I'm not surprised to see a class action suit filed against Palm for their Treo 600 and 650 devices.

I bought a 650 earlier this year and as I documented here my initial experiences were anything but pleasant. Things did settle down since then, for the most part. Still, every few weeks the device will randomly restart on me. Call quality is generally poor. And, last week, I had to pop out the battery to restart the device because it completely died for some unknown reason.

I've already made up my mind to ditch Palm when my contract expires. By then I hope to see more devices supporting email access, which is really all I bought the Palm for anyway.

It's a real shame. I really did and still do want to love this device. It has such potential. I know Palm rushed these devices to market without testing them fully and we all have paid for their haste to make good quarterly numbers. But these sorts of things have a way of catching up with you and, even if the class action suit doesn't hurt Palm, the thousands of unhappy Palm users like me, out there spreading the word, certainly will.

As cellular phone rates have lowered and access has become pervasive, the reasons for making a cell phone call have expanded from event-driven planning conversations to a kind of verbal, geo-locator service.

You see this geo-locator service use as soon as your plane lands, and the cell phones come out. Or, as school lets out for the day. Or, just for the heck of it, every half hour.

Or, if you live in a city with mass transit like I do, it isn't uncommon to see high-school and college students call their friends every third stop, advising them of their whereabouts.

Today, the geo-locator functionality of cell phones took on an amplified, if tragic meaning. As you probably know by now, there were a string of fatal subway and bus bombings in London. Given that they occurred in the morning rush hour, it would not be unfair to assume that hundreds of thousands of London commuters were in transit when the violence struck.

On a terrible day such as today, six things are likely to happen:

*As news accounts of the bombings reach loved ones and friends of those in transit, their first reaction will be to try and call the cell numbers of the people they care about;

*Those who manage to escape injury will call their friends and loved ones to assure them they are OK;

*Those near the scene will use their cell to call emergency responder agencies with updates and pleas for additional help for the wounded;

*Some emergency responders will use the cell network for communications;

*Emergency responder agencies and hospitals will be flooded with mobile calls from anxious, on-the-go friends and relatives who cannot reach the people they care about;

*Cellular networks will be flooded with text messages to and from commuters, and sometimes to each other.

Add up all these stark reasons, and you'll have a day such as today, one which U.K.-based cellular carriers won't ever forget.

In fact, London's telco networks swamped,an article just posted on the technology section of the (Toronto) Globe and Mail's Web site attests to this fact.

According to the G&M's Catherine McLean and Scott Deveau:

Wireless carrier Orange reported double the amount of daily traffic;

Wireless provider O2 experienced call volumes more than twoce that of normal weekday levels, and compensated by putting twice the traffic on the same bandwidth;

BT Mobile reported some uncompleted calls due to network congestion, and;

Vodafone UK experienced network congestion and posted a message on its website asking all of its central London customers to "avoid making unnecessary or lengthy phone calls."

Let's hope we see many more days where more cell calls are made for trivial reasons- and a day like today never happens again.

A story that moved on Reuters last week reports that the National Football League is in talks with Sprint to offer game highlights on mobile phones.

The partnership with Sprint would broaden a relationship that already offers audio highlights of NFL games to Sprint phones. Additionally, Kansas City-area based Sprint has been a Kansas City Chiefs sponsor for a decade.

I suppose if you are traveling, and missed your favorite team's Sunday's game highlights, you might want to see exactly how that 40-yard touchdown pass went down.

To me, though, a service like this has some built-in production value challenges. The NFL playing field is long and wide. Sometimes, the plays that make the best highlights are best depicted from a wide camera angle.

Until 3G phones come- I forsee pixely highlights with narrow angles. I love football, but not enough to settle for inferior video.

Get me to the hotel, and to ESPN. For now.

Several weeks ago, I posted an article here called Music Goes Mobile.

In part, the article explored mobile device, mobile programming and mobile music executives if they could visualize a time in the near future when music-enabled mobile phones will be a competing music platform with portable music players.

While all three sources I spoke with agreed that the sound quality of mobile phones is dramatically improving, none would daresay that mobile phones would supplant portable music players.

Two analysts quoted in a newly posted Wired News article tend to agree. They envision that for the forseeable future, music players will predominantly be for music, and cell phones for talking- with some music capability as an extra for those users who really want it.

Michael Gartenberg, research director for Jupiter Research (gee, Mike, that title is kind of repetitive, don't you think), tells Wired News' Katie Dean that he and his colleagues "don't see (music over cell) as a displacement any more than digital cameraswere displaced by camera phones."

A key issue for Gartenberg is price. "As long as music phones command a significant premium over regular phones then it's going to be difficult to see how the consumer will embrace them."

Even those mobile users who want to enjoy music won't throw away their iPods. "We think there's going to be a very large middle area where people will use both types of devices," IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian (who I am sure by now is much more than tired of that "are you related to.." question) told Dean.

I see the saliency in both viewpoints, but speaking purely as a focus group of one here, gimme an iPod (or similar device) that also makes and takes phone calls.

This morning, I read an Associated Press piece about a service called Grafedia.

Here's how it works. Advertisers put up a teaser message on, say, a sidewalk or telephone pole. The message is either an e-mail address or the address of a Web page, both mappable to grafedia.net.

With your cell phone in your hand you walk by the advert, and then send a text message to the address listed on the message.

Then, depending on the ad, a bigger ad display will open. Or, perhaps, you'll see a history of the building or neighborhood open up within the display you've just SMS'd.

I was bopping around this morning thinking "kewel," at least up until I told this story to someone who approaches technology from a far more practical mindset than I sometimes do.

"Let me get this straight," the X-chromosomal unit says to me. "I've seen enough ads today already. So when I see this ad on the sidewalk, I am supposed to stop walking, get out my cell phone, and send a text message to the sidewalk so that I can see another ad?

Case closed.

Several weeks ago, a woman here in my home town of Portland, Oregon drove off a bridge while yacking on her cell phone. It was a hands-free handset, by the way.

Fortunately, she survived with mere cuts and scratches on her face. She was more than lucky. Instead of the admonition "Hang Up And Drive," "Hang Up Or Dive" would have been a more relevant caution.

Then, last week, someone nearly sideswiped me while executing a left turn through an intersection on a busy, two-lane street. She was talking on her cell phone as well.

I'm the last person to knock communications technology. I've had a cell since the 1980s, and while I might be happy to see you, that is a cell phone in my pocket.

Still, maybe I'm old fashioned enough to adhere to the notion that when driving, you use your cell in an emergency. Such as calling in a police report of a knife fight on the street that you are driving on, or helping a fellow motorist in distress. Or, if necessary, return the day care center's call.

While driving, you do not use your cell phone to ask what you should pick up at the supermarket, what DVDs you should pick up. Nor do you call your Realtor, your broker, your hairdresser. Pull to the side of the road for that.

Which naturally leads to a discussion about whether local governments should ban cell phone use while driving.

I'm not a reflexive Libertarian, but I would say no. For every near-miss, there's got to be many multiples of successfully executed talking-while-driving conversations. So to me, the issue is whether government should regulate behavior that is more risky than normal - or whether your own common sense should prevail.

Here's how I would parse this issue. Don't outlaw cell phone driving. Instead, sell cell-phone-while-driving permits to individual motorists, and then use the proceeds to support E911 services. Those permit-holders who would abuse the privilege and either cause accidents or get arrested for other moving violations would lose their permits.

And of course, see their insurance rates rise as well.

Anti-virus digital crusader McAfee has formed a partnership with mobile phone feature management solutions provider Bitfone to enable security protection for mobile phones over the air.

Bitfone's solutions are found in phones made and sold by such venerable names as Motorola, LGE, SK Telecom, Sony Ericsson, QUALCOMM and UTStarcom.

Here's how this thing will work. Bitfone will add an embedded McAfee scanning engine to its device management solution. With this added functionality in place, you'll have a mobile client-server set-up that will let cell phone operators prevent, detect and if necessary, recover from viruses, spyware, worms and auto-dialers that attack their networks.

Both on the mobile sys-admin and individual phone-diagnostic level, the McAfee component will be loaded for action. It will enable the Bitfone platform to perform remote diagnostics, scheduled updates to virus definition files, and even purge and reset an individual subscriber's handset that may have eluded the safety net.

As cellular networks get faster, viruses will propogate. Or, attempt to. That's why this solution will take off.

This week marked a historic if artistically indistinguished moment in the world of mobile music.

For the first time ever, a ring tone topped the British singles best-seller chart.

The piece was "Crazy Frog Axel F," a series of melodious rings and beeps based on a decade-old high-pitched sound edit of a Swedish mo-ped revving up with the hook, line and stinker from the theme to 19xx's "Beverly Hills Cop."

I've been trying to assimilate all this. Of course I can recite back all the analysis and perspective I gathered from the interviews I did for Music Goes Mobile, the fourth part of my Future of Wireless series. Everyone's mobile, cell phones have better sound quality, ringtones rule.

On a personal level though, I just don't understand. Maybe it is because I come from the school that the only useful purpose for a ring tone is when you are in a crowd - to distinguish the sound of your mobile's ring from that of others. And the older I get, the less often I am anywhere near crowds. In fact this afternoon, we're going to forgo a huge festival down at our hometown's riverfront to spend a weekend in a county that has more cows than people.

If I want to hear music, I have a separate device for that. iPod works fine, and so does the music in my head.

But then again, maybe I'm just too dang old.

This week, the Portland, Oregon City Council will discuss a five percent tax on cell services.

To which I say: it is about time. We need the money. Bring it on.

The issue here, as well as in the community where you live, is that many land-line users have forsaken their traditional public-switched telephone to a cell-only number.

Currently, those users are not taxed. As the proportion of land-line phone accounts declines in most North American cities, it stands to reason that the city- already strapped for funds - is even that much more hurt.

Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard has the best solution. Lower the land-line tax from the current 7 percent to 5, and match that with a cell phone tax.

Cool, I say. Too many of us use our cell lines too often, anyway. I mean, hang out at any mall, store, in front of the local high school, on public transit, even the street corner, and you see the teenagers gabbing away about what they are doing at that precise moment.

Tax 'em on over-minute fees, too. Collect $3-$5 a month from several thousand jabbering high schoolers, and heck, junior high schoolers, and maybe you'll raise enough money to hire another teacher for the school they go to.

I know a woman who is an organizer and fundraiser for choices at the beginning and at the end of life. Causes such as making sure that government does not force pregnant women to give birth, and ensuring that the same civil authorities would not deny a terminal patient with intractable pain a way to leave their body consensually, and with some degree of dignity.

But in terms of means to spread her message, this woman is more into meeting with like-minded people in small discussion groups in the basements of progressive churches than she is into advocacy spread by mobile multimedia technology.

Goddess bless her, but when she encounters someone who disagrees,she was, and is, also one for beating people over the head with her message. You know the type that talks at you rather than to you, and tries to shame you into thinking the way they do.

I remember showing her my fancy video and photo-capable cell phone. Not in so many words, she viewed my new handset as just another exotic creation of a transnational technocracy using technology to get us to spend our obsessive consumerist, materialist dollars.

At the time, though, there was not a Web site called Ourmedia.

Ourmedia is not an agitprop site, but one on which you can freely upload your photos, images,videos, or music you've made and have them available for all the world to see and hear. Your creations can come from a pricey SLR (single-lens-reflex) digital camera, professional DV camcorder, or in the case of images,just a pixel-ly cell phone camera.

The cool part about cell phones with cameras is that unlike digital cameras that most of us tote along only on special occasions, if you carry a cell with you, the camera inside it travels with you. So, maybe you can capture that iconic image that reflects your sociopolitical passion - the homeless man on the sidewalk with his dog, your aunt in the final, painful throes of cancer, an elderly farmer standing out in a field surrounded by suburban sprawl, a clever bumper sticker that says it all.

And then, through an easy process, you can post it to Ourmedia. Then, the next time you make up a fundraising letter or a poster touting a rally, you can include a link to your photos or clips.

Ourmedia is far from perfect, though. I hope that in the next several months, they really get their site usability thing together. Search is awkward and extremely limited, indexing of sections is confusing, and pageloading is timely and occasionally unsuccessful.

There is, though, vast potential in sites such as Ourmedia to act as true community tools for what we can do with our mobile devices.

Qualcomm is the Microsoft of the telecoms industry, for better and for worse. People in the telecoms industry typically either love the company or hate the company.

I lean toward the latter, so please keep that in mind as you read this brief review of The Qualcomm Equation by Dave Mock.

In this book, published earlier this year, Dave does an excellent and meticulous job of documenting Qualcomm's against-all-odds rise to the top of the telecoms industry. I did not realize the degree to which Qualcomm relied on government business in the early days and also did not realize just how close the company came to missing the cellular boat completely. Back when Europe set in place one standard and many in the US wanted to follow suit, Qualcomm stuck to its guns.

And I think that the US is better off for it.

By and large, the mixed-standards "mess" that we have in the US has turned out to be a pretty good thing. Because of competing standards, we have EV-DO, which is a much-faster technology than single-standard Europe has to offer. Competing technologies keeps everyone on their toes, and Qualcomm has certainly kept the GPRS vendors on their toes. Dave Mock documents this drama and makes sense of the very complex technical standards and jargon.

Mock is perhaps too kind to Qualcomm, particularly in the latter years, as the vendor transforms from David to Goliath. For example, the company has been in an all-out war with Wi-Fi and WiMAX over the past three years, and it is only recently that we now see the company starting to co-opt some of the same technology underlying WiMAX. Qualcomm recently ditched its much-hyped EVDV technology when it became apparent that carriers want IP and big pipes, something WiMAX was designed to address from the ground up.

I find Qualcomm to be a little lost these days, as if it is searching for another big bully to take on again; the trouble is, Qualcomm is now the big bully and it's taking on the types of innovators that it once was.

That said, anyone in the telecoms industry who wants to know how Qualcomm got to be Qualcomm should read this book.

Nochee is a restaurant and bar in downtown Minneapolis that by all accounts, caters to the unattached and newly unattached business crowd.

You know... Lexus, in-town loft, very comfy and growing portfolio, dressed to the nines, drinking the wines, politically liberal but fiscally conservative.. the finer things in life.

And as many of us would maintain, the finer things in life sometimes come in carbon casings of that other chromosome.

And for those of us who have gotten lu.. I mean, have met some really nice folks in these types of establishments, part of the initial hurdle is getting heard above the din.

But text-messaging requires no sound. Just a handheld communications device and a spare hand (while the other holds your fine Merlot).

To the rescue comes a thus-described Minneapolis restaurant and bar called Nochee. Every Thursday night, they give out a total of 50 BlackBerrys already set up for text messaging. They are only yours for the evening, but during the evening, the massive text-messaging and pingfest goes down.

At closing time, that's when the BlackBerry fest ends. You have to return them. But I wouldn't bet against every once in a while, the introductions facilitated by this promotional text-messaging communication perpetuate after closing time.

As a sighted person, it is difficult for me to comprehend the sheer terror of what it means to lose one's eyesight in this technomobile world. I can intellectually comprehend it, but can only feel it through observing the struggles of others not so blessed.

I have examples to refer to. Now 89, my former school principal uncle Dave, a proud, well-read man - can see little more than shadows. My long-time buddy Jim, a man with a technological bent, a Master's Degree and several books to his name, can barely make out the shadows. And when I last heard from my now-former girlfriend Mary a little over a year ago, she was worried how long she could continue driving before a chronic visual deterioration made that unwise, if not impossible. Irony... she's an occupational therapist for severely orthopedically impaired schoolchildren.

All three of these people embrace technology, but have great difficulty using it. Because handset screens are smaller and achieve lower-res than enhanced-display PC monitors, visual obstacles can be even more acute with mobile devices.

This realization led me to the American Federation for the Blind's Web site, and to a Cell Phones, PDAs, GPS's message board on the site.

The posts were a combination of frustration and proposed work-arounds. One poster summed up the issue for so many: "You can send a man to the moon, send a satellite to Mars, build a space center in outer space, but why can't they produce a cell phone or a PDA or even a GPS with audio technology for the visually impaired," asked poster Johncue.

Some readers wrote back with solutions, which included Nokia 6620 with the Mobile Speak, screen reader, and a PDA called Pac-mate that works with an optional Braille keyboard and accessories.

There's something else. It costs $3,000, but just might work. It's a headworn video magnifier named JORDY. Made by a company known as Enhanced Vision, who named the product after Geordi LaForge, a sightless character in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

And if you read through this Associated Press article, you'll see that a visually impaired NASA engineer has an idea to scale down the JORDY so it could work with handsets.

It would be welcome but ironic if a handset usability solution for the JORDY - named after a fictional space exploration scientist - came from a visually impaired real-world space exploration scientist.

So it has been about a week since my Cingular Treo 650 gave me a horrible case of buyer's remorse.

As I wrote here a few days back, about a week after I bought the device I realized that the voicemail number would change randomly, and rarely into a number that actually dialed voicemail. Much worse, I found that whenever I tried to dial a phone number the device reset itself. My Treo had effectively downgraded itself into a Zire.

So I went to Cingular, swapped the Gemplus SIM card for the Axalto SIM card and still suffered problems. Some of the folks I've spoken with who had similar problems found that once they exchanged SIM cards their Treos worked just fine.

I was not so fortunate.

It turns out that when I restored all the old files and settings onto my Treo, I also restored a file or setting that caused the same general conflict. So even though I had the new SIM card I had the old problems.

If you're in the same boat, be sure to completely uninstall your old desktop Palm software and then reinstall. And you'll need to do a hard reset of your Treo.

Since I use a Mac I was faced with the daunting prospect of reinstalling both the Palm desktop software and the Missing Sync software. As a workaround, I simply located the actual user backup files on my desktop, deleted them, and then the problem went away.

Fingers crossed. I have not had any random resets since wiping out the old backup files, so I will assume my problem is solved.

But before I put this affair behind me, here are a few anecdotes, rumors and lessons that I picked up along the way:

1. Treo and Cingular cleared rushed the Treo out to market too quickly. And it just didn't hurt customers like myself; dealers were also burned because when this problem first surfaced they simply assumed the devices were broken and exchanged them for new devices resulting in lost sales of those new devices (which are in hot demand). Which leads me to...
2. Do the folks at Palm or Cingular ever take a moment to read the Treo message boards like TreoCentral or Howard Forums. Had they done so, they would have spotted this problem early on and saved me and potentially thousands of others a great deal of frustration and wasted time.
3. And why aren't the dealers reading the same message boards? Some of them don't even read the email they get from Cingular because at least two of them had to be educated by their customers. One customer actually brought in a printout of a message board posting to prove that there was a SIM card issue. When the customers know more about the product than the dealers, something is wrong with Cingular's chain of communication.
4. The Palm and Cingular support Web sites could not be less supportive if they tried. Now, if I have a problem with my Treo, I don't even bother going to their Web sites; I just go to the message boards.
5. I've read a rumor that Palm has a software patch in the works for the the Cingular Treo 650.
6. If you've got a Treo that is beyond SIM repair, you might find that dealer is "all out" of replacement Treos. But they may be lying. Yes, there is a rush on these things but dealers are also reluctant to use Treos as replacements because they want to sell them. One customer resorted to calling Cingular dealers as a prospective new customer; once he located a dealer who had a Treo 650, he told them to hold it and when he arrived to replace his Treo, they couldn't give him the old "sorry, we're all out" routine (which they actually tried).
7. I think if Apple does get into the cellular business, it will do well. It has a distribution network of highly trained employees who really understand computers (as opposed to cellular dealers who typically know less about Treos than their customers). And it builds computers that don't crash. PalmSource hasn't figured that one out yet. I did read that PalmSource is looking at Linux as a future OS; this would be a big step forward in creating an operating system that doesn't crash when a software conflict rears its ugly head.
8. Finally, despite all the trouble, despite all the time spent on hold, I do like Treo 650 a lot and Cingular coverage in Escondido is pretty darn good. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for the all comments and emails.

Dave Mock has published what I believe is the first authoritative book on Qualcomm and how it got to be the success that it is today. The book is titled The Qualcomm Equation and I hope to have a review shortly.

If you've purchased a Treo recently from Cingular and are having problems, read this post...

Two weeks ago I took the plunge and purchased the Treo 650 from Cingular. I don't have to repeat the many glowing reviews this device has received. What did it for me was knowing that there would be a Wi-Fi plug-in available later this year. Here's one that's on the way.

The first week with the Treo was mostly positive. Syncing is a challenge with any device, particularly if you are a Mac user. PalmSource gave up supporting Macs last year, so I had to go to a third party to get software to sync my calendar and contacts. As a Mac user, I'm accustomed to these little exercises.

After about a week the troubles began. I would go to dial a number and the phone would reset on me. Just like that. The screen goes black and then it boots up again. For a moment there I had a flashback to my Windows Me days.

To make matters worse, the voicemail phone number would change on me randomly, displaying everything from international numbers to a string of zeros.

So I went to the Cingular and PalmOne Web sites and found nothing of help. There was clearly a software glitch - perhaps a conflict between the SIM card and the Palm OS. This is in many ways the worst possible problem, because it falls in between the cracks of the device manufacturer and the carrier. In fact, when I finally did get ahold of Cingular, they initially told me that I had a faulty device and that I should return it.

Then I discovered Treo forums here and here. And I quickly realized that I wasn't alone. Between the forums I estimate that I have found close to a hundred people who have buggy Treo 650s. Granted, it's very hard to tell what's a legitimate bug or software conflict or naive user, but based on reading these countless postings, I can't help but think that Palm and Cingular rushed out this handset a bit too quickly.

One user goes to Cingular the other day and finds that corporate has sent an email to all dealers telling them that the SIM card is causing problems. The dealers have been sent a stack of Axalto SIM cards to exchange with the existing Gemplus SIM cards.

So once I heard this I went over to my local dealer and was met with a blank stare, until I found the manager who just happened to have read the same email that morning. They swapped the cards and the problem went away, sorta.

I had to go home and do a hard reset, that is, erase all the settings and software I had set up, and the phone worked again. Needless to say, I was relieved, until I ran a sync operation and all the old files and settings were pushed back onto the Treo. Suddenly, the same old problems came back to life. Once user on the forum said I need to reinstall my backup software as well (which for me meant reinstalling two applications all over again). Instead, I tried to remove just the backup files and this seemed to do the trick.

It has been three days and I've only had on random reset.

I've been in touch with PalmOne PR and hope to have more information soon. What I want to know is this:

1. How severe is this problem? How many people need to be changing SIM cards?
2. Why didn't PalmOne and Cingular notify everyone the minute they discovered this problem? How many people right now are waiting on hold with Cingular cursing their Treos?
3. Did Cingular pull the Treo off its Web site yesterday because of this problem or because of supply shortages? They'll probably say it's because of shortages, but I can't help but wonder.

Anyway, I hope this isn't a big problem, though it certainly has been a big one for me. And I'm still wondering if I should just return the thing the get on with my life (I've wasted a good 10 hours on hold, at the dealer, and futzing with the device). But, most of all, I hope other frustrated Treo users out there read this post and get to their dealer if they're having problems.

David Isenberg gave us the the Rise of the Stupid Network. Ambient Devices is giving rise to the stupid device.

While wireless phones get smarter, other wireless devices are getting dumber.
The Ambient Orb represents what I believe will be a growing segement of wireless devices -- those that do a great deal less, but do it really well.

Ambient Devices is in many ways a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). It owns no network; instead, it leases network access from another carrier (MetroCall's paging network).

The orb literally needs no instruction manual because it ships programmed to do just one thing, such monitor the stock market or the weather. You just plug it in and it does the rest. Now, if you want to the orb to represent different data streams, such as the pollen count or a specific stock, you need to set up an online account with Ambient.

I would like to see Ambient extend this functionality to home wireless networks and consumer devices. For example, I would like to have some orb by the back door that glows if I've left any appliance or light on in the house - so I don't end up leaving that house and then coming back twenty minutes later. I would also like smoke detectors that change color based on how much battery life is left.

I'm sure they're working on it...

As reported in the WSJ last week, a group of California Verizon Wireless customers are suing their carrier for selling them a "disabled" Motorola V710 handset.

So let me get this right, the first "Bluetooth-enabled" handset that Verizon Wireless brought to market was disabled?

That's right.

The lawsuit rightfully contends that when a carrier advertises Bluetooth support that is must support the degree of Bluetooth that consumers come to expect. In other words, just leave the technology alone and let it work as it was intended.

Verizon wants customers to use Bluetooth only for wireless handset capabilities, not for syncing their handsets with their computers or, worse, downloading ring tones and other "premium" content from outside Verizon's walled garden. As one customer said, "It's like buying an SUV that can't go in the mud."

This is a timely lawsuit and should serve notice to all service providers who believe that consumers will passively consume what wireless features they are fed. Thanks to Wi-Fi and other wireless devices, consumers are growing both savvy and demanding about wireless technology. They know what Bluetooth is capable of and they're going to be pretty upset if anyone stands in the way of that functionality. The same goes for Wi-Fi, which is gradually making its way into carrier portfolios.

Cellular carriers want to think of themselves as cable operators, who charge a monthly fee for "basic" connectivity plus make a bunch more money from "premium content." But the walled garden only works when there are walls, and thanks to a new wave of fixed wireless upstarts and newly motivated incumbents, like SBC and BellSouth, no carrier (wired or wireless) will win by walling in their customers.

The carriers of the future will tear down the walls between wired and wireless, TV and computer, home and work. The carriers of the future will function as personal systems integrators, selling services and not pipes. Verizon Wireless and Vodafone kid themselves in thinking they can control the handset manufacturers and, as a result, the consumers; it is a stopgap measure at best. Every disabled device represents a disabled business model. The walls will fall down.

WiMAX has often been viewed as competitive to 3G or DSL networks. But I've always asked the question: Why can't a service provider use both?

Well, it looks like Lucent has been asking that same question. They just announced a partnership with Alvarion to begin merging WiMAX with their existing 3G and wireline portfolio. This is great news for Alvarion.

Here's the full release:

Lucent Technologies to Integrate Alvarion's WiMAX-Ready Platform into Its Converged Networking Portfolio

Lucent and Alvarion Partner to Deliver Converged Networking Solution That Enables Service Providers to Complement Existing 3G Mobile and Wireline Networks with WiMAX   

MURRAY HILL, N.J -- Jan. 11, 2005--Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) today announced its plans to integrate WiMAX technology, based on the IEEE's 802.16 standard, through Alvarion's (NASDAQ:ALVR) BreezeMAX(TM) product line -- into its Accelerate(TM) Next Generation Communications Solutions portfolio, which includes Lucent's industry-leading IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) solution. Lucent's IMS-based convergence solution, which will include support for WiMAX, can help service providers deliver seamless communications services across a variety of wireless and wireline networks and enables the introduction of new converged "lifestyle" service bundles that can increase customer satisfaction and reduce customer churn.

Lucent will team with Alvarion, a market leader in wireless broadband networks, to deliver a converged networking solution to service providers that includes the seamless interoperability of WiMAX, third-generation (3G) mobile (CDMA2000(R) and W-CDMA/UMTS), WiFi and wireline networks. Additionally, as part of this initiative, Lucent Worldwide Services (LWS) will provide a comprehensive suite of deployment, maintenance, and professional services to support WiMAX infrastructure and applications, further extending LWS' multi-vendor services capabilities in important growth markets.

"WiMAX clearly complements existing and emerging 3G mobile and wireline networks, and can play a significant role in helping our customers deliver converged service offerings that can be accessed using a broad range of devices on a wide variety of networks," said John Marinho, vice president of strategic marketing for Lucent Technologies. "Our Bell Labs expertise, industry-leading IMS portfolio, best-in-class 3G mobile and broadband wireline solutions, and end-to-end services capabilities place Lucent in the best position to implement WiMAX technology as part of a converged networking solution. We're very excited to work with Alvarion because they are the front-runners and thought leaders in the WiMAX arena and this relationship will enhance our product portfolio."

BreezeMAX is Alvarion's 3G OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) platform with advanced Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) functionality and a leading WiMAX-ready platform.

"Alvarion is pleased to be selected by Lucent for our outstanding WiMAX-ready product portfolio leveraged by our 10 plus years of experience in the wireless field," said Zvi Slonimsky, CEO of Alvarion. "No doubt this relationship will be a vehicle in the evolution of the fixed broadband wireless market to widespread availability of mobile broadband and reflects our commitment to the future of WiMAX."

The underlying foundation of Lucent's converged networking portfolio is the Lucent IMS solution, a service delivery platform that enables service providers to simply and cost-effectively introduce new voice over IP (VoIP) and multimedia services. Lucent's IMS solution enables operators to deliver services that blend voice and data capabilities, simplifying the creation of converged "lifestyle" service bundles. It also helps reduce the introduction costs and time-to-market for new services by leveraging a common applications infrastructure to deliver services with a common "look and feel" across 3G mobile, WiFi, WiMAX, and wireline networks.
 
Both companies are members of the WiMAX Forum(TM), an industry-led organization that facilitates the compatibility and certification of broadband wireless access equipment, with Alvarion holding several prominent positions on the board. The WiMAX Forum is expected to certify products as WiMAX Forum Certified(TM) later this year. By working with Alvarion and the WiMAX Forum, Lucent will ensure that WiMAX is compatible with 3G mobile and wireline networks, and that it meets service provider requirements for quality, reliability and performance.

Tech pundit Bob Cringley's annual predictions are always a good read. Here are his wireless predictions:

->WiMax will be a huge story by summer, but widespread adoption of the wireless networking technology will take at least another two years. In the meantime, though, nobody will make money on WiFi, but it will become ubiquitous anyway, especially with the arrival of 802.11n.
( I'm not sure WiMAX can be much more of a "huge" story than it is already. I would add that Wi-Fi will become known more for the applications it supports [see below] than for simply providing Internet access.)

-> VoIP will continue to shatter the telephone industry with the arrival of WiFi phones, which might finally be the killer app for hotspots. Eventually, all the backbone suppliers will figure out that VoIP is their salvation and will either start their own VoIP companies or ally with big VoIP players.
(I agree. Wi-Fi phones [standalone or embedded within PDAs and cellular handsets] are going to give carriers a reason to invest in hotspots; they're a lot cheaper than base stations and can often be partially supported by the venue.)

-> Two thousand five will NOT be the year for UltraWide Band (UWB) networking or Power Line Networking, but both will do really well in 2006.
(After spending time at CES, it's safe to say we'll see commercial UWB products, primarily for wireless USB. However, we will also see a blending of power line and UWB technology for pretty nifty hi-def home networking. But much of this will take until 2006 I'm afraid.)

You can read Bob's full list of predictions here.

Now that Nextel has gone and dashed Flarion's hopes for a nationwide deployment, there are signs that T-Mobile USA's parent might be seriously considering using Flarion for a 450 MHz deployment in Germany. Unstrung has the details here. So don't count out Flarion just yet.

Siemens is already onboard to produce equipment and T-Mobile has a stake in Flarion so it's hard to see how this deployment won't happen. But after the Nextel/Sprint deal, anything is possible.

The 450 MHz band in Europe has to be driving the major cellular vendors crazy. Just when they thought they had their carrier customers locked into a nice GPRS/UMTS/HSDPA upgrade path, another swath of spectrum opens up allowing another technology (a potentially better technology) to take hold.

If there is one certainty in the years ahead it is that there is no certainty about which cellular technology will dominate. Every new band of spectrum that opens up promises new opportunities and new threats. This is great news for consumers (and industry analysts) but not the best news for the large vendors who must keep a hand in every new wireless technology and standard.

Daily Wireless reports on the forthcoming Samsung SCH-i730 PDA phone, which will include EV-DO, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. This is the perfect mix of WLAN and WAN connectivity. Now will Verizon Wireless drag its heels on supporting this device or will Sprint be first out of the gate? Either way, I believe that carriers, despite their fretting about lost minutes of use, will learn to love Wi-Fi, for it will give their EV-DO networks some much-needed breathing room.

This could be my next handset.

Dave Mock is a wireless consultant and analyst with currentofferings.com and author of the forthcoming book The Qualcomm Equation. Dave took a moment to answer a few of my burning telecoms questions...

Q: What are your thoughts about a Nextel/Sprint merger? Is this good news for US telecoms industry? Good news for consumers?
A: The Sprint/Nextel combo will have pros and cons but overall I think it’s a move in the right direction for both the industry and consumers. Nextel’s strained network will get relief and Sprint will get some very profitable channels. The different network platforms will slow the integration though – they’ll operate two networks for a while.

Q: What are your predictions about Qualcomm and China? China has been testing the two leading 3G technologies along with a homegrown technology. Any thoughts on how it will all play out?
A: I think China will push TD-SCDMA into the market somehow, with the principle purpose of leveraging a bigger role in the industry. Whether it is successful or not probably doesn’t matter as much as what it buys them. I think arguments of Qualcomm’s assertion of IPR in the standard are moot, as I don’t see it as a significant driver of royalty for them. However it plays out, CDMA and WCDMA should still develop a significant presence.

Q: EV-DO vs. HSDPA: Which do you like better, and why?
A: I like EV-DO because it’s here today. Ultimately, HSDPA promises more flexibility for operators, but it’s got some distance to go before widespread deployment.

Q: Qualcomm is becoming a network operator with its MediaFLO deployment. Why is Qualcomm doing this and do you think it will pay off?
A: Well, Qualcomm has no interest in being a network operator. But they certainly would like to see the spin-off take fire to boost demand for wireless broadband (re: their EV-DO). It’s a typical practice for them I call “seeding the market”, and it’s very forward thinking as there is not yet significant demand for streamed media. Odds are it won’t pan out well (just as several other ideas have flopped), but they only have to be right once to hit it big again.

Q: Since MediaFLO will using an ODFM technology, is this a sign that OFDM is going to drive Qualcomm's next-generation chipsets?
A: I think OFDM will play a bigger role in Qualcomm’s designs going forward (where it’s appropriate). When it comes to chipsets, Qualcomm has demonstrated competency in integrating whatever customers demand – be it GSM, WCDMA, OFDM or maybe even Wi-Fi. As long as OFDM offers performance advantages, they’ll play.

Q: Speaking of Wi-Fi, do you think that Wi-Fi-enabled handsets will hurt the success of EV-DO and other 3G technologies, or increase usage of these networks (or both)?
A: I think Wi-Fi is shaping up to be a serious threat, and this is no surprise to anyone in Qualcomm. But I think it hurts Qualcomm less than the operators, who will lose control of the channel. Regional (and municipal) Wi-Fi deployments have the biggest chance of limiting the uptake of EV-DO, and pressuring service prices. Actually, Wi-Fi itself is not the true threat – it’s the aggregation of hotspots and roaming agreements for WLANs that potentially could cut out EV-DO. But so far these efforts have failed.

Q: Should Qualcomm be frightened by WiMAX? And do you think the vendor will ultimately support WiMAX?
A: Qualcomm should be concerned about WiMAX and anything like it – and they are. The standard itself will likely be stalled to no end as it is too broad right now, but some significant decisions will be made in 2005 that could put it on the fast track or send it out to be shot. Intel’s weight shouldn’t be underestimated here, and I think they’ll be successful in getting many in the industry to adopt the standard if it comes through in marketable form.
 

Glenn makes sense of this "Wi-Fi in the air" story.

The FCC didn't just suddenly decide to allow Wi-Fi on planes. Two years ago, the FCC lobbied the ITU to allocate global satellite spectrum specifically for the purpose of providing in-flight broadband. This is not news. The news now is that the FCC will be allowing a different form of backhaul (ground to air) to the planes.

The real reason we haven't see Wi-Fi on domestic flights yet is lack of resources and vision. Domestic airlines are terrified of any new cost, regardless of whether or not they may actually profit from it. They'll come to their senses after one of the more aggressive carriers (Jet Blue?) starts deploying Wi-Fi. I also look forward to seeing data from Lufthansa that shows they are nabbing customers from competing carriers based solely on their Wi-Fi service.

And there are other, equally compelling, reasons why I believe airlines will ultimately adopt wireless broadband backhaul to their jets: telemedicine, real-time aircraft monitoring, VoIP, security, content. Like any other commercial venue, wirleess broadband in general and Wi-Fi in particular will serve many audiences and many needs.

What I want to see discussed is the use of VoIP over Wi-Fi on aircraft.
VoIP is currently allowed on at least some of the aircraft using Connexion by Boeing and yet we have the FCC taking a year to study cellular phone use on aircraft. What happens when your cellular phone has Wi-Fi embedded in it? Will a flight attendant tell you not to use your phone even if you're only using Wi-Fi?

Well, it looks like we've got a merger happening between Nextel and Sprint. I find it disappointing. Despite what they will say in the weeks and months ahead, this merger isn't about improving the customer experience; it's about Nextel sidestepping a very expensive network deployment -- one that could have been more sophisticated than anythng the other carriers had in store.

Instead, Nextel will likely follow Sprint's lead on the EV-DO network. It's a great technology, but Verizon's got the exact same technology plus a head start.

Nextel's Research Triangle deployment using Flarion's gear has been by most accounts a success and the pricing was very aggressive at $35/month. I would like to see a major carrier commit to some seriously high-speed broadband wireless, regardless of what gear they use: Flash-OFDM, WiMAX, whatever. Maybe it will be AT&T (who just partnered with Intel).

Here's an interesting analysis of the situation thus far.