September 25, 2000

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It's A Wireless World

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More on wireless:

sidebar: Schwab Takes It Slow On Its Wireless Service sidebar: Wireless Messaging Lets United Be Proactive Tele.com: Standards (9/18/00) TechWeb: Nortel Inks $100 Million Wireless Deal in Spain (9/7/00) TechWeb Finance: Deutsche Telekom Flexes Global Muscle (8/28/00)

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Schwab's Pocket Broker service, available since June, can be accessed using a Research in Motion Ltd. pager, a Palm device, or a wireless phone. Sofman says there are slightly more Palm devices than pagers using Schwab wireless services. Alerts, which tell subscribers when a stock loses a certain percentage of value or the Nasdaq soars, work better on the Rim pager, according to customers. "We're device-agnostic," Sofman says, noting that Schwab will consult with users about their terminal needs but won't require them to buy a specific unit. "We're more likely to partner with firms that provision multiple devices across multiple carriers."

That's exactly how users will buy, according to Zweig--they won't cluster around a single wireless device for their voice and data needs, regardless of nationality. "There will be many different devices, and the key is what device works best for which lifestyle," she says. "It's all about the person and the lifestyle, whether it's Nintendo, or the telephone, or your pocket PC. There won't be one integrated device."

But are football scores, weather reports, and stock updates enough to attract and retain a mass market? Probably not in the United States, and certainly not in other countries.

More than half of the customers using Schwab's Pocket Broker service are accessing content, trying to stay on top of news, stock positions, watch lists, and alerts. "Customers no longer need to go out and actively seek information; we can flag it for them," Sofman says. The company will continue to model its wireless applications based on two simple criteria. "An application that's location-specific and time-sensitive will really drive user adoption," he says.

Pelczarski says Motley Fool is working with two software developers, AvantGo Inc. and OmniSky Corp., to make some of the site's content available to wireless users. But Pelczarski says that his company is proceeding cautiously.

"We're looking carefully at device-appropriate content--we don't want to transcode content [from HTML to WAP] off the Web site and say 'Now we're wireless.' That's not good for customers," he says. "We've been approached by a lot of wireless ASPs, saying 'We'll have you up and operating in no time and put your entire Web site on the phone.' It's kind of like the 'How much will it cost to get you into this car?' gambit."

The application delivery problem is even larger than fly-by-night service providers that oversimplify wireless content delivery. Many of the national wireless service providers offer access to their portal, but the only places users can browse are the locations on that portal.

"The wireless Web is a walled garden where they tell you what you can do on a four-line screen," Zweig says. "Carriers are out there marketing it as the wireless Web, even though they tell you which stock, news, and weather services you can get. They're creating a parallel Internet, a proprietary standard [carved] off of the common standards." That's in striking contrast to Japanese carrier DoCoMo and its popular i-mode phone--largely because the NTT subsidiary made sure that lots of Web sites were available from the wireless phones, particularly for the 18-to 24-year-old demographic.

"We need to separate the carrier from the service, where anybody can create a site," says Craig Mathias, a principal at the Farpoint Group, a consulting firm. He advocates creation of a WAP version of Front Page, the software used to create instant Web pages. "U.S. service providers are still experimenting with what services and devices work best and how to sell them," he adds.

And that's not just on the technical front; it also extends to the marketing of wireless services and education of potential customers. By their own admission, U.S. carriers have fumbled the introduction of wireless services, particularly on the data side. They note shortcomings such as limited geographic availability, say in only 10 of the 30 largest markets. Applications beyond E-mail were poorly explained, if they existed at all. And 9.6-Kbps access speeds didn't permit much more than simple text transfers.

"The biggest challenge in the adoption of wireless technology is educating the consumer and marketing the value of it," says United's Black. Uptake will explode as users begin to understand the value of wireless and the services offered. "The biggest challenge we have is getting the word out, that it's there for free and there for the taking," Black says.

Pelczarski agrees in part, but he looks at mobile devices as an extension of the customer relationship. "It's a very personalized way to communicate with them, and you want to be sure you give them lots of control over what kind of information you send them and why and when. The information needs to be personally relevant."

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Illustration by Noma
Photo of Pelczarski by Scott Robinson

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