----- Original Message ----- From: "Kelly Pierce" <kellyjosef@earthlink.net> To: <VICUG-L@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 12:46 AM Subject: AT&T Wireless offers Web service >From the Chicago Tribune AT&T Wireless offers Web service Chicago is one of target areas By Jon Van Tribune staff writer December 13, 2001 It's a big hit in other countries but a flop in the U.S. While consumers in Japan and Europe have embraced wireless Internet services, routinely sending e-mail messages from cell phone to cell phone, their American counterparts have mostly ignored similar services offered so far. Now comes the U.S. cell phone industry's latest effort to sell U.S. consumers on the potential of the wireless Web: An advanced data network and new voice service from AT&T Wireless launches Thursday in Chicago and Kansas City. It won't be an easy sell. Cost is an issue. And many U.S. consumers have proven impatient with technical limitations of the service, notably the tiny, hard-to-read screens on wireless devices, and the relatively slow speed of Internet wireless connections compared with home dial-up service. Indeed, one big reason for the popularity of wireless Web service overseas is that many of its customers lack dial-up access. "In America people buy wireless phones because they want to talk on the fly," said Doug Lamont, a visiting professor of marketing at DePaul University in Chicago who has written about international acceptance of the wireless Web. "The problem is that we've been committed to landlines for so long, we have them all over the place, and people don't see the rationale for going wireless to get data," he added. The new service, which will initially be available only to business customers, incorporates some substantial technical improvements. Laptop plug-ins Laptop computers connected to the new wireless network, for instance, will be able to perform at the same levels as dial-up home service, according to James Johnson, AT&T Wireless general manager for Illinois and Indiana. In addition, voice service on the new network will work from the same global system for mobile communications, or GSM, that is standard in most foreign countries, allowing AT&T customers to use their new phones when traveling abroad. Early next year, AT&T plans to start offering phones, wireless modems and other gadgets using its new network to Chicago-area consumers. The company will continue to support its existing network, which serves about 18 million customers with a digital operating system known as TDMA, by running the two systems simultaneously, said Johnson. Executive customers targeted Initially, target customers will include professionals who want to use laptops to reach corporate Intranets, said Johnson. If customers embrace the new network, one likely beneficiary is Schaumburg's Motorola Corp., which is the leading vendor of handsets that use the new system. Nokia of Finland is AT&T's top handset vendor for its existing TDMA system. AT&T isn't alone in migrating to GSM. Last month Cingular Wireless, a joint venture between Bell South and SBC Communications, said it will also build a GSM network that will eventually displace its nationwide system. Besides enabling customers to use their own phones when traveling abroad, converting to GSM gives a carrier a better selection of infrastructure vendors and lower costs, because so much of the world uses GSM, said Clay Owen, a Cingular spokesman. "It's a worldwide standard," he said. Jeff Kohler, founder of Reason Inc., a wireless management company, said that corporations are eager to give employees access to technology that increases productivity. "They should find some customers in the enterprise market," he said. "But I doubt that this will do much to attract more consumers." Indeed, demand may well be light. A survey conducted earlier this year of 3,189 residents of the United States, Britain, Germany, Finland and Japan found big differences in wireless Internet use. The survey found that 72 percent of Japanese cell-phone owners were using their devices to connect to the Internet, compared with just 6 percent in the United States. Overall, only 15 percent of consumers in the countries surveyed who owned a cell phone or other portable device were using it to connect to the Internet, according to consulting firm Accenture. As Ken Hyers, a wireless analyst with the Cahners In-Stat Group put it: "You won't see soccer moms using this any time soon." Speed still an issue While the new networks are intended to deliver data significantly faster than existing ones, they may disappoint, warned Andrew Cole, a consultant with Adventis, a Boston-based consultancy. "Our clients in Europe find that these networks aren't all that fast," said Cole. And while AT&T's new offering will likely win new customers among white-collar business users, Cole said, a competing product offered by Nextel Communications has already locked up the blue-collar wireless market that serves construction and other industries. VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List. To join or leave the list, send a message to listserv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu. In the body of the message, simply type "subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations. VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html