At CTIA, Evidence Of The Mobile Web Zooms AheadAt CTIA, Evidence Of The Mobile Web Zooms Ahead

I was listening to the Snow Patrol single "Run" streaming over the Internet and checking the weather in my hometown, Boulder, Colo., on Weather.com while making a VoIP phone call to the office via Skype, all over a 2-Mbps connection.

No big deal, right? Except that it was all from the back seat of an SUV moving 45 mph down a Las Vegas boulevard, a demonstration of mobile WiMax by Intel, Motorola, and startup Clearwire at the CTIA Wireless show.

The mobile Web took another step forward last week as leading wireless vendors showed off new software, devices, and infrastructure. "This is a change that will reshape the future of our industry," Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin said in a keynote speech.

Microsoft unveiled Windows Mobile 6.1, which includes the latest edition of Internet Explorer Mobile and its promise of "desktop grade" Web browsing. With support for Adobe Flash and Silverlight, IE Mobile lets users view full-screen Web pages and multimedia on smartphones. Microsoft also announced availability of System Center Device Manager 2008 to manage Windows Mobile phones and other devices.

Nokia unveiled its first mobile device equipped with WiMax connectivity, the N810 Internet tablet. The N810 and other forthcoming WiMax-enabled devices "will allow Internet services that are simply not possible in a fixed environment," said Nokia North America chief Mark Louison.

Nokia's new gadget will run over Sprint's Xohm WiMax network, scheduled for launch later this year. Xohm has been affected by the turmoil at Sprint over the last year, and its debut in a few U.S. cities, including Chicago and Washington, will probably slide from spring into summer. But Barry West, head of Sprint's Xohm unit, was upbeat on the prospects of the mobile Web. "It's not just about devices and bandwidth," he said at CTIA. "It changes our whole business model."

Sprint customers, for example, will be able to buy devices of their choosing and bring them onto the Xohm network as long as they're WiMax-certified, West said. That means the carrier doesn't have to lock users into restrictive long-term contracts to ensure that it recovers the cost of subsidizing devices.

Xohm gives Sprint a two-year head start over other 4G wireless broadband technologies, including Long Term Evolution, or LTE, claimed Sprint CEO Dan Hesse.

However, smaller providers have already jumped ahead. Startup Xanadoo has around 14,000 subscribers to its WiMax service in small cities like Lubbock, Texas. Xanadoo uses mobile WiMax technology from Navini Networks, acquired last year by Cisco.

AIR TURBULENCE
To be sure, the mobile Web continues to face challenges in the United States. "If there's a mass market to be developed for broadband wireless, there isn't adequate spectrum," even after the recently concluded 700-MHz auction, asserts Xanadoo CEO Marshall Pagon. The future of Xohm, meanwhile, almost certainly will be determined by Sprint's ability to turn around its cellular business.

And even in this new era, older technology will have its place. Showing off the new WiMax-enabled N810, Nokia hoisted journalists 180 feet above the Las Vegas Convention Center, strapped into seats around a metal conference table in the sky. The mobile devices provided worked fine--but they weren't using WiMax. They were connected via Wi-Fi, since Nokia wasn't authorized to use the temporary WiMax network set up by Motorola and Clearwire for the vehicular demo.