HP, NTT DoCoMo Building video cell phone networks

San Jose, Ca. --- Hewlett-Packard and Japanese wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo are developing the world's first wireless telephone network equipment capable of streaming video simultaneously to millions of cell phones.

Network vendors are hoping that wireless video will be the killer app that boosts both the sluggish wireless market and the even more sonomulent general networking back to life.

While only about 2 percent of U.S. wireless phone subscribers use any wireless Web services, including picture messaging or downloading games, the Yankee Group, projects that by 2006, about 70 percent of all U.S. wireless users would be involved in some form of wireless Web surfing or game playing, with over-the-air video news highlights and wireless video conferencing among the services customers seem most to want.

To make this a reality, at least three U.S. carriers this year introduced "picture messaging" services, which use combination cell phone/cameras to send still photos to any other Web-enabled iappliance, phone or personal computer.

The HP and NTT DoCoMo effort is aimed at taking another step up by replacing still images with moving ones. The first steps in that direction has been the redesigning of the infrastructure equipment used to create content delivery networks (CDN), and plan to sell the gear to carriers and large companies once it is ready.

A CDN is a network of sometimes thousands of computer servers used to send data over the Web. Major customers of CDNs, like those run by Akamai Technologies, Inktomi and Centerspan Communications, include video-streaming companies that want help sending their data-rich streams over the Web. Internet service providers also use CDNs to unclog Web traffic jams.

One of the new features HP and DoCoMo have incorporated into their offering is software that automatically lets it share the work of sending a video to a cell phone. A a server overloaded with with requests for a video can automatically enlist the help of other servers that aren't as busy. The servers they are building are also designed to notice patterns, such as wen a certain video is being requested, and how often. The servers can then make sure to have the video on hand for the next time it is predicted there will be a similar crush.