Mobile IS Broadband by 2011

Mobile broadband will be the dominant broadband platform worldwide in 2011, according to Informa Telecoms & Media. There will be more than one billion broadband subscribers worldwide in 2011, with the majority using mobile rather than fixed networks.

Mobile broadband will be a "more than" $400 billion service revenues business in 2012, as a result. Of course, getting there will mean climbing a wall of end user resistance to mobile broadband pricing, research by Parks and Associates suggests. That might be especially true if mobile broadband winds up being a replacement for narrowband mobile access, rather than fixed mobile access.

HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) will be the leading mobile broadband technology by then in terms of number of subscribers, followed by EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized and mobile WiMAX.

"Mobile broadband will represent close to half of total mobile service revenues in 2012," says Mike Roberts, Informa analyst.

Paetec Buys Allworx

Paetec is acquiring Allworx Corp., a provider of IP-based PBX and key systems aimed at the small and medium business user. The transaction makes more sense in light of Paetec's recent merger with McLeod, whose customer base is largely anchored on smaller businesses use a single T1 connection at most sites. Paetec's historic customer base is a mid-market firm. So Allworx will make sense as a favored solution for McLeod customers more than for Paetec's historic base.

Based in East Rochester, N.Y., Allworx primarily uses Value Added Resellers as its sales channel. Paetec says it will continue to use VARs, as well as its extensive agent network, to introduce both Allworx services to Paetec customers while cross-selling Paetec connectivity services into the Allworx base.

The acquisition, set at $25 million, is interesting as it is not common to see communications "footprint" providers buying "application" providers. But more providers seem to be putting their money where their views are, as "moving up the stack" now is seen as necessary.

Level 3 has been buying content delivery assets, not simply termination assets or access assets, for example. That isn't to say all providers think this is the right strategy. Some continue to launch or extend Layer 2 connectivity businesses that deiberately remain focused on access to end user sites and transport within a metro area or region.

"People Have No Idea What We Might Be Up to"

Google's 80/20 program, where associates are encouraged to spend 20 percent of their time thinking up new things for Google to do, means Google "could do almost anything," says one source. Google just bought Jaiku, a mobile social networking and messaging service, and seems still to be hunting for experienced telecom executives and capacity, for example.

Google is going to be a player in mobile, it seems clear enough. The only issue is how it will play, and in how many ways.

Wal-Mart to Sell HughesNet Services

Need a little satellite broadband with your order? Wal-Mart customers will be able to buy HughesNet satellite broadband services soon. Sure, it is a niche. But there are lots of big niches in the communications business. About 10 percent of all U.S. end users live places where the local telephone company is not one of the big brand names. Also, for some of us, wireless is a good way to back up a primary wired broadband connection. In my case, Covad as a primary for primary in-home business and personal use, plus 3G wireless primarily for mobility, but also as the backup in case the primary service fails for any reason.

T-Mobile Goes Down

It wasn't your imagination: if you use T-Mobile data services, you had no connectivity for as much as four hours on Tuesday. Personally, I thought it was the coverage inside the convention center I am working inside of. Nope. There was an outage. I thought it was the BlackBerry server at one point. But no.

The latest outage just illustrates an important element of digital life: you really can't trust any service or application to remain "always available." Everything is going to crash, or be unusable, for some amount of time. So one either gets used to the idea of periodic outages, or if that isn't satisfactory, you are going to have to back up all your mission critical services, devices, data or applications. Personally, I don't worry too much about application diversity, though most of us have some of that. I do make sure broadband and mobile access, as well as computing devices, are redundant.

First 700 MHz Winner: AT&T

at&t is the first winner of the battle to win 700 MHz wireless spectrum. Not, of course, because it has won anything in the upcoming auctions for C block and other spectrum. Instead, at&t is acquiring $2.5 billion worth of wireless spectrum licenses covering 196 million people in the 700 MHz frequency from Aloha Partners.

The 12 MHz of spectrum covers all of the top-10 U.S, wireless market and 72 of the top 100 markets overall.

A Location Based Service Somebody Needs to Develop

As someone who spends lots of time at conferences and trade shows, and who randomly bumps into people, it occurs to me that one location-based service that would really be helpful is a way to have your mobile alert you when somebody you have been communicating with over a recent user-defined period is in your vicinity. The reason is simple enough: quite often one works with people for years without ever physically meeting them. And if the opportunity presents itself, one would like to stroll over and say hello.

The issue is that I don't know how well GPS will work when all of us are inside a large meeting hall. Bluetooth would help for short distances, I suppose. It might also be nice if the app could run in the background when synchronized with one's notebook or desktop and collect photos of your contacts, putting them into your contact database so you know roughly what the person you want to meet looks like.

For that matter, scouring public sources and putting a picture into my contact directory might also be nice if I weren't a Facebook user, which essentially provides that function.

Sprint Loses CEO; 337,000 Subs

Sprint Nextel says it expects to report a net loss of approximately 337,000 post-paid subscribers in the third quarter, and also announced the resignation of CEO Gary Forsee. Perhaps the company has spent too much time on the WiMAX network is hasn't yet built, and too little time stemming serious subscriber losses in the voice and third generation business it does have.

Help Us Figure Out What We Can Do with Wi-Fi: BT

To stimulate development of new applications using Wi-Fi hotspots, BT is running a contest with a £1000 prize for the best new Symbian-based mobile application. To enter the challenge, an application should make use of the device's Wi-Fi connection for some of its operation. Applications will be judged on the innovative use they make of Wi-Fi connectivity, how easy they are to use, and their commercial potential. There are smaller prizes for runners-up. The challenge is open from October 16 and the closing date for entries is January 16, 2008.

Vonage Settles with Sprint

Vonage has settled its Sprint Nextel Corp. patent infringement lawsuit for $80 million. As part of the settlement, all claims are resolved and Sprint has licensed to Vonage the Sprint portfolio of more than 100 patents covering the connection of calls between a regular telephone network and a packet-switched network such as the Internet.

The $80 million Vonage agreed to pay consists of $35 million for past use of the patents, $40 million for a fully paid future license, and $5 million in prepayment for services.

Vonage has maintained it has sufficient reserves to pay both the Verizon and Sprint Nextel patent infringement awards without long-term damage to its business model. There has been some speculation that the patent infringement damage awards would push Vonage over the edge into bankruptcy. The countervailing point of view has been that the patent disputes were a serious financial distraction but not alone capable of damaging Vonage's long-term prospects. More dangerous by far is the threat posed by cable providers bundling VoIP with video and broadband access services.

In that sense, EarthLink faces much the same problem. It has a reasonably-sized Internet access business that has to contend with triple play bundles as well, though EarthLink arguably has made better progress in creating a double play offering of broadband plus voice.

The settlement of the Sprint lawsuit is helpful primarily in removing a huge distraction and source of uncertainty.

Smartphones are Different; So are Users

If device choices are an accurate reflection of user preferences and behavior, there is a big different in use cases of BlackBerry and Palm devices. To wit, BlackBerry users seem quite fixated on business use, while Palm uses are much more likely to use their smartphones for managing details of their lives as consumers. Windows Mobile users also tend to use their smartphones more heavily in "personal" rather than "work" modes.

So personal considerations are more important factors in driving smartphone purchases and usage than you might suspect. Some 83 percent of consumers say they use their smartphones for personal reasons in some form or another. 71% of consumers tell researchers at Compete that they have a smartphone to stay organized in their personal life, while 46 percent say they use the devies to stay connected to work. Given that until now most smartphone makers have primarily focused on the business-user segment, these are surprising results, Compete researchers say.

att Tilt: A Small Reason Sprint is in Trouble

A decade ago, Nextel was the star of the U.S. mobile industry, with way-above-average revenues per subscriber based on its business user base. Today, Sprint Nextel is struggling to find its way. We point out the introduction by at&t of the new Tilt phone as an example of why Sprint Nextel is faltering. It isn't the technical performance of the phone, though it is among the "smartest" of smart phones available, or the form factor or the industrial design, though some will appreciate it.

Of course, it hasn't helped that Sprint still is struggling to get the separate Nextel and Sprint networks and technologies to mesh. But it might be argued that Nextel's market success now is a large reason for Sprint's undoing. The reason is simply that the gravitation pull of Nextel's business customer base might have defocused Sprint on the consumer-lead dynamic of the mobile phone market.

As with so many other elements of technology adoption these days, innovation is seeping into the market, and into the fabric of business life, from the consumer segment. And one might argue that Verizon, at&t (Cingular)and T-Mobile have done a better job, of late, of tapping into that dynamic.

As phones and mobiles increasingly have become fashion items, Verizon and at&t have seemed better able to capture the spirit. Perhaps in some largely unconscious fashion Sprint executives relied too heavily on the "pin drop" quality of the network, rather than offering fashion-forward devices.

That isn't to ignore technical parameters of the user experience. But most users realize that every network has some limitations, largely negating the "our network is better" positioning. Sprint has had to integrate two completely different air interfaces, to be sure. You might think "data network" when you think of Sprint. You aren't nearly as likely to think "cool phones." And that increasingly is what is driving the market these days.

The Tilt is the first at&t-enabled Windows Mobile 6 smart phone, and features a slide-out QWERTY keypad design, a 3-megapixel camera, 3G data speeds from AT&T's UMTS/HSDPA network and global connectivity.

Designed by HTC, the AT&T Tilt features a 2.8-inch color screen that slides back to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard, then tilts up to position the screen perfectly for reading and creating e-mail, browsing, watching videos or playing games.

The Tilt supports Bluetooth 2.0, which allows for up to six Bluetooth devices to be wirelessly connected simultaneously to the device and also supports Bluetooth Stereo.

The Tilt also features the latest version of TeleNav GPS Navigator and address sharing, which allows users to share their current locations or the location of their favorite businesses with other mobile users. Business users also can use TeleNav Track, a mobile workforce management solution that includes GPS-enabled tracking, timesheets, wireless forms, navigation, job dispatching and bar code scanning.

The Tilt also operates in Japan and Korea, as well as in 135 countries using the GSM air interface.

Wi-Fi is built in. The Tilt also comes with the highest-resolution camera available on any at&t mobile phone (3 megapixels). The device also accommodates 4GB MicroSD flash memory cards and is capable of supporting up to 32GB MicroSD cards to expand storage for pictures, video, music and more.

The at&t version of the Tilt also will be the first Windows Mobile device in North America to include BlackBerry Connect version 4.0 software, which provides BlackBerry email service, security and device management for IT administrators and the benefit for users of wireless synchronization of email, calendar, contacts, task list and memo pad information.

BlackBerry Connect v4.0 supports push email for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise through the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and personal email through the BlackBerry Internet Service.

Customers can also use the AT&T Tilt to access their personal email. Better than most devices, the Tilt bridges the business-focused BlackBerry segment with the media player personal device.

And that's the issue: people buy devices. The network and the plan just follow along.

Level 3 Provisioning Issues?

Level 3 Communications has made seven acquistions in the last 18 months, including Broadwing, part of the Savvis portfolio, TelCove, Looking Glass and ICG. Several of the buys related to its new content delivery network portfolio. But many of the sizable acquisitions are related to its core bandwidth business.

If you have been around the business long enough, you know what is happening in the back office. Disparate systems are running in parallel. Manual reports have to be built. Billing systems don't talk to each other. Inventory cannot be interrogated in real time. Provisioning backlogs are the inevitable result.

That is one possible reason Level 3 reported relatively light revenue and earnings growth in the most recent quarter. Demand for its services isn't the problem. If anything, in light of the back office issues, demand possibly is outstripping provisioning.

Any company would have at least some issues getting new customers provisioned efficiently were it to digest as many acquisitions as Level 3 has made recently. So we would not be surprised if the company is having issues getting the new customers onto the network.

In fact, it probably is safe to say that bandwidth in service has grown at an unprecedented level over the last year. If one looks at total in-service bandwidth provisioned by Level 3 in its entire history up to about 12 months ago, the amount of bandwidth in service probably has doubled again in the last 12 months.

That rate of growth would cause issues for any service provider. So we wouldn't be surprised if there was some hiccup in provisioning new orders. In fact, the backlog could be great enough that three months might have to pass before the provisioning teams can catch up. Level 3 wouldn't be the first company to have problems with too much success.

BT Tries to Differentiate its Access

One way to differentiate what might otherwise be a fairly ordinary broadband access service is to extend access from a "one site" service to a "hundreds of thousands of sites" service.

And that's what BT hopes will happen as it capitalizes on an exclusive deal with Fon to create a huge new network of hotspots in the U.K., based on three million BT broadband access accounts. BT had been headed in that direction anyway with its Openzone program. The BT Fon effort accelerates the WiFi footprint within the U.K., and also offers connections abroad.

Greater density also makes possible more ubiquitous dual-mode mobile phone usage: which is part of why the Wi-Fi initiative made sense in the first place.

Level 3 Attacks CDN Pricing

Level 3 Communications has been gearing up for a major assault on the content delivery networks business and appears ready to price such services at a rate that basically offers caching and downloading services for no more than the cost of buying IP transport. If, as expected, Level 3 prices content delivery at the same price as Ip transit, it could disrupt much of the market.

It isn't so much the disruption of profit margins: that already is happening as several dozen contestants now are slugging it out for some share of the growing market.

The bigger issue is how participants in the media, hosted applications and enterprise end user markets are able to change the way they do things if enhanced quality becomes an integral part of the IP transport they buy.

Level 3 hopes to have its streaming services ready by mid-November. At that point it will have a wider shot at disrupting the market for transport of real time services. Right now much of the market is focused on video content. But there are other real time applications and services that really would benefit from lower-priced and more capable delivery over networks that eliminate jitter and latency over the global wide area network.

Access networks on each end still are issues, but tail circuits also keep improving. As more applications move to "cloud-based" processing and storage, they will have to start having the "feel" of local desktop apps. CDNs will be part of that experience. And that's where the major impact will lie.