1/2 of all Humans Will Use Internet by 2017

Broadband, computing and Internet access now have taken the place of the older concern about access to voice communications. In fact, almost nobody worries about whether most humans will be using voice communications. These days, it is access to the Internet and computing that occupies policymakers.

Keep in mind that, just a few years ago, five of the the six billion people on Earth did not have access to computing or the Internet. But that is changing very rapidly, as well.

Although Africa, for example, lags in terms of other forms of computing and communications usage with an estimated 100 million Internet users, between 2000 and 2011 the growth of Internet usage in Africa exceeded 2,000 percent, which is more than five times that for the rest of the world.

Some 2.4 billion people across the world now use the Internet on a regular basis, at least once a month, from home, school, work, or any other location using a PC or a non-PC (mobile) Internet access device, Forrester Research says.

This is expected to grow to 3.5 billion by 2017, representing nearly half of the 2017 overall world population of 7.4 billion.

In some countries — mostly developed economies, such as the US, the UK, Japan, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands — Internet penetration as a percent of the overall population is very high; more than 80% of the population are regular Internet users.

In other, mostly emerging markets — such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, Mexico, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Nigeria — Internet penetration ranges between 10 percent and 50 percent.

A key point to note is that while higher PC penetration has driven the adoption of Internet in developed economies during the past two decades, faster mobile penetration in the emerging economies is helping increase the Internet population, thanks to “mobile-only” Internet users.

DOCOMO buying Guam Cable Operator

The proposed purchase of Guam's cable TV service provider by NTT DOCOMO, the parent company of Guam-based DOCOMO Pacific, illustrates a couple of themes in the global telecom  business. First, expansion often must come from "out of territory" assets, as most "home markets" are intensely competitive and offer relatively tough growth prospects.

So expansion out of market is a logical step. The other theme is the choice of network platforms out of market that are different from those of the home market. Most out of market expansion tends to rely on wireless, rather than fixed network facilities, for example.

The proposed purchase of MCV Guam Holding Corp., which does business as MCV Broadband, might seem to be out of character. It isn't. MCV Broadband has the largest mobile market share on Guam. Nor is NTT unfamiliar with the Guam market. 

NTT DOCOMO's entry into the Guam market began when it bought GuamCell, SaipanCell and HafaTel for about $71 million in 2006.

Nor is competition in the Japan domestic market unrelated. Many would say MCV Broadband's main competitor is GTA TeleGuam. 

The principal owner of GTA TeleGuam is Advantage Partners LLP, the largest private equity investment firm based in Japan.

Telco Venture Arms are Quite Traditional, in Some Ways

It is not a secret that tier-one telcos have not been the fastest-moving firms where it comes to rapid creation of new services and applications. In fairness, very large organizations built on global standards, with many legacy systems to support and lots of government and regulatory oversight, have lots of reasons to move more slowly when making changes, only to avoid the danger of inadvertently “breaking something” that was not planned.

Historically, telcos have essentially outsourced technology and services innovation to third parties, be they AT&T Bell Laboratories, Bell Communications Research, leading industry suppliers and global standards groups.

So the recent trend of large telcos creating new venture capital organizations is not out of character.

T-Venture, the venture fund owned by Deutsche Telekom, has a total budget of about 450 million euros ($566 million) for investments.

Deutsche Telekom's T-Venture so far has assets worth 750 million euros invested in about 80 companies. But Deutsche Telekom now wants T-Venture to make faster decisions and take majority stakes in firms.

Aside from any internal discussions about the speed with which any of the larger telcos is “getting to market,” there always are going to be questions about how any smaller app or service is going to “move the revenue needle” for any entity that routinely books scores of billions in annual revenue.

In Spain,Telefonica runs a program dubbed “Wayra,” which nurtures companies in Europe and Latin America. Telefonica receives a 10 percent stake in each business and a preference right to buy a successful product.

Telefonica has also started Amerigo, an international network of technology venture capital funds, supported by the governments of Spain, Colombia, Chile and Brazil, as well as financial institutions, the company said in a statement today.

Though it certainly is correct to note that telcos might do better by insulating venture efforts from the day to day operating units, it also is correct to note that this is the traditional way larger telcos have innovated in the past.

The perhaps growing issue, as more such activity occurs, is how fast the innovations will have a significant revenue impact for the sponsoring telcos.

Android Builds U.S. Market Share lead in July 2012

For the three-month average period ending in July, 2012, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices, with Samsung ranked as the top manufacturer with 25.6 percent of U.S. mobile handset users, followed by LG with 18.4 percent share. 

Samsung and LG experienced slight share drops, but Apple gained share, up to 16.3 percent.

Top Mobile OEMs 3 Month Avg. Ending Jul. 2012 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Apr. 2012 Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers (Smartphone & Non-Smartphone) Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Mobile Subscribers
	Apr-12	Jul-12	Point Change
Total Mobile Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Samsung	25.9%	25.6%	-0.3
LG	19.2%	18.4%	-0.8
Apple	14.4%	16.3%	1.9
Motorola	12.5%	11.2%	-1.3
HTC	6.0%	6.4%	0.4

More than 114 million people used smart phones during the three months ending in July, 2012, up seven percent over April 2012. Google Android ranked as the top smart phone platform with 52.2 percent market share (up 1.4 percentage points), while Apple’s share increased two percentage points to 33.4 percent. 

RIM ranked third with 9.5 percent share, followed by Microsoft (3.6 percent) and Symbian (0.8 percent).

Top Smartphone Platforms 3 Month Avg. Ending Jul. 2012 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Apr. 2012 Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
	Apr-12	Jul-12	Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Google	50.8%	52.2%	1.4
Apple	31.4%	33.4%	2.0
RIM	11.6%	9.5%	-2.1
Microsoft	4.0%	3.6%	-0.4
Symbian	1.3%	0.8%	-0.5

Galaxy S III Sales Surpass Apple's iPhone 4S

For the first time since it launched last October, Apple's iPhone 4S was not the top selling smartphone in the U.S., as the newly released Samsung Galaxy S III took the top spot in the month of August, according to  Canaccord Genuity. 

A Look at U.S. E-Commerce

EU to Approve U.K. Mobile Payments Consortium

European Union regulators will approve plans by British mobile operators Vodafone, O2 and Everything Everywhere to set up a mobile payments joint venture, Reuters reports. The consortium therefore would represent 92 percent of all U.K. mobile subscribers. 

Known informally as "Project Oscar," the venture will create a mobile wallet platform and an advertising sales effort aimed at about 74 million subscribers to all of the partner mobile networks, or about 92 percent of all mobile subscribers in the United Kingdom. 

The project is designed to enable extensive "data mining" on consumption habits, location and demographics of customers, which would in turn allow creation of highly-targeted advertising and other loyalty services.

Customers would be able to store debit and credit card details on their phones and pay for goods and services either online at retail locations by using their near field communications equipped smart phones.

Mobile Service Providers in Spectrum Race?

AT&T is putting together approximately $2.6 billion in spectrum deals, proposing at least 24 deals in the last four months, in a bid to narrow the spectrum gap between itself and Verizon Wireless. 

Verizon recently bought airwave rights from four major cable companies for $3.9 billion, adding even more spectrum at frequencies ideally suited for in-building signal penetration and signal range. 

Some argue there is no need for more spectrum, but most observers would agree more spectrum is necessary. 

That said, there are multiple techniques for increasing the amount of usable spectrum, including more efficient coding, use of small cells and cell dividing. 

Nobody disagrees that mobile demand is going to outstrip existing capacity. 

For more, read the perspective.

Voice Mail Messages Decline 8% in a Year

People seem to be leaving significantly fewer voice mail messages, compared to a year ago, according to an analysis by Vonage. The number of voice mail messages left on user accounts was down eight percent in July 2012 from a year ago.

Retrieved voice mail fell 14 percent among Vonage users as well,according to Vonage. 

EC Looks to Create Europe-Wide 5 GHz Unlicensed Frequency Band

The European Commission now is looking at ways to create a single band of shared non-licensed spectrum across the European Union, The new shared spectrum would support 
services at 5 GHz, in somewhat the same manner that Wi-Fi now is used by multiple suppliers. 

Though probably not a great candidate for mobile services, the proposed common new spectrum would be useful for mobile data offload and machine to machine services, for example. 

Kansas City Wireless ISP Offers Businesses 30 Mbps or So, Using Unlicensed Spectrum

Computers & Tele-Comm, Inc. (CTC), a wireless Internet service provider, has provided high-end network services to enterprise businesses and government clients for years in Kansas City, currently offerng speeds of about 30 Mbps, using unlicensed spectrum. 

CTC is not alone. 

Can Technology Replace 80 Percent of Doctor-Provided Care?

Vinod Khosla, a noted venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, thinks as much as 80 percent of doctor-provided care ultimately can be replaced by use of cloud-based, machine-driven mechanisms. 

Khosla might be too optimistic, but the application of massive cloud computing and machine-to-machine communications and sensors would be the foundation for such initiatives, which explains why the health vertical continues to be seen as an area ripe for innovation by developers and mobile service providers alike. 

Skype Accounts for 33% of all Cross-Border Calling Minutes

Microsoft-owned Skype  accounts for about 33 percent of all international long distance voice minutes of use, about 145 billion of the total 438 billion minutes used in 2011. Skype's share of cross-border calling will grow in 2012, in part because the base of potential users is going to grow significantly.  According to Skype CEO Tony Bates, Skype has 254 million monthly active users and is “growing somewhere around 40 percent year on year.”

Wal-Mart Tests Mobile Checkout

Employees at Wal-Mart Stores are testing a new checkout system that allows shoppers to use their mobile phones to scan items as they walk through stores and pay at self-service kiosks, skipping the cashiers' lines. Keep in mind that it is a "scanning" application, not a "mobile payment" program. 

Wal-Mart is not proposing, at the moment, to support payment using the mobile, but only to allow the mobiles to scan items before check out, saving time at the registers since all the items already have been scanned. 

"Scan and Go" could have many of the same advantages as a mobile payment system, though. 

Wal-Mart's scanning program could allow Wal-Mart to collect data on what customers buy and how long they spend in stores, and to send shoppers coupons for competitive products in real-time as they scan items.

The program illustrates one more way mobile commerce can add value for consumers and retailers, without a formal "mobile payments" capability being added. 

T Mobile Launches "Clever Connect" Mobile VoIP in United Kingdom

Clever Connect is a new T-Mobile mobile VoIP calling service available in the United Kingdom. It is similar to “Bobsled” in the United Kingdom and Telefonica’s “TuMe.”

T-Mobile’s  Bobsled service initially allowed smart phone owners to call their Facebook friends from their mobile devices, and had expanded to provide free calls to any mobile or landline number in the United States, Canada or Puerto Rico from anywhere in the world, by using a desktop browser.

Working with Danish mobile communications company Vopium, T-Mobile in the UK created Clever Connect, available now for iOS and Android devices on the U.K. Everything Everywhere (T-Mobile parent company).

At the moment Clever Connect is only available by invitation.

Clever Connect appears to be aimed at growing T-Mobile’s out of region customer revenue, and potentially as a tool for customer acquisition, more than a way to compete with over the top mobile VoIP providers in its current areas of operation.