Former Republican congressman and NFL Hall of Fame receiver Steve Largent
took over as president and CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), the primary trade association of the
cellular industry, in November 2003. Since then, he has maintained a high
profile preaching the CTIA gospel of wireless convergence.
While in Congress, Largent served on the House Telecommunications
Subcommittee and was considered a leading candidate to replace Newt Gingrich
as Speaker of the House when Gingrich resigned in 1998. He resigned from
Congress in 2002 to make an unsuccessful bid for the governorship of
Oklahoma. His voting record reflects the Republican position on technology:
lower taxes and less regulation.
Prior to entering politics, Largent played 14 years as a wide receiver for
the Seattle Seahawks. He set six career records and participated in seven
Pro Bowls. In 1995, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
All the things that I see are only benefits to the Originally, there was a first quarter 2005 goal.
Largent recently sat down with internetnews.com at the Washington
headquarters of CTIA to discuss wireless convergence with the Internet, 3G
Q: The rollout of Voice over IP
compete with cellular companies. At the same time, wireless companies may
use Wi-Fi to provide greater capacity by deploying it as an adjunct to their
networks. What do you see happening?
I don’t think we necessarily have a dog in that fight. The one component
that makes us unique that nobody else has is the mobility feature, and nobody
can replicate that right now. In a way, we’re sort of playing in a park that
nobody else can get into.
Ultimately, this is going to become a battle for access to your home and
office plus mobility. It’s about who can provide the biggest and least
expensive and fastest pipe to your home and office and offer you a mobility
feature. The pipe will deliver voice, video and broadband.
Q: How does the Internet fit into CTIA’s plans?
That’s one of the very exciting aspects of wireless. As we move into 3G, I
think what you’re going so see is having all the capabilities you have on
your laptop in the palm of your hand in your mobile device. There are
endless possibilities when you start thinking about your mobile device. I
think we’ll quit calling it a phone since it’ll have so many more functions
to it.
When you start thinking about taking pictures, sending an e-mail, receiving
an e-mail, speaking into your phone and have it transcript voice into text
and then sent as an e-mail the range of possibilities is mind boggling and
very exciting.
Q: We’ve heard about 3G for years. Is it really finally here?
The thing to watch
is the companies that are acquiring more spectrum, because you cannot get to
3G without significant swaths of spectrum. What you see happening right now
with some of the consolidation — Cingular-AT&T, Sprint-Nextel,
Western-Alltel — is all about more spectrum and capital formation that
give you the scale, scope and resources to invest in that 3G world.
These companies see that coming and they know that at their current size
they’re not going to be big enough to have the necessary capital, and they
don’t have enough spectrum to get to the third generation. That’s why you
see a lot of the happenings you see in our industry right now.
Q: Is the United States behind the world in deploying 3G services?
I think it is analogous to we’re not necessarily the ski boat, we’re the
skier. There are countries like Japan and
Korea and others who are the ski boat at this point, but we’re getting pulled
right behind them. We’re learning from their mistakes. We’re capitalizing on
that learning process, and I think in reality we’re probably saving a lot of
money by letting them make the mistakes before we do.
It’s really a difference in the way various markets have evolved. If you
look at countries like Japan and Korea, they have had a government that has
been very compliant with allowing them to have access to a lot of spectrum,
and in some cases even having the government be a willing partner and
investor in providing the resources.
Q: Having television broadcasters vacate their current spectrum will
create tremendous opportunities for your members. Do you think the
broadcasters will really hit that 2006 target date to vacate the
spectrum?
They’ll be moved, and my guess is it’ll be sooner rather than later. It
depends on how aggressive they [Congress] are this year. A lot of people
predict that if they do open up the Telecom Act, that it would be a two or
three year process, because sometimes Congress likes to milk an issue.
The wild card in this is having Sen. [Ted] Stevens as the Commerce Committee
chairman. He is an appropriator at heart and appropriators always work on a
12-month cycle. He may take that same sort of approach on a telecom rewrite.
He may say, “We want to do this in an non-election year and that’s 2005.
Here’s the schedule, boys.” It’s hard to predict.
I think there are several issues that are driving this whole telecom
rewrite: one of them is VoIP and the other is this 700MGz digital
transition. Those are two issues that are a large part of why there is some
impetus to move Congress into reworking the Telecom Act.
Q: How difficult a sale will it be to get people to accept
using cell phones on
airplanes?
I think the sale will be easier than getting the technology right. You can
imagine the technological hurdles you have to get over in order to make that
happen: shooting radio frequency from the top of an airplane and bounce it
off a satellite and bounce it back down to earth and get it to somebody
while you’re at 30,000 feet above the ground moving at 600 mph.
I’m totally convinced we can get the technology to make that happen. At that
point, I think it’s going to be a function of consumer demand. From what
I’ve read and the surveys that I’ve been exposed to, most people are very
interested in having access to wireless data while they are on a plane. But
there’s a lot more consternation about sitting on an airplane for three,
four or five hours listening to somebody else’s phone conversation.
People are very protective of their cell phones, how it’s used, where it’s
used and how much it costs. It has become a very personal issue for a whole lot of
people in this country.
As a trade association, we’re not in the business of shaping consumer
Demand. We respond to it. So, we’ll respond to demand whether that’s the
airline industry or individual consumers. Our goal is to say if there is a
demand for this type of technology — and we believe there is — then we’re
going to do everything we can to provide it. How that’s deployed, how that’s
used by the airlines, that’s up to them.
Q: Given the past problems in the cell phone industry with slamming,
contracts and billing, did it surprise you when some members of Congress
questioned the industry’s commitment to privacy when it proposed a national
411 directory?
Yes. When you look at whatever range of issues you want to talk about where
consumers have been harmed, I think there is a proper role for the
government to step in. My question to the Commerce Committee or the
Congress or to the FCC or to anybody else is, where is the harm in the
wireless industry?
customers. We’ve got vibrant competition, we’ve been lightly regulated and
we continue to offer more services and more minutes of use for a lower
price. I don’t see the harm. It’s kind of like, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I would say clearly the wireless industry has produced more positive results
and benefits for consumers than just about any other industry going. My
understanding is that a number of companies are continuing to move forward
[on the 411 directory].
Because of the lot of the misperceptions and misinformation about the 411
service, the carriers have a less aggressive time frame now. I think there
will be some carriers launching in 2005.
