Cell phone, wireless advances announced at Vegas cellular, Internet trade show

Kevin Ferguson

Wednesday, March 21, 2001 | 10:48 a.m.

Technology industry leaders are eagerly showcasing in Las Vegas the next generation cell phones that will bring movie-style graphics to the palm of your hand -- but they warn this movement will be gradual, not revolutionary.

This may frustrate consumers because expectations for wireless phones are up as a result of advancements in home computer technology, Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang said in a keynote discussion Tuesday at the Venetian hotel-casino during the Cellular Technology and Internet Association conference.

"As wired bandwidth increases, it increase the expectations for the wireless world," Yang said.

This forthcoming wireless technology called third generation, or 3G, will bring high-speed, always-on Internet access to cell phones and is expected to be available by the end of the year, several national and local technology executives said.

Executives of Sprint PCS, a leading cell phone provider in the Las Vegas market, laid out Tuesday the company's planned migration from today's largely text-oriented wireless web phones to cell phones with game-playing and enhanced voice capabilities.

Sprint PCS President Charles LeVine said the first phase of the company's version of 3G technology will be available in select U.S. markets by the end of the year. Sprint executives, however, would not disclose if Las Vegas would be one of these initial markets.

Sprint spokesman Dan Wilinsky said if Las Vegas isn't one of the first markets, Southern Nevada will have the technology along with the rest of the firm's U.S. markets by summer 2002.

The next 3G technology phase for Sprint PCS will bring streaming video to cell phones, and is scheduled to be available by the end of 2002, LeVine said.

Cingular Wireless said its first phase of 3G technology cell phones will be available in Nevada, California and Washington during the second quarter. Cingular Wireless was formed late last year in a joint venture between SBC Communications and BellSouth. SBC operates in Nevada as Nevada Bell.

Cingular Wireless also announced the launch of "My Ventana Movil," the first Hispanic wireless website to be offered by a cell phone carrier.

AT&T Wireless has partnered with Japan's NTT DoCoMo to help migrate to the next generation cell phone technology.

"This will allow kids to play video games from cell to cell," said Robert Kemple, general manager of the Las Vegas division of AT&T Wireless.

AT&T Wireless is scheduled to become its own company, spinning out from AT&T Corp. in June. As a result, the company is prohibited by the Securities and Exchange Commission from releasing technology roll-out dates or other forward-looking statements that may put a spring in its stock, Kemple said.

"I expect UMTS (AT&T's 3G equivalent) will allow us to get the entire web on cell phones," Kemple said.

Executives of various corporate companies said that these advanced wireless web phones may not appeal to the average consumer when they first hit the market.

"It's going to be for the business customer to do applications first," said Sprint PCS' Wilinsky.

Sprint PCS executives declined to discuss the consumer price for the next-generation phones, which raises another question: How are web-content providers going to make money on this movement?

"There has to be a partnership between content providers and carriers," said Yahoo!'s Yang. "Until recently, it was a debate over who owned the customer. The partners need to figure out how to own the customer longer and share in the revenues."

Yang also announced a partnership with Verizon Wireless, in which the phone carrier agreed to offer the Yahoo! Instant Messaging service to Verizon customers.

Verizon Wireless, which has invested more than $80 million in its Clark County cellular network in the past year, said during the trade show it had just completed a series of upgrades delivering an enhanced call quality for its local customers.

Even the host Venetian hotel-casino joined a big list of firms announcing wireless improvements. The Venetian said a company called LGC Wireless had installed wireless networking products in the property to improve cell phone reception for all big cell companies including AT&T Wireless, Cingular, Nextel, Sprint PCS and Verizon.

But aside from cell phone providers and hotels strengthening the wireless movement, government needs to play an important role in loosening regulations, acknowledged Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell at the trade show.

He noted that the FCC needs to change or reposition some of its policies to incorporate emerging markets.

"The FCC has a duty in re-evaluating its policies to eliminate those that may hurt business growth," said Powell.

Craig Barrett, chief executive of computer chip making giant Intel, tried to defuse the notion of wireless web customers surpassing wired Internet users.

"When you draw a chart showing where wireless web competes with the wired web, you've got it all wrong," he said. "There's one Internet with multiple access points."

Also during the Tuesday keynote session, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said the company signed a deal that will allow consumers to gain access to its Hotmail e-mail service and use the MSN Messager Service from MSN Mobile on Motorola's wireless phones.

Ballmer also threw the company's support behind an open-industry programming format for wireless called extended markup language, or XML.

"The Internet has grown up as a set of islands. People can send e-mails to each other, and websites can talk to each other, but they're largely unconnected," Ballmer said.

This XML format would centralize all wireless web information which would be stored "in the clouds," Ballmer explained, noting that this is an evolution that may take five years.

Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive of Dell Computers, said the majority of customers want wireless web connections, but only if they can rely on existing standards and easy-to-use notebook computers.

"Small devices can handle specific tasks such as e-mail and phone calls, but they can't compete with the screen size and multi-purpose nature of a notebook computers for sharing and viewing Internet content," Dell said.

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