Unifying Forces

Mobile Data Enhances Wireline, Wireless Carrier Offerings with No 3G In Sight

This new phenomenon, variously referred to as "pervasive computing," "unified communications," or wireless/wireline "convergence," targets consumer and enterprise markets. However, it appears to be gaining greatest traction on the business side. The trend arises from the unified messaging tradition in wireless and taps the processes associated with applications integration within the enterprise software domain.

"Initial attempts at unified messaging, of aggregating messages of various types into a single repository, are clearly not enough," notes Dana Gardner, research director at Aberdeen Group Inc. "A managed, integrated service approach that intelligently routes messages and alerts is essential, especially if 'always-on' mobile devices are to be truly useful as Web application clients."

The need to support simplified access by field personnel to company files and personal messages from any network via any device is driving enterprises' embrace of mobile data services, researchers say. And, they add, it's not an embrace that's dependent on 3G access speeds above 100 kilobits per second. Some of the most important information field personnel need comes in small "alert" messages on a "push" basis or as simple text based on a "pull" call from the user. What matters is that the full range of company information be available through any device without the users having to input a lot of different codes depending on which data file is being accessed and which network and device they are on.

"As enterprises have added various types of communications services on top of all kinds of software systems, there's a growing amount of pain associated with accessing all this information," says Adam Needles, principal and director of research for DVG Research, a unit of Daedalus Venture Group LLC. "There's tremendous demand and a willingness to pay for solutions that do away with the need to use a lot of different codes to access different networks and applications from different types of devices."

DVG recently released two studies of demand for solutions that integrate fixed and wireless networks, devices and applications. The studies found about 29 million end users are managing fixed and mobile communications services through advanced interconnection and middleware services such as messaging. That market spent approximately $3.1 billion in 2000. The firm projects the number will hit 40.9 million users spending $5.48 billion this year, rising to 97.6 million users and $64.96 billion by 2005.

"Mobile middleware -- including mobile messaging services -- is the critical link between applications and heterogeneous data sets scattered across multiple devices and networks," DVG says in its study of the mobile middleware marketplace. Use of such technology will affect the structure of traditional telecom, the study says. The result, according to the study, will be forging of an ongoing service relationship among operators, OEMs and systems integrators. It predicts much of it will be tied to the network-based outsourcing of such integration as a managed service opportunity for service providers.

Access to the content of data files over the mobile links now is highly limited because of the limited bandwidth available for mobile data applications, notes Ben Macklin, senior analyst for the research firm eMarketer Inc. Macklin says the ability of mobile data messaging to enhance the value of network-based applications by notifying end users of changes in the content of their files, as well as alerting them to voice and email messages, is having a big impact on enterprise interest in mobile data communications.

"Demand for wireless data is growing quite strongly in North America on the enterprise side as the awareness grows that there's a real immediate benefit that can be gained through this sort of integration with legacy applications," Macklin says.

Long-standing and startup software applications companies have jumped into the market with a mind-boggling array of platforms and services. These include highly targeted push messaging solutions and broad-based capabilities claiming to automatically configure any piece of information from any source for delivery over any type of network to any device. Many of them are targeting wireline service providers and wireless operators as potential partners or platform customers. The service depends on whether the software system is offered on a hosted, outsourced basis by the vendor or for licensing as a capability intrinsic to the operator's service suite.

"Watch this space," says Dale Gonzalez, vice president of research and development at Air2Web Inc., a player in pervasive computing that is courting the service provider (SP) community. "We have agreements with several network operators we haven't announced yet." That applies to SPs using fixed networks as well as mobile operators, he adds.

"There's a big opportunity for ISPs and ISP-like companies to provide an increased-connectivity option that covers the mobile side as well as their traditional base," Gonzalez says. "There's a lot of interest in what we have to offer flowing from these people."

Air2Web markets its middleware integration platform as a communications ASP and through direct licensing of the software to customers. The product "exposes APIs [application program interfaces] of data files and allows the user to get access to whatever applications you build on the network," Gonzalez explains.

Such tightly integrated messaging across multiple network and computer application layers requires expert implementation, often requiring use of Air2Web's own client service group to assist with application construction, he adds. This includes tailoring the system to specific device APIs, which the software is tuned to work with across all the major commercial platforms, including instant messaging, short messaging, wireless access protocol (WAP), PDAs and others.

But the costs of getting such a program up and running are minimal compared to the costs in lost time and inconvenience that enterprises incur without such integration, Gonzalez notes, citing ADC as a prime example.

"ADC did an ROI analysis of what the payback would be using our platform and came up with numbers that really surprised us," he says.

ADC found that the wireless application of Air2Web's technology, involving access to order status information from SMS phones, web-enabled or WAP phones and Palm VII PDAs, including purchase of 2,000 PDAs, would be recouped in one month. ADC calculated 2,100 employees would save between two and five hours per week and another 1,100 installers would save more than five hours per week, along with hourly savings at call centers and accounting desks.

Strategies and claims in this sector vary widely, which suggests there's a lot of sorting out to do before a service provider jumps into an agreement with suppliers, notes Omar Javaid, co-founder, chairman and CTO of systems integrator Mobilocity Inc. "We're committed to crafting the best solution based on each customer's need, and that can be a complex process," he says. "Carriers are more up to speed than many of our enterprise customers, but there's still so much changing technology that customers need help in sorting through it all."

Mobilocity, established to focus strictly on systems integration in the unified communications space, makes clear that the market is really about integrated access across fixed and mobile networks, not just the "mobile Web" niche that many people focus on.

"The fixed terrestrial side of this is absolutely crucial to the process, and that's part of our message," Javaid says. But, he adds, the focus also is on what he calls "de-coupled" approaches. With this approach, Mobilocity can set up a managed integration service for, say, a fixed service provider that covers mobile connectivity as well without having to bring other carriers into the discussion, he explained.

Integration that does not require carrier partnerships or cooperation is a vital piece of what many of the software vendors in this space are offering. Sentica. is taking one of the more aggressive performance stances. Ashok Babbar, Sentica's founder and co-chairman, proclaims the company's platform "is going to change the world."

Babbar says the firm's software allows customers, working through a simple graphic user interface, to quickly set up end user access across all networks and devices within the enterprise to any application imaginable. It allows the built-in middleware system to set format and data rate of IP communications to suit whatever end device is receiving it.

"We're establishing partnerships with carriers as well as working in the enterprise and consumer e-commerce spaces," Babbar says. The goal is to help carriers create an environment where they can offer their enterprise customers the ability "to reach every device on every network," regardless of whether a given network is controlled by the carrier. Such capabilities can be set up for a given enterprise customer "in just a couple of weeks," Babbar says.

MessageMachines Inc. is one of the new breed of unified messaging system vendors that has had service providers in mind as a target market from the outset. It was formed in early 2000 by a team of software experts from IBM's Lotus software division and MIT's Media Labs, MessageMachines is selling push software that allows end users to change the device and location parameters easily for receiving messages as they go from place to place, says Douglas Levin, president and COO of the company.

"We saw a need for the service provider to be able to empower the end user to make better use of the SP's services," Levin says. The core of the system is software that acts as a messaging switch, or, in other words, a softswitch that can reside on any of the major servers types used in the SP and enterprise markets, including the Linux-based server world where the trend is toward distributed architectures and greater flexibility in the use of integrated communications to enable access across broader footprints.

"We're selling to wireline guys or mobile," Levin adds. "Wireline SPs need to support access via mobile and mobile SPs need to support access over multiple devices."

The company this summer added support for session initiation protocol (SIP) to its portfolio and has been expanding its partnerships to support an ever-wider array of messaging services and integration capabilities.

For example, to add a synchronization option, where software automatically updates the messaging server when changes are made in data files, MessageMachines interoperates with vendors such as AvantGo Inc. and Pumatech Inc. Or to give users messaging access to a great variety of unified communications services it has established a close relationship with Spanlink Communications Inc.

Virtually all players in this space attest to an immediate need for integrated communications that employ today's slow-moving web data feeds. They also acknowledge that higher bandwidth over mobile data links will push demand for integration much further.

"A lot of things about the way mobile data works today are holding back the rate of adaptation, especially on the consumer side, where there's practically no demand for mobile data," says Joe Korb, president of GoAmerica Inc., a service provider whose platform compresses, encrypts and reformats data to suit end user devices. Not only will 3G platforms add bandwidth to mobile connectivity, these platforms will expand the digital footprint, which is vital to true integration, he says.

A case in point is the recent completion of a mobile IP call over a live network using the 1X version of CDMA2000, one of the 3G standards. The connection, involving technology from Qualcomm Inc. and Nortel Networks, was the first end-to-end live demo of the IP roaming capabilities made possible by the IS-835 portion of the CDMA standard, notes Mark Morell, director of strategic marketing for wireless Internet at Nortel.

"This is a significant milestone for creating an all-IP mobile data structure," he says. "Without this capability, if you're getting push messages over an integrated communications platform and you leave the packet serving node you've been on, those messages won't follow you to the next node."

The Mobile IP capability will be part of 1X platforms Nortel begins shipping at the end of the year as operators begin moving to the first phase of 3G. The competing Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) platform will have similar capabilities. Its predecessor, the all-packet system for GSM networks, known as GSM-based Packet Radio Services (GPRS), doesn't offer those capabilities, Morell notes. AT&T Wireless recently became the first GPRS provider in the United States, with introduction this summer of the 115 kbps service in Seattle.

Other carriers slated to get underway with CDMA2000 services by year's end include Sprint PCS and Verizon Wireless, both of which are operating on the CDMA2000 platform. Verizon plans to evolve from the initial 1X phase at 100+ kbps to what is known as "EV-DO" (evolution-data only). By early 2003, data rates of 288 kbps over the existing 1.25 MHz CDMA channel will be possible. Sprint is taking this path as well and then may go to EV-DV (evolution-data/voice) in 2004, where throughput is supposed to average 1 megabit per second (peaking at up to 4.8 mbps) over the existing 1.25 MHz channel. Of course, 5 MHz channelization is required for full 3G implementation.

The EV-DV system, slated for standardization by early next year, preserves the existing channel structure in CDMA. It also supports delivery of voice and data over the same channel, with the voice component operating over the circuit-switched system in the mobile network and the data component working over the IP infrastructure.

"The technology allows for real-time coordination of voice and data for integrated applications like vide- oconferencing or gaming," notes John Touvanpas, senior product manager at the CDMA systems division of Motorola Inc..

It's clear that the opportunity fixed service providers now have to add mobile integration through new middleware systems is only the beginning. But, if the projections offered by DVG are any indication, it's a big enough beginning to merit the attention of just about any fixed service provider.

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