint, which allows a customer to use a wireless device as a remote control, sending electronic files or hard copies wherever they choose.

"Qxprint is a real-life answer to the challenges faced by mobile professionals every day," said Harkola. "Unlike so many of the failing technology companies out there, we offer a bona-fide response to business information access on demand, in a format that's appropriate and acceptable to both the sender and the receiver - and it's available right now."

The success of 3G networks will be accomplished by pardners, as they say in Texas. Carriers are saying they need more than faster networks and the "walled garden" approach of last year. All of the major carriers were reaching out to third parties, by reinforcing or introducing programs to meet them, understanding what they're offering, and finding ways to work together. This conference was a partnering conference, and the 50 white papers that will be offered by CTIA offer a blueprint for what's real now, and what's coming soon. I just wonder what gems are in the other 220 white papers that weren't included in the conference. Perhaps we can persuade Desautels to make these available as well. You can reach him, and find out more about what will be available from the conference at: www.wow-com.com/index.cfm.

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