Cellular pioneer still causing stir

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Dan Gillmor <dgillmor () mercurynews com>
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 22:03:14 -0800
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Fyi

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5517519.htm



 


------------------------------------------------------------------------Post
ed on Sun, Mar. 30, 2003

Cellular pioneer still causing stir
By Dan Gillmor
Mercury News Technology Columnist

Even in 1973, New Yorkers had a reputation for taking things in stride. But
when Martin Cooper emerged from a Hilton Hotel 30 years ago Thursday to make
the first calls with a portable cellular phone, he drew a crowd of gawkers.

Today, the only gawking would be directed at the Motorola prototype he used,
a brick-sized device that weighed 30 ounces. Today, we do more than talk
with our phones; we keep track of people and appointments, take photos and
browse the Web. Today, Cooper heads a Silicon Valley company that sells
technology for high-speed wireless data connections.

The first commercial cellular service didn't start for another decade after
Cooper's pathbreaking calls that April 3. But there's no doubt that Cooper,
then a Motorola vice president and now widely acknowledged as the father of
the modern cell phone, launched a revolution that keeps accelerating. And
he's still challenging the established wisdom.

The challenge in 1973 was to the telecommunications monopoly. AT&T was
selling car phones, Cooper recalls, but wasn't planning to introduce true
portables for years to come. Motorola had developed technology to shrink the
heavy car-phone gear down to a hand-held size, and the company needed to
show that it worked.

The demonstration, he says, was largely for the Federal Communications
Commission, which then (as now) allocated pieces of the airwaves for various
uses. New York was chosen for the demo because it was ``the center of public
relations,'' and the stunt generated coverage all over the world.

I caught up with Cooper at the recent Cellular Telecommunications Internet
Association trade show in New Orleans, where the descendants of his portable
phone were dazzling passersby. Cooper contained his enthusiasm, saying the
industry is ``focused on gimmicks and gadgets and has forgotten the
customer.''

Service innovations aren't entirely a wasteland, of course. Younger users
have tended to show the phone companies the most interesting new ways to use
the services, including the youth-led rise of text messaging in places like
Finland and Japan. In the United States, experiments combining handheld
organizers with phones have produced some products with great potential.

Many carriers still exhibit the monopolistic attitudes of legacy telecom
companies. They control the networks and the service, a combination that
holds back the kind of furious innovation we need, Cooper says, not to
mention the essential basics.

``I thought people wanted, first of all, a reliable call,'' he says.

Fat chance. U.S. mobile carriers insist that the locations of their
innumerable dead spots -- the places where they'll drop your call off the
network because there's no base station nearby -- are trade secrets. (I've
had service from three major carriers in the last five years, and
reliability is more spotty than ever.)

What about serving customers other than the business people who buy
expensive monthly service contracts? What about services aimed at seniors,
for instance? Separate the people who deal in transporting voice and data
from the people who deal with customers, Cooper says, and you'll see an
array of services to meet many needs.

The needs he's trying to meet these days are for faster mobile data access.
ArrayComm, the San Jose company where he's chairman and chief executive, has
developed ``smart radio'' base stations that constantly calculate the
location of mobile devices. The antennas then focus signals directly on the
correct devices, and the results include better connections and higher
capacity in the system.

ArrayComm's early focus on voice has evolved to what Cooper hopes will be
the best answer yet to the ``last-mile problem'' in broadband data access.
With a technology called i-Burst, he says, mobile carriers could provide
high-speed data connections comparable to cable and digital subscriber line
competitors at a much lower price -- and add mobile capabilities to boot.

Earlier ArrayComm technology is already in commercial use in Japan. Trials
of the i-Burst system are beginning in Australia soon, with carriers in
place to offer data service to end users later this year. A Korean launch is
also in the works, the company says, and major Asian equipment makers have
licensed it. The Australian system will have the kind of corporate
architecture Cooper advocates -- a company providing the transport of data
and other companies building services on top.

Whether ArrayComm will emerge as a big winner or be remembered as an
innovator that couldn't find a niche, Cooper's place in telecom history is
assured. He's a legend, deservedly.

Now, if he could only do something about rude people who leave their phones
on at the movies. . . .
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Dan Gillmor's column appears each Sunday and Wednesday. Visit Dan's online
column, eJournal (www.dangillmor.com). E-mail dgillmor () mercurynews com;
phone (408) 920-5016; fax (408) 920-5917.

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