LAS VEGAS - T-Mobile and Verizon believe that the wireless industry will continue to grow indefinitely and will even contribute to turning around the economy as a whole.

The two carrier keynote speakers at the CTIA Wireless 2009: Mobile Life conference were introduced by Steve Largent, president/CEO of CTIA-The Wireless Association, who was also bullish on the state of the industry. He also announced the launch of Mywireless.org, a national grassroots organization that educates consumers and lobbies to fight wireless taxes and fees.

"The wireless industry is vibrant and we're seeing continued growth," Mr. Largent said. "It is a shining light in unfortunately troubled times, and we are playing a role in our nation's economic recovery."

Mr. Largent discussed industry statistics and the results of a Mywireless.org survey of wireless consumers.

There were more than 270 million total wireless subscribers in the U.S. at end of 2008, which represented an increase of 15 million.

U.S. consumers logged 2.2 trillion minutes of mobile-phone usage in 2008.

U.S. carriers saw an incredible spike in SMS traffic, with 1 trillion text messages sent last year, almost triple the 2007 figure. 620 billion of those were sent in the second half of the year.
Wireless revenue totaled $148 billion.

The Mywireless.org survey asked thousand people how they felt about their wireless services, and 94 percent said they were satisfied with it.

Seventy-four percent said that their wireless service was either an excellent or a good value, while 85 percent say cell phones make their life easier.

CTIA-The Wireless Association is backing a Congressional bill to impose a five-year moratorium on new discriminatory state and local wireless taxes (see story). Mywireless.org was formed to support that initiative.

T-Mobile USA
The first keynote address was a general overview of the industry, with plenty of plugs for T-Mobile USA products and services. The carrier's outlook is, not surprisingly, sunny.

"Today we as an industry are at a crossroads, with the rapid emergence of wireless data and every element of life looking to mobilize, from banking and shopping to gaming and entertainment," said Robert Dotson, current chairman of CTIA and president/CEO of T-Mobile USA. "I feel fortunate to work in truly vibrant industry with so much promise before us.

"While the global macro-economy is facing serious challenges that the wireless industry has not dealt with before, and suffice to say that these are tough times, the good news that the industry's continued growth suggests a brighter, more prosperous tomorrow, and we know it's coming sooner rather than later," he said.

"I am incredibly optimistic about the future of our industry, regardless of good or bad headlines, because ours is an industry that shapes tomorrow, and wireless embodies America's can-do spirit, which will move our nation forward."

Mr. Dotson quoted a speech by President Obama calling on all Americans to meet our challenges head on, and he suggested that there is no one better to answer that call than the wireless industry.

"We can play a key role in helping our country and our world emerge from the current economic circumstances, using the entrepreneurial spirit of the wireless industry to innovate," Mr. Dotson said. "We have to demonstrate how much we truly care for individual customers and show the benefits of a ?mobile life,' which is the theme of CTIA 2009."

By year's end, wireless data will be a $40 billion market, according to a study cited by T-Mobile

The U.S. ranks as the largest wireless data market in the world, largely due to the prevalence of text messaging and the growing popularity of smartphones.

Mobile applications are a new, important area of growth, and mobile applications stores will drive content to 300 devices by 2013, according to Juniper Research.

ShopSavvy is a comparison shopping application for the T-Mobile G1 with Google that can read UPC codes. More than a million customers have downloaded it, according to T-Mobile.

"Open OS platforms like Android make it not only possible but easy to work with the biggest players in the industry," Mr. Dotson said. "We're both collaborating and competing at the same time, and this represents the single biggest period of innovation in our industry since the launch of the very first Motorola handset.

"We want to foster an environment for open mobile innovation to create value-added services, and entrepreneurs and garage geniuses will drive that innovation," he said. "There is tremendous demand for 3G smartphones like the G1, and 80 percent of G1 customers browse the Internet on a daily basis and consumers 50 times the data of a typical subscriber."

Mr. Dotson touted the impending impact of HSPA Plus technology and the LTE next-generation mobile network.

He stressed that the government needs to use a light regulatory touch for the industry's success to continue.

Mr. Dotson was supportive of a piece of President Obama's stimulus program dedicated to expanding wireless broadband coverage to make sure everyone can experience it, even in rural areas.

"Wireless broadband is the great economic equalizer, allowing small businesses and consumers to instantly connect regardless of the device at their fingertips," Mr. Dotson said. "We are one of the few good news stories when we keep hearing about all of these industries in turmoil.

"People are cutting back in so many areas, but one area they're not cutting back is staying connected via their mobile phone," he said. "The future is bright, and the opportunity is before us to hold fast to the courage of our convictions and take a step forward together as an industry of innovators."

Verizon Communications
Verizon Communications partners with Vodafone to run Verizon Wireless. Its keynote focused on trends in the wireless industry.

"The wireless industry is innovating around new products, services and applications to grow and increase the value proposition for consumers and meshing wireless ever more deeply into people's lives," said Ivan Seidenberg, chairman/CEO of Verizon Communications. "Mobile is a way of life, and the wireless device is the most ubiquitous communications device and a third screen for entertainment.

"The next wave of innovation is complete broadband, and here in the U.S. wireless companies have invested more than 20 billion in its development, and our partners billions more on operating systems, software, chips, handsets and applications to deliver to our customers," he said. "We are a vibrant $800 billion global industry, and a new business model is evolving to make the next 25 years every bit as dynamic as the first 25.

"We are big believers in broadband, which will transform the old analog model."

A Nielsen study found that the average American spends more than five hours a day watching TV and one hour a day surfing the Internet, but only uses their mobile phone an average of 26 minutes a day.

"If we can move even a modest amount of that usage to mobile, we'll have lots of headroom to grow," Mr. Seidenberg said. "Mobile phone connects people, and wireless will connect everything -- people to people, people to machines and machines to other machines."

Data already accounts for $1.4 billion in wireless revenues. Sales of smartphones are growing 30 percent each year and will account for one out of every three phone sales by 2011.

"That challenges the conventional wisdom of the growth potential of wireless industry, which caps it at 100 penetration, meaning everyone has a phone, but you can go beyond 100 as people use more than one device," Mr Seidenberg said. "Wireless Web next-gen technology will bring about the opportunity to explode penetration to three, four or five hundred percent.

"It is not only possible, it is probable," he said. "4G networks such as LTE, which is emerging as the global standard, will increase speed by 8 or 10 times, driving exponential growth of data traffic and take the industry to next level of growth."

Verizon plans to roll out LTE to between 25 and 30 markets in 2010.

Verizon's vision for the future? TVs, PCs and mobile devices will be able to interact, sharing applications and moving content seamlessly between devices.

Verizon shared its competitor's optimism regarding the current economic climate.

"The mobile phone is becoming less like a product and more like an extension of our everyday lives," Mr. Seiderberg said. "We're approaching a tipping point that will unleash the next wave of wireless growth.

"One study estimates that productivity and improvements from wireless services that exist today will be $900 billion, and we hope to prove that estimate conservative," he said. "We all know that wireless innovation has been part of the foundation of our country's prosperity for 25 years, and we need to take the lead as we put our economy back on the path to growth.

"We are a very fortunate industry, offering products and services that are indispensible to our customers' lives -- we offer technology that can make our society more productive, equitable and richer with possibilities."