Facebook is Social Network Market Leader in 115 Countries

Facebook is the leading social network in 115 out of 132 countries.

U.S. Broadband Access: Not as Bad as Some Believe

There's an interesting statistic in the Federal Communications Commission's latest report on the state of U.S. broadband access services. The FCC took a look at locations by zip code, and estimated that 48 percent of U.S. households had, at the end of 2009, the ability to buy downstream service of at least 3 Mbps and upstream service of more than 200 kbps from at least three fixed-network providers.

Some 44 percent had the ability to buy such service from at least two fixed-network providers.

Some 28 percent of households had the ability to buy service of at least 3 Mbps/768 kbps from at least three providers, while 48 percent had the ability to buy from at least two providers.

About 22 percent of househoulds could buy service of at least 6 Mbps/1.5 Mbps from at least two providers, while 57 percent could buy from at least one provider.

Some 20 percent of U.S. households could buy service of at least 10 Mbps from at least two providers, while 58 percent could buy service from at least one provider.

If one adds in wireless providers, the FCC found that 58 percent of U.S. homes could buy wireless service of at least 3 Mbps/200 kbps from at least three providers, while 35 percent could buy from at least two providers and six percent had at least one provider.

About 40 percent of U.S. households could buy service of at least 3 Mbps/768 kbps from at least three providers, while another 40 percent could buy service from at least two providers, and 17 percent could buy service from at least one provider.

That means 97 percent of U.S. homes can buy service of  3 Mbps/768 kbps from at least one provider in each area. In addition, 28 percent of those households could buy such service from at least three providers; 48 percent could buy from at least two providers and 21 percent could buy from at least one fixed provider.

About 80 percent of U.S. households can buy 6 Mbps/1.5 Mbps service from one to three network providers, and also 80 percent could buy service from at least one provider as well.

Some 79 percent of U.S. households could buy 10 Mbps/1.5 Mbps service from at least one provider.

You can argue more speed is needed, or that prices are too high: people do that. But that's a significant number of facilities-based competition for nearly 80 percent of U.S. households.

96% Of Publishers Not Mobile-Enabled

According to a study conducted by online and mobile ad network Chitika, of the one million largest web domains, only 3.54 percent have a dedicated site for mobile traffic.

Without a targeted site or call-to-action targeted to mobile devices (such as Chitika’s mobile ad unit, which targets mobile traffic on non-mobile sites), mobile traffic is nearly impossible to monetize, meaning that over 96 percent of the Internet is wasting a growing, potentially valuable segment of traffic.

The caveat is that part of the mobile Internet is just the same as the fixed Internet. That's what tablets are all about. A tablet ought to be able to render the traditional web, for example, nearly as well as a PC, with the glaring exception that tablets are designed for "touch" interfaces that could be quite clumsy without mouse navigation.

"Mobilization" is one issue websites have to contend with, but it isn't so clear that designing for touch interfaces will be less important, not so far into the future from now.

The additional issue, beyond simply "mobile optimization," is "touch interface optimization." You might argue mobile optimization--designing sites for smartphone access--is more important. That might be true, but not completely true. Increasingly, smartphones and other connected devices are fundamentally designed around a touch interface, and that might be a more-important consideration.

96% Of Publishers Not Monetizing Mobile Traffic… Yet – Chitika Research

Netflix Offers Digital Dimes, Time Warner Wants Dollars

Netflix is offering $50,000-$100,000 to stream current television shows, says Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, but traditional channels still pay “millions of dollars” per episode. New online entrants, he said, would have to pay the same as traditional channels.

Though it is understandable that any traditionally prosperous, high-margin business would want to preserve its business model in changed circumstances, none of the rest of the media (music, print, radio, for example) is proving to be capable of sustaining the old business model.

The business will have to change. It won't change as fast as some would like, too fast for those who resist, but it will change.

FT.com / Media - Netflix challenge to traditional TV

IP Telephony Critical for 30% of SMBs; 50% of Medium-Sized Companies

More than 30 percent of small businesses (one to 99 employees) and 50 percent of medium businesses (100 to 999 employees) say that VoIP will become critical to their business operations in 2011, according to AMI-Partners.

The only aspect of those findings is that the percentages are not higher, though the reason is somewhat understandable. In a business setting, the switch from legacy telephony to IP telephony often costs money in the near term, rather than representing an immediate savings. Though recurring costs nearly always are lower, some amount of capital investment often is required, either to fix and upgrade a local area network or buy new software and hardware.

“The last several years of recession caused many SMBs to put new technology purchases on hold,” according to Karen Nielsen, Senior Consultant with AMI. “Moving into 2011, cost savings, as well as the advanced features available with IP, will impel more and more SMBs to IP architecture implementation."

read more here

More Packet Backhaul in Europe

According to Heavy Reading research, eight percent of all cell sites in Europe will have packet backhaul in live service at the end of this year, which is up from less than two percent at the end of 2008.

Heavy Reading forecasts that by the end of next year, 17 percent of all European cell sites will have packet backhaul in live service.

In Europe, most of the packet backhaul deployments to date have been fiber-based, according to Donegan. But 2011 is expected to be a big year for packet microwave, and it will be deployed in substantial volume in "live commercial service," says Donegan.

Light Reading Europe - Ethernet - Packet Backhaul Busts the 'Pain Barrier' - Telecom News Analysis

Telecom NZ CEO: Industry Outlook Bearish

Telecom Corp. of New Zealand Chief Executive Paul Reynolds remains bearish about the short-term outlook for the communications industry, in New Zealand and most of the developed world as well, but as you would expect, says his firm, and others, are prepared for what they must do.

However, the telecommunications industry faces tough times and profound challenges in New Zealand and all around the world, he said.

"Revenue growth has stopped for telcos in mature economies," he notes. "There's no growth in Australia, Europe or the U.S., and none in New Zealand."

In New Zealand, total revenues are predicted to decline slightly over the next three years, Reynolds says.

Competition in traditional voice and data services were causing revenues to decline quickly, while growth areas like mobile, information technology and broadband were struggling to fill the gap, he says.

It is obviously not the concern of any end user that Telecom and other firms have to manage for a no-growth environment. But it has to be a concern for policymakers, capital markets and industry executives that this is the case.

To the extent that there is no possibility of providing new services, better services and lower prices without a return to growth, it arguably doesn't make sense to put barriers in the path to transforming the business. It sometimes makes sense to put new regulations and place new obligations on businesses with a strong public service character and robust earnings.

It arguably does not make sense to saddle declining businesses with additional burdens at a time when they simply cannot bear them. Otherwise one simply hastens the speed of the decline.

Telecom NZ CEO: Industry Outlook Bearish But Telecom Prepared - WSJ.com (subscription required)

U.S. Companies to Increase Hiring in 2011

Companies in the United States are poised to increase payrolls next year as revenue picks up, a sign the labor market is improving, an annual survey of chief financial officers showed today.

The share of executives who said they plan to hire new workers in 2011 rose to 47 percent, compared with 28 percent who forecast they would add jobs this year, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch survey released today. Sixty-four percent said they expect revenue growth, up from 61 percent in last year’s survey.

Businesses in the U.S. need to add more jobs to bring down an unemployment rate that rose to 9.8 percent in November, the highest since April, and alleviate concerns among Federal Reserve policy makers that growth in the world’s largest economy will remain sluggish.

U.S. Companies to Increase Hiring in 2011, Survey of CFOs Shows - Bloomberg

Mobile Story for 2011: Mobile Local Advertising, Android and Social Media

Android, social and local could make for “massive growth” in mobile advertising in 2011, some believe.

New Google Chrome OS

Sprint Network Modernization Means More Freedom

Sprint's new $5 billion network modernization program, which will allow it to consolidate its multiple radio networks into a single fabric, might save the company a huge amount of money: possibly $10 billion to $11 billion over seven years. That would be reason enough to pursue the upgrade.

More important are the potential strategic options, such as allowing Sprint the ability to deploy its own Long Term Evolution network, on its own facilities and using its owned spectrum, instead of relying on Clearwire facilities, even though Sprint owns 54 percent of Clearwire.

Sprint does not have management control over Clearwire and tensions between Sprint and Clearwire have grown over the last year. Sprint will have the ability to create a new LTE network on its own once it decommissions the iDEN network, and might have other options should Clearwire proceed with a planned spectrum auction, and should Sprint emerge as the winner of that spectrum.

At this point, Sprint might prefer to be the master of its own LTE and 4G destiny, rather than the depending on Clearwire’s WiMAX rollout.

Datamonitor | Media Center | Sprint takes control of 4G destiny, expert comment

Premium VOD on the Way

Early next year, Warner Bros. will start offering films for cable video-on-demand services 30 to 60 days prior to their arrival on disk. Sony will shorten its window for cable VOD too, but will offer the same films at the same time through its own Qriocity streaming service. The idea there is to test, and the studios hope, to create a new premium VOD window offering access to new-release movies at about twice what it costs to watch those same movies in theaters.

Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. and New Line essentially will be making movies available for cable premium VOD as soon as theatrical exhibition ends.

One suspects many consumers would be happy to pay some premium for "earlier than DVD" access to new-release movies. Whether they deem such access to be worth twice what a movie theater ticket costs is what remains to be seen.

In the media: Premium VOD on the way

Yahoo! Gets Hyper-Local

Yahoo has launched "Yahoo! Local" in limited beta. The initiative is intended to provide a hyper-local content experience across desktop and mobile (currently available via the mobile web on iPhone and Android), enabling them to discover and contribute to the best local news, deals, and events nearby, all in one place.

The goal is to provide content about what’s happening in user neighborhoods, whether they’re at home or on the go. Yahoo is testing in 30 neighborhoods in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Brooklyn, NY as well as Birmingham, Ferndale, and Royal Oak in Michigan. You can access the new experience from your desktop or mobile phone by visiting: http://beta.local.yahoo.com.

Yahoo! Gets Hyper-Local

Usage Up, Users Up, Revenue Down: Primary Reason Service Providers Seek New Revenue from App Providers

While the number of mobile data connections in western Europe will rise by an average of 15 percent a year to 270 million in 2014, overall end-user revenue will fall about one percent a year, IDC estimates. That is the primary reason European and U.S. mobile operators insist they will have to move to two-sided revenue models that generate income both from end users and business partners using the mobile and fixed networks.

The alternative is raising access fees for most, if not all, users, in an environment where such moves face tough consumer opposition.

The greater usage, and greater number of users is propelling capital investments that will grow 28 percent from last year to about $3.7 billion, according to researcher Canalys.

Apple, Google Asked to Pay Up as Mobile Operators Face Data Flood - Bloomberg

Sprint CEO Says 4G First Mover Gambit Produced Modest Advantage

Sprint's motivation in launching the first North American fourth-generation mobile network was to seize a multi-year advantage over its mobile competitors.

As it seems to have turned out, that lead was much shorter than anticipated, providing a lead of just about two years, where a lead of perhaps three years once was deemed possible. And now Sprint Nextel will have to face the Verizon Wireless marketing machine.

Sprint's CEO was interviewed by Walt Mossberg at the All Things Digital conference in San Francisco, as reported by PC World, and admitted that WiMAX technology failed to provide the 4G lead it was supposed to. He did argue, however, that the failure was caused by Verizon's unexpectedly fast response in deploying Long Term Evolution.

Sprint CEO admits WiMAX gamble didn't pay off • The Register: