Google Gets New Dept. of Justice Scrutiny

Google says on its policy blog that "we know that close scrutiny is part of the process and we've been talking to the U.S. Department of Justice over the past few weeks" about the acquisition of Motorola Mobility. "

"Today we received what is called a "second request," which means that the DOJ is asking for more information so that they can continue to review the deal. (This is pretty routine; we’ve gotten these kind of requests before.)," Google says.

"While this means we won't be closing right away, we're confident that the DOJ will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile ecosystem will remain highly competitive after this deal closes," says Dennis Woodside, Google SVP.

Maybe the follow up is relatively routine. But these days, antitrust scrutiny seems to be pronounced, in the case of big household names.

An update on Motorola acquisition

Does FTTH Lead to Economic Growth?

If fiber to the home could show clearly that it boosts service provider revenue and reduces cost, more observers would be unabashed supporters. But large-scale deployments in the United States are relatively ambiguous, one might argue. Verizon has the overwhelming footprint and much of the total industry experience, and observers still cannot agree on whether FiOS has been a clear success or not.

Likewise, nearly everybody seems to believe that fiber to the home is required for economic development. But even there, the impact is hard to discern. David Russell at Calix tried to test the hypothesis, looking at communities where FTTH had been in place for at least five years, was deployed ubiquitously and was deployed at a regional commercial center.

Based on what is available today (data through 2008) Russell looked at the growth between 2004 and 2008 and compared the results from the towns served by FTTH with the rest of their states. It turns out that of the five (Bristol, Va./Bristol, Tenn.; Dalton, Ga.; Jackson, Tenn.; Reedsburg, Wisc.; and Windom, Minn.) only three did better in business creation than other towns in their state. In both Dalton and Reedsburg, business creation trailed other areas of Georgia and Wisconsin, respectively.

When it came to job creation, only Bristol and Dalton did better than other towns in their states. But that's not to say they added jobs. Bristol actually lost three percent of jobs and Dalton nine percent.

So only the Bristol area did better than the rest of its state (Virginia) in both job and business creation.

Unfortunately, when economic data is available for the 2008 to 2010, the data isn't likely to improve, given the effects of the Great Recession of 2008. So it is likely to remain more a matter of faith, not fact, that FTTH indeed clearly underpins economic growth.

FTTH's Benefits Are Not Obvious

LTE in France Will Require Facilities Sharing

French mobile service providers are going to have to share tower infrastructure and resources to support Long Term Evolution, analysts at Fitch Ratings say.

The pressure to share infrastructure will occur because the demands of investing in LTE are going to put huge pressure on mobile service provider cash flow. This makes network sharing or roaming more likely. Network sharing key for French LTE

Mobile Broadband Tops Fixed for First Time in Australia

Mobile wireless internet (excluding mobile handset) connections (44 percent) now exceed Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) connections (41 percent) in Australia.

Mobile wireless (excluding mobile handset connections) was the fastest growing internet access technology in actual numbers, increasing from 4.2 million in December 2010 to 4.8 million in June 2011.

That doesn't mean mobile and fixed service are equivalent. People use the connections in different ways. But one does wonder how fixed network demand will be affected as more mobile devices require a broadband connection. At some point, many household will find themselves paying more for mobile broadband than for fixed broadband. For many households, this already is the case.

The point is that demand for more-expensive fixed connections will be dampened as more consumers find they must spend on mobile broadband. There is, after all, only so much any household will be able and willing to spend on broadband, overall. 

Mobile now dominates Australian broadband

Is Amazon Kindle Fire Really a Tablet?

Amazon’s launch of a new seven-inch, color screen “Kindle Fire,” priced at $199,  got most of the attention, talked about by many as an “iPad” competitor, but Amazon actually also released three other new Kindle devices that aim to strengthen Amazon’s grip on the e-reader market.

One of the new Kindle e-readers does away with the touch screen and 3G features that the other new Kindle models employ, using Wi-Fi and a directional pad instead, and will cost just $79. That is an attempt to lock up the e-reader market at the low end. Amazon launches Kindle Fire

The other two Kindles that Amazon introduced are based on the black-and-white “E Ink” displays. The Kindle Touch 3G uses infrared senors for touch, and thus eliminates the tiny keypad below the screen. It includes free wireless 3G data service, which will work in over 100 countries, for just $149. The Kindle Touch model is identical but lacks the free 3G service, relying on Wi-Fi instead, for just $99.

Some will say the Kindle Fire is designed to compete more with the Barnes & Noble Nook than the Apple iPad, at least in the current form factors. Until a larger-screen Kindle is introduced, the Kindle will largely remain a content consumption device, where the Apple iPad can be used for some work tasks as well.

Of course, many of use would argue that the iPad, though it can be used for a bit of work, also mostly is a media consumption device.

What is clear enough is that, as expected, Kindle will be designed to be a razor to sell razor blades. The idea is to put a low-cost device widely into the hands of users and then create revenue by commerce and content sales.

The comparison to the Apple iPad will be irresistible, but some of us would argue the Kindle Fire and the other devices more directly represent an evolution of the e-reader device.

Originally designed to support reading books, the e-reader is becoming a portable multimedia platform, supporting consumption of magazine, video and audio content as well.  Kindle Fire not a direct iPad competitor

In that sense, Amazon might be on the verge of dominating one part of the media consumption device space that more closely resembles the iPod touch market segment than the iPad.

Though it remains to be seen how end user behavior could develop, retailers say tablets already have changed end user online shopping behavior. Tablets still account for only a small percentage of overall e-commerce, but account for a higher percentage of commerce activity.

While the conversion rate—orders divided by total visits—is three percent for shoppers using a traditional PC, it is four percent or five percent for shoppers using tablets, says Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research. Tablet Users Spend More Online - WSJ.com:

Many retailers also report that tablet users place bigger orders, in some cases adding 10 percent to 20 percent to their orders, than shoppers using PCs or smart phones. In a behavioral sense, a tablet seems to facilitate different behavior than a PC or a smart phone.

It remains to be seen how other behavioral differences might emerge as the tablet space and the media consumption device space begin to differentiate.

When Measuring Broadband, Methodology Matters

The FCC recently released a report that contradicts previous speculation that American ISPs deliver much less broadband performance than advertised. This event examined the report, highlighting methodological improvements over previous studies and examined the stresses and strains on the broadband ecosystem.

Mobile Devices Have Eclipsed the Desktop

International Data Corporation has predicted a compound annual growth rate of 16.6 percent for mobile Internet use, with mobile Internet traffic eclipsing PCs and wireline devices by 2015. Mobile devices will continue to provide the richest, most fully featured experiences and we'll see the gap continue to grow. Mobile Devices Have Eclipsed the Desktop

Mobile Changes Shopping Behavior

New research in Germany and the United Kingdom shows the importance of e-commerce using a mobile device among younger consumers.

The study found that young people in the United Kingdom are used to go online using their mobile devices, with 62 percent of them regularly doing so. This figure is lower in Germany, namely 34 percent of the participants confirming that they use their mobile phones to access the internet.

While shopping for groceries, young consumers form Germany are using their mobile phones to compare prices, make shopping lists and look for discount and deals. Apart from that, young users from the United Kingdom are also searching for product information.

When it comes to fashion shopping, customers from both Germany and the United Kingdom are using their mobile handsets to make shopping lists, finding store locations and comparing prices, the report indicates. Mobile changes commerce

Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire

The new Amazon "Kindle Fire" will have a seven-inch display and sell for $199, compared with $499 for Apple’s cheapest iPad, Amazon executives said. The device, a souped-up version of the Kindle electronic-book reader, will run on Google Inc.’s Android software.

Sales of Amazon’s electronic books, movies and music on the device may help make up for the narrower profit margins that are likely to result from the low price, said Brian Blair, an analyst at Wedge Partners Corp. in New York.

Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire Tablet

Will Apple kill the iPod?

Some now are speculating that Apple might phase out all iPods that do not have touch screen interfaces, namely the "Classic" and "Shuffle" versions. Others speculate that the iPod itself will be discontinued.

In the fourth quarter of 2010, iPod sales made up just eight percent of Apple's total revenue, and they have been in a steady decline ever since the iPhone's introduction.

Will Apple kill the iPod? | Crave - CNET:

Visa Announces New Mobile Payment Services

Visa Europe today announced the launch of "Visa Mobile Person-to-Person" payments and "Visa Alerts."

Visa Mobile Person-to-Person payments allow registered users to transfer funds to any Visa cardholder in Europe from their mobile phone. The app makes it possible to send money to an address book contact, to a mobile phone number, or to a specific Visa card number.

Visa Alerts notify registered Visa cardholders on a real-time basis whenever their card has been used to make a purchase or to withdraw cash through Visa Europe's payment network.

The services are commercially available to Visa Europe's member banks from October 2011. Visa Announces Mobile Payment Services

Amazon to launch Kindle tablet today

Amazon will unveil its new "Kindle Fire" tablet computer today, Sept. 28, 2011, reports TechCrunch. The Fire will not replace the Kindle e-reader, which remains available. Retail sales are expected to begin in November 2011, and some speculate the device will resemble the Research in Motion "Playbook." Amazon to launch Kindle tablet

Samsung bets on Tizen?

Tizen, a new open source project, is a mobile and device operating system based on Linux and intended to support multiple device categories, such as smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, netbooks, and in-vehicle infotainment devices.

The Linux Foundation will host the project, where Tizen development will be completely open and led by a technical steering team composed of Intel and Samsung. The Tizen application programming interfaces are based on HTML5 and other web standards.

Samsung appears to believe it will have to feature its own operating system in the future to compete with the other ecosystems which integrate hardware and operating system. Apple was the original model, but Research in Motion, Palm and Symbian were examples. In a new twist, whether a platform is "open" or "closed" is not the key issue.

What matters is whether a significant ecosystem can be built around the platform, which might be anchored by a single supplier. Both Android and Windows now are trending in a direction that could be described as freely licensed, whether open or more closed. Tizen might expect to develop as an open, freely licensed, but still "captive" operating system in some key respects.

"Open or closed" used to be a key dividing line in the mobile operating system area. These days, such distinctions appear less important. What is starting to emerge is a view that user experience cannot be optimized unless the OS and the hardware are tightly integrated.

Apple's model seems to be winning, in other words, not the older Microsoft Windows model.

Welcome to Tizen

New Google+ Features Coming? Google Experts, the Facebook Wall, Google Voice Integration?

Matt Mastracci, a programmer by trade and CTO of the tech startup Gripe says he was snooping around in Google+ and uncovered evidence of five new Google+ features not yet announced. New Google+ features. 

The first feature is pretty small and looks akin to Facebook’s wall, letting users write on each other’s profile without showing the post in the timelines of other users. Google upcoming features


The second one is far more interesting, says  Mastracci.  It looks like there’s a new product brewing inside Google named “Google Experts”. The product looks sounds like a version of Quora, letting you post questions and gather answers. Questions work like posts do today: you can mention other users, comment on them and share them.


Mastracci found clues of potential Google Voice integration, such as a setting labeled “Allow people to phone me from my profile.” This could open the door for free and easy phone calls with friends and family through the site, and take it head-to-head with Facebook's recent partnership with Skype.

Mobile Revenue in Europe Now is Flat, Where Will Growth Come From?

Not so long ago, mobile was what was driving telecom service provider revenue. In the U.S. market, for example, where in 1997 about half of U.S. telecom revenue was generated by long distance revenue,by 2007 mobile revenues represented about half of total revenues. Mobile service revenue was important because it replaced long distance as the industry revenue mainstay.

In 2007, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, mobile services alone in 2007 accounted for 61 percent of all subscriptions while standard phone lines have dropped to 26 percent. And the change has come swiftly: in just seven years, from 2000.

Mobile revenues now account for nearly half of all telecommunication revenues—41 percent in 2007—up from 22 percent 10 years earlier. Revenue sources have changed

The immediate problem now is that mobile revenue growth has flattened in the developed markets, and cannot provide adequate revenue support as voice services, on both fixed and mobile networks, continue to decline. True, mobile data revenues will grow. But many believe mobile data revenues will grow only enough to offset voice losses, the Yankee Group estimates.




Increasing adoption of mobile broadband services for former "voice and text only" accounts will help. But the wild card is the effect of subscriptions to connected devices such as tablets. In developed markets, nearly everyone who wants a mobile device already has one. In Europe, for example, mobile subscriptions are essentially flat, says the Yankee Group.




Also, up to this point, added data revenues are not compensating for declining voice revenue per user. To boost mobile data by significant amounts, service providers will likely have to hope for significantly higher mobile connections for tablet and other devices. European average revenue per user is declining, the Yankee Group says.