Android Creates Instant Developer Community

One of the big problems a communications service provider faces is how to leverage the creativity of the Web and apps community to drive service innovation which carriers frankly are ill equipped to undertake. Android basically solves that problem. Developers respond to big opportunities and that is what Android now represents: a chance to develop apps for mobile operators representing 40-some-odd percent of the U.S. mobile population, virtually all of China, one of the fastest-growing global markets, plus the two dominant providers in the trendy Japanese market plus Spain, Germany and Italy, just for starters.

That's an instant and massive developer community at a time when every major communications service provider needs such a developer community allied to it. Google may well disrupt. It also is going to help carriers move ahead on the innovation front in a way impossible on their own.

To the extent that most innovations and applications are going to come from the independent developer community--not from the carriers--this is a very big deal indeed.

That isn't to underplay the role played by developers working for Microsoft or Symbian, either. It's just that leveraging the Linux community adds even more intellectual capital, and capital that heretofore hadn't been deployed to enrich mobile Web apps.

Will Android Disrupt PCs?

Though most of the speculation about Android's impact concerns what might happen with mobile apps on mobile devices, mobile Web, mobile carriers and device manufacturers, there are other angles. Let's assume lots of apps start to get developed around Android. Then assume people really do start spending lots more time with Web apps of various types on their hand held devices, even if today that does not seem to be common.

Once those apps are written, will they start to port to PCs? After all, any app well-enough written to run on a mobile with severe display and input capabilities, compared to a PC, might be fun to use even on a PC that suffers from none of those limitations. Basically, anything Android runs can appear as a widget on a desktop or laptop. Widgets are fun. They are personal. They are customized. They are easy to add and delete. They don't require lots of thinking, processing or storage.

Of course, that might have really serious implications for PC operating systems. In a new way, we might see yet another iteration of the thin client approach to applications. In essence, that is what software as a service is all about. Android just might change the paradigm for PCs, since it essentially will assume services are in the cloud. It will take a while before we can determine whether this is realistic or not.

Google has argued Android and its ecosystem might lead to ad-supported devices. Might it also someday lead to a resurgence of interest in thin client PCs? Microsoft will hope not. But network-centric participants in the communications and entertainment industries might see new possibilities.

Photo by Andy Voss at the BroadSoft Connections conference. Can you figure out why I think thin client and mobile Web access seems promising, even when multiple mobile smart and feature phones are in the quiver? I have an office and a desk. I just don't use them, even when able to use the "office." A nice view of the animals and the vegetation is much better, so long as I have power and wireless access of one sort or another.

Google Issues: att and Verizon

Google hopes to do to the mobile market what it has helped do to the traditional Internet: bring people closer to content. At an important level, that means Web apps surfing on a mobile should have a consistent, if not identical experience, as the same operation on a notebook or desktop PC.

In that regard, Google is engaged in a genuine coopetition: it needs legacy carriers as partners even as it competes with them. And every potential partner knows that what is good for Google might not be good for anybody else.

Google already has jumpstarted its effort in a big way, picking up China Telecom, NTT and KDDI, plus Sprint and T-Mobile in the U.S. market, T-Mobile Deutschland, Telefonica in Spain and Telecom Italia right at the gate. That gives Google carrier agreements Apple and Microsoft never got that fast. And Google's operating system and platform now are global from the get-go.

That means the carrier blockade is broken. Verizon and at&t might or might not join up with the Android effort. But they no longer can stop it.

Of course, Google will proceed on multiple fronts. It won't get where it wants by forcing everybody to use Android. So it will work with carriers when it can, or work around them if it has to. From a stategic perspective, Google wants its apps and experiences on every device, if possible, with or without Android.

Which means some accommodation with at&t and Verizon is possible, indeed likely, at some point. If Android gets traction at Sprint and T-Mobile, not to mention elsewhere, neither of the two largest providers will want to be frozen out of the action.

And that will be true even if Google ultimately emerges as part of a bidding group, perhaps even a winning group, in the 700 MHz spectrum. There are lots of stakeholders who gain if a robust mobile Web experience can be created. Not the least of which are firmware, chip and software providers from the legacy PC space (Microsoft being the salient exception, as it already is a major and growing mobile OS and application provider.

We should preclude nothing at this point, in terms of Google becoming an owner, at least in part, of a major broadband network; producing its own branded devices; getting "top of the deck" exposure on other devices and operating systems or other as-yet-to-be-developed ways.

Google is determined to be a force in mobile and it has lots of ways to proceed, simultaneously. If its gets what it wants, it won't need its own network, devices or apps. Others will do those things. If Google doesn't get what it wants from others, then it will have to consider creating those capabilities itself. Either way, Google in the game for good.

The only unfolding issue is how a complex set of relationships unfolds. Those who want Google to disrupt less will find that their own actions can help tip Google one way or the other. The same holds true for those who might want Google to disrupt more. If they are willing to commit their own capital, they can nudge Google in that direction.

And keep in mind: major technological innovations tend to achieve less in the near term than most think, but far more in the long term than observers expect.

Good News for Sprint

It's a good thing for Sprint that it is working with Google on a Gphone probably available next year. It might not help with Nextel churn, but it will increase Sprint's attractiveness as a provider of CDMA-based Web devices, which is what I believe the new category will shake out to be. Sprint long has prided itself as a provider of advanced mobile data services so this was almost a "must."

It will be a very tough choice, but I still think Sprint has to proceed with the WiMAX rollout and think seriously about divesting Nextel if that is what it takes. Nextel used to lead the industry in ARPU by quite some measure, but the delta is pretty small, and declining. If that was the reason for the buy, I'm not sure it makes much sense anymore. WiMAX is a better strategic use of capital, and Sprint already is working with Google on that front, in terms of optimizing Web application performance. Well, Google apps at least. But those are some of the more important Web apps overall.

As someone who uses services and devices from at&t, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint, Sprint has for some time been on the "switch these two phones to somebody else" list. Right now, the issue is simply that the old plan we use is so cheap, relative to the others, that we put up with the service.

But Sprint's devices are the lightest-used of all the other services, so it is a reasonable trade-off. Also, my wife is such a light user that she doesn't care about features other than "calling." I won't buy phones that don't use SIMs. Data cards suffer from no such criteria, which explains Verizon. Still, I can't see using four providers in 12 months time.

But that's just me. Being part of the Google ecosystem is a good thing for Sprint.

Google Says "No Phone" Right Now

Andy Rubin, Google Director of Mobile Platforms says Google is not announcing today a Gphone. Google has announced the Open Handset Alliance and Android.

Android is an open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications.

The Open Handset Alliance consists of more than 30 technology and mobile leaders including Motorola, Qualcomm, HTC, Sprint and T-Mobile.

The phones will also be available through the world’s largest mobile operator, China Telecom, with 332 million subscribers in China, and the leading carriers in Japan, NTT DoCoMo and KDDI, as well as T-Mobile in Germany, Telecom Italia in Italy and Telefónica in Spain.

"We recognize that many among the multitude of mobile users around the world do not and may never have an Android-based phone," says Rubin. So Google will work to ensure that its services are independent of device or even platform. "For this reason, Android will complement, but not replace, our longstanding mobile strategy of developing useful and compelling mobile services and driving adoption of these products through partnerships with handset manufacturers and mobile operators around the world."

The software developer kit is expected in about a week. Phones built on Android will be available in the second half of 2008.

Global Broadband Access Prices

Average prices in October 2007, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In the U.S. market, speeds keep going up and prices down.

Charter Communications, for example, will be upgrading speeds in most of its markets over the next three-to-four months. Charter's 3 Mbps tier will be bumped to 5 Mbps, the 5 Mbps service will be upgraded to 10 Mbps service and the company's 10 Mbps tier will be boosted to 16 Mbps downstream and 2 Mbps upstream. Prices apparently will vary by market.

Verizon in October launched a new tier of symmetric internet access service over its FiOS network that increases upstream and downstream speed up to 20 Mbps.

Why Google Will Be a Mobile Force

Google is poised to charge the mobile Web applications for a very simple reason. Mobile advertising is an ad-supported medium it hasn't yet begun to dominate. Second, Google dominates Web applications, period, according to Net Applications.

And if you believe the mobile Web will be THE Web for billions of users, and an increasingly useful adjunct to PC-based Web apps for billions more, Google has to play.

Google and Sprint

We might know by the end of the day what the relationships are, but Sprint Nextel's fate hangs on just a couple things right now. It has to fix its customer service problems and has hired 4,500 people to get that done. Assuming that stops being a problem, it has to decide what to do about protecting its base business while dealing with its WiMAX network. Right now Sprint runs two separate physical networks and WiMAX makes three. Then there are the logical networks for voice and data. Plus back office systems that are in the process of unification, but not all there yet.

More immediately, if it can get a deal with Google, and push the device really hard, it has a chance to stop the excessive customer churn that prevents it from dealing with the WiMAX issue effectively. Google devices might help Sprint with churn, giving Sprint time to repair its customer service reputation and plot a reasonable future for WiMAX.

Most of the churn seems to come from the Nextel side of the house in any case. Is it so crazy to consider divesting Nextel and proceeding with WiMAX?

In Business, BlackBerry Users Happiest

BlackBerry devices manufactured by Research in Motion rank highest in overall customer satisfaction among business wireless smartphone users, according to J.D. Power and Associates.

RIM ranks highest in overall smartphone customer satisfaction with a score of 702 points on a 1,000-point scale, performing particularly well in the operating system factor, which includes the speed of moving between applications and speed of sending/receiving e-mails. RIM also performs particularly well in battery aspects, including the length of battery life. Treo manufacturer Palm (698) and Samsung (698) tie to closely follow RIM in the ranking.

Highly satisfied owners are more than 50 percent more likely to repurchase the same brand than those who are not satisfied with their smartphone, J.D. Power says.

Silicon Valley Wi-Fi Hits Wall

Silicon Valley has been working for nearly two years to roll out an ambitious Wi-Fi plan covering the entire area. The project continues to face delays, though, among them investment. So far, investors aren’t willing to foot the $500,000 bill for pilot testing. Muni Wi-Fi is facing problems everywhere.

Google Mobile Changes Paradigm

We'll know the details soon enough, but the outlines of Google's assault on the mobile business are clear enough already. Apple deserves credit for chipping away in a significant way at the closed model traditionally employed by mobile service providers. Google appears poised to transform the model altogether. In bringing an open platform and ecosystem to the mass markets for the first time, it might be fair to say that what Google is attempting is the creation of an Internet model for the mobile business.

That is to say, as any device and application can be used on the Interent, so Google proposes to allow any application or device to be built on its open model, and used as a mobile computing device. In that sense, Google is attempting to create a new mobile PC business more than take share in a mobile phone business.

Give credit to Apple for opening the door. Watch for Google to blow the door down.

More Google Partners

Japanese wireless carriers KDDI and NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Broadcom, HTC, Intel and Texas Instruments also are said to be partners for the upcoming Google phone initiative.

Google Launches Mobile Assault

Count Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile amongst its carrier partners. Count Samsung and Motorola among its handset partners. Don't look for Symbian or Nokia support, as Google will launch a rival operating system based on Linux, integrating Gmail, mapping and optimized search.

The phones are expected to come on the market around the middle of 2008 and will feature Google software as the anchor around which third party apps also will be added.

About 25 alliance partners already are working with Google.

at&t seems to have some barriers to working with Google as a result of its Apple deal, while Verizon might still be worried about facing Google as a rival network operator. Still, Google's new push will help create a new category of mobile devices not optimized around voice, email or music, but around Web applications.

Wireless 911 Stays Up, Networks Do Not

For all the effort service providers put into 911 emergency calling service and systems, the simple fact is that both wired and wireline 911 systems will crash if there is a big enough event. The 911 system can even stay up, but might not be usable, simply because callers can't get access to the network. Everybody knows that, and the recent San Jose, Calif. earthquake simply proved it.

Thousands of mobile phone users were unable to connect calls in the hour following the 5.6 earthquake that struck the Bay Area shortly after 8 p.m. Oct 30. The reason is simple enough: networks always are under-provisioned. They are designed for a "normal" peak demand, and a large unexpected demand will simply swamp any network.

Wireless carriers said traffic spiked up to 10 times higher than normal, primarily with calls to family and friends, news outlets and emergency services.

The flood of calls also tied up at&t's landline phone service.

In a strict sense, the wireless 911 network continued to function. The problem is simply that when the access network is really congested enough that call attempts are blocked, any given call--to 911 or to any other number--simply can't be completed.

The solution? Use text messaging for non-911 calls. It doesn't tax the network as much.

New Direction for Google, Sprint, Clearwire?

The only clear and unambiguous statement one can make about Google's mobile aspirations is that mobile advertising is key to Google's future growth. Everything else is open to discussion. And even as speculation remains about Google's possible interest in owning 700 MHz spectrum or even designing its own mobile devices, new possibilities continue to arise.

Under pressure for failing to protect the business it has got, Sprint executives are likely to consider some alternative future for the WiMAX network it has been touting as its fourth-generation network. Finding some way to monetize and offload the asset are among the obvious options. Merging the WiMAX assets with Clearwire is one option, though doing so without monetizing the restructured asset won't help Sprint very much, if the attempt is to lighten the capital spending and management attention burdens.

Sprint could do so if it spun off the WiMAX network in some way. And that's where Google has yet another option. The problem with owning 700 MHz spectrum is that service can't be provided until the network is built, requiring more cash and more time. Google might not want to wait.

The WiMAX network will be commercially viable long before any 700 MHz network will. So add more more wrinkle to the "what will Google do in mobile" speculation.

At this point it also seems safe enough to assume that some sort of reference design and operating system are under development, even if Google does not itself roll out its own phone. Separately, Google also is maneuvering to get prominent play for its mobile-optimized applications on existing devices and networks. And none of the tactics and strategies are mutually exclusive. Google might do some or parts of all of them.