Posted: 12/1999
Coming Of Age
Mobile Data for Enterprise Applications
By Charlotter Wolter
Telecom '99, the worldwide telecommunications industry's quadrennial fest in Geneva, was the coming-out party for wireless data in the form of products and services aimed at enterprise solutions.
A new generation of wireless data devices was unveiled that have the functionality to serve business as well as consumer applications, and which include not only high-speed data, but even video.
The new robustness of wireless data could provide a new service opportunity for network operators. "What we see is that, as intranets and extranets get built out, being able to send information to your own employees or vendors' employees via mobile device will add substance, speed and viability to the supply chain," says Richard Nespola, president and CEO, The Management Network Group Inc., Leawood, Kan. For competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), intranets and extranets for enterprises are a growing market, "and mobile devices can go into or out of that intranet and extranet."
A key announcement at Telecom '99 was an alliance of Palm Computing Inc., a company of 3Com Corp., Santa Clara, Calif., and Nokia Communications, Espoo, Finland, that effectively combines the camps supporting the Symbian operating system and the Palm Computing Operating System (Palm OS). The two companies will develop jointly a new pen-based product group that will run applications written for both Symbian and the Palm OS. Nokia is licensing the Palm OS so it can implement the user interface and applications on the Symbian platform. The resulting products will be able to deliver telephony integrated with data applications, professional information management and value-added services.
The products also will use the wireless application protocol (WAP), which enables handheld data terminal or mobile phones to access web pages, as well as Bluetooth, a short-distance radio technology that eliminates the need for connecting cables for wireless devices to send and receive data.
Symbian Ltd. is a joint venture of Ericsson Inc., Richardson, Texas; Matsushita Communication Industrial Co., Tokyo; Motorola, Inc., Schaumburg, Ill.; Nokia and Psion plc., London. Based on Psion's EPOC operating system, the Symbian OS was developed as an open operating system that fosters interoperability among wireless data devices. Nokia will introduce the product first in the U.S. market.
In early December, Palm launched its Palm VI wireless data product, which is supported by the Atlanta-based BellSouth Wireless Data network with base stations in nearly 500 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) across the United States. This alliance represents a large proportion of the telecommunications and consumer electronics companies developing mobile data devices. It is in direct competition with Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., and its Windows CE operating environment, which, despite early successes in handheld computing, is less competitive in the realm of mobile phones and wireless data devices.
Nokia has keyed its corporate strategy to what it calls the wireless information society, with a range of mobile and fixed wireless devices including wireless local area networks (LANs) for enterprises. Chairman and CEO Jorma Ollila says service providers can differentiate their offerings with a range of new "mobility services, a high-growth new market opportunity." He says the company foresees "multiple form factors, along with new information and services that will be designed to fit the devices."
Siemens AG, Munich, Germany, also will jump on the wireless data bandwagon with the IC35, also called The Unifier, a wireless data device that combines unified messaging and a WAP browser. Siemens' CEO Volker Jung said the company will formally introduce The Unifier at the CeBIT 2000 convention in February in Germany. Siemens had entered a joint venture in August with Omnipoint Technologies, Colorado Springs, Colo., for enterprise applications for global system for mobile communications (GSM) telephones. Omnipoint and Siemens will develop end-to-end solutions to integrate wireless data devices with enterprise data networks.
A number of large carriers in Europe have tested wireless data services, including France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, which launched its first mobile data service in the fall, an Internet portal designed for customers with WAP-enabled telephones.
In addition, a meeting of the International Telecommunications Union's (ITU) IMT 2000 Task Force virtually completed radio interface specifications for third-generation (3G) mobile devices, which includes phones and handheld data devices. The specifications will enable existing mobile phone networks to migrate to interoperability with all 3G handsets, allowing mobile phones to work worldwide no matter what the technology of the subscriber's home network.
A key feature of the 3G specification is higher data rates, up to 384 kilobits per second (kbps) in mobile operation, which would permit wireless Internet access for a variety of devices from mobile phones to PCs. Services in Europe are likely to begin with an interim technology, however, called general packet radio service (GPRS), which offers data speeds up to 150kbps. The first 3G networks are not expected to launch until 2001.
Two challenges remain in North America before the technology can be widely deployed. One is connectivity and data speeds, which today are 14.4kbps at a maximum and most often just 9.6kbps. This makes the time to access even web pages specially formatted without graphics interminable.
The other, and potentially more important challenge, Nespola says, is to make communications secure and highly reliable. If companies are going to begin to use wireless data devices for tasks such as submitting orders and communicating sensitive corporate information, they will need the same reliability and security as the rest of the company's intranet or extranet.
This may involve the use of new encryption technologies or the adaptation of current encryption and tunneling for virtual private networks (VPNs) to the wireless world.
