CTIA Wireless 2005

By Ernest Lilley

April 4, 2005

(CTIA Wireless 2005 :  Page 1 of 1 )

Evidently it's the year of the smartphone.

At this spring's CTIA gathering in New Orleans I heard the general consensus that Bluetooth had become "table stakes," and the prominence of smartphones (which essentially combine a PDA with a cell phone) on display made it clear that carriers and manufacturers alike want everyone to run out and buy one of these devices so that they can be sold e-mail, messaging, pictures, data, music, multimedia, gaming and (winner and still champion) voice. A whole new class of $200-$300 devices are key to their plans, but not quite here yet.

Though show attendance was estimated at 45k, the massive Ernest Morial Convention center managed to handle the crowd without making these telecom visionaries march quite shoulder to shoulder into the wireless future. In fact it seemed like attendance was down a bit from last year, despite the economic health of the sector, which may be a sign of the industry's maturization—or a conflict of scheduling with CEBIT Germany, the big Euro-Tech show going on at just about the same time. I ran into a number of seriously jet lagged journalists who had tried to cover both, and I hope they recover.

CTIA President, former Republican congressman and NFL Hall of Fame receiver Steve Largent kicks off the opening press reception and Wireless Home showing the night before the show.

Wireless Home Press Reception

Kicking off with a preshow event CTIA Pres. Steve Largent opened an upscale Wireless Home of the not so distant future, or even the very pricey present. Though your home of the future may not have robots running around (but don't count them out), it won't have wires running around it either. That was the message delivered to the throng of journalists and analysts happily sampling the gumbo, shrimp jambalaya, and other local signature food stuffs "kicking it up a notch" at the kickoff event.

 Page 1 of 1