October 11, 2007

 EDITORIAL EDGE
The Technology Formerly Known as Bluetooth
By Brad Smith, Wireless Week Technology Editor

There's a growing proliferation of short-range wireless technologies. You've got ZigBee and Z-Wave for sensor and control networks, Near Field Communications (NFC) for proximity payments, RFID for tracking assets, Ultra Wideband (UWB) for high-speed connections between devices. You might throw Wi-Fi into that mix for networking. And, oh, don't forget about Bluetooth.

Bluetooth has become fairly ubiquitous in today's society. You can't turn around without seeing someone sporting a Bluetooth earpiece and its little blue flashing lights. It's not just geeks and business users. I've seen soccer moms with them. And there are more and more stereo headsets using Bluetooth.

Headsets were the first place Bluetooth found a home, but you're seeing it used in a lot more devices and applications now. There are watches with Bluetooth, even car radios with Bluetooth. The new ways Bluetooth is being used was driven home to me last week when I attended Motorola's annual technology forum for analysts and the press.

Several short-range technologies were part of some demonstrations - NFC to use your phone to pay at the check-out register and ZigBee to create an ad-hoc mesh network for firemen and again to monitor equipment in a hospital. But Bluetooth seemed to be used in more demonstrations as a way to connect not only mobile phones but other equipment like TV monitors, computers and storage devices.

Analysts are forecasting a slowing in the spread of Bluetooth. In-Stat says the number of Bluetooth devices will increase 34% this year, a healthy number but still down substantially from recent years. I think that shows a maturation of the technology. You can't keep doubling every year.

I'm skeptical there will be much slowing in Bluetooth's growth, though. There are some new technologies joining Bluetooth that could push it into more devices and new areas. One is the integration of the Wibree low-power technology, which is under way now with the merger of the two groups. Another advance is Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR (enhanced data rate), which could be in devices by Christmas. Still another is the integration of the UWB broadband technology from the WiMedia Alliance. You haven't heard a lot about the latter, so I have to wonder if that integration is proving to be more difficult than originally thought.

My only concern about the future of Bluetooth is that the technology and the organizations backing it - specifically the Bluetooth Special Interest Group - are becoming unwieldy and cumbersome. Bluetooth is becoming an umbrella of technologies that don't necessarily work together.

A recent report from the analyst group IMS Research says all this expansion of Bluetooth technology may hurt it in certain areas, especially among car manufacturers. Bluetooth was in 4 million vehicles last year, IMS Research says, and it still expects it to grow in the auto segment more than 300% in the next five years. Most of the interest from car makers is for hands-free uses and for audio streaming, IMS says.

But, says the report, some in the automotive industry don't think they can keep up with all the new capabilities on the horizon for Bluetooth, since the design cycle for cars is 4 to 5 years. Incidentally, IMS Research is forecasting 800 million Bluetooth devices will be sold this year, up 40% from 2006.

It will be interesting to see how Bluetooth evolves over the next couple of years. It took awhile for it to be successful, but it has found a welcome home for certain classes of users. Will it do the same in cars, or even set-top boxes?

What do you think? Let me know at brad.smith@advantagemedia.com.

802.11n

Next Gen Wi-Fi Dead in the Water?
By Brad Smith

Is the next-generation Wi-Fi standard in trouble? We carried a news item in the last issue of this newsletter about the Wi-Fi Alliance certifying more than 90 devices using a draft version of 802.11n. Several readers called the alliance's statement "hype" and questioned how far along the compatibility testing is, as well as the future of the standard itself.

The British publication The Register carried an article not long ago saying the IEEE 802.11n working group faced "a significant threat" to the standard because of patents held by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). The story said the CSIRO had not yet agreed to license its patents under the free and fair doctrine.

Some insiders in the 802.11n space think The Register's story may have blown things out of proportion and that CSIRO was quite likely to agree to license its patents. There hasn't been any formal word yet from the organization or the IEEE, although the IEEE working group has started voting on the third draft of the standard.

The Wi-Fi Alliance did not respond to requests for comment when asked about the CSIRO "threat."
This "threat" apparently doesn't bother analysts like Paulhwa Lee of ABI Research, who says enterprises are likely to start using draft 802.11n in equipment from Cisco Systems, Trapeze Networks and Meru Networks.

Recent announcements from companies such as Cisco Systems, Trapeze Networks and Meru Networks of enterprise-oriented products conforming to the draft 802.11n standard are a sign that the enterprise Wi-Fi market is poised for takeoff and already is taking off among consumers, according to new market data from ABI Research.

"The Draft N/MIMO consumer Wi-Fi access point market saw a dramatic upswing in 2Q07, nearly doubling in unit volume from 1Q07 to approximately 1 million units shipped during the second quarter," says Lee. "Draft N traction in the consumer Wi-Fi market is clearly strong and there are now indications that the enterprise Wi-Fi market is poised for Draft N adoption, as well."

Is the patent threat to 11n over-hyped? Perhaps.

Smartphones

iPhone Locked? Yes, and No
By Brad Smith

One of the continuing criticisms of Apple's iPhone is that it is locked down, both from a network perspective and for applications. Hackers have found a way around this issue, but there are ways of adding applications to the iPhone without doing an end-run on Apple.

Just before the iPhone's launch last June, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced third-party applications could run on the iPhone only if they were built using Web. 2.0 standards for use on the iPhone's Safari browser.

The Elias Corporation recently released its Applists.com 2.0 upgrade, which company CEO Bill Denk says will help iPhone owners find new applications and will help developers get their applications certified. The Applists.com site includes a spare set of applications for now, but Elias plans to grow the number.

Denk says Applists.com is intended to give iPhone owners one place to find applications for their phones, instead of having to search the Internet and then save the link. IPhone users can suggest applications to add to Applists.com, while giving developers the marketing information they need to build new applications for the iPhone. The site will offer developers information about application requests, statistics on performance and use, and help certification.

Location

Navigation Expensive But Popular
By Brad Smith

Location-based services (LBS) are among the most expensive applications mobile phone users can buy, but that's not stopping them from downloading to their handsets, according to a report by Telephia.

The research company says the average monthly price of an LBS is $9.23, compared to a range of $3.82 to $5.41 for other applications like weather, sports and wallpapers. Downloadable mobile applications generated $118 million in revenue in the second quarter, with LBS making up 51% of that revenue.

Navigation is the No. 1 interest in mobile LBS, Telephia says. The research also shows carriers are contributing to LBS's success with favorable deck placement on the phone and bundling navigation services with data packages.

Telephia says Networks in Motion, which provides Verizon Wireless's VZ Navigator service, is the top navigation publisher with 27% of carrier revenue. TeleNav Mobile is second with 15% of the revenue.

There's still a lot of room for expansion in downloads generally, Telephia notes. Just 5% of mobile subscribers have downloaded an application, while 7% to 10% have downloaded content like games and ringtones.

"There are hurdles that LBS publishers face, most notably the relatively low incidence of application downloads when compared to other mobile data activity. Many consumers may not realize the utility of a navigation application on their mobile phones until they use it," according to David Gill, director of Mobile Media, Telephia. "However, Nokia's bid to buy Navteq for $8.1 billion is a very positive sign for the market and validates the strength and potential of LBS."

Handsets

Gee for GPhone
By Wireless Week Staff

Lehman Brothers has raised its guidance for Google's stock because it expects Google to launch its own phone next year, perhaps in February.

Lehman says in a new report Google has made mobile its top priority for 2008, along with display. "We believe the combination of a mobile phone and mobile operating system could serve as a material driver for Google beyond its existing business," the analyst firm says.

The so-called GPhone will be low-priced, have a simple form factor and its OS will be specifically designed for Internet applications, Lehman says. The analyst firm expects the GPhone will be as popular as Apple's iPhone, although Google will aim the phone at a broader audience than the high-end iPhone.

Google's share price, now about $636, could rise to $728 by the end of 2008 as the company expands its business into mobile, Lehman says.

Emerging Tech News Briefs
Companies in briefs: Gefen, SDR Forum, dotMobi, Sedo.com.

• Gefen has started shipping a Wireless USB extender capable of transmitting data up to 100 feet. The company says the plug-and-play extender uses Wi-Fi with data rates up to 54 Mbps to connect computer peripherals.

• The Software Defined Radio (SDR) Forum has scheduled its annual technical conference and product exposition Nov. 5-9 in Denver. More than 130 papers from international organizations and companies will be presented during the conference. Topics include cognitive radio for public safety, mitigating the cost of information assurance, international collaboration for a cognitive radio test bed, SDR multi-standard base stations, beamforming for GPS applications, and using SDR for positioning and microsatellites.

• The mobile top level domain company, dotMobi, auctioned off about 100 "premium" mobile names in late September and early October. The most expensive name, hosting.mobi, went for $101,000. Bank.mobi sold for $51,501, and download.mobi cost $51,500. The auction was held by Sedo.com. Other premium name auctions are scheduled through November.