AT&T's Coursey Puts Wireless under the Microscope

In his keynote speech this morning at the 4GWE event co-located with ITEXPO West in Austin, Cameron Coursey of AT&T's Emerging Devices Organization drew some parallels between human DNA and wireless.

The first had to do with the wide reach of both a DNA strand and wireless subscribership. The second was his astute observation that humans share 50 percent of the same DNA found in bananas – and that the logo of wireless carrier Sprint is yellow. It seems that AT&T’s AVP of Product Realization was getting at the fact that, like the human body, the wireless industry relies on a complex system of components that require everything to work together.

He talked about all the components within a wireless device, includes a radio, which usually has multiple capabilities to support different air interfaces and technologies; a wafer-thin radio module including a baseband chipset, RF components and other functionality all in one package; a display, which must be designed correctly and tested to ensure it doesn’t adversely impact the radio’s operations or drain battery life; and processors, which continue to grow more and more powerful with the advent of dual- and quad-core processors; and the battery.

Coursey said all of the above have to be designed and integrated correctly, and that AT&T tests for that to ensure products work as promised. AT&T’s device certification team already has certified more than 1,000 devices, he said.

Of course, the radio access network and core network also require careful design, integration and testing (both in the lab and in the field), given the variety of vendor gear involved, he added. And then you need to ensure that applications play nicely with the network.

Coursey added the trends on the application side include HTML5, the cloud and open APIs. He said AT&T is very engaged in HTML5, which it sees as a good way to lower the barrier to app development.

AT&T is looking for “the next big thing,” he continued. “We don’t know what the next big thing is,” he said. “We want the ecosystem to figure it out, and we’ll help shape it.”

Previous to his current position at AT&T, Coursey from December 2004 to April 2009 was executive director of subscriber product engineering within the CTO’s organization of AT&T and Cingular Wireless. In that capacity, he oversaw the technical requirements development, certification, and post-launch technical support for wireless devices and smart cards used on AT&T's domestic wireless network.

For more on AT&T’s Emerging Devices Organization, check out this 2009 INTERNET TELEPHONY feature on M2M.

Want to learn more about 4G wireless technologies? Then be sure to attend the 4GWE Conference, collocated with TMC’s ITEXPO West 2011, happening now, in Austin, Texas. The 4GWE Conference provides unmatched networking opportunities and a robust conference program representing the wireless ecosystem. The conference not only brings together the best and brightest in the wireless industry, it actually spans the communications and technology industry. To register, click here.

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