As the only Bell carrier without a wireless arm, Qwest Communications can claim a unique intersection with the wireless world and a unique view of the technologies and trends now bridging the wireless and wireline worlds. In the first part of a two-part interview, Qwest’s Chief Technology Officer Pieter Poll explores this terrain, lending his views on a range of pertinent technology issues, including femtocells, open access, fixed-mobile convergence, wireless broadband and more.

On femtocells: Femtocell is a great solution for addressing, first of all, wireless signal or capacity issues. Putting a cell cite in a business or home and using some form of backhaul over an IP network (in most cases the Internet) makes a lot of sense and doesn’t require you to move into a different handset environment where you’re now required to do something between traditional wireless protocols and frequencies and things like WiFi or variations thereof in the home or business. That’s the first part. By itself, that only gives you reach.

The next thing people look at when they think of femtocells is to say: Okay, I can easily create a billing environment around that that effectively allows me to offer fixed mobile convergence. That’s a fairly powerful concept -- a way of doing FMC that gives the customer the flexibility of using a handset they’re comfortable with. It speaks very well to convergence in that end device rather than having something that is more WiFi-oriented, separate and distinct from a technology that I use going out the door.

That’s obviously not the only way we can do FMC. There are plenty of operators out there looking at these true dual-mode handsets that will operate between WiFi and traditional cell types of networks. They have advantages as well. Using WiFi in the home is potentially a lower cost option than going out with a femtocell. There are some cost puts and takes, but technologies like this ultimately speak to the desire to create convergence for the end user. That’s really the right way to focus at that.

On open access: There are two degrees of open access that we talk about. Most wireless carriers have come out with basically an open development environment that you can develop on an existing handset according to a set of rules, or you can bring your own handset to the network and wholesale the RF and the associated services with that. Probably the poster-child example in the industry is the iPhone and Apple encouraging apps to be written into the iPhone subject to some guidelines that both wireless carriers would impose to protect the network and that Apple would impose to protect the integrity of the device. We’ve also heard of companies coming out with sort of open OSS in the wireless environment, so I now have a platform I can develop on. It speaks to providing capabilities to third parties that really allow you to leverage the power of that third party. It’s essentially applying the PC model to the wireless network, where wireless carriers at one point were saying, ‘I want to lock down value,’ [because] maybe they were concerned about the value or the integrity of the handset or the communication of the network. It’s backing off that, saying, ‘No, now we’ll have third parties really bring rich apps in place but always subject to constraints that really are about protecting the network--for example, about the use of bandwidth.’ I think it’s a great trend.

Those are clearly avenues whereby Qwest could bridge the value of wireless networks with the convergence of other communications services. The value for Qwest’s customers is how we and third parties are able to orchestrate those things coming together. That clearly is the larger intent of open access in the wireless world. It’s not just Qwest’s business model, it’s a business model around creating value for a whole lot of players. If the question is would Qwest use these types of technologies, yes, absolutely. If they made things simple and allowed us to use partners, we will use them.

On the wireless broadband: If you look at the calculation of what wireless networks can provide in terms of bandwidth, it’s a bit-per-second-per-hertz argument, first of all--the efficiency of how you use spectrum. But ultimately [it’s] finite spectrum. With a number of users. As you build networks, there’s a natural density of cells or reuse that you can get to. I don’t see wireless networks replacing wired broadband networks the way people are thinking about future wired broadband networks. Don’t get me wrong; I’m very excited about what wireless broadband offers today and will offer in the future. But I think it has its appropriate place for the reuse and speed offered. When we start thinking about things we can do in the home with extreme speeds, those are things you will not be able to realistically do over wireless networks, at least at any cost point that an operator would consider feasible.

On in-home integration: When you’re bringing multiple services together--a VOD stream by an IP network, a satellite stream for linear [video] as well as some VOD content, with DVR functions in there—you do not want to get to two separate worlds. We want a unified interface. We’re working hard at Qwest to figure out what the interface or interfaces might look like that would do that. As you get into some of the technical challenges, you’ve got the obvious one of developing separate interfaces with partners that are not only partnering with you, they have their own businesses or other partnerships. You don’t want to have to create a look and feel everywhere you go. You have to make sure that content protection, DRM and so on, is inherent in that. You can take things from one source and put it someplace else, but you have to make sure you’re protecting the content the way the owners of that content would expect. There are lots of technical and business issues to work through, but Qwest and its partners are convinced of the value of simplicity in the interface that converges these together.

On in-home networking: The set-top box is associated with a big screen, the TV. It integrates linear TV, DVR and VOD in one place. There are pushes toward whole-house DVRs which allow you to go to other screens. What you don’t have is a great way to integrate other devices: the PC screens--which in principal are still just screens with a little different intelligence behind them--mobile handsets and any other devices. The larger thing Qwest is trying to get to is a unifying experience around all the devices we may have. The simple application—I’m watching the news, but suddenly I’ve got to get out the door and get on a bus and go to work. In that case, I’d like to pause and hand off that session to a mobile device. I’m looking for integration with the mobility world around content, and I want a similar look and feel for that content. Someone that has their own wireless network could look at a level of technology integration that they may choose not to open up to others. But the larger issue of open networking and the power of third parties creates the environment where this is possible. On the wireless device, if I have a client and a data pipe, I’m able to do [the hand off to the bus ride that] I just described. There are other technical ways to do that, technical umbrellas in terms of convergence technologies between, in this case, wireless, wireline and video. But I really go back to my concept of betting on the Internet. Central to the Internet is the openness of applications that you want to provide, and a mobile phone is an Internet device today.

Part Two of this interview will follow soon, featuring Mr. Poll’s views on VDSL2 bonding and Provider Backbone Transport.