How Soon Will Linear TV Face a Real On-Demand Challenge?

Deloitte doesn't think a major challenge to linear TV delivery is going to happen soon. That shouldn't be taken as a firm judgment that on-demand formats will not be big at some point, or pose a grave challenge to the current model.

But most transitions of this magnitude take much longer than most supporters expect. But after the inflection point does occur, change will occur more rapidly than expected. It's a bit like an ice cube melting or water boiling: you can raise or lower temperature for quite some time and you still see a solid or a liquid. Then there is a quantum change. Most significant technology innovations get adopted in the same way. There is a longer than expected gestation period. Then there is rapid change.

Verizon Wireless Offers $200 Trade-In for an iPhone

Current Verizon customers who purchased and activated new smartphones, feature phones or certified pre-owned phones between Nov. 26, 2010, and Jan. 10, 2011, are eligible to receive up to a $200 Visa debit card when they purchase an iPhone 4 at full retail price by Feb. 28, 2011 and return their existing phone.

This offer is only available on consumer accounts with five lines or less, who are purchasing iPhone 4 through Verizon Wireless retail stores, telesales, or through verizonwireless.com.

iPhone 4. Verizon. It Begins

Ad Analytics Firms Create Consortium

The Consortium for Accountable Advertising, founded by Cross Commerce Media, Clickable, MediaMath, and TARGUSinfo, hopes to provide an alternative ad analytics alternative to Google.

Companies that join agree to allow their customers to share data. So much of ad tech these days is taking impression data or response rates and combining it with other data to better target ads or analyze how existing campaigns are doing. If an ad agency wants to start using MediaMath, they should be able to take all of their data from past campaign’s from Clickable and pour it into MediaMath’s engine, and vice versa.

Ad Tech Startups Banding Together

Acer to Phase Out Netbooks in Favor of Tablets

Acer seems to have concluded that tablets are a better business than netbooks. Acer says it will release both a 7-inch and a 10-inch tablet in 2011.

The new tablets are intended to gradually replace the company’s line of netbook computers, said Acer’s Taiwan sales manager Lu Bing-Hsian. “That’s the direction of the market.”

Oddly enough, as tablets proliferate, and get adopted by enterprises and consumers, it is getting harder to determine whether tablets are a new product category, or a replacement form factor for PCs.

Acer to Phase Out Netbooks in Favor of Tablets

Apple’s iPad Business Now Bigger Than MacBook Business

The iPad now generates more gross revenue for Apple than Apple's MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and MacBook Airs. And it’s within spitting distance of surpassing Apple’s entire Mac business in terms of revenue.

If you want some idea of what the iPad means for Apple, not to mention the broader PC market, that statistic tells you what you need to know.

Apple’s iPad Business Now Bigger Than MacBook Business. Next Up: Entire Mac Business

Video to Account for More than 60% of Total Mobile Network Traffic in 2011

Video became the dominant form of mobile data traffic in 2010, accounting for more than 40 percent of the total volume in wireless networks worldwide, according to Bytemobile. With the rise of full-length and studio-quality videos and live streaming of multimedia content on mobile devices, as well as the emergence of two-way video communications, Bytemobile expects mobile data traffic to spike to an all-time high in 2011, when video-based content will account for over 60 percent of network traffic.

Personal video communications will dominate wireless network capacity, such that 10 percent of subscribers consume 90 percent of total network traffic.

Bytemobile Forecasts Video to Account for More than 60% of Total Mobile Network Traffic in 2011

iPads Got 7% of Global PC Market Sales in Fourth Quarter

Apple reports selling 7.3 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2010. Since the PC market represents something like 100 million units a quarter, one might infer that the iPad in the fourth quarter represented perhaps seven percent of total PC sales.

iPads Are Already 7% Of Global PC Market

Mobile Service Revenue in 2014: $870 Billion or More

Mobile services revenue will grow to $870 billion in 2014 based on mobile broadband and messaging, Infonetics Research now forecasts. Some think mobile revenues will be even more substantial, surpassing
$1 trillion and accounting for more than half of all global telecom service provider revenue. See http://ipcarrier.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-will-global-telecom-revenue-sources.html

Mobile broadband and mobile messaging service revenues are growing rapidly and will help operators offset declining voice revenues, says Stephane Teral, principal analyst.

but voice service isn’t going away anytime soon; in fact, voice will still account for almost 60% of the mobile pie in 2014. Operators need to continue selling smarter phones and upselling data plans to keep pace with falling voice usage,” says Stéphane Téral, Infonetics Research’s principal analyst for mobile and FMC infrastructure.

Mobile services to hit $870 billion in 2014

Modified Pay Wall Seems to Work, Study Finds

In a study with potential implications for many content-related businesses, a number of newspapers apparently found a hybrid "pay wall" model limited traffic losses (and therefore ad revenue losses) while still creating a differentiated "premium" service offering full access.

The newspapers in the test allowed a small number of "free" article reads each month, while also requiring a subscription for full access.

Journalism Online said monthly unique visits to the Web sites included in its study fell zero to seven percent, while page views fell zero to 20 percent. No publishers reported a decline in advertising revenue.

Unlike a strict pay wall, which requires a subscription to view almost all editorial content, a model like the one Journalism Online employed does not choke off huge amounts of Web traffic.

“If you set this meter conservatively, which we urge people to do, it’s a non event for 85, 90, 95 percent of the people who come to your Web site,” Mr. Brill said.

Journalism Online Examines Pay Model - NYTimes.com

Sprint Adds $10/Month Smartphone Device Fee

Sprint will increase its postpaid service plan rates by applying a $10 per month "premium data" add-on charge to activations of smartphones beginning Jan. 30, 2011. Existing Sprint smartphone customers are not affected unless they upgrade to or activate another smartphone.

Sprint had earlier levied the fee for the HTC EVO, a move some called a tax for using the fourth-generation network, something Sprint would not have agreed was the most accurate way to describe the plan. Instead, Sprint positioned the charge as specific to the Sprint 4G EVO. "This is specific to the device," said

It's not related to whether you are using 3G or 4G. "It is required if you have the phone," said John Taylor, who works with Sprint. See http://tech.johntaylor.co/more-detail-on-the-sprint-evo-4g-10month-prem.

Of course, in addition to the argument that the charge was specific to the EVO, the new logic now extends to all smartphones, in large part because smartphone users consume more data.

You might wonder why Sprint did not simply increase its data plan rates. There are a couple of logical reasons. The surcharge allows the nominal data plan rates to remain unchanged, while still generating $10 per plan more revenue.

One might argue that the way the increase is billed also maintains a "simple pricing" position Sprint believes is important. Many will argue a simple $10 a month, across the board increase in mobile plans also is "simple," though.

The bottom line is that Sprint believes it must raise prices to generate the cash needed to continue funding its mobile broadband network's expansion. You can agree or disagree with that point of view, but all observers note that bandwidth demand is outstripping revenue, for virtually every mobile service provider.

Long term, especially if the mainstay revenue sources are declining, that is incompatible with continued survival, much less continuous investment in more network capability.

Smartphones Drive Wireless Data Explosion

Smartphone Data Consumption Climbs 100% to 350%

The median smart phone user data consumption has increased from 40 MBytes per month to 137 MBytes a month, an increase of 350 percent. The 80th percentile user is using twice as much data as a year ago.

(Click image for larger view)

At the same time, smartphone ownership has roughly doubled in the same time period. So you are looking at a four- to seven-fold increase is data usage.

As a general rule, one could rightly conclude that truly "unlimited" service plans cannot be offered at low prices in such an environment. There is of course an obvious model for users who require such plans: higher prices more akin to business plans.

The data tsunami, and why Sprint increased its data charges - FierceWireless

How PayPal Quickly Gets into Mobile Payments in a Big Way

With a $10 billion market cap, Discover Financial Services is ridiculously undervalued, says consultant Philip J. Philliou. "$10 billion is barely fair value for the card portfolio and yet, it is the network that makes DFS most attractive," says Philliou. "My wildcard bet is that PayPal acquires DFS."

In the scenario, PayPal rebrands everything Discover and uses the Discover Network to penetrate the $6 trillion in store spend opportunity in the United States.

2011 Prediction: Discover Financial Services acquired by year end

Data Centers are the New Wrinkle for Capacity Firms

Executive Interview: Bill Barney, CEO, Pacnet from ptctv on Vimeo.
Pacnet CEO Bill Barney talks about what's going on in the capacity business, especially changes wrought by video, hosted apps and cloud computing.

The Six Big Global Service Provider Challenges

Executive Interview: Scott Puopolo, Vice President, Global Service Provider Practice, IBSG, Cisco from ptctv on Vimeo.

HTC EVO 4G $99 on Amazon

The HTC EVO 4G, which sells for $199.99 from Sprint, is now available for a bargain $99.99 when purchased through Amazon.com, with a service plan. It is available in both black and white color schemes.

buy here at Amazon