Not Every Mobile Operator Now Experiences Data Congestion; Only 60%

Bandwidth is one of those issues upon which one always can seem to find an argument. One always can get an argument about whether access is fast enough, cheap enough or good enough; whether bandwidth demand is growing at unmanageable levels or just growing. Virtually all retail service providers report a highly-skewed consumption pattern, with a small percentage of users consuming disproportionately.

Others maintain that even if such really-heavy patterns exist, it doesn't affect overall performance or experience very much.

But a new survey of 30 global mobile operators suggests that more than 60 percent of global wireless service providers do experience data congestion today, with 20 percent reporting that data congestion is severe at specific times.

The study, conducted by Telespirience on behalf of Amdocs, probably won't end the debate.

Service providers in the Middle East and Africa report that this overload poses serious consequences for their brand reputation and has led to an increase in customer complaints around service quality; Asian and American operators say it is contributing to churn.

Data demand is driven by smartphones and laptops with mobile broadband: In the Americas and Europe smartphones are driving data demand, accounting for more than 40 percent of total data consumption.

In Asia, the Middle East and Africa, laptops with mobile broadband is the key driver. A further factor fuelling demand is flat-rate data tariffs where “bandwidth hogs,” although comprising only an estimated two to three  percent of the customer base, are consuming approximately 30 percent of the network’s capacity, contributing to further service degradation for the overall user base.

About 75 percent of wireless service providers surveyed say end-to-end quality of service has the single greatest impact on their bottom line, partly because of increased customer support costs and customer churn.

Wireless service providers see building out additional network capacity as essential, with 97 percent of those surveyed reporting they intend to roll out Ethernet to alleviate congestion. Respondents said that the gap between the growth in demand for capacity as compared to revenues received for data services was a matter of concern, though.

"Wireless service providers face a 'perfect storm' with data demand doubling year on year, yet revenues are static due to flat-rate pricing," said Teresa Cottam, research director of Telesperience.

To be sure, there are all sorts of reasons for moving to fourth-generation platforms that only secondarily involve an immediate need for bandwidth. Most observers believe 4G networks will cost less to operate, on a delivered bit basis. To the extent that revenue never seems to scale linearly with additional bandwidth, that is a huge advantage.

read more here

Telecom and Video Cutbacks: What Happens When Economy Turns?

The hard thing about managing or forecasting in turbulent times is, as Cisco management likes to say, "managing the transitions." It is not news that media, entertainment and communication spending has been sluggish, at best, for many segments of those businesses over the past couple of years.

According to Harris Interactive, about 20 percent of U.S. adults say they have cancelled or cut back on cable television service (22 percent), mobile phone service (17 percent) or cancelled their landline service and are only using their cell phone (17 percent).

The hard part is trying to figure out when cutbacks triggered by a tough economy will abate, and whether behavior returns to its older pattern, or not. In past recessions, consumer behavior has resumed its "pre-recession" pattern once the recovery was firmly under way.

This time around, of course, nobody is too confident. There is much concern that a new "age of austerity" has begun, so that even when the economy does improve, behavior will not be as it was, in terms of spending. At the same time, most of us would agree that user preferences and tastes are changing. Aside from the economic effects, people might be deciding they want to spend their money in different ways than they have in the past.

Aside from those largely incremental changes, though, some of us believe the danger of "black swan events," unpredictable and unforeseen events with large magnitude effects, is higher than used to be the case in the past, though at all times "black swan events" have occurred.

Uncertainty? You betcha. 

Harris Interactive: Americans Still Cutting Back on the Small Things to Save Money

Clearwire 4G Active in Denver?

Now this is a pleasant shock. Clearwire's 4G network seems to up and running in central Denver. There has been no announcement that I am aware of, and, in fact, Clearwire has said it would delay Denver construction, as I recall.  But there it is: I am getting a live 4G signal on my Evo. Marvelous.


Since it is rumored that Sprint and Clearwire are in disagreement about whether Sprint should actually be paying Clearwire for service it is unable to provide, the signal activation implies to me that Clearwire and Sprint have reached agreement, at least in Denver.

Sprint says it has 810,000 customers with 4G handsets in areas that have not yet been lit up with WiMAX 4G, yet Sprint still has to pay for those customers, to the tune of about 4.46 per customer, reports indicate.

The more interesting question is how much of Denver already has radios in place, powered up and ready to go. Clearwire originally had been planning to light up the 4G network by the end of 2010, and then backed off. Apparently there are enough Sprint customers in Denver that the lost revenue is more painful than the cost of operating the retail network.

Lots of Subtleties to Mobile Banking

Mobile banking, some would argue, is not as obvious an opportunity for U.S. application or service providers because the banking infrastructure is well developed, in obvious contrast to the situation in many other parts of the world, where the mobile essentially "is" the banking channel.

The more-subtle observation is that the infrastructure an application provider puts into place to support mobile money transfers of various types also can be leveraged for loyalty campaigns, coupon distribution and other marketing campaigns.

Over time, we'll see how things develop, at least in the U.S. market, where it seems likely most of the value payment processing represents has yet to be "surfaced."

75% of YouTube Access is Mobile?

A recent survey by Google's YouTube Mobile division has found a stunning 75 percent of mobile YouTube users indicating that their mobile device is the primary way they view YouTube content.

Even allowing for the skew of users (100 percent use their mobiles for YouTube), that is a startling finding.

The 16,000 responses also indicate that 70 percent of respondents visit YouTube Mobile at least once a day. About
58 percent spend more than 20 minutes per visit to YouTube Mobile. About 38 percent feel that YouTube Mobile is replacing their desktop YouTube usage.

Those findings have all sorts of implications. Mobile service providers might sell more data plans, or larger data plans, if more people start behaving this way. They also will have to keep upgrading the capacity of their networks.

Device manufacturers have an opportunity to make video experiences a draw for their higher-end devices. Tablet devices likely will benefit as well, given the larger display tablets sport. Application providers would seem to have a growing base of users who are comfortable with, and used to, watching video on a mobile device.

Google Mobile Ads Blog

Global Online Growth Fastest in BRIC Countries

In 2014, one-third of Internet users will come from Brazil, Russia, India, or China.

The Data Digest: Forrester's Global Online Population Forecast 2009 To 2014 | Forrester Blogs

How Mobile Apps Help the Car-Rental Business

The big issue, for mobile applications or any other uses for mobile devices in other areas of business, is the value proposition. Using a mobile, instead of some other mechanism, has to offer enough value to displace an existing behavior.

It appears mobile apps now offer value both for end users of the Zipcar service, and Zipcar itself.

Launched two years ago, Zipcar's app for iPhone and Android devices has been downloaded by 400,000 people, who use it to locate the nearest available car. That has made it much easier for customers to find cars wherever and whenever they want one.

Now the company has expanded to 55 cities and 225 college campuses in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom.

By letting customers book cars spontaneously with their mobile phones instead of making reservations ahead of time on PCs, Zipcar has found a much easier way to manage its challenging logistics.

Unlike a big car-rental company, Zipcar arranges many short-term rentals in widely distributed locations.

Customers must return the car to its home spot, which is often on a side street. You can see why the ability to return a vehicle using nothing more than a mobile device is useful. A mobile can find an available car closest to where a user is, and allows a user to easily figure out where to leave the car once the rental period is finished.

How Mobile Apps Are Disrupting the Car-Rental Business

E.U. Not Worried About Net Neutrality

“The European Union (E.U.) has sufficient legal safeguards in place to prevent the Continent’s telephone operators from selectively managing consumer access to the Internet and no new restrictions are needed,” says Neelie Kroes, the commissioner for the E.U.’s digital agenda.

So the E.U.’s executive arm had opted to take a wait-and-see approach on the so-called network neutrality issue.

So far, the E.U. continues to believe that competition is sufficient to prevent the abuses network neutrality supporters tend to worry about, namely anti-competitive behavior by ISPs who own content assets, or erection of the access equivalent of content paywalls.

Perhaps oddly, where competition in the U.S. market includes a strong facilities-based cable and a strong facilities-based telco in nearly all markets, plus a couple to several mobile providers plus two satellite broadband providers, plus an occasional fixed-wireless provider, most E.U. nations have one dominant telco providing access to all other contestants, though facilities-based cable providers are becoming established, or are established, in the United Kingdom, for example, and mobile networks also offer broadband access.

It isn't always clear to some observers why multiple facilities-based competitors provide "less competition" than one network, albeit one with strong wholesale requirements. Wholesale "one size fits all" access is a good thing, one might argue. Multiple networks, each free to customize access offerings, arguably is better.

E.U. Not Worried Over Net Neutrality

Facebook to Offer Email?

Facebook’s Project Titan has been building a web-based email client, and some believe a launch is coming within days. If Facebook adds an email client, do you care? How would you use it, and do you trust it?

Facebook Jumping Into Email Game

iPad Users and Intenders More Likely to “Cut the Cord”

People who own iPads, and those who say they will buy an iPad, are more likely to cancel their multichannel video entertainment subscriptions, says Michael Greeson, The Diffusion Group founding partner and director of research.

About 34 percent of iPad owners surveyed by TDG say they might cancel their multichannel video entertainment service in the next six months, more than twice the rate among respondents who say they intend to buy an iPad (14 percent) and three times the rate among average adult broadband users (10 percent).

The study suggests 13 percent of iPad owners are "highly likely" to cancel their multichannel video service in the next six months, twice the rate among respondents who say they want to buy an iPad (six percent) and three times the rate among average adult broadband users (four percent).

About 36 percent iPad owners and 30 percent of respondents who say they want to buy an iPad are likely to downgrade their multichannel video service in the next six months, compared with 21 percent of average adult broadband users.

Some 27 percent of iPad owners say they are "highly likely" to downgrade their multichannel video service in the next six months, compared with 14 percent of respondents who want to buy an iPad 10 percent of average adult broadband users.

Though the typical caveats apply (users don't always do what they say they will), one might draw any number of conclusions from the survey data. Some users might value their iPad experience enough, and derive low enough value from multichannel TV, that they are shifting spending from TV subscriptions to device purchases.

It might be that iPad ownership and demand for multichannel video services are correlated behaviors, but that the iPad purchase decision is not directly related to the lower evaluation of TV subscriptions. In other words, most iPad owners might be people who for other reasons have a lower view of the value of multichannel video.

Or, one might conclude that the iPad is having a real impact on the linear video market, allowing people to more easily drop their multichannel TV service and consume their video online. No matter which scenario makes most sense, all the potential explanations would seem to be negative for linear video.

iPad Users and Intenders More Likely to “Cut the Cord”

Charter to Levy Usage Caps

It appears Charter Communications broadband access customers will start seeing usage caps in December 2010. Subscribers to Charter Communications "Lite" and "Express" services will be capped at 100 GBytes of usage per month.

Subscribers to the "Plus" and "Max" services will be capped at 250 GBytes per month.
Subscribers to the "Ultra60" service will be capped at 500 GBytes per month.

Charter will not charge overage fees for those who exceed the caps, but their accounts may be suspended.

Charter Follows Comcast With Broadband Usage Caps: Tech News

Yahoo: 20% Layoff Rumors

Yahoo is rumored to be preparing for a lay off of 20 percent of its total staff.

Yahoos Freaking Out Over 20% Layoff Rumors

Mossberg on Samsung Galaxy Tab

Internet Commerce Seems to Boost TV Shopping

Rather than hurting home shopping channels, the Internet has actually helped make consumers more willing to buy merchandise without first seeing or touching it in a store, says Barton Crockett, senior analyst at Lazard Capital Markets, who covers the space. 'If you're comfortable buying online, you'll be comfortable buying stuff delivered to you by a TV shopping network,' says Mr. Crockett.

We might have predicted the reverse state of affairs, with Internet shopping cannibalizing TV-based shopping activity.

The Golden Age of TV Shopping - WSJ.com (subscription required)

Broadband Access is About More Than "Home"

It's always difficult to assess the state of broadband access, in the United States or anywhere else, when multiple forms of access are available. In Austria, for example, wireless increasingly seems to be preferred for broadband access. In the United States, it might be worth noting that people access the Internet, using broadband, in all sorts of ways beyond the connections they use at home.

Fully 74 percent of respondents to a survey conducted by Connect South Carolina indicate they use broadband at home. But an additional 33 percent also report they use it at work, while 16 percent say they use broadband provided by a public library.

About 12 percent say they use broadband at someone else's home, seven percent, five percent at schools, three percent at hotels, two percent at airports and two percent at community centers.

More broadband use at home, virtually everybody would agree, is a good thing. The point is that people already seem to be using broadband in a variety of ways that suggest a narrow focus only on at-home broadband does not tell the whole story. About 54 percent of respondents say they use broadband at some location other the home.

About four percent of respondents say they use mobile broadband for their notebook computers or PCs, about 20 percent say they have mobile broadband on their smartphones, while five percent say they have both smartphone broadband and a separate PC access subscription.

view the full results here