“As wireless and wireline become more IP-based, it allows for more integration,” said Chris Rice, SBC’s executive vice president of services and CTO, speaking during the ATIS Technology Forum opening session at USTA’s TELECOM ’04 October show in Las Vegas. Just a few weeks after the show, the FCC gave the go-ahead for Cingular, a joint venture of BellSouth and SBC, to buy AT&T Wireless, creating the largest digital voice and data wireless network in the country. In commenting on the merger, SBC Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre mentioned that SBC plans to offer integrated wireless and wireline services.
Another speaker on Rice’s USTA panel, BellSouth CTO Bill Smith noted there are more minutes of use on wireless than wireline in the RBOC’s region. “We believe there’s opportunity for wireless and wireline integration,” he said. In fact, a source tells xchange that BellSouth issued an RFP that discussed its desire to use SIP to bond wireline and wireless technologies.
BellSouth is working with Cingular on wireless-wireline integration, Smith said. He added that he expects to see unaligned wireless companies create alliances with cable companies to drive wireless-wireline integration as well.
While Smith said he’s not sure there is any one killer application, he added simplicity will be a key facet to this integration given it will tie together users’ communications services and features. He noted the inefficiency of having separate contact lists on his cellular and wireline phones, suggesting a network-based contact list that can be accessed by any of his devices would be a better way to go. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Siemens Carrier Networks President Harald Braun says home-based video services could also be customized by inserting SIM cards — which are used to store personal information in some cell phones today — into set-top boxes. The integration of wireless and wireline is so important, Braun adds, that on Oct. 1 his company merged the former Siemens fixed and mobile communications units — IC Networks and IC Mobile — into Siemens Communications Group. According to Braun, the telcos are unique in the market as a result of their relationships with cellular companies. That means telcos can use the location-based abilities of the wireless network to push unique offers to users.
Wireless-wireline integration also could allow subscribers to use their cell phones to check what’s on TV on a given night and even to remotely set their home TV’s PVR function using their cell phones while away from home, says Derek Kuhn, director of marketing and business development for the strategic solutions group at Alcatel, which offers end-to-end video solutions. He adds that some telcos are doing this today in a pilot mode.
Kevin Walsh, vice president of marketing of access equipment vendor Calix, which has a partnership with wireless equipment giant Nortel, adds that wireless-wireline integration could allow people to begin watching a newscast on a TV in their homes, and then go out with a video-enabled cell phone over which they could continue watching the news.
Of course, wireless and wireline integration has already begun on many fronts.
For example, SBC this fall began offering wireless high-speed Internet access for $1.99 a month to customers that purchase a DSL service the company delivers in partnership with Yahoo!. Wi-Fi hotspot provider Boingo Wireless and pure-play VoIP company Vonage announced a deal to co-market each other’s services.
Sprint Corp. is restructuring its business services to focus on offerings that include wireless services, leveraging the company’s wireless assets to differentiate itself. On the residential side, Sprint is testing technology that lets customers talk on their home phones over the Sprint PCS network.
And VeriSign today offers a service that allows a user’s cell phone to also be that person’s desk extension, says Raj Puri, vice president of NetDiscovery for the company. He notes that VeriSign sells the service both direct to enterprises and on a wholesale/hosted basis to service providers.
Meanwhile, as BellSouth’s Smith noted would be the case, wireless and cable companies already have begun to collaborate, at least on the packaging front.
As xchange reported in February, Comcast Cable and T-Mobile USA Inc. have allied to offer the T-Mobile HotSpot Wi-Fi Internet service to Comcast’s nearly five million high-speed Internet customers. Comcast high-speed Internet customers receive a special offer when they sign up for T-Mobile HotSpot through their Comcast portal. Of course, that relationship could evolve to include cellular services and potentially the delivery of wireless/cableco cross-network applications.
During last December’s Western Show, a cable TV industry show in Anaheim, Calif., Comcast President and CEO Brian Roberts said, “Wireless, I think, is a friend to this industry.”
xchange also reported last year that John Vaughn, president and CEO of softswitch company Syndeo Corp., said three MSOs in the United States were at the time pursuing the ability to have one number for wireless and wireline phones. “It’s a natural,” Vaughn said.
Grant Lenahan, Telcordia’s vice president and executive director of wireless mobility, this autumn told xchange that work by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a worldwide effort to define specifications for new data-focused mobile services, is being embraced by companies and organizations in the wireline world. Notably, he says CableLabs has a committee that is looking at how to integrate its PacketCable standard with wireless using 3GPP. That could allow a single set of control logic that won’t discriminate between wireless and wireline services and technologies, Lenahan explains. CableLabs did not return inquiries from xchange asking for more details.
