Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Net execs opt for proven wireless technologies, standards

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 04:50:30 -0500

Net execs opt for proven wireless technologies, standards

By John Cox
Network World Fusion, 03/18/03

Listening to IT executives talk about long-distance wireless networks makes one wonder to
whom the wireless network
providers are listening.

A panel of enterprise CIOs at this week's CTIA 2003 conference outlined their use of
cellular data nets. What was striking was
how little they, or their applications, had in common except a shared insight that
wireless technology could help them cut costs,
boost revenues or embrace customers more warmly and closely.

The result was a vivid snapshot of the many different ways enterprise IT executives are
experimenting with wide-area wireless
technology. The executives were readily using a mix of net technologies, including that
old reliable, the 9.6K bit/sec Mobitext
network.

The Los Angeles Police Department has just completed building two communications centers,
at a total price tag of $265
million. The department, with about 10,000 police officers, is essentially its own network
provider, with a wireless data net and
a wireless voice net, said CIO Roger Ham. That's to ensure the department has complete
control over a net dedicated to
emergency requirements.

Yet it relies on relatively slow 19.2K bit/sec connections. The department is also looking
at IEEE 802.11, or Wi-Fi, wireless
LANs to create broadband wireless access at least in some locations. In the future, Ham
said, the police will need at least 96K
bit/sec to send digitized photographs, maps, and even video, to cops on the street. "And
we can't take down the whole net to
send them," he said.

By contrast, Ham's colleagues on the panel either standardized on a single platform, or
embraced nearly all clients. In either
case, they relied heavily on service providers.

Wireless use at Fidelity Investments, the giant mutual fund, began almost as an accident,
after the IT group created internally a
way to send alerts about network events to on-call technicians, said Chief Wireless
Officer Joe Ferra. "We realized this could
be a service that we could use to send alerts to our [mutual fund] customers," he said.

Fidelity can't control the client device, Ferra said, nor what cellular wireless net its
customers might use. The goal had to be to
embrace as many as possible. "That was pretty difficult at the start, but it's less so
now," he said. One reason is the use of the
Java programming model, which Ferra said lets Fidelity software engineers port
applications from one platform to another fairly
easily. "In the past, we were doing almost one-off [custom] applications," he said.

The applications are shaped by what Fidelity dubs "intuitive navigation," a design
principle that emphasizes simplicity and
consistency. The company is creating a wireless portal into all of Fidelity's products,
including 401(k) benefits management and
even its nationwide airport limo service, Boston Coach. "To have one portal for access to
all our products, these applications
have to have the same look and feel, the same ease of navigation," he said. They have to
be very easy to use and very easy to
provision.

The results are remarkable. Fidelity gave a Palm handheld, with Fidelity applications, to
a group of brokerage customers who
called Fidelity's call center staff twice or more each day. With the wireless connection,
call frequency plummeted to once every
other day as these customers found the information they needed via the wireless portal.

Despite the fact that cellular data links are relatively low-bandwidth connections, only
two participants singled out bandwidth as
a problem. One was LAPD's Ham, the other was Chuck Nettles, CTO for McKesson Corp., a $50
billion-a-year
pharmaceutical and healthcare supplier and software application vendor. In both cases, the
problem was dealing with large
graphics files. McKesson is extending its use of wireless in warehousing to monitoring
truck fleet logistics, to sales force
automation, and increasingly to what's dubbed "point of care" - doctors and nurses with
wireless access to data from the
patient's bedside.

"Speeds and feeds are a limiting factor for us," Nettles said. "They're adequate for
e-mail and PIM functions internally, and for
customer satisfaction in functions like alerts." But to let a group of doctors wirelessly
view an MRI image, that image must be
"precisely accurate," he said.

Ferra, at Fidelity, said application design must take into account the available wireless
bandwidth to minimize network latencies.
Fidelity started with and still works extensively with the Mobitext net, which offers just
9.6K bit/sec. "But it has great in-building
penetration, and you can do things with it that can make it outperform 2.5G [cellular
links]," Ferra said.

McKesson is already seeing improved accuracy in other areas, thanks to wireless.
"Paper-based processes are subject to
errors," Nettles said. "Wireless can let us monitor these processes and reduce error rates
to under 1%." One main reason for
this is that wireless applications reduce or eliminate the number of times someone has to
manually enter data. Barcode scanners
and the use of alphanumeric codes automate much of this work.

Roto-Rooter Services, the nationwide plumbing and drain service company, has taken that
automation to a very high level,
replacing a traditional two-way radio with a sleek Nextel Java-enabled cell phone. The
interaction is almost a form of telemetry.

A plumber interacts with server-based applications and the dispatch center by using a set
of alphanumeric codes, and
answering yes/no questions on the screen by pressing “Y” or “N” on the keypad. Barcode
scanning lets plumbers quickly input
data on parts and supplies used for each job. The phone also pinpoints the user's location
via a geo-positioning system (GPS).

According to CIO Stephen Poppe, the new system will result in faster, more accurate
billing, and more efficient dispatching of
plumbers. "If they don't have a wrench in their hands, that's cost to us," Poppe said. "We
think this [new system] is a home
run."

By reducing customer interactions to similar small, easy-to-use actions, Fidelity is
betting that there will be paradoxical result:
customers will feel more closely tied to Fidelity, simply because they can do more.
Fidelity has a four-part objective with these
projects, said Ferra: to retain customers, acquire them, cut costs, and leverage the
customer relationship to sell related services.

"We let people today, even if they're not Fidelity customers, to get a stock quote, to set
up a watch list [of specific quotes], and
son," he said. "Eventually, we think these people will want to take action." And they do
that, by becoming Fidelity customers.
One traveler might check to see if Fidelity's Boston Coach is available in New Orleans,
and what the rate is from the airport to
a downtown hotel. If they request a limo, says Ferra, "then we can start doing things like
telling them if their flight is delayed, or
what the weather is at their destination."

Imagination seems to be the only limiting factor for these enterprise executives as they
grapple with how wireless can benefit
their businesses.

--
    "NEXTEL-1 IT'S NOT JUST NEXTEL"
  Note The New address
Subscribe to Nextel-1: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL-1

  "NEXTEL2 FOR iDEN SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS"
Subscribe to Nextel2: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL2

  "WIRELESS FORUM HOMELAND SECURITY GROUP"
     The Complete Resource for Wireless Homeland Security.
Subscribe to WFHSG:  http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/WFHSG

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Make Money Online Auctions! Make $500.00 or We Will Give You Thirty Dollars for Trying!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/yMx78A/fNtFAA/46VHAA/61FxlB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/