Digital Matters - Issue 36

Here's how wireless technology works for me: I'm in a cab, coming back from an airport. I call to check my phone messages and to order a pizza for my kids. The process should be easy. It isn't. I have to call four times to check the messages, twice to order the pizza. My digital PCS phone keeps cutting out. Welcome to workaday wireless technology in America.

Here's how the process works in Finland: A guy in Helsinki downloads money electronically from his bank account to his Nokia cell-phone. He calls his girlfriend and tells her that he'll meet her at a mall in 30 minutes. On the way to the mall, he stops at a gas station and pays for gas and a can of Pepsi (from a vending machine) by wireless electronic-funds transfer (EFT). He arrives at the mall, where he uses his cell-phone's wireless-Web service to find out about a sweater sale at the mall's Benetton store. He goes to the store and buys himself two lightweight sweaters at 20% off the regular price. He then meets his girlfriend, and they go to a movie. They pay for their movie tickets by wireless EFT.

Here's how it works in Japan: A businessman finishes a meeting and decides to walk to his hotel. He's hungry after a long day, so he fires up his cell-phone and taps the Zagat.com icon on its screen. Zagat.com determines his location using GPS technology and immediately offers a list of dining options (rank-ordered by proximity, personal preference, or quality), which are displayed on the cell-phone's screen. He decides that he wants bistro food. He chooses the highest-rated bistro that is located nearest to him. His cell-phone automatically dials that bistro's telephone number. He discovers that the restaurant can seat him in 10 minutes, and it can reserve a nice table by a window for him. After he's done eating, he uses his cell-phone to fill out a brief electronic questionnaire from Zagat about the restaurant. He returns the questionnaire electronically, giving the bistro high marks.

Forty years ago, the United States rallied over a national emergency: the gap between our nuclear-missile technology and that of the Soviet Union. The issue turned out to be a phony one. Today, we face a genuine threat -- the wireless-technology gap. This crisis is no phony one. Most Americans blithely assume that the United States is ahead of the rest of the world technologically. In some respects, that assumption is true. But when it comes to wireless-Web communications, the exact opposite is true.

In reality, wireless services in the United States lag far behind wireless services offered in Europe and in Asia. The widely held belief is that this situation will eventually right itself -- that U.S. wireless technology will soon be every bit as good as European or Asian wireless technology is. Here's a news flash: That belief is painfully wrong. The United States is likely to lag far behind European and Asian wireless technology for at least three years -- or more.

Here's why: The key to having strong wireless service is a uniform standard for digital communications. Setting that standard is the job of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an arm of the United Nations. It should come as no surprise that the ITU has been unable to get UN member nations to agree to a worldwide uniform standard. As a result, there's a dog's breakfast of technical platforms for wireless communications around the globe.

Frustrated by a lack of international consensus, the European Union in the 1980s mandated one standard (called the Global System for Mobile Communications, or GSM) for every country within its borders. Japan mandated another standard (called Personal Digital Cellular). The U.S. Federal Communications Commission, in response to intensive lobbying efforts by various corporate interests, adopted several standards.

The ITU is now trying to correct this nightmare by creating what the "Economist" calls a "family of standards" for so-called third-generation wireless technology. The hope is that third-generation wireless technology will be able to "harmonize" all of the various "second-generation" standards, while at the same time providing much more bandwidth, which makes possible a fully functional, extremely high-speed wireless Web.

If you're waiting for global harmonization, don't get your hopes up. The likeliest outcome is that third-generation wireless technology will be running in Europe and in Asia long before that happens in the United States. Aside from the problem of competing technical standards, the United States struggles under the weight of a regional (as opposed to a national) licensing system, which adds layers of complexity to any technological-harmonization effort.