10Meters News Service

March 18, 2002 – The calling walls are falling down. Sort of.

Last week, Sprint joined Cingular and AT&T in their move to allow U.S. mobile subscribers to send text messages between carriers.

Sprint's "intercarrier messaging" update will take effect April 1 for users of its "Short Mail," as the carrier dubs text-messaging service.

The technology for the intercarrier service is provided by MobileSpring, a provider of wireless messaging technology, and Illuminet, a subsidiary of VeriSign.

Sprint's Short Mail service is based on the carrier's wireless Web technology that allows users to type in short messages via the phone's keypad.

Sprint also offers 26 generic text messages that users can send "as is." Subscribers also can create up to 35 personalized messages to add to the pre-set list.

Sprint Short Mail can also be composed on desktops via the Sprint Web site (a href="http://www.sprintpcs.com" target="blank">www.sprintpcs.com) and sent to mobile users.

Future enhancements to the Short Mail service will allow users to:

• create distribution lists;

• create and save mini address books for often-used phone numbers;

• select from a wide variety of Icons – so messages can "say" more, and

• control messaging options through block/unblock the sender, delete messages and read message history.

What's the Big Deal?

The move to wider access by Sprint et al is a good one – for carriers and their customers.

For customers, the benefit is obvious: They now can communicate – albeit with text only – with friends and family who subscribe through competing carriers.

The rub, of course, is that some people don't care a whit about mobile-phone text messaging (known as SMS everywhere but in the U.S.). That may or may not change. Text-messaging is new to the U.S. market, although Sprint gave it prominence in ads aired during Olympics coverage. For now, most users fall into the category of gadget geek or teenager.

For carriers, the push is about finding new revenue sources – not to mention generating enthusiasm for mobile phones themselves. Lately, mo'phones have hit the "ho-hum" level. After all, what's so great about making a phone call?

The litmus test will come later this year when the major carriers begin switching over to new high-speed networks aimed at ushering in the era of 3G services. For now, the first step to 3G is a half-step – dubbed 2.5G (second-generation) – that is being driven by GPRS (general packet radio service) technology.

3G will allow the bells and whistles of mobile multimedia.

Sprint says it plans to launch its 3G network in mid-2002.

Cingular Wireless is also renovating its wireless network. The entire network will be revamped by 2004, although Cingular says half of the network will be upgraded by Christmas 2002.

AT&T announced last week that its GPRS high-speed network is already available in selected locations, primarily in cities along the East and West coasts.

3G is based on the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) standard used by an estimated 70 percent of the world's wireless phone networks.

Until recently, the majority of U.S. networks were based on Qualcomm's code division multiple access, or CDMA, technology. Most carriers say that the GSM networks will interact with existing CDMA networks. The largest CDMA carrier is Verizon.