Ken Dulaney, vice president of mobile computing at The Gartner Group, a consulting firm in Stamford, Connecticut said the information gleaned from the shuttle mission could potentially help the burgeoning cellular market keep up with customer growth.
The key ingredient in making the new data from the shuttle work for the industry is putting it into software that phone companies can use, Dulaney said. "Being able to deal with problems by computer instead of on-site will save a lot on manpower," he added.
But the mission, sponsored by NASA, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the German Aerospace Center and the Italian Space Agency, seems to have escaped notice by some of the cellular industry's biggest players. Most are taking a wait-and-see attitude.
"We already get the information we need from the USGC [United States Geological Survey]," said Ken Woo, a spokesman for AT&T Wireless in Redmond, Washington.
The mission won't help AT&T much, Woo said, because when the company plans for cell phone towers, it uses information that is more "ground-centric than aerial."
Cellular One in Philadelphia isn't overly excited either.
"It's hard for me to comment on it, because I don't know much about it," said Lisa Ward, a company spokeswoman. "We have a strong network [of cell towers] that we update constantly, taking into account zoning laws, existing structures and aesthetics."
A few industry analysts shrugged off the potential impact.
"It could possibly help in giving them more information of where blind spots are," said David Freeman of the investment firm Bear, Stearns in New York City. "But I am not sure that [cell phone firms] even need information that is nine times more detailed."
Some say the bigger concern for cell phone companies is in keeping tabs on their ever-mobile customers.
"The issue is not where these towers should be placed, but where things are moving," said Ted Kreines, a consultant in Tiburon, California who helps cities and counties plan for cellular towers.
Demand for cell phones is never in the same place since the world's population is increasingly on the move, he said. That means there need to be more, not less, towers put in place.
In any event, the trend is toward smaller, less intrusive towers to keep up with demand. That makes placement of the towers a non-issue, as Kreines sees it.
"It all comes down to people, not technology," he said.
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