It's been some week, huh?  There's an awful lot to process on the financial front... the Dow down 777 points yesterday  (I'll be working until I'm 70), then up more than 300 so far today (okay, maybe 68). It’s  assuredly an uncertain time, and in some respects, more than just a little scary.  

After we take a collective breath, and look around, we’ll see that while there are real reasons for concern and real problems to be solved -- but it’s not all “doom and gloom.”  For example,  consumer  confidence actually rose August to September.  And while we might not have a “bailout” plan in place just yet, I believe one will ultimately be passed. 

But instead of reading this for my quick take on the economy, I'd like you to think about how wireless fits in this picture. I have no doubt that the  wireless telecommunications sector will be a leader in our economic recovery.  According to Ovum, wireless productivity gains will generate more than $860 billion over the next 10 years , generating millions of new jobs and creating impressive advances for American business. New, high-speed 4th generation technology, such as Sprint’s WiMAX service  which is becoming commercially available within the next week,  is going to enable applications and services that at once seemed “Jetson-esque” .  AT&T and Verizon have also committed to the LTE – a 4G wireless standard – and expect to make it available in the next 24 months. 

The continued deployment of these 4th generation technologies, and the sustained growth in wireless broadband subscribership (about 70% of new broadband lines between June 2006 and June 2007 were wireless subscriptions), will enable increased productivity and efficiency in the enterprise community and truly life-style changing developments for the public.  Business users and consumers alike require a wireless high-speed internet experience akin to that they find on their desktops.  The industry is working hard to meet that demand , and the promise of the wireless future is fantastic. 

Right now, it’s easy  (and understandable) to look around and be  a little scared – but before we get too worked up, let’s take a dispassionate, measured look at  the big picture. Yes, times are tough. Our 401K accounts and overall confidence are taking hits. But wireless is a positively life-changing technology that is a critical key to the solution, and that should factor into every policymakers' mindset when looking at rules and regs that pertain to this dynamic facet of America's economic rebound. 

So, you're a wireless service provider and you want to improve and extend coverage in a service area. To do that, you need to construct a new tower, and with that comes a litany of paperwork, zoning hearings, and various licensing requirements that requires a multitude of legal diligence, perseverance, and patience.... not always in equal parts. It can be an enormously frustrating and tedious process for a carrier, that is often stymied by various zoning entities... county, city, etc., which have mastered the 'delay game'. 
  
How so? Well, there are about 3,300 pending siting applications, and according to a survey CTIA conducted of some of its membership, and about 25% of the applications have been awaiting a decision for more than a year.  And in that group, more than 180 applications have been awaiting final action for more than 3 years. That's right, three years for a simple thumbs up, or thumbs down to better coverage for wireless consumers. I know there are many considerations that go into the process, but certainly there has to be a better way.
 
And there is. The industry is seeking is a common-sense, reasonable solution – it shouldn’t take more than three years to reach a siting decision.  The industry supports 45 and 75 day “shot clocks” for siting consideration decisions.  We’ve filed a petition with the FCC on the matter, which you can read here.

The FCC is considering the petition, and we believe the proposed timeframe is ample for thorough review of applications and final decisions. There's just no good rationale for needing longer than two-and-a-half months to decide whether a service provider can move forward with its plans, as wireless service providers are sinking billions of dollars into their networks to provide upgraded services to consumers who clearly want more. Wireless data growth is impressive and Americans are increasingly turning to wireless as their preferred new path to the internet.  There’s no debate about the growing reliance and use of wireless service and it's only fair to the millions of consumers who want more that common-sense siting policies should be enacted.  

Act One: Steve Largent sat down with CEOs from T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Sprint.  Their discussion revolved around a key word in today’s wireless industry: openness.  They were clear: openness is here today.  Each said that their company is promoting and committed to open devices and applications while at the same ensuring a positive user experience. 
With regards to network interoperability:  the laws of physics can be bent but not broken.  A GSM network cannot interface with a CDMA device. But that’s today.

As companies move towards their 4th generation networks, and deploy common standards, network interoperability becomes possible. 

Act Two: Marco Boerries, Exectutive VP of Yahoo’s Connected Life Division then came on and debuted Yahoo’s oneConnect application on the Apple iphone.  This app allows users to centralize their contacts and communications from multiple mediums and social  networks, and makes it mobile.  Next, Boerries debuted Yahoo’s “Blueprint” mobile platform. This is a single, open, cross-platform framework for mobile content and websites. It’s designed to streamline the mobile content and website development cycle, while at the same time enabling robust and diverse features. 

Act Three: Steve returned to the stage to discuss the wireless industry’s evolution and history with mobile luminaries John Stanton and Crag McCaw.  Their discussion was a reflection on and comparison of wireless’s early days and today.  They discussed the characteristics of early cellular users, and how those subscribers compare with today’s mobile broadband users.  They also looked forward, each offering their view of an untethered, wholly connected mobile future.  It was an excellent talk from two industry titans. 

Recently, there’s been considerable buzz surrounding the VP selection of Democratic Presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama, and the nearly 3 million text messages that were sent out to break the news that Senator Joe Biden would join him on the ticket.  

The campaign’s choice to use SMS to notify its supporters reinforces what we already know: wireless is a personal, individual medium. According to Harris Interactive, more than 20% of Americans feel that wireless is a “more personal” connection that wired phone service. 

Perhaps it’s because of wireless’ very nature – its mobility – that our device feels so much like an extension of ourselves.  We take it with us everywhere, and it allows constant communication with those most important to us.  

Personally, wireless is fundamentally changing the way we interact with one another.  There is now an expectation of connectivity , and the technology is providing opportunities to build stronger, and certainly different, social communities. It's hard to put a value on that. But we can see with the number of wireless subscribers continuing to grow, and increases in the types of traffic we're experiencing that wireless communication is a critically important part of everyday American life. Here at CTIA we're actually in the final stages of number crunching for our semi-annual survey, and although I can't pass along any of the specifics yet (they'll come at CTIA WIRELESS I.T. &  Entertainment 2008® in San Francisco, Sept. 10-12), I can tell you there are some incredible metrics that are going to blow you away!
 
In terms of how we're using wireless on the job, the technology has been credited with increasing productivity and allowing the American employee to work on the go.  According to some estimates, wireless will generate productivity gains upwards of $860 billion over the next ten years – that’s more than 4 times the size of the domestic pharmaceutical industry.

What we sometimes forget is that wireless is still a  relatively new technology.  The 25th anniversary of the first commercial cellular call is coming up next month. That's right...it was just 25 years ago, and now here we are in the midst of one of the greatest communications revolutions of all time! There's still so much more opportunity, so much more room to grow. And as Senator Obama showed us with his campaign's creative use of the technology, there are fantastic possibilities coming that will make wireless an even more vital part of our lives. Anyone second that motion?

Accurate comparisons match like objects against each other. If the objects being compared are fundamentally different, the comparison’s findings are obviously  affected  and its credibility undermined.  

The Better Business Bureau’s current compliant classification system has just this problem. The  BBB's system  has extreme levls of  granularity  in some instances (they cover more than 3,800 complaint categories) , and in some cases scores entire industries against much smaller, specific sectors of other industries. This significantly impacts their findings. The BBB admits that  its complaint data isn’t intended to be  used for comparing one industry against another, and has even gone as far as notifying companies of  its system’s limitations in this regard. 

Let me explain why it's right in that regard, specifically looking at how wireless complaints are registered compared to other industries. The BBB separates complaint categories in such areas as auto-related services (95+ categories) and financial services (35+ categories), it chooses not to do the same with wireless. The BBB breaks the wireless-applicable complaints into just 5 categories (at the most). This means that the overwhelming majority of wireless–related complaints are lumped together, which significantly inflates wireless’ complaint figure. 

Using this system, the BBB data suggests that wireless is the most-complained-about industry – surely a dubious distinction – and one that simply isn’t deserved  and is an inaccurate perception.   

That said, even with the BBB’s unusual classification system, the number of complaints we’re talking about is relatively small. It’s about 1 complaint per 7,700 customers.  That’s a complaint rate of 0.0001.

Of course even one complaint is one too many, and wireless companies work tirelessly for their customers.  In fact, the BBB reports that wireless is highly successful at resolving most complaints, settling more than 9 of out every 10. 

The BBB complaint data is important to all businesses – and understandably so.  But one should be careful what conclusions are drawn from it based on its admitted incocnsitencies, and the system should be revamped to accurately classify and report all industries’ total complaints.

This morning’s LA Times ran a good piece on the wireless “listed property” issue, which is currently being debated in Congress.  The article clearly explains the out-dated, archaic tax code that requires employees to keep track of “personal” calls made on their “work” wireless phones.  This tax-code stems from the early 90’s when wireless was an exclusive, corner-office-executive perk.  The wireless market of 2008 is completely different from the wireless market of the early 90s.  Intense competition has driven down prices, and driven up subscribership over the last 18 years.  Today, wireless is hardly an “executive privilege” – it’s a mainstay of modern American life enjoyed by more than 260 million subscribers.  

Legislation to modernize this tax-code has been has been passed in the House and pending in the Senate.   Let your Senators and Representative know you support this legislation, and let's work together to pass the 2008 MOBILE Cell Phone Act.