4G Has Been a Technical Issue; Now it Becomes a Business Issue

Telco Opportunities in Cloud Computing

How Telcos Can Live with Google

Content, Distributor Relationships to Change in 2011

In the long debate over whether content, distribution or something else is "king" of the video ecosystem, it has remained clear that relative revenue shares within the ecosystem have been changing.

Those relationships will get another test in 2011 as Netflix and a few media companies renegotiate their carriage agreements. Netflix has to renegotiate its agreements with and Starz, which allows Netflix access to Sony and Disney movies.

The original deal from 2008, in which Netflix paid an estimated $25 million annually, is seen by some in the content business as a mistake, given the discrepancy between what cable, telco and satellite companies pay Starz for carriage rights. That means Netflix content acquisition costs are set to rise.

Over the long term, Netflix viability as a provider of streaming content will be shaped by those costs.

Time Warner Takes a Shot at Netflix - NYTimes.com

Tablet Solves Question of what a "Mobile Internet Device" Looks Like

As recently as a year ago, you could have heard quite a lot about the impact "netbooks" would have on the overall PC industry. Before that you'd have heard about "mobile Internet devices."

For most of 2010, all you've heard about is "tablets," especially the iPad, for good reasons. The hypothesized market for MIDs has surfaced, and though some believed the netbook could evolve into a mass market MID, it now appears the "tablet" PC is what much of the market considers a MID to be.

Not surprisingly, much talk now centers on how much cannibalization tablets will cause in the rest of the market. IDC now forecasts that worldwide mini notebook shipments will be 37.8 million units in 2010, up 10.3 percent from 2009.

Over the next four years, the compound annual growth rate for the worldwide mini notebook market will be 4.3 percent, topping out at 42.4 million units shipped in 2014.

IDC - Press Release - prUS22565510

$35 Billion Mobile App Revenue in 2014

Worldwide mobile apps revenues will surpass $35 billion in 2014, according to researchers at International Data Corporation. The number of downloaded apps also is expected to increase from 10.9 billion worldwide in 2010 to 76.9 billion in 2014.

Application developers have churned out more than 300,000 mobile apps in just over three years, and now are available for both tablets and smartphones. In 2011 and beyond, mobile apps will find their way into even more devices, including connected TVs and the connected home, IDC forecasts.

IDC - Press Release - prUS22617910

Procter & Gamble Sees Social Media as Mass Media

Procter & Gamble now believes social media is a replacement for at least some mass media advertising. Procter & Gamble, said to be the world's biggest advertiser, still buys individual commercials on daytime TV. But the dollar amount has shrunk. P&G won't say by how much.

"The digital media has pretty much exploded," marketing chief Marc Pritchard said in an interview. "It's become very integrated with how we operate, it's become part of the way we do marketing."

"Old Spice" commercials run by Procter & Gamble recently generated 1.8 billion impressions, 140 million YouTube impressions and an increase in Twitter followers for Old Spice of 2,700 percent.

Old Spice sales also are growing at double digits, taking more of the market for body washes and deodorant.

Procter & Gamble moves from soap operas to social media - USATODAY.com

Paul Ryan on Spurring Economic Growth

I admit to a bias in favor of rational economic analysis of difficult problems, which is to say that economists generally agree on quite a number of things, and that what they tend to agree about, where it comes to spurring long-term economic growth, productivity and the ability to provide the "greatest good for the greatest number" we ought to be sober and determined.

It's a bit of a "policy wonk" point of view, but such things have direct consequences for everybody. In my case, most especially for my Millennial children. This is an interesting discussion, along those lines. Growth normally is not the sort thing most people think about. But without growth, it is impossible to provide higher real incomes for the broadest number of "average" Americans.

Equity is a praise-worthy social concern. But real economic growth always is the foundation for sustainable growth in ability to support social equity. The link isn't always obvious, even if true. Growth is necessary, and for that reason inherently praise worthy.

FiOS Gains in Maryland and Virginia

It's just impressionistic, but at a recent dinner with friends not in the communications, Internet or software industries (just regular folks, in other words) who live in Maryland and northern Virginia, several mentioned that they just had switched to Verizon's FiOS service, and seemed quite happy with it.

One mentioned the new Netflix streaming capability, built in to the new HDTV the family had just bought.

The value proposition seemed pretty clear. The household normally rents four pay-per-view movies a month, at about $5 each. The unlimited, $10 a month Netflix streaming plan seemed like an obvious good deal.

It's just impressionistic, but illustrates the shifting state of the communications business at the moment. First, there was a shift of market share from cable provider to telco for video and broadband service. Second, there was a shift from pay per view to streaming Netflix. Third, though it doesn't seem to have been a key part of the buying decision, the video shift likely cements use of Verizon fixed-voice services as well.

Perhaps there is no immediate and obvious change in bandwidth consumption that would create "overage" charges. On a standard 3G or 4G mobile access plan, of course, the implications are quite clear. It is conceivable a wireless dongle user could blow through a month's usage by watching three movies a month.

3G, 4G Roaming is Not Seamless

Verizon Wireless says it can take up to two minutes for a fourth-generation network connection to switch over to a 3G radio when users move between cell zones.

"Hand-offs can take up to a couple minutes, but that was expected and a fix is in the works," Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson said.

Users of Sprint Evo handsets might note a related problem, namely that when a 4G connection defaults back to 3G, it does not automatically reconnect to 4G when a 4G signal is available. It has to be manually restarted.

Those sorts of issues tend to get fixed over time.

Modem 'hand-off' from 3G to LTE can take two minutes, Verizon says - Computerworld

FCC Net Neutrality Effort All for Show?

Nobody has seen the secret draft of the upcoming Federal Communications Commission proposed rules on net neutrality. No doubt it will be crafted in as balanced a way as such a rule can be.

But it is not immediately clear how the jurisdictional argument can be overcome, namely that the courts already have ruled that the Commission does not have the authority to create a rule, even if it wants to.

No doubt some clever extension of common carrier and ancillary authority will be offered up. But it isn't clear how long the rules will be in force before the inevitable round of court challenges begin.

Having already once rejected the premise that the FCC can assert jurisdiction over networks that manage traffic by prioritizing some types of traffic over others.

No doubt a different basis for jurisdiction will be asserted, and then we'll have to see whether courts will agree. In the end, as sometimes happens in Washington, D.C., some things loudly get done, for political reasons, that even proponents realize will not stand, in the end.

There will be lots of noise, no doubt. Whether there will be rules that can withstand court challenge is among the key issues. Some doubt the rules will succeed in that respect.

Chairman Genachowski’s Next Net Neutrality Proposal: What to Watch For | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Smartphones Help and Hurt Retailers

Smartphones increasingly are seen as opportunities for retailers to enhance the in-store shopping experience. But smartphones also are used by shoppers in ways that make retailing more difficult.

Vodafone UK chief executive Guy Laurence, for example, says retailers have "lost control of their shoppers," meaning they are able, in real time, to compare prices at other outlets that might be carrying the same merchandise, or similar merchandise, as the retailer whose store they might currently be in, and can check reviews and user feedback on those items, while in the store.

Shoppers can now use their phone to receive coupons for the very stores they are walking past, with their screen presenting a virtual shopping mall with a list of the local discounts before they even get off the bus.

Research from Motorola found 51 percent of consumers are using their mobile phones for in-store research while 61 percent want to be able to scan barcodes to access information on other stores' prices.

Smartphones changing the way we shop | Technology | The Guardian

Are People Actually Using Enterprise UC?

Major shifts in enterprise technology, indeed much of business technology, can take a long time to begin delivering financial returns. Some of you might remember the experience of the 1980s, when enterprises embarked on a huge wave of information technology investment, but without any clear evidence that there were productivity gains, for the better part of a decade.

Only in the 1990s did the productivity gains begin to register in significant ways, and one might argue that it is because it took that long for the architecture and human behavior to reorient to a different way of doing things.

So far, one might argue something akin to that has been happening in many companies as unified communications have been deployed. Ignore for the moment the objection that "defining" UC is quite difficult, and that there are many levels of UC adoption, each of which might represent a different payback case.

Lots of people would argue that a measurement payback is quite difficult overall, with the easiest justifications coming from videoconferencing and other conferencing tools, where it can be claimed that travel costs are avoided.

Some believe unified communications has required initial investment that is simply too high, and the returns too slim.

Gartner analysts say, for example, that “thе adoption οf UC іn enterprises bу enterprises continues tο increase, but usage remains low. That's a problem, as getting thе workforce tο really υѕе UC tools іѕ essential іf companies аrе tο reap thе “soft” benefits οf increased collaboration аnԁ productivity аnԁ realize “hard” metrics such аѕ cost savings.

Unified communications is “the greatest scam since Ponzi," Nick Jones, a Gartner analyst, has said, in large part because nobody can agree on what UC entails. “I’ll give you the real definition: unified communications is the bundle of things a vendor wants to sell you."

Also, there is an argument that unified communications cannot compete with consumer-driven technology.Using the examples of Skype and Twitter, Jones argues that people have simply found other tools that provide most of the benefits UC once promised.

To a large extent, the need for UC has shifted from voice and email to social communications.

“Why would you want to trap young people with dinosaur communications when they’ve already got something better?,” Jones rhetorically asks. “Most unified communications systems can’t even show you tweets, let alone where they are coming from.”

UC, in that view, is more about micro-blogging services, and less integration of fixed and mobile communications, mailboxes and numbers.

http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/361114/technology_update_unified_communications_integrated_cloud/

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant on Unified Communications: Enterprises are buying it but is anyone using it? | Open Source IP PBX

Will 4G Boost ARPU?

There would be little reason for a mobile service provider to launch a fourth-generation network if it did not expect a financial return, in the form of enhanced revenue, lower operating costs, reduced churn, better customer acquisition or some other combination of value with a clear financial impact.

But researchers at Ovum suggest that the immediate returns will come more from operating cost advantages than revenue lift. In part, that will be because the overwhelming number of customers and accounts will remain on the 3G networks for some time. By definition, it will take some time before the number of 4G customers and revenue sources are big enough to affect revenue and earnings, one way or the other.

As Verizon, T-Mobile USA and AT&T activate their own 4G networks to compete with the existing Sprint Nextel and Clearwire networks, pricing should be under pressure as well.

One might also speculate that tablet and other connected devices, such as PC dongles and mobile hotspot devices, might initially provide the bulk of subscription revenues for all of the 4G services. The issue is whether those revenue sources will remain dominant as more 4G smartphones become available.

Verizon's 4G advantage is coverage | Telecom Awards:

Sprint, T-Mobile To Sell 4G Tablets in 2011

Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA are planning to sell tablet computers in 2011. That isn't surprising, given the momentum tablets seem to have, coupled with the launch of new fourth-generation networks that, for the moment, do not offer the handset diversity of 3G networks and arguably are designed for PC and other devices more than traditional voice and texting.

The longer term issue will be the extent to which 4G networks enable new application and revenue models 3G has not. The focus on tablets, though partly practical (suppliers have not yet begun to produce 4G smartphones in great variety), might also suggest the ways 4G could underpin a new wave of development based on connected devices more than traditional smartphones.

A tablet would round out Sprint's portfolio of 4G wireless products, which is crucial to sustaining momentum as its rivals ramp up their own next-generation wireless efforts. It could also potentially offer Sprint a unique halo product to rally behind following the successful launch of two 4G smartphones, which has spurred the company's turnaround, the Wall Street Journal says.

UPDATE: Sprint, T-Mobile To Sell 4G Tablets Next Year - WSJ.com