Anthony Lewis is Verizon's point person for new wireless ideas. About a year ago, Verizon announced that they would offer new options for using wireless not provided by the company's traditional approaches. They called their new approach “Open Development.”

 At the Dow Jones Wireless Innovations conference Lewis was asked: Just how really open is Verizon Wireless to new ideas?

Lewis says he is the person to talk with when you have a new wireless idea. His job is to find and bring on new devices, software, and customer offerings. Lewis claims he is supposed to discover just how far Verizon can take the concept of 'open'. He added that his boss reminded him that he is also supposed to make money for Verizon Wireless.

 IT Examiner asked Lewis: How does all this openness work? He said there are only three parts to the process of certification. First go to their website and contact Open Development's own team, which evaluates ideas and devices. That way the developer doesn't spend a lot of time trying to find the right person at Verizon. Lewis personally looks at every project that is proposed, because he wants to make a change in Verizon's corporate outlook on new devices and third party software developers.

Lewis says Open Development uses an independent testing laboratory to evaluate hardware to make sure it won't damage the network equipment or slow down network response times. This also ensures that Verizon doesn't make a prospective vendor waste time during the brief process of evaluation. ITExaminer asked: How brief? Lewis said most projects take less than five weeks to get onto the Verizon wireless network for live airtime trails, and some have even shorter waits.

Lewis told us that less than eight months after announcing Open Development, the first device to get certified was a Supplynet 'tank farm monitoring' system. In July 2008, the telemetry solution started delivering information to customers. It is 100 per cent wireless and battery operated, or battery backed-up, to minimise any dependencies on end-user infrastructure. The system allows suppliers of bulk materials to securely monitor inventories at customer locations and receive alerts when specific inventory levels are reached. Supplynet solutions are used by suppliers of bulk materials, such as Cargill and BASF, to extend VMI (vendor managed inventory) services to their customers.

Lewis then described the latest project to be certified: Calamp's Wimetry platform for meter reading and smart grid communications. Wimetry platform is an internet protocol-based, bidirectional wireless data concentrator designed for applications in the utility sector. Wimetry enables smart grid functions such as demand response, peak demand reduction, and other advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) applications via wireless networks. Lewis said that the Wimetry platform supports the latest in wireless 3G high-speed data communications and is backward compatible with existing EV-DO wireless networks.

Lewis was very excited about this project, because traditionally the public utilities have relied on LMR (land mobile radio) frequencies or 800MHz proprietary data networks with limited coverage areas. That meant the roll out of the smart meter and smart grid would take a very long time. Lewis said that Verizon is now covering remote locations with smaller populations using 3G EV-DO CDMA networks.

Backhaul and latency are always something to consider when creating a project for Open Development wireless, according to Lewis. He said that with Verizon's upcoming 4G LTE expansion, the old problems of slow data throughput will no longer be a problem. Cost factors will control what type of devices will be used for telemetric computer control and monitoring. Thus far, most of the projects have been text-based messaging. They have not installed any video-based projects. Lewis said for the developers to bring their futuristic ideas and find out how they work on Verizon's wireless data network, and what pricing model would be appropriate.

Lewis said that Verizon spent billions buying the 700MHz spectrum blocks. They are committed to using IP protocol along with LTE for their 4G network and are expanding their backhaul capacity. Lewis is committed to making inroads into new markets that have not been using wireless data transport. He said that Verizon can offer service levels including billing and customer support. Price points for enhanced service levels would be different than those for simply moving data bits from point A to point B.

One item that Verizon's Open Development team overlooked was its website's compatibility. IT Examiner found that the drop down menus only worked on Microsoft Internet Explorer, unlike the main Verizon Wireless website which worked with Safari, Firefox, Opera, and Mozilla's Suite. Possibly a bit of openness needs to be injected into the web design team. However, Open Development's promise has been realised by at least four major installations in completely different vertical marketplaces. The concept has great potential for expanding the number of independent devices on Verizon's wireless network. X

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