Notes and musings from the CTIA wireless show

There’s more entertainment than ever on cell phones, but oddly enough, some of the flash was gone from the CTIA Wireless trade show this year. No rappers at the keynote sessions. Even the barely relevant sports stars that CTIA President and CEO (and ex-football star) Steve Largent used to bring in were absent. AT&T’s Cingular unit didn’t bring in a live rock band for its annual press luncheon, as it did last year to unveil a partnership with MySpace. TV and music was all the carriers and content providers could talk about this year, yet who were the special guests? Former presidents Bush and Clinton. Maybe the cellular people figure they’ve already earned their pop credentials by now.

The entertainment industry was well represented, though, including by Viacom President and CEO Philippe Dauman and EMI Group CEO Eric Nicoli, who gave keynotes on Wednesday. Why is it that middle-aged American executives sound square and out of their element when they talk about hip shows and musical artists, but British ones like Nicoli seem cool?

It was the perfect setting for trying out a TV phone, and Verizon was kind enough to oblige by lending some other journalists and me Samsung SCH-U620 handsets for the duration of the show. The U620 supports Verizon’s VCast Mobile TV service, which went live in Orlando during the show and is already in about 20 other cities. VCast Mobile TV comes over a separate network from Verizon’s 3G system. It’s just like regular TV, broadcast in real time.

Reception was generally good, though the TV required a thin little antenna that you pull out of the side of the phone. The antenna seemed so delicate I felt I had to handle the phone gently. When I changed channels, the audio and the program name at the bottom of the screen changed instantly, but there was an unnerving lag of two seconds or so before the video switched over. However, the biggest issue was content. All of it was from commercial network and cable TV, but there are only eight channels. That generally meant a single sports show, one or two news shows, and a handful of pure entertainment shows at any given time. When surfing around for something good, I was dismayed at how soon I got back to the channel I’d started on. Plus, some of the shows were interrupted by commercials. A basic plan with eight channels costs $15 a month.

Nortel’s sizable booth on the show floor featured plenty of the company’s infrastructure products for mobile carriers, and there were a lot of people checking them out when I visited. The design probably made the operators feel at ease. Most of the displays were in a large rectangular space surrounded by a partition made of simulated brick reminiscent of a walled garden.

Orlando was certainly a fitting place for the show, given its consumer and entertainment orientation. The home of Walt Disney World is rife with theme parks, including Sea World, which was less than a five-minute drive from the show floor at the Orange County Convention Center. The stretch of International Drive where the center is located is lined with theme restaurants and vacation-oriented retail stores as well as an upside-down building called WonderWorks, which has interactive science exhibits and bills itself as an “amusement park for the mind.” Even straight-laced research company IDC resorted to holding its traditional CTIA briefing breakfast in a bar. On stage and bathed in blacklight, analysts turned the Glo Lounge into a workplace for the mind at 8 a.m. sharp.

Some kind of embarrassing glitch early in the show turned the press room into the CTIA Wireline show. Although the room was pretty well equipped with Ethernet cables for reporters to use, the Wi-Fi signal was almost nonexistent. Fortunately, the technical staff came in and had things worked out by Wednesday morning. Wi-Fi coverage overall was excellent around the show as a whole … making the 3G networks being promoted there unnecessary.