Studies offer conflicting views of who carriers should target
[thanks to RCR for this one]

May 23, 2002 3:05 PM EST

HORSHAM, Pa.—Two new reports researching the future market for wireless products and services draw directly opposite conclusions as to who wireless companies should target.

According to Taylor Nelson Sofres' "Wireless and Internet Technology Adoption by Consumers Around the World," upscale customers under the age of 25 will drive the demand for third-generation services, especially in Western Europe and the United States. The report found 45 percent of those under 25-years-old in the U.S. are interested in 3G services. Communication and information applications, followed by financial applications including m-payments, m-banking and m-trading, generated the most interest.

"Any company that wants to maximize the impact of 3G must rigorously follow a market-focussed, consumer-centric approach," said Chandra Chaterji, senior vice president of Taylor Nelson Sofres' global information technology practice.

However, a new report from Probe Research found the saturated youth population is shrinking and that voice and data carriers should look to other age groups as potential customers.

Allan Tumolillo, chief operating officer and author of the newly released report, found society will redirect investments to health care, pharmaceutical and other industries that cater to the older adult population, evidence that the demographic inversion will be disastrous for carriers that continue to ignore the trend.

Electronic Entertainment Expo Edition (E3 edition) It was a sunny day in downtown LA, in a big hall near where the Lakers play...the gaming convention, aka E3, was underway. It was the very first day. I was WAY under-spiked/dyed/pierced. The oldest geek. Only at this place is there a line for the men's room ONLY. (or as Yahoo! put it: "E3, the industry's main trade show, confirms that gaming is all that. But it also reminds you that this is a $6 billion business designed for, and largely by, 18- to 34-year-old males) Oh, of course, it was the typical convention with the booth babes (at least they got to play games and not just stand there pretending there is a reason other than their looks that they're present)
. This was a treat. I knew nobody, except for a few recent colleagues, that attended. I did not have to exhibit, but could just wander through each hall trying to soak it all in. And what a lot to soak! If you have not seen a modern video game on an PlayStation2/XBOX/GameCube you would be blown away. they are incredible. It's no wonder that this industry topped Hollywood in gross sales last year (games vs. box office).

Well, want to see 10,000 men in black t-shirts (well, 9000 in black t-shirts, 1000 in black suits w/o ties) playing and looking at video games? Most of the "fun" games were either sports or fps (first person shooter) or RPG (role playing games). There were the biggies like Laura Croft..tomb raider (that's me and a Laura model up top). there was a harry potter castle in the EA pavilion.. The social interaction seems limited to small groups. At least they had games to play. the RPGs, like Harry Potter, could be played solo and such opportunities were everywhere! You know when you to to CompUSA or a large retailer and there is a single TV for each console with two teenagers playing it all the time? not here. First, as they said OVER and OVER, "nobody under 18 admitted...even infants" (no joke).

I was there of course to see mobile games. What can one say....mobile games. Games on phones. Or PDAs. But I'm getting ahead of myself. After the 2 hour drive, parking was remarkably easy even at 10:00 am when they opened. I went to the west hall first. It's the Sony/Nintendo/Sega hall. There were 5-10 35" Sony Wega tvs in rows everywhere with themes on each 10 set "stations" like Tomb Raider or Madden Football. The latter actually had a tournament area that featured head-to-head competition from all comers. There was no lack of enthusiasm for these games, new and old. People lined up to play them and nodoby much noticed that their picture being taken.

Speaking of EA, without a doubt, the biggest and most popular area seemed to be the open area that EA had in the South hall. Rather than place lots of mutlti-tv terminals in the middle of the area, they made the middle area mostly open and had a giant screen displaying custom and new games. One of those "grass is greener" things is that everybody that was working the west hall told me "you gotta see the south hall" and vice versa. Wierd. Nobody wanted to go downstairs and see all of the old arcade stuff. Anyway, EA's area was compelling! It was like a rock concert - very dark and very loud with lots of light coming from the "stage". Off to the side was a room reserved for VIPs (which yours truly does not, alas, qualify) that had sims on-line shows. if only. On the rest of the sides were the harry potter castle, lots of opportunities to play the sports titles. There was also what looked like a set of soundproof rooms in which players competed head-to-head. Again, no time to watch more than a minute of this competition, but, these guys were good.

I actually tried playing a few games, very briefly of course. I suck, so, it took little time.Well, back to the purpose of the trip - wireless. To this crowd, wireless means a controller without a cable (bluetooth?). There were a few areas where they were highlighting this space-age feature.. Like a wireless mouse or keyboard this works fine. .Just need to keep changing the battery in the devices. There was a wireless area. This area was about as exciting as the Russia pavilion at the wireless trade shows. In the corner, no traffic. How can a dinky phone possibly compete with a 60" HDTV playing the new Laura Croft with surround sound? It cannot. one group, Boost Mobile was showing a set of Motorola phones for the Nextel network that played single person games. Woa. When I went to take a photo I was accosted by the crew there that claimed I was a spy and not allowed to take photos. Please - everybody in this show had a camera! I thought you needed one to get in. naturally I took more photos. Anyway, this well coifed young man claimed that "..look dude...we know about your company...we are not a game company or a carrier...we are a youth brand...like quicksilver". Ok dude! cool! gotta go! Hard to picture a kid shelling out $500 for one of their phones to play a game that is lame on the nextel network. .Jamdat had their usual array of games for BREW and J2ME. Like Boost next door, they had nothing online/multiplayer or turn based. All the "game boy" model, except worse and more expensive.

In search of a truly mobile game I headed for THQ. I had met their wireless lead a few years back and thought that I'd see how things were coming. They had the same Motorola color phone on display with the same sorts of games. A screen with their "partners" was on display and their was some interest in their room. .. They had actually a great array of console games in there. They were sort of in their own area near the west hall. The statue of a man with a prosthetic chain saw in place of a hand was a nice touch. They also had the new Brittany Spears dance game, a sponge-bob game, etc. Broad appeal.

I think the really truly mobile game was a Sony PS built into a portable DVD player. That had everything - a mobile experience, the console experience, the same controller as the big game, and you could play the same game. That will sell. It had not connective, but, why not in the future? you could play turns and send some information on your performance up to a central server..

all in all a good experience that I will participate in the future...except in a more engaged role.

.. There were lots of other mobile releases on the gaming convention: Hutchison told those gathering in Los Angeles for E3 about nine of the companies supplying original and updated classics (chess, asteroids, and so on) to Hutchison 3G UK. These companies include Codetoys, Supedo, and the wonderfully named Cheeky Wireless. As the self-proclaimed leaders in wireless the Brits had a small dedicated group at this show.

Can you believe the world we live in? While so much development of technology and business process has brought us great products and great prices, so many people are simply dishonest and thrive as a result. Fraud, theft, extortion...these are the staples of so many. The wireless industry itself seems like a scheme sometimes. ANNOUNCING OUR NEW 5000 MINUTE PLAN FOR ONLY $39.99/MONTH! (includes 100 "anytime" minutes and 4,900 Nights and weekend minutes...nights begin at 9:00 pm and end at 5:00 am...all minutes in "prime time" beyond the 100 included will be billed at $0.40/minute)....but wait there's more...I'm talking about the "legitimate" wireless carriers. What about: Dealers? Wholesalers? GSM phone sites? What is the world coming to?

M Commerce from DoCoMo - more from the world leader...Japanese I-mode users will next week be able to download their monthly wireless Internet service bills to their handsets and pay them over the counter in convenience stores. NTT DoCoMo customers will have to pay for the privilege, however, while the Japanese giant couldn't say how much it expected to save from the initiative. The expanded billing system is being rebadged as a service and will be dubbed "combien?" Subscribers actually download an online bar code from a special site linked to DoCoMo's wireless portal. Once they have the bar code stored in their phone they can use it to pay for their monthly mobile phone bill at a convenience store. The code is only valid for one day. The two-dimensional bar code appears on the handset screen and the convenience store clerk scans it and charges the customer. "Combien?" will initially be available at two convenience stores in Tokyo starting Monday, DoCoMo said, and then will expand to some 1,400 stores nationwide by early July. While there is no fee for the actual "service," DoCoMo said subscribers must pay a "small" transmission charge to download the bar code. DoCoMo spokesperson Miki Nakajima McCants told Newsbytes the charge would depend on the amount of data downloaded, but estimated it would cost about 10-20 yen ($0.08 to $0.16) to get the bar code onto the screen. DoCoMo doesn't anticipate any problems with subscribers querying payment of download charges to receive an invoice from the phone company. "I don't think it will be a problem," she said. "The whole purpose of 'combien?' is to let customers have additional choice of making payments. Since it eliminates the need for a hard-copy invoice, customers can easily pay their bills whenever they visit a participating convenience store." She said about 20 percent of the company's customers still pay monthly charges by mailed invoice, while the rest pay online or set up a regular bank payment.

Billing issues and rates for wireline and wireless services continue to be the primary topics of consumer complaints and inquiries to the FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. In March there were 1,520 complaints (up from 907 in Jan) on wireline billing and 2978 wireless related comlaints. Of the latter, 1,850 were for billing. Other issues included service qualities, marketing and advertising, equipment, contracts and "cramming" - when an unwanted service is added....

It's happening. 802.11=WLAN=WiFi=> the reason wireless will further explode. Same with music due to Napster, but more on that some other time. People in cautious economic moods (which some people are in perpetually), which is is just about everybody these days, will always display a "Show Me" mentality. Totally logical and rational given that so many were burned by bogus business plans that were bound to fail eventually, and fantastic business plans that never have been provided with time/money to succeed. Fires still smoldering everywhere. Now WLAN is mushrooming to every office and family room at the same time. Chip designers (like Intel with Banius and TI with ProjectConnect) to Laptop manufacturers. This wireless frenzy with WiFi will SHOW users, for very low cost, the power of wireless. It's not the dark side, it's the future. With cheap, fast wireless access in "hot spots" the demand to make every spot a hot spot will increase...and...1XRTT networks and 1XEVDO/DV networks will be in demand...and people will beging buying that stuff again..and...telecom/wireless recovery....right? Oh, the bike photo. Friday's I do a two-hill ride up Torrey Pines grade and around La Jolla.

I lost my blackberry ("crackberry"). Withdrawl has been painful. too painful. So I ran down to Frys and purchased a Palm i705 wireless device. This is supposed to be the best of all worlds - the wireless email, web access, palm apps, etc. Well, so far it has not been TOO painful. I had to download the software to link to our work exchange 5.5 server and set that up (easy). But coverage in both my office and my home SUCK. Seems to need a bit more signal than the Blackberry. And boy is this slow. It uses the same network as Blackberry. If only I could get this Palm device to run on a CDMA 1XRTT network! Maybe I'll suggest that.

Ahhh...the glamour of business travel... even during the telecom meltdown of 2002. You know, the red carpet clubs with all of the bored people (see above) paying $300 to run and wait 20 minutes until they need to return to crowds near the gate. The lousy AT&T black phones.The little desks are rather nice though. Typically taken, they are. (type like yoda, I will.) I gave yet another, boring, speech at a telecom venture capital event SF last week. ....Great group - very creative - and all pondering the same issues. What to develop that people will buy? Except this year "people" are consumers, not Wall Street, not the press, not anybody who is more concerned with things other than short term business success. Seems these endless visions of the future were beginning to seem more like.. hallucinations. (You know what Steve Case says - 'vision without execution is..hallucination'). Wireless in may 2002...THE HORROR...