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Vodafone joins BlackBerry club; but Mobitex is dubious ...

BlackBerry dominates wireless data in the US; it is, so far, struggling to make an impact through Cellnet/mmo2 in the UK, even with the support of Information Builders to provide web services remotely. Can Vodafone turn this around?

So far, the BlackBerry is a US-only success story, and a slow takeup in Europe must prompt the "sleeping giant" of UK mobile data networks, Mobitex, into wondering if it might be able to do better. Expect to see several informative "briefings" in the media in the near future - here, as well as elsewhere! - from Transcomm CEO, Andrew Fitton, who is also President of the Mobitex Operators Association. He can be expected to question whether GPRS is, really, suitable for corporate data networking - or whether the older packet-switch technology might, after all, have some life in it.

In America, where the Research In Motion (RIM) BlackBerry is the country's favourite mobile data toy after the pager, its data is carried, not by 3G wireless, nor by WiFi hotspots, nor by ordinary GSM or GPRS - instead, it runs on the Mobitex packet switching network. In the UK, however, it is carried only on GPRS, supported by mmo2 and, now, by Vodafone.

Vodafone UK has signed an agreement with RIM to sell the BlackBerry wireless email solution in the UK, in parallel with the Cellnet Genie service under which it was launched. Vodafone users - corporate customers only! - will be able to get shipments from June this year. On the face of it, this is a triumph for RIM - marking general acceptance from the UK's two biggest cellphone network operators.

In fact, there are ominous rumblings from behind the scenes.

BlackBerry was only launched into Europe around Christmas; and nobody who knew how it worked, actually expected the RIM system to explode into the UK market straight away.

The main problem it faces is that, unlike other pocket computer devices, the BlackBerry is useless without a complex corporate infrastructure and a wide-spread mobile data network, both carefully configured. You can't just take one from Carphone Warehouse, switch it on, and expect it to work the way a Palm Pilot will just work, or the way an HP Jornada or Compaq iPaq will just work.

The corporate support structure isn't a quick fix, but there are serious players like Information Builders to provide database and web service access. The real problem, however, is that, despite a lot of hype, the underlying GPRS network on which BlackBerry depends, is still pretty chancey. In particular, it has proved pretty difficult to get roaming to work correctly. And corporate mobile data users don't take kindly to discovering that their expensive mobile email system won't work outside their home country.

Vodafone, relatively late to announce a GSM-based "always-on" data service, is now enthusiastically promoting BlackBerry as a way of accessing corporate email over Vodafone's GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) network. And it desperately wants to boost its GPRS revenues.

It hopes to score by making the roaming option work properly; it has announced that "BlackBerry users will be able to take advantage of Vodafone's GPRS roaming capability across 14 European countries, enabling them to maintain their link to their corporate inbox while abroad."

Vodafone plans to initially offer the service with support for Microsoft Exchange with Lotus Domino to follow soon afterwards.

However, the Mobitex network probably still carries more wireless data packets around even in the UK, than all GPRS access methods combined; and it remains staunchly sceptical about GPRS.

Mbitex users have focused on today's announcement by One2One, which has said it will delay the launch of its GPRS service because of concerns about the underlying technology. "The company said it will now offer the services later this year but declined to give a firm date," reports the Mobitex Operators Association, quoting a One2One spokesman as saying: "We're still not 100% happy with handsets or applications, so there's no fixed date. At this point we don't think it's ready."

The company, observes the MOA, "has a long history of failing to meet its own promises about GPRS." And there are examples of exaggerated predictions about when GPRS would emerge from One2One - going back some years - including a promise to launch in 2000, running at speeds of 170 kilobits per second.

All this is meat and drink to Transcomm, which runs the Mobitex service in Europe, and is reported to be under pressure from corporate customers to support the RIM device in the UK too.

It wouldn't be a simple decision; the US Mobitex network isn't compatible with the one in the UK - it uses different wireless frequencies - and RIM itself is quite keen to switch to GPRS and GSM standards in order to reach a world market. Transcomm, however, is moving behind the scenes, stirring it up gently, and trying to persuade RIM that this decision may have been misguided.

We hope to bring you an interview with Andrew Fitton within the week, on the Newswireless Net.