One aspect of the next-generation wireless networks that carriers are rolling out is that they offer more billing flexibility.
Instead of charging either for minutes used on the network or collecting a flat rate for unlimited use, carriers instead can bill by volume, charging by the bit or, more likely, megabits and kilobits used.
This is important when a customer has an always-on network connection, even if it isn’t being used, said Kevin Packingham, a senior manager for Sprint PCS. If someone takes a half-hour to read and reply to e-mail using his cell phone, paying for 30 minutes could be a hefty sum compared with paying for 100 bits of data actually transmitted over the network, he said.
But even the pay-by-bit option may not be sufficient to make wireless data services blossom the way the carriers would like, said Peter Lojko, chief executive of WaterCove Networks Inc., a Massachusetts start-up that has its research arm in Schaumburg.
What’s really needed, Lojko asserts, is the ability to charge customers by the transaction, and WaterCove offers tech products to enable carriers to do that.
“Most customers may not want to buy into all the services that carriers are offering,” Lojko said, “but if they can personalize their service so that they will receive and pay for only what they want, they’ll be more likely to use the service.”
For example, instead of buying into a generalized service that provides information like sports scores, perhaps a customer wants to know only the result of a particular White Sox game–scored inning by inning.
In that case, he might be willing to pay a penny or two for each update to his cell phone as the game proceeds, Lojko said. By constructing databases that link individual customer profiles to content suppliers, WaterCove can deliver such a system. It also enables customers to modify their product profile at any time, he said.
Two European carriers and one in the United States are running trials of the technology, and WaterCove hopes to sign up some carriers as customers this year.
For the love of tech: Developing advanced materials is only one aspect of preparing industry for future technology applications, in the view of R.P.H. Chang, who directs the materials research center at Northwestern University.
“We have to prepare our young people to become part of a very high-tech workforce,” Chang said. “To do that, we need to reach out to youngsters long before they get to college and get them interested in science and technology.”
Working with high school science teachers, Chang and his Northwestern colleagues have developed nine different projects, called modules, that use everyday materials to teach children how things work.
More Top Picks Battery Maintainers
One module deals with food packaging, sending kids to supermarkets to study the different ways foods are wrapped and posing questions about the materials used. A sports-oriented module challenges youngsters to design a miniature golf course, study the physics of golf, design a fishing pole and other projects.
Northwestern’s education project, which has been under way for about eight years, is financed by the National Science Foundation and has had participation by thousands of students and about 100 teachers.
“We have summer programs where teachers come to Northwestern to do research,” Chang said.
Northwestern provides booklets, kits and materials to enable science teachers to engage youngsters in materials-oriented projects, and the modules can be downloaded from www.materialsworldmodules.org.
“They can download a lot of the stuff, and we supply materials and sell the kits at cost to teachers,” said Chang. “It’s a non-profit operation.”
Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of the project, Chang said, is that some young people who never thought they had an aptitude for science discovered a talent for it and eventually enrolled at Northwestern.
“I have kids in the program, and half of them have come to realize they have the competency to go on in this field,” he said.
Telecom horizon: Bernie Ebbers’ ouster last week as head of WorldCom Inc., the No. 2 long-distance company, underscores the telecommunications industry’s terrible woes these days.
Although analysts have no doubt there are better days ahead, many wonder how long the turnaround may take, and which companies will survive. Some even question the assumption that recovery, when it comes, will be led by the Baby Bells, which have the industry’s deepest pockets.
Two analysts from Network Conceptions, based in Vienna, Va., said America’s largest local phone company, Verizon Communications, has spent billions of dollars to upgrade its basic infrastructure, where revenue is declining. But, they contend, Verizon hasn’t sunk a lot of money into new technology that could open new revenue streams.
“They’re spending a lot of money to preserve their core business, which is getting less profitable,” said Farooq Hussain of Network Conceptions. “We’re not saying the Bells won’t survive, but only that they could become marginal businesses.”
Eric Rabe, a Verizon spokesman, dismisses Hussain’s analysis as “astonishingly unsophisticated” and said it ignores the general economic decline that has hurt telecoms along with most other businesses during the past year.
“For Verizon–or anyone else–to maintain flat revenues and to continue to generate free cash flow in a year like the last one is not a sign of weakness,” said Rabe. “It’s a sign of strength.”