Computing Takes to the Airwaves

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Mobile phones are on the verge of becoming the centerpiece of personal computing, with higher data transmission speeds and a wireless infrastructure spurring demand for services, says Dennis Strigl, president and chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless.

"The day is coming when wireless will no longer be thought of as a separate and distinct form of communications," Strigl said in a keynote at the ComNet trade show here. "I would predict ... that the qualifiers 'wireless' and 'wired' will disappear as wireless actually becomes the centerpiece." His company was formed in the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE last year.

Stressing the importance of speed, Strigl says Verizon is already testing 144-kilobits-per-second service and plans to offer it commercially later this year. The trials are testing technology known as 1XRTT on equipment made by Lucent Technologies and Nortel Networks to check the mobility of the service, speeds, and spectral efficiencies. The trials will continue for about six months before the services go on the market. The next evolution, including speeds of 2.4 megabits per second, is coming rapidly behind the 144-kbps trials, he said.

A Peak for Wireless Data

Speed and the built-out infrastructure, combined with factors such as the acceptance of applications such as e-mail and a cell-phone market penetration of about 40 percent in the United States, have brought wireless data to a critical juncture, Strigl said.

"In short, the technology is real, the demand is real, because the function of mobility has ever-increasing value to our highly mobile American lifestyle," he said. "So it is not a stretch to say that the wireless phone is on a fast track to becoming the very centerpiece of information and services anytime, anywhere."

Over the past few years, Strigl admits, he has not been "bullish" on wireless data, but he's come to see its potential.

Strigl said Verizon is moving aggressively on wireless data but will not replicate what is done on the desktop. The services will deliver a unique Internet experience that will couple microbrowsing and dial-up Internet services with SMS (short message services) and allow for "deep customization of mobile content," he said.

"Instead of browsing being our focus ... we are creating a tool that enables customers to put critical and time-sensitive information on continuous monitoring, allowing customers to check status, get alerted, and make transactions when they want to," Strigl said.

This will include a service that can monitor messages sent by a school, for example, to alert parents when bad weather closes the school early. The services will be customizable and will include not only alerts but also the capability to conduct transactions and receive regular notices, such as stock prices. Eventually, carriers will offer various price packages for the service that are a better deal than the per-minute fees charged now, he said.

Fighting for Spectrum

Partitioning of the wireless spectrum is critical and must be done on the basis of open competition, Strigl said, offering his observations about the market. Verizon bid aggressively in the recently concluded U.S. Federal Communications Commission's auction for 1900-MHz licenses, he said.

The intelligent wireless network is the foundation for delivering quality, speed, innovation, and maximum value, and spectrum is the "lifeblood of what we do for this network," he said. Demand for wireless data will require more and more spectrum to deliver the speeds promised, he said. He also said that he opposes caps on spectrum, limits on the amount of spectrum that carriers can get in a geographical market, and restrictions based on set-asides for various groups.

"When spectrum is awarded on a fair and competitive basis, it ensures that spectrum is in the hands of those who value the spectrum the most. They have a vested interest in developing this raw material and the best incentive to find and employ technologies to use spectrum ever more efficiently," he said.

Strigl added that the FCC's decision to postpone the 700-MHz auction until September was the right move, but he declined to speak further about Verizon's bidding strategies, citing an FCC-imposed quiet period.