Opinion: The 21st Century CTIA

September 11, 2014

By Ernest Worthman —

September 11, 2014 — Having attended CTIA since the early 1990s, I have many years, and many hard-earned aisle-miles of this show under my belt. One of the things I like most about the show is the progressive evolution it has shown over the last few years. This reflects the hyper-pace of change in the, as I like to call it, personal communications space, and CTIA brings it on with a flare.

To wit, this year there seems to be an explosion of the retail segment. Literally, dozens of exhibitor showing consumer products – and from many different walks of the cellular universe. There was a retail zone, a Chinese manufactures pavilion, a repair and refurbish zone, as well as products and services from third party resellers and value added services. There was the connected car, something that will certainly come on strong in the next couple of years, and a strong showing of the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M). A far cry from the CTIA of only a few years ago.

And there were cutting edge technology players, as well. For example, there was Genband, which has taken on the challenge of addressing the myriad disparate, open-access technologies such as Wi-Fi. They have developed a small cell, secure (and the operative word here is secure) gateway that will tame the Wild West of unlicensed Wi-Fi, and morph it into a secure beast that can be integrated into the core mobile network – a challenge that has eluded many attempts, so far.

There are other non-traditional wireless players coming onto the small cell space as well. For example, there were SAP, Aeris, SeeControl, IIS, and others, which are taking on the challenges of technology integration for the new networked world.

But, as a gadget freak and ubergeek, my favorite time is spent checking out the gadgets – the cool factor of cellular – that have spawned to take advantage of the cell phone as it grown into a media center.

One of the coolest things I saw was an attempt by something called “#IamWrestling” to brand wireless connectivity to the sport by offering wireless accessories for brand recognition. The accessories were nothing too special, but the fact that they had a wrist band that was a cell phone charger cable is ingenious. And the promotion was out of this world, music, two awesome wrestlers and just a great assortment of connectivity accessories. It shows the impact wireless can have on just about everything.

Then there was a creative little device called a sound pocket (soundpockets.com). It attached to your phone as a sort of “phone backpack” that slid onto the back of the phone for keeping your earphones neat and readily available. It also could hold ID and money. And all with little increase in smartphone footprint.

Another really cool accessory was called the “speed cup” It was a coffee cup-shaped object with a speaker and connectivity to your device. It sat in your vehicle cup holder and could be used for music, or a speakerphone (qlw.net). Along those same lines was the Bass Egg. A rather old technology adapted to Bluetooth that turns just about any flat surface into a rockin’ speaker for your smart device (bassegg,com)

There were so many more gadgets, like external, power sources in a variety of shapes and sizes, shatter-resistant screen protectors (Qnitro), innovative cases (roocase.com/) and RedPocket, a neat, lightweight foam phone/table stand. Some were so new that the company doesn’t have a website yet.

Finally, there was bling, bling and more bling – in the form of phone cases, holders, chargers, cables, connectors and just about everything else. It was a sure sign that China has found the sweet spot of the American teenager.

Well, I am out of time and out of space. I can’t wait until next year … see you in 2015, same place, and time.

From CTIA, 2014

Ernest Worthman
Executive Editor, Small Cell Magazine