3G is on the horizon, promising to put everything, including streaming video, into your hot little handheld

[Dukedog]

3G is on the horizon, promising to put everything, including streaming video, into your hot little handheld

BYLINE: JOELLE TESSLER Knight Ridder News Service

BODY:
Until now, the wireless Internet has been a slow, cumbersome, mostly text-based experience. But mobile-data connections are evolving to deliver rich graphics, digital images, sound clips and eventually even streaming audio and video.
Imagine beaming digital pictures of your kid's soccer match from your phone or checking out a movie trailer on your Palm handheld computer while waiting to buy tickets. Or accessing a PowerPoint presentation behind a corporate firewall from your laptop while sitting in a taxi.

These are some of the promises of third-generation wireless technology, commonly known as "3G." Leading U.S. cellular providers are taking steps now to deploy this next generation technology.

"First and second generation were about wireless you can hear," said Jason Guesman, business marketing director for Sprint PCS. "Third generation is about wireless you can see."
With the cellular industry investing billions of dollars in 3G systems upgrades, wireless-data connections in this country are finally starting to speed up.

For starters, wireless carriers are promising to provide consistent "high speeds" on par with, or somewhat better than, what folks get with 56 kilobits-per-second dial-up connections on landline phones.

Of course, many people find those dial-up connections painfully slow and have switched to high-speed DSL or cable modem services.

But carriers promise their wireless connections will get much faster, topping 1 or 2 megabits per second in some cases and allowing us to unchain ourselves from our desktop computers.

Within a year or two, some of the wireless carriers promise they'll provide the really high speeds needed to make applications such as streaming video fly.

"When you're at your desk, you don't know whether your most important message will come by phone or e-mail," said Andrew Seybold, founder of wireless research firm Outlook 4Mobility. "So why would you be out in the field with only voice capacity?"

Despite the great potential of mobile data, however, experts caution that 3G services won't take off in the United States until the cellular industry rolls out applications compelling enough to convince customers to sign up and figures out how much they are willing to pay.

Barney Dewey, senior partner at Outlook 4Mobility, also warned that the most whiz-bang capabilities of 3G technology, particularly the ability to send high-quality streaming video wirelessly, won't become truly feasible until 3G connections get faster than the services being rolled out this year.

The International Telecommunications Union, the international organization that helps set industry standards, defines a 3G connection largely by the speed at which it can transmit data. According to the ITU, a 3G link must be able to send data at rates of up to 144 kilobits per second while mobile; at rates of up to 384 kilobits per second at walking speeds; and at rates of up to 2.4 megabits per second when stationary.

Although 3G is already available in Korea and to a limited degree in Japan, wireless connections in the United States until now have been based on second-generation technology, which delivers data speeds ranging from 9.6 kilobits to 14.4 kilobits per second.

In January, Verizon Wireless launched its Express Network service, which can send data at rates of up to 144 kilobits per second. But its average speed is between 40 and 60 kilobits per second. The Express Network service is available in San Francisco Bay area, much of the East Coast and in Salt Lake City. The company expects to have its entire nationwide network upgraded by the end of the year.

Sprint PCS, meanwhile, is planning a nationwide launch of its next-generation wireless data service this summer. The first phase of Sprint's network upgrade will deliver peak data speeds of 144 kilobits per second, with average speeds of 50 70 kilobits per second, the company says.

Sprint PCS is working with partners like Samsung and Hitachi to roll out a slew of new devices, everything from cell phones with color screens to digital camera attachments for handheld computers.

While the ITU defines Verizon's technology, for instance, as 3G, not everyone in the industry is convinced that what's available in the United States today is true third-generation wireless since it only meets one of the ITU's three speed requirements.

"This is one of a series of evolutionary steps that, over time, leads to 3G," said Jim Grams, senior vice president of technology development for AT&T Wireless.

A bit of a battle is shaping up inside the industry between those backing CDMA, the wireless technology used by Verizon and Sprint, and those backing GSM/GPRS, a competing technology used by AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless and VoiceStream.

AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless and VoiceStream, as well as Nextel, which uses another wireless technology called iDEN, have all been rolling out slower versions of wireless data known as 2.5G with speeds ranging from 15 to 40 kilobits per second.

Customers, of course, aren't paying much attention to the alphabet soup of wireless acronyms. "Who cares what it's called: 3G, 2.5G, 2.75G. The capability is more important," said Gartner Group analyst Phillip Redman.

Many believe the so-called killer applications in the corporate market will be e-mail and instant messaging. James Straight, vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless, said business customers will also use wireless data links to access everything from online manuals to corporate intranets and software applications. 3G will even let workers send photos from the field to the office.

In the consumer market, subscribers will use 3G connections to download digital images, online games and even music clips that can be programmed into a cell phone to create personalized ringers.

The real question right now, however, is whether customers will sign up for 3G.

Given what's out there today, Seybold, for one, is skeptical. "There are just not enough compelling applications," he said.

Seybold explained that, since most people in the United States who would sign up for a mobile Internet connection also have regular access to a land-based broadband service, wireless operators can't simply take the wired Web and transfer it to a small screen.

Initially, Seybold believes, it will be mostly corporate customers who sign up for wireless data services. "It'll be another two to three years before this really enters the consumer market," he said.

Industry watchers say prices also have to come down before mobile data services will take off. Wireless operators, they say, are betting customers will pay a premium for data services at a time when they should be holding prices down to build the 3G market.

Redman estimates most wireless-data plans today charge users anywhere from $1 to $7 to send or receive one megabyte of data per month, charges that can quickly add up. A one-hour session using a private connection to access Microsoft Outlook, for instance, uses between eight and 12 megabytes, he said.

"It's not priced to sell right now," Redman said, adding that this is particularly true of the plans offered by the GSM/GPRS operators.

Verizon, for one, was criticized for charging too much when it launched Express Network in January. In May, Verizon rolled out a flat-rate, all-you-can-eat plan: $99 a month for unlimited data. Prices go down from there to $35 a month for 10 megabytes of data or 150 minutes of voice or data connections.

While Seybold said the new rates are a step in the right direction, he believes corporate users would only be willing to pay up to $50 a month for unlimited wireless data.

Redman, however, sees Verizon's new rates as an important step toward more reasonable pricing for the entire industry and believes the plans will help "set the bar" for other carriers.

[Charlie5]

Here's a link to an article about Cingular's 3G from a local news station. "http://www.nbc4.com/technology/1492458/detail.html"