at&t Internet Outage in former BellSouth Areas

Users are reporting outages in the former BellSouth territory on Monday Dec. 3, apparently caused by a Domain Name Server issue. IP services are really useful. They just aren't generally as reliable as the old public switched telephone network, though. These days, end users have to spend at least some time, and some money, creating backup systems for their crucial communications and information services.

Outage reports are posted from Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Mississippi.

Comcast, Time Warner Won't Bid for 700-MHz Spectrum

Google is in, Time Warner Cable and Comcast are out, at least in terms of submitting an initial bid for 700-MHz spectrum. The big issue is how many of the incumbent wireless carriers will participate in the initial round. Verizon has been seen as a certain bidder, at&t a possible bidder, T-Mobile a potential bidder as well.

Cable companies have bid for spectrum in the past, in partnership with Sprint. So far, though, financial results from the cable-Sprint collaboration in the consumer market have been disappointing, though it remains unclear how much of the sluggishness is attributable to operational or marketing issues, and how much to "core competency" issues.

Up to this point, cablers have been most successful with products that can be delivered over their own plant. Wireless is outside that realm. Wireless might also be an area where telecom companies simply have more "core competence" capabilities that force cable companies to compete where they have few natural advantages.

For the moment, cable executives seem unwilling to acknowledge that wireless services are strategic.

Consumers really don't want a quadruple-play bundle, Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt insists. "I don't think the quadruple play is a big deal," he says. "So far we've not seen a great demand for that." Comcast likewise only says it continues to study the matter of wireless services closely and continuously.

Big Changes Ahead in Entertainment Market

Up to a quarter of the entertainment consumed by people in five years time will have been created, edited and shared within their peer circle rather than coming out of traditional media groups, Nokia says. This phenomenon, dubbed 'Circular Entertainment', has been identified by Nokia as a result of a global study into the future of entertainment.

The study, carried out by The Future Laboratory, interviewed trend-setting consumers from 17 countries about their digital behaviors and lifestyles signposting emerging entertainment trends.

"The trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups: a form of collaborative social media," says Mark Selby, Nokia VP.

"We think it will work something like this; someone shares video footage they shot on their mobile device from a night out with a friend, that friend takes that footage and adds an MP3 file, the soundtrack of the evening, then passes it to another friend. That friend edits the footage by adding some photographs and passes it on to another friend and so on," he says.

Other findings:

- 23% buy movies in digital format
- 35% buy music on MP3 files
- 25% buy music on mobile devices
- 39% watch TV on the internet
- 23% watch TV on mobile devices
- 46% regularly use IM, 37% on a mobile device
- 29% regularly blog
- 28% regularly access social networking sites
- 22% connect using technologies such as Skype
- 17% take part in Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games
- 17% upload to the internet from a mobile device

Major Multitasking

If you try to add up all the hours people report spend online, consuming media, sending messages and so forth, you realize that if those people have jobs or go to school, they must be multi-tasking. More important for anybody whose business touches advertising, online advertising spending lags time spent by users on their media. Over time, that gets rectified as advertisers move more money in an online direction.

Hence Google's interest in the mobile Web.

FTTH: No Business Case or No Investment Case?

British Telecom has to this point been unwilling to spend heavily on a new fiber to the home network for the UK. Even UK regulators have agreed with the thesis that clear evidence of demand, sufficient to provide a payback, is lacking.

"No one would be more delighted if a commercial incentive emerged that enabled us to fiber the nation," says Peter McCarthy-Ward, BT director. "We are not facing large numbers of people today who are constrained by their bandwidth."

BT also faces intense investor resistance. Everywhere service providers have pondered widesparead FTTH, investors have made their displeasure clear by hammering equity prices of the companies that have done so.

What does seem clear is that in cases where a national, or other units of government, do not subsidize FTTH programs heavily, the investment case is questionable, even if the strategic value might outweigh even the near-term pro forma. Investors might not appreciate the replacement of copper access networks with optical fiber networks, when the immediate outcome is simply a replacement of lost voice revenues with new service revenues made possible by the existence of the fiber.

But that's a better outcome than sustained decline, which might be the outcome if the upgrades are not made.

FTTH makes clear business sense, even if it does not always seem to make immediate investment sense, in markets where a national government is not heavily subsidizing the program.

Apple to Bid for 700-MHz Spectrum?

Technology pundit Mark Stephens insists Appls is going to bid for 700-MHz spectrum, most likely in concert with Google and possibly two additional partners brought in to lessen the amount of capital each partner has to kick in. So far, all we know is that Google will submit an opening bid at the reserve price. But Google has the ability to bring in other partners.

Perhaps Apple has decided it likes the recurring services revenue approach to life. Perhaps getting a portion of recurring revenues has whetted appetite for getting 100-percent of the recurring revenues (shared with the other partners, of course)?

Up to this point, "services" such as iTunes were simply a way to sell iPods. iPhone is the first product in Apple's history where recurring services revenue was a huge part of the business model, even though selling the devices obviously is primary. Like all other consumer products manufacturers and software providers, Apple knows that services are becoming a bigger part of the overall value proposition for any "product."

Can it be that access and services built on access are seen as a bigger part of Apple's future? One wonders. At least, Stephens does. Perhaps the other Stephens (Randall) also is wondering what is afoot. Wouldn't it be a shock if Google was not simply using the 700-MHz bid as leverage to get what it wants (openness) from the wireless service providers?

Broadband Access Revenue: Bad News

Broadband access penetration might be climbing just about everywhere. Unfortunately, it looks like revenue is going to fall significantly, if Yankee Group analyst Vince Vittore is right. He projects Digital Subscriber Line revenue, which represents the overwhelming share of global revenue, is set to fall precipitously.

You might think fiber-to-home (OLT)revenue or cable modem revenue (CMTS) is poised to take up the slack. Vittore doesn't think so.

It looks like broadband access is turning out to be a product just like the Internet: useful, ubiquitous, necessary and something service providers can't make much money on.

European VoIP Market Soars

Though VoIP might largely be driven by cable companies in the U.S. market, the 22 million-plus VoIP subs in the European market bear witness to dramatically different market dynamics. In part because of robust local loop unbundling rules, independent broadband competitors have had quite a field day, both as providers of broadband access and VoIP services.

In the French market, for example, France Telecom (Orange) is "the number two provider of VoIP in the world," says Carlos DeSilva, France Telecom director. "In France, 30 percent of all calls are VoIP and it is used by about eight million customers."

Teens IM; Adults Send Email

About 25 percent of surveyed respondents send IMs from their cell phones, including one in three (32 percent) teens, according to the second annual AP-AOL Instant Messaging Trends Survey.

Keyboards make a difference, it seems. So do social networking services and the IM providers themselves, all of which now support IM-over-mobile capabilities. All of the major instant messaging services also let users have their instant messages forwarded directly to their cell phones when they're on-the-go. In addition, IM users are instant messaging from within their social networking profiles.

Workplace use also is becoming commonplace. More than one in four (27 percent) users say they use instant messaging at work. Further, half of at-work IM users say that instant messaging makes them more productive at work, a 25 percent increase over last year.

More than half (55 percent) of teen IM users have used instant messaging to get help with their homework. This is a 17 percent increase over last year. Meanwhile, 22 percent of teens say they have sent an IM to ask for or accept a date.

Forty-three percent of teen IM users say they have used instant messaging to say something they would not say to someone in person. Teenage girls are more likely than boys to do so. Nearly half of teenage girls surveyed have used instant messaging to say something they would not say in person, compared with just over a third of teenage boys.

Teens today are more likely to upload photos (42 percent in 2007 vs. 34 percent in 2006) while instant messaging. They are less likely to conduct online research for school (57 percent vs. 63 percent) or update their blog or social profile (33 percent vs. 42 percent) while sending IMs.

Nearly three in four teens (70 percent) and one in four adults (24 percent) send more instant messages than emails.

IM users tend to engage in multiple online activities while sending instant messages. Checking email is the most popular activity among eight in ten adult and teen IM users. After email, adult IM users most often conduct online searches (49 percent), while teens say they like to research homework assignments online (57 percent).

Nearly four in five (79 percent) at-work IM users say they have used instant messaging in the office to take care of personal matters. One in five (19 percent) IM users say they send more instant messages than emails to their co-workers and colleagues.

CLECs Touch Few Buildings in 6 Verizon Markets

By now, you'd think there would be significant optical fiber pulled to commercial buildings in major and secondary markets, even though you'd suspect it is tough getting fiber in outlying suburban strip malls, for example. But it appears optical fiber connections to commercial sites remains a significant work in progress. In six Verizon markets, for example, all competitors to Verizon put together can reach but a small fraction of sites.

Limited Fiber in 6 Verizon Markets

In disclosing for the first time its own facilities-based access to buildings in the New York market, XO Communications provides evidence of just how tough the high-bandwidth metro access business remains.

Specifically, XO has its own facilities in place at just 0.01 percent of all commercial buildings in six markets Verizon serves, and in which Verizon seeks further deregulation of its wholesale obligations.

XO Communications's data on alternate access facilities is consistent with GeoResults data showing the total on-net building presence, XO says. In aggregate, competitors serve only 1.49 percent of commercial buildings in the six markets.

XO Communications also says that even in the areas where Verizon central offices have the highest density of alternate high-capacity facilities, competitors have slight access to most buildings, reaching a bit more than four percent of commercial buildings only in Virginia Beach, Va.

In Boston, less than 1.5 percent of commercial buildings have alternate facilities-based access, even in the areas with the highest density of alternate providers. In Philadelphia and Providence, R.I., less than one percent of commercial buildings have competitive access facilities.

At least one-third of all wire centers in five of the six MSAs have no competitive provider lit fiber at all. In Pittsburgh, nearly 80 percent of all wire centers have no competitor lit fiber connecting any commercial buildings.

Google will Bid for 700-MHz Spectrum

Google plans to submit at least an initial bid for 700-MHz wireless spectrum, the Wall Street Journal reports. There is some thinking that with Verizon's declaration of willingness to open its network to any technically-compliant device, as well as similar open access provisions for any winner of 700-MHz C block spectrum, Google has less need to acquire its own spectrum to ensure an open environment for wireless Internet services.

Google also is working with Sprint and T-Mobile on open devices and applications on those wireless networks, plus Clearwire for WiMAX service. Given all of that recent development, there simply is less need for Google to own spectrum simply as a way of ensuring an open environment.

Sprint Turns Down $5 Billion

Sprint Nextel Corp. has rejected a $5 billion investment by South Korea's SK Telecom Co. and buyout firm Providence Equity Partners Inc. that would have brought back former Chairman Tim Donahue to run the mobile-phone company, according to Bloomberg.

The investment group reportedly proposed buying Sprint securities that would later convert into equity for 20 percent to 30 percent more than the current stock price.

Sprint's board apparently didn't meet with Donahue or the investors before turning down the deal, nor does it appear SK Telecom and Providence were interested in a hostile takeover.

Sprint Stands Alone

Now that Verizon Wireless has selected Long Term Evolution as its fourth-generation platform, and if Sprint continues with its WiMAX fourth-generation network platform, prospects for CDMA are dim in the U.S. market.

Of course, there always is the possibility that Sprint might reverse course and abandon WiMAX. But Sprint Nextel at the moment really stands alone in the platform area. It runs the Nextel iDEN network that no other major carrier supports and CDMA-based 3G that Verizon says it will abandon.

It is hard to imagine T-Mobile adopting anything other than LTE, so it appears CDMA is at a deadend in the U.S. market.

Verizon to Dump CDMA for 4G

Verizon Wireless will base its fourth-generation mobile broadband network on LTE – Long Term Evolution – the technology developed within the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards organization and based on GSM.

The selection of LTE means Verizon wants to align itself with the scale opportunities the global standard will provide, rather than extending its existing CDMA platform.

Verizon and Vodafone have a coordinated trial plan for LTE that begins in 2008. Trial suppliers include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia-Siemens, and Nortel. Discussions with device suppliers have expanded beyond traditional suppliers such as LG, Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson, as consumer electronics companies anticipate embedded wireless functionality in their future products.

Users won't see 4G for several years, however, so there's no need to worry about existing CDMA equipment. The decision does call into question how much actual developer interest there will be in Verizon's new "open" CDMA platform, however.