Does Telco Revenue Future Require Bandwidth QoS?

A new survey of U.S. communications and media executives by STL Partners offers a couple interesting insights. First, "telcos" are largely assumed to own mobile spectrum and networks.

That does not mean every entity can create a business case around mobility in a direct sense. Keep in mind that it is not simply telco executives who think this way, but significantly that media and content executives make the assumption.

Smaller providers might not be able to justify anything other than working with other mobile providers in one way or another. But tier-one providers virtually must be mobile providers, the survey suggests.

Second, future strategies to increase broadband access revenues virtually require the absence of regulatory rules that ban packet priorities and quality of service mechanisms. About 27 percent of respondents believe that telcos must find new revenue sources as a way of improving the economics of the broadband access business. More than 25 percent say more-efficient networks also are required.

Nearly a quarter of the 120 respondents also believe that one of the buest ways to create new revenue streams is to "charge upstream players for value-added services." Aside from building content delivery networks, it is difficult to envision how mobile service providers and fixed-access networks could add value directly to the access product without having the ability to prioritize traffic.

There are, of course, other potential ways to leverage customer relationships, customer data or billing capabilities in ways that partners might find useful. Still, a strict network neutrality regime would severely crimp the ability to add value in the basic access product.

$Multi-Billion Telco 2.0 Growth Opportunities in North America: Can Telcos Act in Time? - STL Partners

Time Warner Cable Loses 155,000 Video Subscribers

So far in the third quarter, both Comcast and Time Warner Cable have reported video subscriber losses. That in itself would not be unusual, given a market share shift in favor of telcos and satellite providers of late.

Comcast earlier reported a loss of 275,000 subscribers in the third quarter, while Time Warner Cable says it lost 155,000 video subscribers.

Those sorts of statistics sometimes are assumed to be evidence of video "cord cutting," though. It isn't possible yet to make a judgment of that sort, in part because the satellite providers have yet to report subscriber numbers. Only by adding up results at all the leading cable, telco and satellite providers can we determine whether the market is growing, flat or shrinking.

And even if the market is shrinking, as was the case in the second quarter, it isn't completely clear that customers are giving up on multichannel video service for streaming, for over-the-air TV, giving up TV itself, or temporarily suspending service to save some money. It might be years before we can determine whether there has been a permanent shift of behavior, or only a short-term decline because of tougher economic conditions, less new housing construction or a consolidation of households. All of those will put pressure on subscriptions by reducing the potential pool of buyers.

Time Warner Cable - Investor Relations - News Release

FaceCash Talks About Mobile Payment Business

Scale ultimately is key when any company seeks to create a viable payments business to rival, or at least displace or augment, some amount of debit card or credit card payments.

20% of Viewers Might Have Trouble Watching 3D TV

As much as 20 percent of the viewing public might face difficulties watching three-dimensional television.

There's about eight percent to 10 percent of the population that can't see the 3D effect due to a lazy eye muscle; if the person is color blind, says Bob Seidel, CBS Advanced Technology and Engineering VP.

'There is another percentage that can develop motion sickness or other motion-related issues, and then there are some that develop headaches. What percentage still requires further research, but it could be as high as 20 percent," says Seidel.

Unfortunately, I am among the percentage that will never buy a 3D set for precisely that reason.: it causes motion sickness when I watch.

Study: 20% of Viewers Might Have Trouble Watching 3D on Television - The Hollywood Reporter

The Other Location Shoe Drops: Facebook Deals. Will It Discount Rivals?

Facebook is launching "Deals," a combination location-plus-promotion" feature that offers value to end users who use their mobile devices to "check in" at participating retailer locations, and can get discounts or other offers when doing so.

But here's the interesting angle: so far, Facebook is not charging retailers for the privilege of creating offers and sponsoring them on U.S. Facebook pages.

To start, Facebook has announced deals with 22 partners, while 20,000 small and medium sized businesses on Facebook also have access to the "Deal" creation tool.

Gap is giving away 10,000 free pairs of blue jeans. And when they run out of those, they’re giving 40 percent off of any product when someone checks-in to any of their nationwide stores.

A smaller cinema chain, Alamo Draft House, is giving away a free pint glass when you check-in. And they’ll have offers for special events for friends.

Deal is not a full-on "Groupon" app, but it could lead in that direction. And though there is no certainty about whether "Deal" becomes a for-fee service, Facebook could be disruptive if it decides not to charge partners, as a way of getting more traction. As always, it is difficult to compete with a firm that gives away the product you are trying to sell.

The Other Location Shoe Drops: Facebook Deals

Levin Defends Fact-Based Approach to National Broadband

A lot of effort went into assessing facts when the "National Broadband Plan" was developed. And some of those facts are inconvenient, in some quarters.

"What we discovered when we went out there is that 90 percent of people had broadband available to them, but a much smaller percentage actually were subscribing to service," says Blair Levin, former executive director of the National Broadband Plan, and now a fellow at the Aspen Institute.

"Affordability was a factor for some people, but the larger issue has to do with relevance," says Levin.

That's a big deal. If one assumes the "problem" is "product availability," one set of actions is warranted. If one assumes "product demand" is the issue, then different solutions are necessary.

The plan actually found that "ability to buy" was not the big issue. Rather, demand was the issue. "Even though there are a lot of low-income people who may not be able to afford multichannel video (cable TV), there is still a high proportion of people subscribing to the service," Levin says. But the cost of service is not the biggest issue.

"The big difference between TV and broadband is that to watch TV, you don't have to be literate," Levin says. "The same is true of phone service. You don't need to be literate to use a cell phone, so penetration of those services is higher."

The implication is that once citizens and consumers see the value and relevance, they buy. But that's a different problem than "I want to buy, but cannot because there are no facilities."

There are some areas, mostly rural, where sheer access is an issue. But that problem is a "targeted" problem that can be overcome by a relatively targeted approach to new facilities.

"We can solve about 90 percent of the broadband access problem for a relatively small amount of money, like around $10 billion," Levin says. "Of course, if you tried to solve 100 percent of the problem, it would be more difficult and more expensive."

In a capital-intensive undertaking, getting the last couple of percentage points of improvement is hugely expensive, unless one is flexible about the methods used to solve the problem, in other words. In some cases, building landline facilities is not economically rational, since there already exist other ways to deliver service to the last couple of percent of potential users using satellite services, while terrestrial wireless might make sense for five percent of locations.

Neither private industry nor governments anymore have the luxury of solving access problems with one single approach, no matter what the cost.

The man behind the National Broadband Plan

Netbook Demand Seems Weaker: Issue is Why

A ChangeWave survey of 3,108 consumers during October suggests essentially-flat demand for desktop PCs, unchanged levels of demand for laptops and lower demand for netbooks. Most observers will be quick to point to stronger demand for tablet devices as the reason for the lower interest in netbooks.

The percentage of respondents saying they plan on buying a desktop over the next 90 days (six percent of respondents) has ticked up one point since ChangeWave's survey in August, while planned purchases of laptops (eight percent ) remain unchanged.

Consumer interest in netbooks (14 percent of respondents) is down about 10 percentage points since the June 2009 survey.

Changewave survey - tablet pc and apple ipad

North American Operator Non-Voice Revenues to Approach $100 billion by 2015

Service provider revenues from non-voice services will almost double to $96.7 billion by 2015, up from $56.0 billion in 2010, driven by consumer adoption of data-hungry devices, such as, smartphones and tablets, Juniper Research estimates.

Despite the growth, total operator revenues will slow year-over-year, as a result of the decline in voice revenues. Meanwhile, according to report author Daniel Ashdown, "voice revenues are deteriorating as the subscriber market saturates and competition places pressure on voice bundle pricing."

North American Operator Non-Voice Revenues to Approach $100 billion by 2015, says Juniper Research

100 Ways to Get Rid of a Telemarketer

Most people can discourage unwanted telemarketing calls by signing up on the "Do Not Call" list at https://www.donotcall.gov/.

Of course, if you have an existing business relationship with a firm, or have had one in the last six months, the calls are legal. So here's a list of 100 ways, most of them funny, to "get rid" of a telemarketer.

Landline Phone Service: 100 Ways to Get Rid of a Telemarketer

T-Mobile USA Defends Network

Neville Ray, the Chief Technology Officer of T-Mobile USA, says the company is in "no rush" to activate a fourth-generation network right away.

Observers will point out that T-Mobile USA is making the best of a bad situation: it has no 4G spectrum, and continues to work on how to get it. So making a virtue out of necessity is not a bad way to go. Beyond the positioning, there are some practical issues.

T-Mobile USA points out that handset selection initially will be limited, and that it is possible battery life and other issues could complicate end user experience.

Also, to the extent that the immediate advantage for a user is "more speed," so long as T-Mobile USA can keep up in the bandwidth area--actual experience, not marketing headlines--the advantages of broader handset availability and possibly price should prove advantageous.

And, as a practical matter, T-Mobile USA's HSPA+ network should perform credibly compared to the WiMAX and Long Term Evolution networks operated by Sprint, Clearwire, Verizon and AT&T. That should immediately raise questions for mobile marketers. So far, 4G promises "faster speeds." Most would agree that is the case.

The broader issue is whether end users value the "faster access" offers a big enough marketing platform to drive use of devices and applications using the "4G" networks, or whether other factors, including handset desirability, pricing and packaging, unique applications or other elements of service are equally, or more, important.

So far, a reasonable observer might say that 4G, in a network sense, has not changed end user experience all that much. There has been more differentiation in service plans, terms and conditions. Of late, device differentiation has been a bigger factor. But all that is fairly subtle stuff.

Most people would find it hard to give a concise, compelling reason for why a 4G experience is better than a 3G experience, with the exception of "speed." If a 3G network can match 4G speed, lots of people might turn their attention to handsets and packaging as the key drivers of choice.

T-Mobile USA criticizes rivals' high-speed plans | Reuters

U.S. Smartphone Penetration Now at 28%

Smartphone penetration in the United States reached 28 percent in the third quarter of 2010, according to The Nielsen Company.

The growing popularity of smartphones like Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s Blackberry devices and a variety of Google Android-based models on the market has accelerated the adoption rate.

Among those who acquired a new cellphone in the past six months, 41 percent opted for a smartphone over a standard feature phone, up from 35 percent last quarter.

Mobile Snapshot: Smartphones Now 28% of U.S. Cellphone Market | Nielsen Wire

Mobile Couponing: Glass Half Full or Half Empty?

According to some predictions in 2009, mobile couponing was ripe for takeoff. While relatively few mobile users had redeemed a coupon through their phone, many were interested, and Yankee Group predicted an increase in the number of mobile coupons redeemed in North America in 2010 from 200,000 to 2.3 million.

But some might argue consumers have been slow to respond. Others might say redemption rates and actions are well above what might be expected from other sorts of campaigns.

According to a September 2010 survey conducted by OnePoll for mobile transaction network mBlox, fewer than 15 percent of US mobile subscribers have redeemed a mobile coupon. This is about twice the penetration Yankee Group found in 2009.

So is that a glass half full, or half empty? An active response of 15 percent is considered quite good for other types of campaigns. Some would point out that a coupon redemption rates ranging from one percent to three percent would not be unusual for other types of traditional coupons.

That might strike you as quite low, but 81 percent of the units purchased using manufacturer coupons came from just 19 percent of U.S. households during the twenty-six week period ended June 27, 2009, for example, according to Nielsen.

The most avid users, called “coupon enthusiasts,” are households that purchased 104 or more items using manufacturers’ coupons. The 10 percent of shoppers that fall into this category accounted for 62 percent of manufacturers’ coupon units. They also accounted for 16 percent of total unit sales making them a very attractive and important consumer target.

Still Waiting on that Mobile Couponing Explosion - eMarketer

The Rise of the Gigabyte Phone

It might not seem obvious today, but we might soon be consuming nearly one gigabyte of data every month on our smartphones. That isn't much by wireline standards. But it is a pretty steep increase for smartphone users who have been consuming 200 megabytes a month or less.

Nor is it so much data compared to mobile broadband dongle usage, which might range about 2 Gbytes a month or so.

This is a similar growth pattern we saw on wired broadband networks; the faster the speeds, the more data we consumed.

The Rise of the Gigabyte Phone: Tech News

The Times U.K. Lost 4 Million Readers to Its Paywall

Whether a content provider decides to put up a "paywall" or not is a business decision any company can make. Whether that is a good thing or not remains to be seen.

According to comScore, the Times UK website saw its online readership decline by four million unique visitors a month worldwide to 2.4 million, or a 62 percent drop.

Pageviews fell off an even steeper cliff, plummeting 90 percent from an estimated 41 million in May, 2010 to four million in September, 2010.

People did what you’d expect them to do when faced with a paywall at a news site. They said, “No, thanks” and clicked away to another site.

That doesn't necessarily mean the decision is wrong. The Times might be willing to trade higher subscriber revenues for lower potential ad revenue. But it has been a wrenching decision so far.

The Times U.K. Lost 4 Million Readers to Its Paywall -- Seeking Alpha

Smartphone Data Will Grow 700% Over 5 Years

Smartphone users are generating two thirds of total mobile cellular traffic worldwide despite the fact that only 13 percent of mobile subscribers use smartphones, according to Informa Telecoms & Media.

And as these smartphone users spend more time on the Internet, the traffic that each one generates (Informa calls it "average traffic per user") will increase by 700 percent over the next five years.

Informa Telecoms & Media estimates that average traffic per smartphone currently averages 85 MBytes per month.

InformaTM :: Press Releases