The Handheld communication revolution
Headlines in technology appear to center around the PC market. At the same time there is a product and lifestyle revolution going on. From Asia to Europe and on to the U.S., the use of new devices centered around communication is taking hold. Docomo and other services that bring applications to the handheld device are taking off. And the devices are rapidly improving along with the underlying services. In the last month, Sprint introduced PCS Vision, their 3G network. The applications for that service are endless, and we're only at the beginning of seeing the benefits of a ubiquitous data/voice network that can handle a wide array of functions. Think about what the Internet did to the PC. Other carriers talk about a data network upgrade that is always just a few months or years off.

The reason this is important is that the U.S. lacks common standards for the infrastructure to support a wider range of functions. As opposed to Europe and Asia, the U.S. got involved in building multiple networks to support similar functions. I was interested in the recent announcement that T-Mobile and Cingular might merge.

Forgetting the owners of Cingular and T-Mobile and my customer service issues for just a second, a national GSM network, created by this merger, should benefit the consumer giving us a network compatible with Europe, Asia, and Canada. Nationally, we're paying to develop at least five separate wireless networks, and they're all limited in some way. Sprint, Nextel, AT&T, Verizon, Cingular/T-Mobile, and others are using a mix of TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access), CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), and GSM and on different frequencies.

There's also a long list of regional players. We have been paying for them all in the form of higher fees brought on by the "successful" auctions, which are actually more like a tax, and in the resultant poor service quality. For example, we need quad mode phones to roam, solving the problem at the handset versus the underlying system. It simply costs more to effectively deploy five cell towers than one. For example, in New York one landlord can collect five checks for five separate towers on his roof. In rural areas, five towers can require leasing fees to five farmers. In the end we pay for all of those and what it costs to install, run, maintain, and upgrade them.

We would benefit from a ubiquitous wireless network built on an internationally accepted standard. If this was done at the onset we would all be experiencing GPRS and/or G3 over GSM allowing for advanced phone and network features talked about for so many years. These have been unattainable as the bloated cost and network structures need to be supported through higher user fees, all to support the debt and equity associated with frequency auctions, consumer marketing, and five networks of hardware.

I am anti-big-government, but in this case we could have done a better job mandating a one or two network build using two standards (e.g. GSM and CDMA), and over time the consumer could have picked the carriers that met their needs best instead of switching rapidly between five providers, none of which meet needs very well at all.

Heather McDaniel is unique because she has experience in three important fields--real estate, handheld computing, and personal success coaching. She holds a real estate license in both Hawaii and New Jersey. Prior to starting her own personal success coaching business dedicated to helping people reach their goals, Heather is the news editor and former sales manager for ZATZ, publishers of this magazine. She's widely acknowledged as a leading expert on the handheld industry. For a free coaching session, contact Heather at heather@coachheather.com or visit http://www.coachheather.com.