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Down to the Wireless
Verizon's Stott is banking on future with few limits for wireless communications
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Business New Haven
6/10/2002
By: BNH
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Robert F. Stott is New England regional president of Verizon Wireless, which earlier this year launched its 1XRTT commercial network, known as 'Express,' to enhance its networks wireless capabilities beyond voice transmissions to Internet, streaming video and e-mail applications. Stott, based in the Boston area but responsible for Verizon Wireless operations in the six-state New England region, was in Hamden May 8 to address a meeting of the Quinnipiac Chamber of Commerce, when BNH caught up with him.
Please discuss the convergence of wireless voice and data communications you discussed at the Quinnipiac chamber.
Voice is mainstream now, but we're seeing more customers looking for data applications to make them more productive and their businesses more productive. The intrinsic value of the data product is its mobility. As businesses see the value-add of this mobility in relation to their own core products, it will drive whole new product paradigms.
What is Verizon's 'Express Network'?
The Express Network is our newest product. Launched a few months ago, it's our third-generation wireless service. The first generation was analog service. Second-generation wireless was digital service. This is '3G,' which incorporates higher-speed data into CDMA [Code Division Multiple Access] technology. What the Express Network provides 40 to 60 kbps on a regular basis, which is what you would see on a 56k dialup modem. At times you'll see anywhere up to 144 kbps, depending on what Web site [one may be accessing].
Does this new technology impact the quality of voice service, or is it really about data delivery?
The network is for voice and data, and it improves voice performance as well by giving us more capacity.
Has this product been rolled out elsewhere previously, or is it being introduced nationwide simultaneously?
The first markets are in the Northeast, [where] it covers about 53 million Americans. It's available [now] in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, parts of Vermont, Washington [D.C.], New York, New Jersey - the whole Northeast corridor.
Where do small to mid-sized companies fit into the wireless marketing model? We tend to think of a cell phone as something that's bought and paid for by individuals privately.
We're looking at companies of all sizes, and we have three products. Mobile Web, for example, gives you the ability to surf the Web right from your mobile phone. The other application that's expanded very rapidly is Mobile Messenger, a short-messaging service you might have read about that's been very successful in Europe. This allows you to send short messages instantaneously. A third is the Express Network. We certainly do look at small, medium and large-company [applications] with the Express Network.
I have a corporate-accounts team that works directly with the large companies; they've done presentations at nearly every one of them [in Connecticut]. I have another organization that works with smaller or medium-sized companies as well. We've had a couple of great applications in Connecticut. One of them is a winery down there - the reps can go out with their PDA and do the purchase order right there with the customer. So instead of paperwork and more time at the office having it processed, it's all done right there.
We have construction companies that go out and dispatch everything through this, and they don't even have to go back to the office. It can be a tremendous time- and money-saver for them. The solutions apply to small, medium or large business customers - it makes you more productive, it makes your lifestyle and your leisure time more productive. And for people who don't want to be that 'in contact,' there is an on/off button.
The wireless voice market seems to be approaching the saturation point where most people who want wireless phones already have them and only up to a finite extent can you get them to talk more. What's the long-term prognosis for the wireless market? Is it more different types of services and more data transfer? Where is the industry going?
I'd say it's exactly that. Penetration of total [U.S.] population is over 50 percent. Remember, population includes young children, senior citizens, so penetration is pretty deep. There's also a market for the newer features, particularly on the mobile Web, Mobile Messenger and Express Network side. We have another product we'll be rolling out at the end of this month called Brew. It has nothing to do with brewskies. The acronym is Binary Runtime in an Environment for Wireless. It allows you the ability to download things like ring-tones for a certain price. Let's say the price is a dollar. You can download your favorite song and that song would be your ring-tone for a month or so. Then there are games. There's a Tiger Woods golf game as well as a bowling game. You pay for them, download them and you have that game for a certain timeframe. But you wouldn't be using your [voice] minutes. There are other entertainment options you can download as well.
The real application is getting the mobility and the ability of the customer to get e-mails, to push data out or pull data from the Internet. Customers can set up alerts, or trigger-based items that you want [real-time information on]. It allows every customer to set up what they want. Several times a day I get stocks and Red Sox scores as alerts. If my stocks are up or down, I may want to sell or buy or whatever. And right after the [Red Sox] game ends, I get a notification that the Red Sox won, 12-6. Any customer can go in and set up whatever they like. My wife gets her horoscope every morning. There's no spamming or anything of that nature. You set up exactly what you want when you want it. What you can do is only bound by your mental capacity to think of something.
Could you explain the ownership structure of Verizon?
Verizon Wireless was formed in April 2000. We're a combination of four companies: Bell Atlantic Mobile, Vodaphone AirTouch, PrimeCo. - a PCS company that Bell Atlantic had an interest in along with VodaPhone AirTouch - and GTE Mobile. Four companies came together to form Verizon Wireless, and that gave us the largest nationwide footprint. We're the largest in terms of customers with over 30 million customers now. It's owned 45 percent by Vodaphone AirTouch and 55 percent by Verizon Communications.
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