STILL UPWARDLY MOBILE.

• Author: COOK, ERIQ
• Position: Colorado Springs Utilities using mobile data system - Statistical Data Included

WIRELESS REVOLUTION GOES ON DESPITE TECH DOWNTURN

IT TOOK MONEY, PERSEVERANCE, 15 MONTHS OF WORK AND A CHANGE OF WIRELESS SERVICE providers, but Colorado Springs Utilities finally got its mobile solution for field customer-service reps up and running last February. Seventy-five field workers who handle customer orders and requests use the Advantex mobile data system. All are equipped with truck-mounted Itronix XC-6250 ruggedized laptops, top-end machines that off the shelf could cost as much as $4,500 each. But Colorado Springs Utilities, which offers electric, gas, water and wastewater services to more than 500,000 customers, is happy with the investment. "Most of our savings are related to improvements in customer service and shortening of serviceorder cycle time," said Carey McGuire, project manager for the utility company Labor efficiencies also are gained between dispatchers and field technicians.

"As costs for mobile technologies continue to decline," said McGuire, "I see CSU continuing to use it." For now, that means mobile wireless, at least in Colorado Springs, is here for the long term.

Last December, ITech@ColoradoBiz took a look at the mobile world of computing, especially handheld devices, and reported that its future was bright.

But hard times in the tech sector have intervened, and technological revolutions of all kinds have gotten bogged down along with the rest of the nation's economy Have handhelds reached their Waterloo?

Not at all, most experts say "Quite the opposite," said Ryan Niemann, a Denver manager for Experio Solutions. "They're definitely expanding."

"There is a tremendous amount of interest and movement in mobile solutions," says Gary Rohr of iSherpa Capital, a Denver venture capital firm that focuses exclusively on wireless and supporting technologies. "The current issue is making these solutions robust and compelling enough that it drives an ROI (return on investment)."

Niemann, whose Dallas-based firm has 18 offices across the country, gets the same reaction from Experio's Denver customers.

"In the last year or so, companies that were very quick to market with mobile solutions are now beginning to focus on return," he said. Despite the downturn in tech-sector financial markets, mobile solutions and handheld devices continue to build a broad consumer and business audience.

Colorado Springs Utilities has just begun taking orders in the field through its mobile network, but the utility company's meter readers have been using handhelds since the mid 1980s, managers say The Denver-area Regional Transportation District uses mobile units to connect its more than 900 buses to dispatchers, and seven years ago put up a global positioning system for security reasons -- so police could locate buses quickly.

Rob Lewis, RTD'S chief information officer, said a year ago the district turned the same capability over to its riders -- at least those who own Palm Pilots. Commuters using a Palm can find real-time bus-location information through a Palm-specific Web site, enabling them to check whether their bus is on time even as they stand in the rain waiting at a bus stop.

In the health industry, some doctors are already using handheld devices to communicate with patients and pharmacists. Others...