Google Dominates Search Even More This Year

Google accounted for 65.10 percent of all U.S. searches in the four weeks ending December 1, 2007, according to Hitwise. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 21.21, 7.09 and 4.63 percent respectively. The remaining 46 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.96 percent of U.S. searches.

As you might expect, search engines also continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories. Comparing November 2007 to November 2006, the travel, entertainment and business and finance categories showed double digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.

at&t Forecasts Strong 2008 Growth

In a forecast that, in some ways, resembles France Telecom's, at&t executives now say the company will achieve double-digit adjusted earnings growth in 2008. Where the forecast resembles France Telecom's projections is the full-year wireline segment, where at&t forecasts 2008 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in line with 2007. France Telecom executives recently projected 2008 cash flow consistent with 2007.

at&t also expects 2008 wireless EBITDA in the low 40-percent range.

For its U-Verse Internet-based TV project, at&t said it expects to reach more than one million subscribers by the end of 2008.

Longer term, at&t expects adjusted earnings growth in the double-digits and mid-single-digit or better revenue growth. That's another area where at&t and France Telecom have common views. Where 2008 might just keep pace with 2007, growth will accelerate after that.

Mobivox Hopes to Bridge Generation Gap

Younger people hooked on instant communications like SMS and IM communicate differently with their grandparents, a new survey by Mobivox finds. That there are clear generational differences in how we communicate with family and friends will come as no surprise to just about anybody.

Almost 60 percent of people under 35 say that they communicate differently with older, less tech savvy family members and friends. The reverse might also be true: parents sometimes communicate with their children using different modes than they do with peers.

But the gap probably is widest between teenagers and their grandparents 65 or older. Older users are two times as likely to say that technology "gives me a headache" (less than 10 percent of those over 65 use SMS or IM regularly and over half still use letters).

And the impact of these barriers on relationships is felt across generations, says Mobivox. One in three Americans, regardless of age, say that they don't connect as often as they would like with those they love because they don't use the same communications technology.

The poll also reveals that 60 percent of those under age 35 said that family and friends call them for help with their technology woes.

Mobivox has launched GiftVOX to lessen some of those woes.

GiftVOX lets every family's "go-to technologist" set up free international calling for family members. All the recipient has to do is call their local Mobivox access number and, during that first call, opt-in to activate their account.

GiftVOX eliminates the need to ever go online, program a contact list or learn to use a new gadget, Mobivox says.

What's interesting here is the pre-programming of accounts on behalf of other family or social group members who might not be motivated to do so themselves (I have encountered this problem myself, trying to set up a family calling group).

The new program is about as simple as it could possibly be. Group members don't need a computer, a credit card or even a calling card number. All they need is a mobile or landline phone.

Because Mobivox allows members to connect from any phone, it is especially easy for older generations to use since eight in 10 of those over 65 rely on home landline phones to communicate, compared to 50 percent using mobile phones and only one in three on email, Mobivox says.

24% of Landline Users Would Consider Abandoning Landline Service

As many as 24 percent of landline users would consider abandoning those lines in favor of mobile-only service, a survey by In-Stat sugggests. And some think that forecast is too conservative. Citigroup analyst Michael Rollins argues that by 2010, wireless-only households should rise to 27 percent, up from 13 percent last year and an estimated 17 percent this year.

In fact, the cord-cutting trend seen among younger U.S. wireless users might be hidden to a certain extent, as many teenagers may now be quite comfortable with the idea of using a mobile as the voice appliance, and simply haven't yet had a chance to make their preferences known in the broader market.

To be sure, the typical cord cutter is under 35 years old with a small household and a lower income than the traditional phone user, In-Stat says.

“The largest number of current cord cutters—those who do not have a landline, but rely solely on their mobile phone—are those one might expect: young, single, living alone, or sharing quarters such as a dormitory or rooming house,” says Jill Meyers, In-Stat analyst. “In many cases, these are people who are the least-likely candidates to have a landline phone.”

To nobody's surprise, current cord cutters, who have no landline service, use 22 percent more mobile minutes than the average user, and 40 percent more mobile minutes than those not interested in surrendering their landline.

As you also might suspect, potential cord cutters frequently are on family or group mobile rate plans. That is to say, they are teenagers or college-age adults whose bills are paid by other family members. They also are users who simply are accustomed to communicating using a mobile device rather than a "home phone."

Potential cord cutters also are heavy users, since nearly all their calling and texting is concentrated on a personal mobile device. Their spending averages $111.41 a month. Most estimates peg cord cutters at about five to eight percent of users. Analysts at the Yankee Group think the trend will keep growing, and reach 15 percent in several years.

As a parent with three young adults on a such a plan, I can attest that per-capita spending is much higher than for the parents also on shared plans. Way higher, and in line with the In-Stat findings.

More SOA-Based Voice, Text from BlueNote Networks

BlueNote Networks has launched a pair of new application program interfaces for its SessionSuite communications platform. The new APIs for BlueNote's SessionSuite SOA Edition, which allows developers to embed voice within SOA applications running on IP networks, make it possible to add outbound notification and interactive response to business applications.

For example, the ON-SF allows users to add account activity notification or stock alerts, prescription renewal notifications, flight delay or cancellation notifications within the framework of existing business applications.

The ON-SF goes beyond voice notifications to reach intended message recipients through multiple channels. It enables not only voice notifications, but e-mail and text message notifications as well.

The announcement provides more evidence that communications are being embedded within the context of Web and enterprise applications.

Good Reason to Buy a Wi-Fi-Equipped Smart Phone

On Dec. 11, JetBlue Airways Corp. will begin a trial of free in-flight e-mail and messaging using in-cabin Wi-Fi. If passengers respond positively, the airline said it could install the service across its entire fleet, according to Citigroup analyst Jim Suva.

The in-flight Wi-Fi service will be welcomed by many notebook PC users and owners of Wi-Fi-equipped BlackBerrys or iPhones, since some people travel with a BlackBerry, iPhone or some other smart phone and leave their notebooks at home. That's not me, but other people do it. The relevant BlackBerry devices include the 8210, 8820 and 8320 Curve. You are out of luck if you have service from at&t, though, as at&t blocks Wi-Fi usage on its Curve. T-Mobile supports Wi-Fi on the Curve.

Of course, there apparently is just one single aircraft involved in the JetBlue test. But if it proves popular, and one suspects it will, we can hope other carriers eventually will move to equip their cabins for Wi-Fi.

Of course, the danger is that people will start using VoIP over Wi-Fi, even if cabins aren't equipped for mobile phone use, an idea that many of us absolutely detest. As annoying as mobile phone etiquette now is, it will be unbearable when you can't escape the audio pollution created by your seat mates.

International Long Distance: Merger Wave Coming

Look for a wave of mergers and outsourcing in the international long distance business in 2008. The issue is that voice traffic growth is slowing sharply after decades of rapid growth. That means more volume is needed to keep a business cash flow positive or profitable. Not every global carrier will be able to attain that level of scale, so executives are going to have to consider buying wholesale capacity and abandoning operation of their own networks.

That, of course, is a business opportunity for wholesalers with the ability to handle a large amount of additional traffic.

International voice traffic grew approximately 15 percent annually, from less than 18 billion minutes in 1986 to just under 300 billion in 2006. But international calls grew only 10 percent in 2006, and signs point to continued sluggish growth in 2007.

Skype and other computer-based voice services are a key reason for the slowdown. "Skype only accounts for a small share of international calls, but the volume was enough to cut global growth in half," says TeleGeography analyst Stephan Beckert.

France Telecom: Flat Organic Cash Flow for '08

In confirming its 2007 organic cash flow target of 7.5 billion euros and setting the same level for 2008, France Telecom executives also point out how hard it is for large incumbent service providers to achieve organic growth inside their present service territories, without expanding out of region.

France Telecom says it will achieve organic cash flow at this level as long as it also hits the same operating margin and maintains investment expenditure at about 13 percent of revenues and maintains the same 2007 dividend distribution rate at between 40 and 45 percent of organic cash flow.

Growth will occur "beyond 2008 and over the medium term," France Telecom executives say.

But growth might not be a problem only the largest incumbents have. SureWest Communications has acquired an out-of-market broadband provider, Everest Broadband, in Kansas City, marking SureWest's first-ever move outside its metro market, aside from the competitive local exchange carrier operations SureWest conducts in the broader Sacramento market, where it competes with at&t.
Growth, despite a management team's best efforts, seems now to be a matter of expanding out of territory. The corollary might be that internal, organic growth is stalled. Presumably, internal new services initiatives will have time to catch on while most companies look to acquisitions to fuel near-term growth.

Text Messaging Growing 37% a Month

U.S. text messaging (SMS) traffic volumes have increased at least 37 percent a month since 2003, according to CTIA researchers. Usage also is significant across many age categories as well. About 19 percent of users are 18 to 24; 24 percent are between 25 and 34; 22 percent are between 35 and 54 and 19 percent are between 45 and 54.

As of December 2006, over 18.5 billion text messages are sent every month and that number has grown by 250 percent each year for the last two years.

Verizon Wireless anticipates the number of text messages sent by their users on their network to grow nearly five times from 400 million per month in July 2005 to over two billion per month next year.

Apple to Gain Share

Apple's Macintosh computers are poised to make sizable market share gains in the coming months, according to ChangeWave Research.

ChangeWave says it sees continuing momentum for Apple's Macs among both consumer and business customers.

ChangeWave recently conducted two surveys that gauged PC-buying plans over the next 90 days, a period running from the holiday shopping season into first-quarter 2008. It polled members, who tend to be more tech-savvy and have higher disposable incomes than the general public.

The latest poll found that 29 percent of likely notebook and desktop PC buyers in the next 90 days are planning to get a Mac. That's higher than consumer purchase intent for HP laptops (21 percent), HP desktops (24 percent) and Dell laptops (28 percent).

Two years ago, 16 percent of likely notebook PC buyers and 11 percent of desktop PC buyers planned to buy Macs. Demand for Macs has risen steadily ever since.

More consumers are buying Macs because they're turned off by PCs using Microsoft's Windows operating system, Changewave analysts say.

A separate ChangeWave poll of corporate PC buyers found increasing demand for Apple as well. For companies planning to buy computers next quarter, seven percent of laptop buyers and six percent of desktop buyers plan to get Macs. That's up from four percent of laptop buyers and three percent of desktop buyers two years ago.

Do Mobile Phones Cause Cancer?

Though the evidence is contested, indeed many will argue highly contested, research studies on the effect of mobile phone use on cancer, especially those funded by the industry, continue to suggest there is no danger. Indeed, some scientists argue that non-ionizing radiation typical of cell phone use could not cause cancer. The problem is that not every study suggests there is no correlation.

Regular use of mobile telephones does increase the risk of developing tumors, a new study by Israeli researchers published in the American Journal of Epidemiology finds.

An extract of the report reported by Israel's Yedoit Aharonot newspaper put the risk of developing a parotid gland tumor nearly 50 percent higher for frequent mobile phone users, those who talk more than 22 hours a month.

The risk was still higher if users clamped the phone to the same ear, did not use hands-free devices or were in rural areas.

The study included 402 benign and 58 malignant incident cases of parotid gland tumor diagnosed in Israel at age 18 years or more, in 2001 to 2003.

The research was led by Dr Siegal Sadetzki, a cancer and radiation expert at the Chaim Sheba Medical Centre in Israel and as part of a World Health Organisation project.

Note that levels of usage identified as dangerous were 22 hours a month. As with many other studies, the potential danger has to be kept in perspective: sometimes it takes really unusual dosages of an irritant to trigger a negative result. In this case, we are talking about 44 minutes of use in a 30-day month. That won't appear excessive to many dispassionate observers.

Some researchers (such as Friedman and Richter)point out that there is a high degree of potential conflict of interest in the funding of studies showing that cell phone usage is safe.

Studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association during 2001, for example, found a strong association for studies whose authors had an economic conflict of interest and also reported there is no danger from cell phone use. The association between industry-funded research and findings of "no threat" were associated with a greater than 99.9 percent level of confidence.

Maybe texting isn't such a bad precaution?

Observers cite:

1. Schutz J, Boehler E, Berg G, et al. Cellular phones, cordless phones, and the risks of glioma and meningioma (Interphone Study Group, Germany). American Journal of Epidemiology 2006;163:512–20.

2. Hardell L, Carlberg M, Mild KH. Case-control study of the association between the use of cellular and cordless telephones and malignant brain tumors diagnosed during 2000–2003.

3. Hardell L, Carlberg M, Hansson Mild K. Pooled analysis of two case-control studies on the use of cellular and cordless telephones and the risk of benign brain tumours diagnosed during 1997–2003. Int J Oncol 2006;28:509–18.

4. Friedman LS, Richter ED. Relationship between conflicts of interest and research results. Journal of Gen. Internal Medicine 2004;19:51–6.

Indian Wireless Firms Structurally Separate

Three Indian Wireless companies have concluded that owning and operating layer one infrastructure is not essential for retail operations.

Bharti Infratel Ltd., a unit of Bharti Airtel Ltd., is merging its telecom tower business with Vodafone Essar Ltd. and Idea Cellular Ltd.

The three companies will form an independent tower company called Indus Towers Ltd. that will provide passive infrastructure services in India. Bharti and Vodafone Essar will hold 42 percent each of the company, and Idea will own the remaining 16 percent.

Passive infrastructure services include towers, shelters, cooling systems, power supply and other items that enable telecom systems to work.

The new firm will merge the passive infrastructure assets of the three companies across 16 telecom territories in India and will initially have about 70,000 telecom sites, the statement said.

The move parallels "structural separation" (creation of a legally distinct and separate wholesale facilities company) more than "functional separation" (creation of an owned wholesale facilities company). Still, the move is interesting given the move to functional separation in Europe, where wholesale facilities are run by one entity, and all retail providers lease capacity and features to run their retail operations.

The move by the three wireless service providers mirrors a broader change in the global communications business from a completely vertically-integrated model to a partially horizontally-integrated model. Basically, communications networks increasingly operate the way data networks do, with applications running on top of facilities that are owned by many different entities in the value chain.

You might call this a move to more "open" networks, and indeed that is precisely what is happening, in small steps.

No Broadband Equality: Density Still Matters

Observers of both U.S. and U.K. efforts to stimulate innovation and competition in the core communications markets will note the vastly-different regulatory approaches. In the U.K. market, where satellite is a significant factor but cable is not, regulators have chosen an aggressive wholesale unbundled local loop regime.

The U.S. market has seen the same initial thrust, only to be followed by an alternate reliance on inter-modal competition between cable and telephone industries, rather than a primary reliance on wholesale, unbundled local loop.

So far, the U.K. market model has proven more friendly to competitors. But physical constraints still are an issue, irrespective of regulatory framework. In thinly-populated areas with low density, the cost of providing broadband remains hig

If BT’s 21st Century network provides evidence, it is that one does not change all access cost inputs simply because a network converts to IP in place of TDM protocols.

In fact, it appears that wholesale access cost for partners who want to use BT’s transmission network to serve rural or suburban customers will be as much as three times higher than similar features will cost in dense urban areas, says Keith McMahon, a U.K.-based blogger.

There’s nothing terribly surprising about this. Infrastructure always costs more, per household, per business or per person in lightly-populated areas.

There’s simply more construction cost and physical media to support, and less ability to share common costs (ports or software licenses, for example), in less-dense areas. IP doesn’t change that.

The implications for competitive providers who lease access from BT and provide retail services to customers under their own names (analogous to U.S. competitive local exchange carriers) are clear enough. Competitors will choose to place their own facilities where customer density is greatest.

The largest nationwide providers, including Carphone Warehouse, Sky, Tiscali, O2 and Orange will find it worthwhile to interoperate at the Tier 1 MSAN level, which gives them coverage of 1,200 exchanges and about 70 percent or 17.7 million of the 25.3 million U.K. homes.

U.K. cable networks largely overlap the areas served by Tier 1 MSANs, for obvious reasons: that is where most of the customers are. Cable networks pass by around 11.8 million homes or 47 percent of total U.K. homes. As McMahon lays out the competitive scenario, about seven companies will contest for customers in 11.8 million homes, or just half the market.

About six companies likely will compete to serve 5.9 million homes or 23 percent of the market. In all likelihood, just one company, BT, will be in position to serve 7.6 million homes, or about 30 percent of total homes.

Population density and loop length still are key impediments to high-bandwidth services, no matter what the regulatory framework.

Web, Internet, Unanticipated Consequences

As John B. Horrigan, Pew Internet & American Life Project associate research director points out, the way people use the Internet today was not necessarily the way policymakers were told people would use it more than a decade ago.

In 1993, thinking focused much more on applications related to education, health care and improving democratic discourse, for example, that would use two-way video.

Today, online interactivity means something different. It is commerce, transactions, content gathering and, unexpectedly for many, content production, or user-created or user-generated media.

Simply put, the way content, information, gossip and tastes get produced and distributed is changing. That sort of thing used to be highly centralized and expensive. These days, anybody can speak; anybody can publish; anybody can participate.

That implies a different sort of information economy in the future; a new way of getting messages out; a new set of influencers to work with.

Also, the emergence of user-generated content also shows another common artifact of transformational technology: it gets used in ways even its creators did not anticipate. We should now be preparing for something else that frequently occurs with technology transformations.

Change seems less significant than many would anticipate, in the early stages. But the changes are far more significant as the shift takes hold. We are about to hit that stage.

As one example, what do you think the primary purpose of an enterprise data network is today? What do you think the purpose will be in five years? How do enterprises create networks today? How do you think they will be created in five years?

Tom Austin over at the Gartner Group might surprise you with his answers. He argues that the primary purpose of an enterprise network in five years will be to support social networking (think Facebook). And where enterprises these days tend to create and operate their own data networks, in the future they will find themselves outsourcing a number of those functions, if not the entire basic architecture, to "compute in the cloud" suppliers.

The reason social networking turns out to be so important for enterprises is that it allows very-large organizations, or highly-distributed groups of people, to discover what skills and insights the other people have, in ways that have been impossible up to this point.

One researcher or consulting team might be working on a problem someplace, and not know that somebody else, someplace else, has insight that can help solve the problem at hand. Social networking will help organizations and people create those links. Today, much of that insight is simply trapped inside organizations because nobody can conveniently discover whether it exists and where it exists.

The move to a highly-distributed computing framework is driven by mobility. When most people are mobile or distributed, a highly-decentralized computing architecture, assuming only the existence of Web browsers and broadband access, is highly useful and efficient.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets Use up 84%

After a year, the data seems to suggest that users are figuring out how to use Google Docs and Spreadsheets, according to Compete data. Usage has been up sharply since June 2007, for example. In its first full year, Google Docs and Spreadsheets has seen an 84 percent year-over-year increase.

So why use Google Docs and Spreadsheets? Some people might like the fact that usage is free. Others might like the fact that Docs and Spreadsheets is easy to use. More important, perhaps, is the online sharing and collaboration aspect, which seems to be on the verge of greater importance in today’s workplace.

Personally, I use Docs and Spreadsheets because I do a lot of blogging, and Microsoft Word seems frequently to require translation to "text" to post cleanly on some sites. If I am going to have to do that, I'm simply not going to bother with Word.