"Machine-to-Machine" Connections Grew 37% in 2011

The global number of mobile network connections used for wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) communication increased by 37 percent in 2011 to reach 108.0 million, according to Berg Insight.

Asia-Pacific was the strongest regional market, recording a year-on-year growth rate of 64 percent and reached 34.5 million connections at the year-end.

Europe and North America grew by around 27 percent each to 32.3 million and 29.3 million connections respectively.

In the next five years, the global number of wireless M2M connections will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.2 percent to reach 359.3 million in 2016.

According to a recent report from analyst firm Current Analysis, it's unclear if revenues from M2M are accelerating as quickly as operators had hoped. That isn't surprising.

New technology products often are not proven to be market successes as rapidly as backers had hoped. In fact, it often can take as long as 10 years for adoption to reach an inflection point. M2M is not there yet, but the slower adoption is not an unexpected development.

Nor would it be surprising if expectations outstrip sales to an extent that proponents begin to "sour" on M2M as a major revenue driver for mobile service providers. Most important new technologies have hype that cannot be fulfilled in the short term, leading to deflated expectations. Only later do many important innovations actually begin to gain adoption and importance. 

Apple iPhone, iPad are "Gateways" to Apple Ecosystem

Though in the past the apple iPod was a "gateway" device introducing users to the Apple ecosystem, that role now is played by the iPhone and iPad. About 25 percent of iPad owners say the device is their first Apple product.

According to the NPD Group, 33 percent of U.S. homes, (37 million households) own Apple products. While a majority (69 percent) of these consumers own iPods, ownership of iPads is growing.

“iPad sales are growing much faster than any other Apple product has this soon after launch,” said Ben Arnold, director of industry analysis at NPD. ”In fact, one-in-five Apple owner households has one, nearly equivalent to the number that own an Apple computer."

Historically, the iPod has been the introductory Apple device for consumers, with 82 percent of owners saying it was their first Apple product.

Long Term Evolution Subscribers Doubled in First Quarter, 2012

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2011, the worldwide Long Term Evolution subscriber base nearly doubled quarter over quarter to reach 12 million subscribers worldwide, according to Maravedis-Rethink. The quarter over quarter subscriber increase for LTE and WiMAX was 92 percent and 14 percent, respectively, over that reported at the end of the third quarter of 2011, according to Miravedis-Rethink.

At the end of 2011, 54 operators worldwide had launched LTE commercially, 19 during the quarter alone. An additional 224 major mobile operators had committed to launching the technology in the future, 193 of those with FDD-LTE and 31 with TD-LTE. Miravedis-Rethink anticipates that 469 million LTE subscribers will be active by 2016 of which 25 percent, or 118 million, will be TD-LTE users and the rest (75 percent, or 350 million) will be FDD-LTE.

YouTube Driving Traffic, Globally

YouTube is driving global Internet traffic, a new study by Sandvine indicates. YouTube is the largest source of mobile video traffic in every region examined, accounting for as much as 25 percent of network data and no less than 12 percent, Sandvine says. 


In North America, video and audio streaming make up more than half of mobile data traffic, led by YouTube, Pandora and Netflix. 


In fact, audio and video streaming will exceed 60 percent of North America’s mobile data by late 2014, according to Sandvine. 

2/3of U.S. Mobile Consumers Won’t Pay more than $50/Month for Mobile Data

Some 66 percent of U.S. consumers planning to purchase a smart phone say they are unwilling to pay more than $50 per month for mobile data plans, Parks Associates research finds. The findings are not a surprise. Few consumers often say they are quite willing to pay more for a communications service.


But it once was unusual for most consumers to say they'd pay $30 a month for subscription TV services, as well, given the availability of "no incremental cost" broadcast TV. 


What happened is that a new product, and new product demand was created. That is what mobile service providers are going to have to do, as well. 


"Operators need to create new value propositions for their data services," said Harry Wang, Director, Mobile Research, Parks Associates. Operators need to shift consumers’ perception away from raw data to the experience created by their data services.”

Mobile Banking Customers Love Convenience, Banks Will Struggle with Business Case

An overwhelming majority (94 percent) of U.S. consumers say that banking on their mobile device is easy and more than three quarters (77 percent) feel it is convenient, but only 42 percent cite that it is reliable, according to a new study released today by Infosys. 


The Infosys survey also found that slow speed is a barrier to adoption for 31 percent of respondents. Some 30 percent are deterred by a lack of confidence in the protection of their data. About 26 percent say the experience of mobile banking is inconvenient.

Nearly half (45 percent) of consumers who do not use online banking believe that mobile banking is "experimental" or "dangerous," and more than a third (38 percent) say it is "scary." In fact, non-users are three times as likely to say "scary," and almost four times as likely to say "dangerous" than mobile banking users.

While 60 percent of consumers who do not use mobile banking cite a lack of confidence in the protection of their personal or financial data as a top concern, nearly the same amount (55 percent) share private information when updating their Facebook status on smart phones.

That might not be surprising. People have higher thresholds for security when dealing with their money, than their status update information, pictures and opinions.

Nearly 80 percent of all consumers like the mobile banking benefit of 24-hour access to their account, but only 48 percent are happy with the speed of service and only 46 percent with ease of log in.

The business issue for bankers is that mobile is a new channel to support, but without any obvious incremental revenue to gain.

Apple Earnings: Market Share Matters

There are a couple of classic reasons why market share is deemed to be a good thing. Gross revenue is one advantage. But profit margins are the other advantage leading market share is supposed to confer. Apple seems to be a case in point. 


Telcos struggle to make 20-percent margins. Perhaps software or "Internet" companies could reasonably expect, with market leadership, to have 40-percent profit margins. It is harder, in consumer electronics, in some product lines, to make single-digit margins. Apple is nearing 40-percent margins. Almost unheard of for a consumer electronics manufacturer.

Will Telcos "Think the Unthinkable?"

Are tier-one service provider strategic options that once were "unthinkable" now becoming less improbable? If some possible revenue trends materialize, what might have seemed "impossible" in the past might start looking more palatable.

By 2020, for example, European telcos could see their sales fall by up to 20 percent, while; earnings (EBITDA) could even drop by 40 percent, according to an analysis by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants.

Change of that sort might lead to relatively shocking changes for many service providers, including separation of retail and wholesale units or a switch to “wholesale-only” operations.

To respond, telcos must reduce operating costs, adopt new, sales and service models and tap growth markets, Roland Berger says.

The study suggests European telcos will have to invest up to EUR 600 billion, mostly for optical fiber and Long Term Evolution fourth generation mobile networks, says Alexander Dahlke, Partner at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. Two or three main strategies are conceivable.

Google Mobile Playbook

Predictably, the Google Mobile Playbook, which provides advice for businesses about how to go about creating and using mobile webistes, is optimized for viewing on a tablet. Too clever by about half. Some applications naturally are optimized for mobile use, others for content creation, others for consumption mostly in a relaxed setting. 


The key bits of advice:

• Define your value proposition by determining what your consumer wants to do with your business in mobile. Benchmark against others in your industry for ideas.
• Build a mobile website. Once you have a mobile website, check the
  stats and optimize based on consumer usage.
• Build an app for a subset of your audience after your mobile site
  strategy is in place. Don’t forget to promote your app.
• Assign a Mobile Champion in your company and empower them with a cross-functional task force.
• Set up a meeting with your agencies about what’s working and what’s not
  for your brand on mobile and tablets.
• Search for your brand in mobile, as a consumer would. Take 5 minutes
  and do this today. What’s working? What’s not?
• Separate mobile-specific search campaigns from desktop search campaigns so you can test, measure and develop messaging specific for mobile.
• Run rich media HTML5 ads to extend your branding message to reach the mobile audience.
• Assign everyone in your marketing org the action item of reviewing their programs through a mobile lens.
• Check out your tablet consumer’s experience with your brand. Take 5 minutes today and search for your brand on a tablet as a consumer would. What’s working? What’s not? Maximize the tablet environment with rich media creative.

Half of all March 2012 Bandwidth Consumed was Video

Half of all Internet bandwidth usage now is video.  You probably would have guessed that. 

Apple iPhone Might Explain AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Net Additions, Losses

You might say the Apple iPhone was the story in the first quarter of 2012, in terms of how AT&T, Verizon and Sprint fared in terms of net new additions, either positive or negative.

Sprint activated more than 1.5 million iPhones in the first quarter of 2012, about 44 percent of those representing new customers. Since Sprint added about 263,000 net additions, the role of the Apple iPhone is obvious.

In its first quarter of 2012, AT&T  added 187,000 new two-year contract customers, 180,000 of those involved tablets such as the iPad, suggesting an anemic 7,000 net phone additions to a contract user base of nearly 70  million.  AT&T reported 4.3 million iPhone activations, a 43 percent drop from the fourth quarter.

Still, the iPhone still accounted for about 78 percent  of the smart phones that AT&T sold for the quarter.

Verizon activated 3.2 million iPhones during the first quarter, down from 4.3 million iPhones in the previous quarter, which was part of Apple's record-setting launch quarter for the iPhone 4S.

Overall, Verizon reported sales of 6.3 million smartphones during the first quarter, meaning that the iPhone continues to represent just over half of the carrier's smart phone business.

Why Shared or "Family" Data Plans Make Sense

Shared data plans are coming. The leading service providers in the U.S. market have been talking about it for years.  And there are good reasons for doing so.


It wouldn't be the first time the industry has moved to family plans. It did so with voice and text messaging, for example. If you understand why service providers did that, you will understand why they will move to similar policies for mobile data.


The family plan was developed to solve one specific problem. Most adults already were buying mobile phone service, which left only one potential user segment that had not yet adopted, and could drive unit growth. That segment was children of the adult users.


Family plans made it possible for parents to equip their children with mobile devices at prices the adults could justify. And that was the primary way mobile service providers could drive adoption of additional units, when the adult user market was approaching saturation. There also were churn benefits. 


With most service providers already moving to mandatory mobile data plans for smart phones, one way to provide clear incentives for faster adoption is to reduce the incremental cost of adding additional smart phones to accounts where there are significant feature phones in use. 


With average revenue per user going down, the best way to increase revenue is to get more devices on the network, including smart phones and tablets equipped with mobile broadband capability. 


Family data plans will mean that the incremental cost of adding each additional device will be lower than at present. 

Google Drive Could Be Huge for Google, in the Enterprise

Google Drive obviously will be valuable to consumers who want to store and share content that anybody can view and annotate from any device with Internet access and a web browser. But there is at least some thinking that it could wind up being a useful enterprise tool as well, especially for collaboration.


Lots of what organizations do these days is share information, with internal and external audiences. Google Drive seems to have superior search capabilities (no surprise there). 


Google Drive, in one sense, is part of the evolution of application and device usage in the direction of content consumption. Google Drive might just turn out to be a product with value both for consumers and enterprises and mid-sized or smaller businesses. 

Google Drive is Launched: 5 Gbytes of Storage Free

Goolge has launched Google Drive, a consumer cloud storage service. 


Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so users can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. 


Once content is shared with others, users can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.


If you have used cloud storage services before, you know the big advantage is that all the stored items are available from any device with Internet access and web browser capability.


Users can install Drive on a Mac or PC and can download the Drive app to an Android phone or tablet. Google also is working hard on a Drive app for Apple iOS devices.


All stored content can be searched by keyword and filtered by file type, owner and more.


The first 5 Gbytes of storage are free. Users can add additional storage as well. You can choose to upgrade to 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month or even 1TB for $49.99/month. When you upgrade to a paid account, your Gmail account storage will also expand to 25GB.



Drive is built to work seamlessly with your overall Google experience. You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+, and soon you’ll be able to attach stuff from Drive directly to emails in Gmail. Drive is also an open platform, so we’re working with many third-party developers so you can do things like send faxes, edit videos andcreate website mockups directly from Drive. To install these apps, visit the Chrome Web Store—and look out for even more useful apps in the future.

Galaxy Nexus now on sale in Google Play, Unlocked, for Use on T-Mobile USA or AT&T Networks

Google has started selling unlocked Galaxy Nexus (for HSPA networks ) from a new "Devices" section in the Google Play web store, allowing users to take advantage of Google Wallet, and the device, on either T-Mobile USA or AT&T networks, Google says. 


First available in the United States, Galaxy Nexus costs $399 and is sold without a carrier commitment or contract. You can use it on the GSM network of your choice, including T-Mobile and AT&T. It also comes pre-installed with the Google Wallet app which lets you easily make purchases and redeem offers with a tap of your phone. Best of all, we'll give you a $10 credit to get you started with your new mobile wallet.


Galaxy Nexus by Samsung runs the latest Android software, Ice Cream Sandwich, with Google mobile services, Google Play and new features like Android Beam and Google mobile hangouts. It also offers a 4.65” HD Super AMOLED display.