Summary
At the 2009 CTIA I.T. and Entertainment conference, Qualcomm called for offloading to Wi-Fi and femtocells while AT&T contended managing the network.
Analysis
Qualcomm made positive suggestions for mobile networks for offloading to Wi-Fi and femtocells. AT&T seemed to be asserting the case for “don’t regulate” to the FCC. Qualcomm’s CEO did subtly hint that it’s FLO broadcast network was available, but emphasized that “future speed will come from hardware”. He technically explained that the lab testing shows radio waves cannot be further optimized and the traffic has to go to other technologies. And he simply stated “We have to use different tricks now”. At the CTIA conference, the father-son PhD co-founders of Qualcomm were both touching and contributory to the wireless industry.
On the other hand, AT&T’s President of Mobility and Consumer Markets referred to the Apple iPhone with the statistic of 3% customers/40% usage. He emphasized “proper management” of the network by a carrier and that “We have to manage the network to make sure that the few cannot crowd out the many”. The CTIA President opened the conference about the wireless ecosystem interacting across infrastructure suppliers, service providers and app developers. AT&T appears to be on a mission to own customers. AT&T’s CTO described their LTE roadmap as waiting until 2011 as “…the sweet spot of demand and device availability”. AT&T’s strength has been branding and billing. Verizon is doing the other “B” of building with LTE for 2010. Please comment or write another article with your prediction of who wins in 2011.
Gregg Kail, MBA consults with leading institutions through GLG
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
