Reports Address Enterprise Wireless LANs and MTU Broadband

Separate reports from Cahners In-Stat Group deal with the future of two segments of the wireless market. The first, "2000 Enterprise Wireless LAN Market Update," forecasts that this segment will rise to $3 B by 2002. Noting that the segment has suffered fits and starts during the past several years, the report finds that the wireless LAN (WLAN) market became a legitimate enterprise technology in 2000. The general desire of organizations to give their employees more mobility has driven sales of the technology introduced during the last two years following adoption of usable standards. New, improved performance and lower cost products for the application continue to be introduced. Growth will be encouraged as existing vendors expand their offerings and new suppliers enter the field.

The second report, "MTU Update: Growth Spurts In An Infant Market," discusses the technologies and vendors, and forecasts the future for the Multi Tenant Unit (MTU) broadband access market. The report finds that owners of multiple tenant unit buildings, apartments, offices, condominiums, hotels, airports and other public facilities are rushing to provide high speed Internet access to tenants. This is expected to fuel a growth in the hardware and services for the market from $370 M in 2000 to $4.8 B in 2004. While hardware spending growth will dominate in the next two or three years, MTU owners are expected to spend over $4 B for services in 2004 compared to $777 M for hardware. For additional information on either report, contact: Courtney McEuen, Cahners In-Stat Group (480) 609-4533.

Mobile Location Services Market to Generate $20 B by 2006

A report from Ovum, "Mobile Location Services: Market Strategies," forecasts that the mobile location service market will be worth $20 B by 2006. Services included in this market are information tracking, redirection of inbound/outbound calls, mobile advertising and m-Commerce.

Information services are expected to generate an income of $4.7 B for suppliers by 2004 but m-Commerce and advertising revenues are forecast to exceed information services revenues in 2005, when they are expected to generate $8 B.

With the estimated 2 million mobile connections now in place forecast to grow to 560 million by 2006, mobile location services are characterized as being at a crucial point. The report finds that no one location technology has emerged as the definitive solution and that operators must offer available technology to avoid being left behind as more attractive systems evolve. The report finds further that, generally, the importance of location accuracy is overstated and that well-designed applications and user-friendly interfaces are far more important to users. For additional information, contact: Steve Gruber, Ovum (800) 642-6886 or (781) 876-1002.

US Wireless Revenues to Exceed Local Wireline in 2003

A report from Pulver.com, "Telephony Unplugged: Wireless Achieves Price Parity with Wireline," predicts that US wireless networks will realize revenues exceeding those for wireline in 2003 when wireless call charges will reach the same price point as those for regular phone lines. The report bases its prediction on comparisons between Nextel's wireless and Verizon's wireline charges.

According to the report, ever increasing competitive levels have helped reduce wireless phone charges and the current 10-cents-a-minute airtime plans from a number of wireless carriers are attracting 67,000 new wireless users each day. It notes further that in the 16 years since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued its first cellular license in the US, the cost of wireless services has been reduced by 92 percent. During that same period, the cost of local wireline calling has risen 72 percent along with inflation.

The fact that the wireless industry has erased the 20-fold wireline price advantage that has existed since 1984 has completely changed the business case for selecting wireless instead of wireline. In addition, if only 25 percent of residential customers convert to wireless, 26 million customers will be added to the wireless rolls. For additional information, contact: Pulver.com (410) 279-1220.

Personal Location System Added to Wristwatch

Wherify Wireless, Inc. (formerly World Tracking Technologies) has embedded a miniaturized location system into a wristwatch which permits the wearer's position to be determined.

The Wherify Personal Location system employs Global Positioning System (GPS) and digital PCS phone technologies in a miniature 2 ounce device to deliver location information. The entire system consists of the wearable device and a location service accessible via the Internet or by telephone to report locations. Intended particularly for at-risk individuals like children or the elderly, the system will locate an individual on request within minutes and can request a 911 response if necessary. Introduction is scheduled for this summer.

Tri-Mode Digital Phones Now Standard Equipment on 2001 BMW 7 Series

Motorola and BMW have announced that they have cooperated to introduce a digital phone based on the Motorola Timeport™ fully integrated dual-band multi-network system which will be marketed as the BMW CPT 8000. Under an agreement with an annual value of more than $11 M, the phone is standard equipment on all BMW 7 Series cars and will become available on all other model year 2001 BMW vehicles.

The phone is available in both TDMA and CDMA versions, and offers access to national service plans such as AT&T, Cingular, Sprint and Verizon. The Timeport CDMA version is equipped with an Internet mini-browser and the Tohoku Pioneer Corp.'s patented Organic Electro-Luminescent technology. That technology displays red, blue and green icons on a black background to enhance readability in most lighting conditions.

The system provides enhanced security features such as voice recognition (on certain vehicles), hands-free call sending/receiving through steering wheel or audio system controls and an audio unit control which mutes the radio during active calls.

Time Warner to Deploy New Lucent High Capacity Optical System

Lucent Technologies and Time Warner Telecom, Inc. have signed an agreement to deploy the newest Lucent optical networking system, a system with the capacity to carry simultaneous one-page e-mail messages from every person in the US and Canada. Time Warner Telecom will be among the first to deploy the ultra high capacity dense wave multiplexing (DWDM) system. The three-year agreement has a value of up to $100 M.

Initial installations of these systems will have capacities of 800 gigabits per second (Gbs), a rate at which a single network fiber could transmit the data on 160 CD-ROMs each second. The Time Warner network will also include combiner/splitters that make it "terabit ready" and able to double its capacity to 1.5 terabits per second without interrupting service when and if demand for bandwidth requires the capacity expansion.

The system will be installed into the Time Warner western region network to support the Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland, CA areas, as well as the vicinities of Portland, OR, Seattle, WA, Boise, ID, Las Vegas, NV and Phoenix, AZ. *