Internet access changing role of mobile phones

Get ready The Internet is coming to a pocket or purse near you -- if it hasn't already. American offices, homes, streets and sidewalks now brim with cell phones and handheld devices capable of delivering text messages and e-mail. But Internet-ready cell phones -- once the province of gadget geeks -- are quickly going mainstream. Those phones can connect to the Internet however and wherever a user wants, and they carry ever more data and features, such as voice recognition, Web browsing, video, podcasts, and radio and TV. Some telecommunications companies already have stopped selling mobile phones that can't access the Internet. If contemporary cell phone culture is any guide, Internet access will make cell phones even more central to modern lifestyles. 'It's indispensable, like a wallet,' says Kirk Dawson, Sprint's area vice president for the Pacific Northwest. 'If you forget it, you go back and get it.' Sprint recently unveiled its $100-a-month Simply Everything Plan, which packages domestic unlimited voice, data, text, e-mail, Web-surfing, 28 channels of Sprint TV, Sprint Music and GPS Navigation. These services aren't new, but Sprint, like other telecoms, is turning them into package deals. Overland Park, Kan.-based Sprint also is testing new uses for cell phones. The company has launched a pilot project with Bay Area Rapid Transit riders in metropolitan San Francisco and Oakland that enables riders to buy tickets by holding their cell phones up to a reader on a fare gate. In a sign of the times, AT&T no longer runs advertising that doesn't feature Internet-enabled devices. The company, with 72 million wireless subscribers, works with Internet-ready smart phones, such as the iPhone, BlackBerry, Samsung BlackJack, Palm Treo and the Motorola Moto Q. 'Every single one of our employees carries a smart phone,' says Mike Maxwell, vice president and general manager for AT&T in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Maxwell says he carries an iPhone and a BlackJack. 'The iPhone completely changed the game,' he says. 'With the iPhone, you have thousands of (Wi-Fi) hot spots where you can connect for free.' If Wi-Fi isn't available, the iPhone can connect to the Internet through San Antonio-based AT&T's cell network. In addition to mobile Internet access, some telecoms are pouring their efforts into increasing bandwidth -- the capacity of optic fiber, cable and copper wire to carry digital information back and forth between the Internet at one end and homes at the other. Qwest Communications International Inc. is working on a $300 million upgrade to its nationwide network. More than $30 million of that is in Oregon, mostly in the Portland area. 'Devices are getting increasingly smarter,' says Judy Peppler, Oregon president of Qwest. 'We're making sure we've made a proper, prudent investment to provide bandwidth.' Denver-based Qwest's strategy is to build a fiber-optic network that reaches into neighborhoods, where existing copper wire will pick up the signal and carry it into the home. The upgrade would nearly triple the top speed of Qwest Internet to 20 megabits per second, fast enough to transfer data at the quality of high-definition TV. Peppler says Qwest will continue providing TV through the DirecTV satellite service and wireless services through Sprint. But the Sprint deal expires next year, and Qwest is talking with potential new wireless partners such as AT&T and Verizon. 'We have more than 800,000 wireless customers right now,' Peppler says. 'We'd certainly like to grow that number going forward.' Comcast's 'wideband' Comcast, the nation's largest residential broadband provider, also is boosting its Internet bandwidth. Later this year, the Philadelphia-based company will begin rolling out the latest version of a technology it calls DOCSIS 3.0, or wideband. Residential wideband customers initially will see speeds of up to 100 megabits per second. As speeds rise to a projected 160 megabits per second, customers will be able to download a high-definition movie -- the equivalent of 3,000 MP3 music files -- in four minutes. 'More bandwidth will spur new applications on the Internet,' says Mitch Bowling, Comcast's senior vice president and general manager of online services. Bowling added that the long-anticipated convergence -- the merging of devices and functions -- has finally arrived. 'The industry and the world have been talking about convergence for a while,' he says. 'It's here, and we're here to deploy.' Bowling cited Comcast's new SmartZone Communications Center, a Web-based service that enables users to manage their e-mail and voice mail in one location; keep a universal address book used by multiple devices; access personalized features such as weather, news reports and video clips; and eventually remotely program a digital video recorder. Verizon and FiOS Verizon Communications already has a high-bandwidth fiber-optic network on the west side of the metro area. Now it is taking advantage of the network's speed to launch FiOS TV -- which gets its signal via fiber rather than traditional cable -- in the Portland area and elsewhere. Shawne Angelle, Verizon's vice president of the West Coast region for sales and local marketing, says FiOS subscribers have surpassed 1 million nationwide. That makes New York-based Verizon the country's 10th-largest cable TV provider. FiOS is capable of being installed in about 45 percent of Verizon's Oregon network. 'The former view of Verizon was your local telephone company,' Angelle says. 'The current view as we drive forward is your local entertainment company.'

Published on Tuesday, April 22, 2008

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