CTIA
San Francisco, California
October 2004

This CTIA show was much smaller than I expected. It was held at Moscone center in San Francisco but it was mostly in one wing (Moscone West). Exhibits occupied the ground floor of this building. Many "usual suspects" had no or limited visibility, including: Cingular (small booth), and Sony Ericsson (GSM modules not handsets). But the show still provided a good networking opportunity for wireless industry executives and VC's. Some topics of interest:

• Qualcomm has made two recent acquisitions: one for delivery of video to handsets using video streaming technology, called MediaFlo, which will come in handy for the new 3G networks.
• Qualcomm has also acquired Iridigm, which is working on display screens that are cheaper to manufacture and use less battery. No one at the booth could talk about Iridigm.
• Location Based Services: A few announcements were made, including: Onion Information Services offering traffic management system using SMS, Pharos Science & Applications which provides portable GPS nav and LBS services selected NAVTEQ as a map data provider, Verizon wireless had a deal with GM onStar where Verizon sub's can call onStar in-vehicle system
• Email, messaging, etc: US operators announced agreement to provide MMS interoperability (about time!). Seven collaborated with PalmOne for email app on the new Treo 650.
• Others: Mobile Video is getting real hot in US with the launch of 3G data networks from operators, esp. CDMA EV-DO from Verizon in 16 cities and Sprint nationwide by mid 2005. MobiTV is a relative success with Sprint.
• Next killer App? Mobile video/TV/radio seems to get traction. There was also a lot of voice over WiFi, etc.
• Gaming: there were a few gaming companies featured as partners to operators.