Is Qwest VOD Coming?

Qwest Communications is a laboratory of sorts for incumbent telcos that do not have the resources and customer heft to justify launching IPTV services. Many small, rural telcos with small subscriber bases find that most customers already subscribe either to a satellite TV service or a competing cable TV service, for example.

Qwest has decided to rely on partner DirecTV for its multi-channel video offering, but has been interested for years in ways to use its broadband access plant to supplement linear TV with true video-on-demand services. Now that Qwest has upgraded many of its metro networks to operate at 40 Mbps in the downstream, with plans to serve 23 metro markets with services that fast, we might finally see some movement in that direction.

That would have important ramifications for many smaller and independent firms as well. If it works, if revenue for a true VOD service, built in conjunctionw with DirecTV does prove financially interesting, the same approach can be taken by many smaller operators as well.

That is not to say IPTV cannot work. AT&T and Verizon are prime examples of firms with enough customer base and resources to do so. And many indpendent telcos have concluded that IPTV still makes sense. But IPTV remains a tough proposition for many smaller providers. On-demand video might offer a solution. But Qwest likely will be the key test of that theory.

Qwest's approach also might prove helpful if cannibalization of linear multi-channel video actually does start to happen on a significant level. In that case, Qwest will have preserved scarce capital for robust access bandwidth upgrades, and then will be in positiont to push ahead aggressively with a VOD plan without risk of cannibalizing its linear video base.

That would challenge the conventional wisdom, which is that a stand-alone VOD effort will fail without the ability to offer linear TV as well. Of course, Qwest already has that covered, with its DirecTV partnership.

BT Rolls Out 20 Mbps, FTTH Danger Remains

BT is rolling out 20-Mbps broadband access services to about 40 percent of its network terminations, up from 8 Mbps possible before BT upgraded many of its Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers to the ADSL2+ standard.

Actual connection speeds people will see will vary based largely on the amount of metallic cable between their home and the telephone exchange, as always is the case for DSL. Speed increases will be most noticeble in the upstream direction.

Most BT retail customers connect at up to 448 kbps on the upstream when using ADSL, but this will double to up to 1 Mbps using ADSL2+. The new upgrades will be provided at no charge.

Faster speeds are possible if a further upgrade to VDSL is made, but that also would entail deploying much more fiber in the network.

And while BT faces criticism for not deploying fiber to the home, Fitch Ratings investment analysts say FTTH deployments are highly risky for European service providers facing cable operators. Fitch analysts estimate a telco FTTH upgrade in the U.K. market might cost BT about six times more money per connected home than it will cost cable operators to upgrade using DOCSIS 3.0.

The obvious risk there is financial return. In a competitive sales environment, BT likely could not charge six times more for its offering than a cable operator would. For that reason, Fitch analysts say fiber "to the curb," which costsly significantly less, will be the preferred upgrade strategy.

"FTTH is not commercially viable for much of the incumbents’ networks," though some greenfield builds will be feasible, Fitch Ratings argues.

The point is that Fitch believes wide FTTH deployments are highly risky for European telcos facing serious cable competition.

The broader point is that though fiber to the home likely is the "best" access technology in terms of bandwidth, it is highly financially risky, because the incremental revenue might not cover the incremental cost of the new facilities. It is one thing to mandate national broadband policies. It is quite another thing to require service providers to make investments that are demonstrably highly risky.

That said, there are financial risks either way. Underinvest and telcos are vulnerable to cable operators taking dangerous amounts of market share. Overinvest and a return is not assured.

All that said, actual facts on the ground are decisive. FTTH is more feasible where densities are high and where there is lots of aerial plant, compared to underground. The reason is that it is cheaper to rebuild aerial plant than underground plant. High density helps because loops are shorter and more shared infrastructure can be used. Shared infrastructure always is cheaper than dedicated infrastructure.

But cable operators face the same general financial problem. As fiber is pulled closer to end user locations, the cost rises dramatically. At some point, after DOCSIS 3.0 is deployed and bandwidth is reclaimed by moving to digital video, raw bandwidth might still have to be increased. And that is going to take significant capital investment.

For the most part, then, copper drops of one sort or another are likely to be with us for quite some time.

National Broadband Plans Not That Effective?

As the Federal Communications Commission starts work on creation of a "national broadband plan," it is worth keeping in mind the relatively slight impact such policies have.

In fact, 91 percent of the differences in fixed broadband adoption rates in the 30 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member countries can be explained by reference solely to differences in income, education, population age, and other demographic factors that bear little relationship to broadband or telecommunications policy," the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies. says in a new study.

In fact, perhaps 87 percent of the variation in broadband subscription rates across the OECD can be explained by a few inputs.

On average, a $10,000 increase in gross domestic product per capita increases the connection rate per capita by 1.97 percentage points. A 10 percentage point rise in the percentage of a population living in an urban area, or a 10 percentage point decline in the share of persons over 65 years of age, both increase the subscription rate by about 3.0 percentage points, on average.

Beyond, one of the deficiencies of the OECD study is that it does not include other popular methods used by people for Internet access, such as at libraries and public Internet connection centers, for example. Nor do OECD studies include mobile Internet access, a more-serious problem as mobile connections grow.

Fully 56 percent of Americans saying that have "at some point used wireless means for online access," according to researchers at the Pew Center Internet & American Life Project say. Notebook PCs are the main way most Americans get online wirelessly, with 39 percent saying it is their "most prevalent means of wireless access," and 32 percent saying they have used a cell phone "or other hand-held device to check e-mail, access the Internet for information, or send instant messages."

More important, 69 percent of Americans also are also starting to use their cell phones for texting, e-mailing, getting directions, snapping and sending photos, Pew says.

Ignoring mobile broadband access under such conditions is a major flaw.

"Mobile broadband is likely to be very important for users who do not own or know how to use a computer, since Internet access is also possible through smart mobile phones and other small, portable devices such as Netbooks," the Phoenix Center says. "Indeed, broadband provided over mobile networks may replace fixed connectivity for many users."

In Portugal, for example, more than half of all broadband connections use mobile technologies, and 10 percent of broadband connected persons in the country use only a mobile access method.

Are Younger Users Cooling to Social Networking?

U.K. communications regulator Ofcom says the percentage of 15- to 24-year-olds with a profile on a social networking site has dropped for the first time, from 55 percent at the start of last year to 50 percent this year.

Some have suggested this means younger users are abandoning sites such as Facebook that no longer are attractive now that their parents use the sites as well.

The other explanation is that users are starting to settle in at fewer sites, says comScore.

Younger users are increasingly moving towards Facebook as their primary social networking destination, and using other sites less.

Inertia A Challenge for Yahoo, Microsoft

It's always hard to get users to change their habits. That is one reason media and content companies spend so much time and money on promotion and marketing. And it appears that applies to the ways people find content as well.

According to comScore, one obstacle the Yahoo!-Microsoft partnership faces is changing user habits. The reason is simply habit. Users who search on Google tend to stick with Google for most searches, comScore notes. About 69 percent of users conducted their searches on Google-owned sites.

Users of the engines at the combined Yahoo! and Microsoft Sites conducted 32.6 percent of their searches on the combined Yahoo! and Microsoft Sites, but a much higher 60.7 percent of their searches on Google sites.

In the content business as well as in the real world, friction and inertia require inputs of energy to "force" objects to change direction.

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2009/8/comScore_Study_Highlights_Challenges_and_Opportunities_for_Microsoft-Yahoo!_Search_Partnership

More U.S. Mobile Internet Than PC Users by 2010?

"By 2010, the number one way U.S. users will interact with Web is through the phone, not the PC," says Rodney Mason, Moosylvania CMO. That would be a huge change, more in line with what forecasters have been predicting about Internet access methods in the developing world.

If it turns out the mobile device becomes the most-common means of access, the way Web applications and services are designed also will start to change.

Smart phones and mobile broadband networks should lead to "TV everywhere" services, for example. And that could break the hold multichannel video services have on the delivery of video.

Sales of smart phones matter for several reasons, among them the creation of new markets for mobile applications. Handset suppliers and mobile service providers have a huge stake as well.

Nearly a quarter of all handsets sold in the U.S. market during the fourth quarter of 2008 were smart phones, up from 12 percent of all phone sales in the same quarter of 2007, according to the NPD Group. But the rate of growth seems to have slowed because of the recession.

IDC forecasts a U.S. smart phone growth rate of between four and five percent for 2009, a far cry from last year’s 68 percent growth, and Stela Bokun, Pyramid Research analyst, warns that slowdowns in Europe and other markets could negatively affect service provider data revenue growth.

'If smart phones do not get cheaper and if mobile customers remain the only ones bearing the risks related to currency fluctuations in individual markets, uptake will suffer in a prolonged recession and post-recession data services revenue will take longer to recover," she says.

Of the 263 million new handsets sold in Europe in 2008, 14 percent were smartphones. These 36 million units accounted for roughly 24.4 percent of all smart phones sold globally that year, Bokun says.

"We expect handset unit sales in Western Europe to fall 20 percent in 2009; the situation is even worse in Central and Eastern Europe, where new handset sales are expected to fall 25 percent this year," she says.

Globally, Nokia leads in sales of new smart phones, while Research in Motion is second and Apple is third.

Nokia sold 18,441,000 smart phones in the 2nd quarter of 2009, and RIM sold 7,678,900 unit, while Apple sold 5.4 million devices.

Fixed Wireless Likely Big Winner in Broadband Stimulus First Round

Perhaps the biggest first round winners of broadband stimulus grants, after the close of application deadlines Aug. 14 or Aug. 20, 2009 (larger projects will have the Aug. 20 deadline by virtue of an extension granted for electronic filers) are wireless providers, especially firms using terrestrial broadband for access.

There are several reasons. Wireless networks can be built faster, at lower cost, than wired networks, giving wireless providers a better chance of completing larger projects in the required time frame. The largest wired service providers seem to have decided not to apply, for a variety of reasons having to do with the way the rules are constructed and strings attached to receipt of funds.

Also, existing wireless providers, especially independents, have the infrastructure and business acumen required to run such networks, and huge incentive to build out their networks.

In the last major investment wave in the U.S. telecommunications market, though there were hundreds of upstart firms launched, most market share was controlled by just tow companies, AT&T and MCI. Since it appears the largest carriers will sit out the broadband stimulus program, the field is cleared for medium-sized firms to get the funding.

Most of those companies, even those building new middle-mile optical trunking facilities, will rely on wireless for the final mile connections.

Zer01 Severs Ties with Buzzirk Mobile

Zer01 Mobile says it has severed its business relationship with Buzzirk Mobile for distribution services, based upon breach of contract. It isn't immediately clear what impact the termination will have, as Zer01 is a mobile virtual network enabler and can supply its unusual and interesting approach to mobile voice to other distributors, but Buzzirk seems to have been the most-active of the MVNO marketing partners.

What remains interesting is the approach Zer01 has taken to creating its "VoIP over mobile" capabilities. Essentially, the company uses what it says are national interconnect agreements with GSM providers, and VoIP from VoX to create its service, instead of the traditional MVNO route whereby customers buy wholesale capacity from networks, repackage and resell those capabilities.

Zer01's approach has been to establish itself as a "carrier" for purposes of interconnection, which allows it to exchange traffic with other carriers using the industry-standard rules without buying capacity on one or more networks to resell.

It remains an intriguing approach, though the effort has been clouded by some controversy, which Zer01 now appears to want to put behind it. Zer01's corporate parent is privately held, and has no obligation for the fuller reporting a public company must provide, but a bit more transparency would not hurt, one might argue.

Unanticipated Consequences from Stimulus Spending

One of the frustrations many of us have with governments substituting themselves for the market is that nobody is smart enough to figure out all of the unanticipated consequences. Without making any judgments about the broader theory of pump priming Keynesian theory suggests now are appropriate, externalities seem the order of the day.

The undeniably popular U.S. cash-for-clunkers program may be drawing money from other consumer purchases and could also undermine future car sales, U.S. economists now warn. The latest Commerce Department retail sales figures show U.S. retail sales fell 0.1% in July, as opposed to expectations sales would gain 0.8%. Excluding autos, retail sales declined 0.6% versus an expected gain of 0.1%.

So it is hard to discount the notion that spending was diverted from other retail items and towards autos. Worse, many assume the new car sales simply shifted fixed demand forward: people bought cars now when they were planning on doing so later in the year or early in 2010, suggests

Joshua Shapiro, chief US Economist at MFR.

“Anyone thinking about buying cars in the next several months might as well do it now when the government is giving away $4,500,” he says.

“It’s a nice success, but there’s a macroeconomic risk going forward,” says Joseph Brusuelas of Moody’s Economy.com. In "the first quarter of 2010, the stimulus will begin to wither, and consumption which would have otherwise occurred next year will have occurred in the second half of 2009.”

One wonders what other sorts of externalities now are occuring elsewhere in the economy, and will happen when broadband stimulus funds start to flow sometime in early 2010.

Will Broadband Stimulus Work, If So, How Well?

An argument can be made that the "broadband stimulus" program, which has yet to award its first funds, will change very little. Most people who use the Internet already buy broadband services.

People in "underserved" areas might already have several providers (wired and by satellite and terrestrial broadband); the real barrier being lack of PCs, lack of training or simple lack of interest.

In rural areas, there are perhaps hundreds of thousands of locations with no terrestrial access at all, though satellite service might be available. An argument easily can be made that funds should be focused on locations that literally have no terrestrial access at all.

But those locations will be expensive to reach, meaning fewer households will benefit.

Also, building facilities will only improve broadband usage to the extent those new locations have consumers who want to buy broadband. A good percentage will not want to, because they don't use the Internet, do not own computers or cannot afford the incremental cost of broadband service.

That said, even if funds are targeted very precisely, overall broadand usage in the U.S. market will not change much, if only because the number of new subscribers in rural areas will, by definition, be limited. Even in most rural areas, an overwhelming majority of locations already are reached by one or two wired networks, plus satellite and terrestrial broadband in many cases.

The number of truly isolated locations is quite limited, in comparison to all U.S. locations and current broadband subscribers.

Good policy reasons underpin the drive to connect the unconnected. But a "passing" (facilities are in place) is not the same thing as "a user" (a household that buys service). It's good to build facilities to isolated locations. But that doesn't mean people always will buy, or that the number of new subscribers will move the needle.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20090811/0058095834.shtml

Microsoft, Nokia to Challenge RIM

Microsoft and Nokia are working together to bring native versions of Microsoft Office to Nokia smart phones, in a challenge to Research in Motion.

Over time, the companies plan to release applications for Nokia phones (using the Symbian operating system) that include the ability to view, edit, create and share Office documents on more devices in more places with mobile-optimized versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft OneNote.

The initiative also includes enterprise instant messaging and presence, and optimized conferencing and collaboration experience with Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile.

The collaboration also will lead to mobile access to intranet and extranet portals built on Microsoft SharePoint Server.

Apple and Android Gaining, Nokia and Microsoft Losing Share in Smart Phone Market?

Worldwide mobile phone sales totalled 286.1 million units in the second quarter of 2009, a 6.1 percent decline over the year earlier quarter, but smart phone sales rose 27 percent over the same period, surpassing 40 million units for the first time (40.96 million), says Gartner research director Carolina Milanesi.

Apple saw the largest rise in its share of the global smart phone market, rising from a 2.8 percent share in the second quarter of 2008 to 13.3 percent in the same quarter of 2009. Apple is the third most popular provider of devices, with Nokia number one, despite losing new sales share from 47.4 percent to 45 percent. Research in Motion is third.

In the area of operating systems, Nokia's Symbian has 51 percent installed base share, down from 57 percent a year ago, while RIM and Apple grew their shares year-on-year.

Google's Android platform accounted for just under two percent share in the second quarter.

Microsoft's share continued to drop year-on-year to account for nine percent of the market in the second quarter.

ESPN to Limit Social Networking

New technologies, especially those that arrive in the enterprise space from the consumer space, eventually reach some point where corporate managers feel the need to establish policies that serve enterprise business requirements.

In the latest example, ESPN has issued 12 guidelines to its employees about social networking.

The guidelines say that on-air talent, reporters and writers are prohibited from having sports-related blogs or Web sites and that they will need a supervisor’s approval to discuss sports on any social networking sites.

They will also be restricted from discussing internal policies or detailing how stories are “reported, written, edited or produced.”

“The first and only priority is to serve ESPN-sanctioned efforts, including sports news, information and content,” the new rules say.

Violating the new guidelines could lead to suspension or dismissal.

Similar struggles occurred when mobiles started appearing in the workplace, when email started being used and when Web access moved into the workplace as well. In many cases, employees tried blanket prohibitions, before gradually figuring out how to protect business information and interests while still allowing employees to use the new tools.

The same will happen with social networking tools.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/sports/05espn.html?_r=4&ref=sports

So far, Mobile, Broadband Revenues Compensate for U.K. Fixed Voice Losses

In 2008, 49.6 percent of U.K. retail revenues were earned providing mobile and data services, while 33.8 percent of revenues were earned from fixed and mobile data services, says Ofcom, the U.K. communications regulator.

The long term challenge is that even a majority of current mobile voice revenues are likely to shrink as mobile VoIP services become more widespread.

That doesn't necessarily mean voice usage has been falling. Instead, we essentially have productivity effects, as the per-unit cost of using voice has fallen as volumes have grown. That doesn't necessarily mean voice revenues will disappear, but that voice will be a smaller percentage of total revenues on both the fixed and wireless networks.

And though mobility has been the revenue source primarily responsible for telecom providers managing the transition away from classic fixed voice, that will not always be the case. Mobile voice revenue growth has slowed significantly as penetration has saturated and prices have fallen.

Mobile voice revenue growth was just 1.6 percent in 2008, compared to an average of 7.7 percent annual growth over the previous five years, Ofcom says.

As voice services generate nearly three quarters of total mobile revenue, there was a similar

slowing in the growth of total mobile service revenues, to 2.2 percent in 2008, compared to the

annual average of 9.6 percent growth over the previous five years and 15.5 percent over the previous ten years.

Fixed voice revenues have been in decline since 2000 when they reached £12.3 billion, and had

fallen by 26.9 percent in nominal terms from this peak to £9.0 billion by 2008. Growth in mobile voice revenues, which more than tripled from £3.6 billion to £11.5 billion between 1998 and 2008, ensured continued growth in total voice telephony revenues until 2008, when they declined for the first time.

All of that is important for one salient reason. Some have argued that telecom providers would collapse as their core businesses were undermined by new IP-based alternatives. And while the danger remains, so far service providers have proven adept at creating new replacement services and applications at nearly the pace the legacy revenues are falling.

The possibility of disruption exists, of course. But at least so far, telecom providers have proven themselves rather more adept at structural change than many had expected. IP is disruptive to many industries. Whether it is fatal remains to be seen.

Mobility, Broadband Drive U.K. Service Provider Revenue Growth

In 2008, 49.6 percent of U.K. retail revenues were earned providing mobile and data services, while 33.8 percent of revenues were earned from fixed and mobile data services, says Ofcom, the U.K. communications regulator.

The long term challenge is that even a majority of current mobile voice revenues are likely to shrink as mobile VoIP services become more widespread.

That doesn't necessarily mean voice usage has been falling. Instead, we essentially have productivity effects, as the per-unit cost of using voice has fallen as volumes have grown. That doesn't necessarily mean voice revenues will disappear, but that voice will be a smaller percentage of total revenues on both the fixed and wireless networks.

And though mobility has been the revenue source primarily responsible for telecom providers managing the transition away from classic fixed voice, that will not always be the case. Mobile voice revenue growth has slowed significantly as penetration has saturated and prices have fallen.

Mobile voice revenue growth was just 1.6 percent in 2008, compared to an average of 7.7 percent annual growth over the previous five years, Ofcom says.

As voice services generate nearly three-quarters of total mobile revenue, there was a similar

slowing in the growth of total mobile service revenues, to 2.2 percent in 2008, compared to the

annual average of 9.6 percent growth over the previous five years and 15.5 percent over the previous ten years.

Fixed voice revenues have been in decline since 2000 when they reached £12.3 billion, and had

fallen by 26.9 percent in nominal terms from this peak to £9.0 billion by 2008. Growth in mobile voice revenues, which more than tripled from £3.6 billion to £11.5 billion between 1998 and 2008, ensured continued growth in total voice telephony revenues until 2008, when they declined for the first time.

All of that is important for one salient reason. Some have argued that telecom providers would collapse as their core businesses were undermined by new IP-based alternatives. And while the danger remains, so far service providers have proven adept at creating new replacement services and applications at nearly the pace the legacy revenues are falling.

The possibility of disruption exists, of course. But at least so far, telecom providers have proven themselves rather more adept at structural change than many had expected. IP is disruptive to many industries. Whether it is fatal remains to be seen.