What's Danger of Shorter Movie Windows?

BTIG Research media analyst Rich Greenfield does not think Hollywood revenues would be harmed if studios released new movies simultaneously in theaters and on demand, if the on-demand product cost $20 to $25. Survey bolsters his views.


In other words, Greenfield believes the 90-day window between theatrical release and on-demand can be compressed to "zero," with no threat of increased piracy. Few in the content business are likely to be persuaded. And theater owners will hate the idea. 


His argument is that consumers do not object to paying for content, but do not want to wait to view it. Aside from satisfying that demand, Greenfield argues content owners will make lots more money charging $20 to $25 for an on-demand viewing, than from a single patron's theater ticket. 


Offering movies in-home, day-and-date with their theatrical release would be neutral to positive for annual spending on movies, with 93 percent of respondents to a recent survey indicating that their spending would be the same, if not higher (28 percent said higher, 65 percent no change).  


But there are lots of "moving parts" here. Theatrical exhibition builds "buzz" for the after market. Whether at-home viewing with the same "day and date" release window will provide as much promotional value is not certain. 


Some viewers, such as families with young children, might increase viewing at home. Or they might not. 


Also,  the “decrease in movie spending group" includes reduced spending less on concessions and parking, not the actual movie tickets. Piracy might increase, or not. 


Collapsing windows also will depress the market for pirated movies, Greenfield argues. But the survey results aren't conclusive. 





In terms of the impact on piracy, 60 percent of respondents indicated it would have no impact on piracy or decrease it (40 percent no impact, 20 percent decrease).  Content owners might be worried about the other 40 percent, though. 

"We believe the data in aggregate does not show a major industry risk to collapsing the theatrical-to-home entertainment window," says Greenfield. "There would be some uplift in consumer spending on movies with a greater share of that spending captured by movie studios versus movie exhibitors, offset in part (at worst) by a rise in piracy."

Though clearly negative for theater owners, the big question for content owners is whether the move boosts "first run" revenue, and by how much, as well as the impact on pricing power and sales volume in the later release windows. 

Survey via SurveyMonkey Audience

Dish Network Says LTE-Advanced Standards Will Limit its Construction Timetable

AT&T has argued that a new proposed Long Term Evolution network Dish Network wants to build should adhere to the same construction timetable that LightSquared has to meet. 

But Dish says it needs more time, for technical reasons related to its choice of LTE-Advanced as the air interface. LTE-Advanced still is working its way through standards bodies.

So Dish argues it needs to allow for all of the standards to settle and for its supplier to ramp up production of network elements Dish will need to build its network.

There is no reason why a leading contestant in a market should make it easy for its competition, when it lawfully can do so. That appears to be why AT&T takes the position it does.

Smart Phone Shipments Exceed PCs for First Time

Annual global shipments of smart phones exceeded those of PCs (including tablets) for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2011, says Canalys. 

Vendors shipped 158.5 million smart phones in the fourth quarter of 2011, up 57 percent on the 101.2 million units shipped in the fourth quarter of  2010. 

For the whole of 2011, smart phone shipments hit 488 million units, up 63 percent on the 299.7 million smart phones shipped in 2010. 

“In 2011 we saw a fall in demand for netbooks, and slowing demand for notebooks and desktops as a direct result of rising interest in pads,” said Chris Jones, Canalys VP.

You can make your own decision about whether that indicates tablets are cannibalizing desktop PCs, notebooks or netbooks.

However, Canalys expects to see smart phone market growth slow in 2012 as vendors put more focus on profitability, especially on the part of Huawei, ZTE and LG, which will shift more effort towards higher-end models. 

Apple became the leading smart phone and client PC vendor, with shipments of 37 million iPhones, 15.4 million iPads and 5.2 million Macs. 

Apple also set a new record for the most smart phones shipped globally by any single vendor in one quarter, beating Nokia’s previous record of 28.3 million shipped in the fourth quarter of 2010. 

Moreover, Apple’s performance meant that it displaced Nokia, for the first time, as the leading smart phone vendor by annual shipments. 

Apple shipped 93.1 million iPhones in 2011, representing growth of 96 percent over 2010. 

Samsung shipped 35.3 million Samsung-branded smart phones in the fourth quarter of 2011,  for a total of 91.9 million for the year, compared to just 24.9 million in 2010. 

Nokia shipped 19.6 million smart phones, down 31 percent from the record high of a year earlier.

Android accounted for 52 percent of global smart phones shipments in the fourth quarter of 2011, with iOS representing 23 percent and Symbian 12 percent. 

Android was also the leading smart phone platform by volume for the whole year, accounting for 49 percent of all devices shipped in 2011.

Mobile Data Pricing, Packaging is Key to Profitability

Vodafone's recent experience with mobile data traffic has lessons for other global operators.


Among other key trends is the growing role played by smart phone users and the ways traffic shaping can improve experience.


Also, smart phones are proving to be a key revenue driver, so plans tailored for the different behaviors various consumers have, can lift mobile Internet access demand. 


The focus for Vodafone’s price innovation is squarely on smart phones because this is the category of device that is driving data revenue growth. 


In fact, it now is possible to clearly delineate usage of PC dongles, long the main driver of mobile broadband use, and mobile Internet revenue growth driven mainly by smart phones.


Comparing the financial year 2010 to 2011 with the prior year, Vodafone’s mobile Internet revenues increased by 56 percent. This compares with growth of only 14 percent in mobile broadband. 


That's a significant change, as 10 years ago most "data revenue" was contributed by use of text messaging. 


Tiered pricing is also a prominent feature of Vodafone’s current mobile data pricing strategy. The company is introducing price plans tailored specifically to the needs of low and medium data users. 

Careful traffic management will continue to be an essential piece of the data profit puzzle. 

Vodafone has implemented Web and video optimization in nine of its European markets. 

That is one reason why many argue that network neutrality rules are harmful in the wireless domain. Wireless networks are much more susceptible to congestion than fixed networks, in part because demand varies much more than on fixed networks.

It is far easier to engineer a fixed network in part because usage patterns tend to be stable over time. Mobile users can, from time to time, dramatically change demand at specific cell sites.

The company claims optimization has helped it achieve data volume reductions ranging from 15 percent to 30 percent. Vodafone has also seen a reduction of 20 percent to 30 percent in peer-to-peer traffic in some of its European markets.

Offload of traffic to Wi-Fi networks also will play a part in  managing consumption. 

Windows Phone 8 to Support microSD?

Microsoft appears to be readying microSD support for its Windows Phone 8 operating system, a fact of some importance for mobile payments systems that would prefer to use microSD as a way of loading credentials onto mobile devices.

According to Windows Phone manager Joe Belfiore, “Apollo” will add support for removable microSD card storage.

NFC radios will also be supported, with Belfiore placing specific emphasis on 8's push into contactless payments. The "wallet experience" ] will have the capability to be carrier-branded and controlled, either by a secure element on the SIM card or using hardware in the phone itself.

As you might guess, mobile service providers are going to opt for credentials loading using the SIM, an element they control.

The microSD might therefore  be seen as a “content sharing” innovation, allowing desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones to all share content.

But microSD will offer one more option for over the top wallet or payment systems to use.

France Telecom to Step Up Fiber to Home Investment

France Telecom will double its investment in fiber to home networks in 2012 to 300 million to 350 million euros, Reuters reports. There’s both good and bad news in that announcement.

The good news is that the heavy spending is likely crucial for the survival of France Telecom’s fixed network business. The bad news is the huge risk.

France Telecom CEO Stephane Richard said fiber to home investments were key to the firm’s future competitiveness as a fixed line provider.

France Telecom has pledged to spend two billion euros by 2015 on rolling out a national fiber network.

Keep in mind that France Telecom expects a payback time of 30 years to 40 years, far exceeding the three-year to five-year payback expected of application investments. 


Analysts at the Yankee Group have argued that penetration rather than average revenue per user has the strongest effect on the FTTH business case. 


A business plan with a payback of five years or less has to assume retail penetration of at least 30 percent, and ih many cases also with triple-play service offerings. 


Any payback analysis is of course highly dependent on the assumptions, ranging from capital cost per location passed, as well as service revenue per location, among other things. 

That indicates the risk France Telecom and other providers are facing. Those time frames are so long they typically only can be considered by very capital intensive utility firms that operate in monopoly style markets, as fixed network providers used to assume was the case.

These days, the fixed network business faces competition from other facilities-based suppliers, mobile and satellite networks.

Globally, there already are more mobile broadband subscribers than fixed network subscribers. Mobile broadband subscribers surpassed wireline broadband subscribers in 2010 (558 million compared to 500 million).

Infonetics forecasts the number of mobile phone subscribers to grow to 6.4 billion in 2015 (the current global population is 6.9 billion).

While that is a big help for large service providers owning both mobile and fixed assets, the strategic context is different for fixed network operators who do not own mobile assets, and cannot acquire the scale to compete in what clearly has become a national scale business.

In such cases, though the classic investment case might not suggest spending on fiber to the home will generate as great a financial return as some alternative investments, that isn’t the issue.

Unless many smaller networks can upgrade to the fastest-possible fixed network, the entire business arguably is at risk. The investment, in other words, is strategic, rather than based on classic return on investment considerations.

But the decision to invest might also require a very long payback period that is beyond the working life of any single CEO.

Facebook is Mobile First, Revenue Isn't, Yet

From the Facebook S1 document: "Although the substantial majority of our mobile users also access and engage with Facebook on personal computers where we display advertising, our users could decide to increasingly access our products primarily through mobile devices."

"We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven." 


The problem is that Facebook, though now a leader in display advertising, cannot show those ads on mobile devices. 

Facebook wants to be "mobile first." Right now, though, mobile right now is "revenue last." 

Samsung, Apple Grow Device Sales Globally, Nokia Drops

On a global basis, Nokia and Samsung ship the volume of devices. But Samsung and Apple are growing, Nokia declining. Everything else seems to be noise, according to this IDC data. Global handset sales


 

Android has 47% Smart Phone Share

Some 97.9 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in December, representing 40 percent of all mobile subscribers.

Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform with 47.3 percent market share, up 0.5 percentage points from September 2011.

Apple maintained its number-two position, growing 2.2 percentage points to 29.6 percent of the smartphone market. RIM ranked third with 16 percent share, followed by Microsoft (4.7 percent) and Symbian (1.4 percent). U.S. smart phone share


Globally, smart phone ownership is even higher, at perhaps 55 percent of users. 

"Less is More" Where it Comes to Smart Phones

Some might argue there are "too many" phones being made available by device manufacturers, to the extent that what people might want are a couple of "hero" devices from each leading supplier. In other words, people might prefer to choose from a smaller number of "hero" devices that have lots of features a single consumer might want, but the few that a consumer really values.

Think of that as the "cable TV" model, where lots of channels are available, most of which any single viewer never watches. But there are a relative handful of channels, perhaps seven or so, that get watched frequently.

You might argue that is precisely what Apple has been doing.

Compete’s second quarter 2011 survey of consumers suggested that "a phone with more features" was the most popular primary reason to begin the shopping process. Perhaps more significantly, for an average consumer, the “must have” list of features included 10 features beyond the obvious ability to make calls and send text messages.

About 70 percent of shoppers only considered one or two phone models during their entire research process, suggesting that consumers want more features in one phone rather than model variety. “Less” is “more”

Tucows Launches Ting Mobile Service: You Might Ask Why

Ting is a new mobile virtual network operator launched by Tucows. You might wonder why Tucows thinks there is room in the consumer and small business markets for yet another mobile service provider.

As with many offerings these days, the value might largely be indirect, much as triple play or quadruple play offers in the broader telecom space have increased the perceived value of a sales proposition and then reduce churn as well.

Ting is marketed as a way for families and multiple-user small businesses to save money, without requiring contracts and without high overage fees. As is typical with any MVNO, Ting will not carry the full selection of devices a postpaid service provider will support.

But Ting says it wants to be a simple utility, selling consumers minutes, megabytes and texts on a fair, usage-based basis.

The Ting usage plans seem to show that users who talk and text a lot, but use mobile Internet lightly, will save the most money. Heavy Internet users might, or might not, save money. People able to take advantage of a group plan might likewise find they can save money.

It argues that device subsidies, with the required service contracts, actually are simply a form of financing made by the service provider to the end user, and that users are better off simply buying their devices, without the financing.

At the moment, Ting features Android smart phones, including the

• Motorola Photon 4G
• Samsung Conquer 4G
• HTC Detail
• LG Optimus S
• Samsung Transform

Ting also offers two feature phones, the Samsung Reclaim and Samsung M360.

Tucows seems to be pitching the plans to small business owners and families, as much as individual users. The Sprint network powers the service.

The big upside here might be for Tucows distribution partners, who now would have a mobile service to offer their business customers.

That isn’t to say there is lots of profit margin here, either for Tucows or the Tucows distributors. But mobile service is such a big part of business spending these days that a Tucows channel partner might find the mobile offering is an important sales tool and a churn reducer, more than a revenue or profit driver.

Cloud-Based Voice Apps Cut Churn, fonYou Says

Since March of 2011, Telefónica has been using fonYou to provide its mobile users access to a second number, visual voicemail, call registers and advanced call screening.

The cloud player has developed a range of services that it seeks to white label to carriers as a competitive defence against the rise of over the top players, at least in the area of voice-related services. FonYou does have its own MVNO in Spain, which is hosted by Telefónica, although a spokesman said that this D2C offering is “not promoted heavily” and is “treated as a testbed and a showcase for what the services can do.

The cloud app developer claims mobile service providers can reduce churn by as much as 50 percent according to data from fonYou Telecom, the company’s own retail mobile service.

With almost 500,000 customers now using fonYou services across three networks, the operator has been able to track user behavior and compare churn rates against industry norms as well as look at changes in average revenue per user.

Examining figures from the last six months, fonYou CEO Fernando Nunez Mendoza says cloud-based second line service, the adoption of cloud storage and service management tools both reduces churn and increases ARPU.

“We have found churn reduction is at its greatest among the younger contract customers, with rates among those in the 25 to 30 age group falling by as much as 50 percent,” he said.

The firm’s data shows that churn was reduced across all customer groups by between 20 percent and 50 percent with an average reduction of around 30 per cent.

Furthermore, in terms of increased ARPU, fonYou said that customers using the company’s cloud-based services make as many as 35 additional calls each month.

“Again there are variations regarding the different types of contract,” said Mendoza, “but from the numbers we are seeing, it would be reasonable to assume an average ARPU increase of more than two Euros, per customer per month.”

fonYou now provides cloud telephony services in Spain and South Africa. In Spain the company has its own Virtual Mobile Network and also provides a second line service to Telefonica for the Movistar network that can be downloaded as an App from the App stores or activated through traditional channels on any type of handset. In South Africa, fonYou’s platform is used to drive mobile network operator Cell-C’s MyTools service which provides a range of cloud-based services to the operator’s customers.

How Big is Hosted IP Telephony Business?

Shoretel is acquiring hosted IP telephony provider M5 Networks, allowing Shoretel to offer its potential customers either hosted or premises-based business voice services.

A recent report by Gartner shows the IP voice-as-a-service market growing at a 36 percent compound annual growth rate in North America through 2015 to $2.2 billion.

That is worth putting in perspective. By 2015, total U.S. telecom industry revenue might be $337 billion. If that turns out to br correct, and the Gartner forecast also proves substantially correct, then hosted IP telephony would represent less than six tenths of one percent of U.S. industry revenue, being generous.

Keep in mind that the Gartner forecast is for all of North America, so Canadian revenues would have to be backed out of the $2.2 billion figure. 

That makes hosted IP telephony an important revenue stream for some providers, but insignificant from an industry-wide perspective. To a large extent, hosted IP telephony is a product of high relevance for firms that sell to small and mid-sized businesses, with some partial-deployment use cases for enterprises.

On the other hand, one frequently has to separate out the various components of IP telephony spending by enterprises and smaller businesses, as a good portion of the IP voice business consists of spending on access services such as SIP trunking or managed PBX services, not just "hosted IP telephony," as this chart from Infonetics suggests. 

The other caveat is that sometimes unified communications is used to describe revenues that might legitimately be called either "unified communications" or "hosted IP telephony." In fact, though gross revenues might be increasing, the percentage of total spending by businesses on hosted IP telephony might shrink, as a percentage of total, between now and 2015 or 2016. 

Here's Why "Mobile First" is a Foundational Element of Business Strategy

Mobile revenue is about 4.5 times bigger than fixed network revenue, and it has been that way for several years. In a literal sense, the global telecommunications business has become a largely mobile business, with some important fixed line applications and revenue sources. 


"Mobile first" therefore has become the important element of strategy for a growing number of application providers better known for their PC-based features and use cases. 

Visa Europe to Test Dongle-Based iPhone NFC Mobile :Payments

Visa Europe surveyed 4,200 people in four different European nations and found that 57 percent of iPhone users among the respondents said they'd "definitely" or "probably" use Visa's mobile payments platform on their iPhone if they could. 


Some 41 percent of all respondents reported they would likely use near field communications and mobile payments if possible.


Visa has drawn the logical inference: that European Apple iPhone users should be targeted. How, you might ask, since the  iPhone does not yet support NFC? There always are work-around processes in the mobile payment business. 


One way is to outfit a standard iPhone with an NFC-supporting dongle, much as Square turns an iPhone into a payment terminal using a dongle. 


Visa appears to be readying a test using the Wireless Dynamics iCarte. Retailer point of sale terrminals also will need to be outfitted for NFC, but also can use a dongle approach. 


Some of us have mused that Apple could be a huge force in the mobile payments business if it wanted to "transform" payments the way it routinely expects to transform other businesses. The barrier, of course, is that Apple prefers to transform consumer industries that are based on use of devices. 


Mobile payments does not appear to offer much upside in that regard, as Apple already leads the smart phone business. That means mobile payments is just a feature, not the foundation for a whole new class of consumer devices. 


But Visa already seems eager to test a theory about the value of an app using the iPhone as a hardware platform. Visa does not lack for clarity about what it means for its own business.