Does a Mandatory Price of "Zero" Make Sense for All Carrier and Customer Connections?

Are application domains “customers” of service provider domains, or are app domains “carriers?”  

The definition matters, the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies argues.

If app domains are customers, then a mandated  “zero price ” (settlement free interconnection regardless of the volume of traffic exchanged) does not square with traditional common carrier thinking about inter-carrier interconnection, which is volume sensitive.

But if app domains are carriers, instead of customers, common carrier regulation also suggests that a mandatory “zero price” for interconnection also violates traditional pricing logic?

Clearly, the bulk of traffic exchanged by app domains and retail customer domains (app providers the former: communications service providers the latter) is downstream from the content domains rather than upstream from the CSP domains, by about a ratio of

6:1, according to Sandvine.

StarBand Shuts Down

Retail telecom markets might not be the “winner take all” markets so typical of the consumer applications business. But retail telecom tends to be an oligopoly, eventually.

So it is that StarBand, which has been providing satellite Internet access for about 15 years, has shut down. In the U.S. market, where Starband had competed, Hughes Network Systems, owned by Echostar, is the market leader with about 54 percent share, according to Comsys.

WildBlue has most of the rest of the market share  as has been true for the past half decade.

StarBand simply was too small to compete, it appears.

Google Maps’ New “Night Mode” Feature Makes It Easier To Navigate In The Dark | TechCrunch

Google Maps Night Mode will be easier on the eyes when using turn-by-turn navigation in the dark. When in turn-by-turn navigation, the screen is dimmed.  It is available for Apple iOS and soon for Android. It's a useful tweak.

FCC may include mobile in next broadband report

As more people come to rely on mobile Internet access for a major portion of their total Internet activity, it just makes sense to include data on mobile access as part of the total Internet access situation in any country, including the United States.



The Federal Communications Commission probably will do so.

Charter Will Get into Mobile: Just Needs to Figure Out the Business Model

Assuming the Charter Communications acquisition of Time Warner Cable succeeds, mobility strategy is likely to come to the fore.

“Should we have a mobile product...and the answer is yes, we should ultimately figure out how to create our service infrastructure everywhere we are and where our customers are,” said Tom Rutledge, Charter Communications CEO.

“We continue to rollout our Wi-Fi product and the bulk of wireless activity on smartphones today is on the Wi-Fi product that we've deployed,” Rutledge said. “And so I think there are opportunities, business opportunities to create mobility for us whether that's with T-Mo or any other provider for that matter.”

Will Triple Play Reach its Limits?

There is sound logic to the triple play. It basically represents a business model built on scope rather than scale. In other words, you sell more things to fewer customers, instead of a few things to more customers.

But are there limits to the model? At some level, yes. Up to this point, only four services have proven to be high-volume services “most” people will consider buying: voice, mobility, TV and Internet access.

In a competitive market, where the number of subscribers or accounts is limited, bundling works because it allows a service provider to sell more things to fewer people.

For a firm such as Cablevision Systems Corp., that means revenue still can grow, even if the number of new accounts is flat to declining.

Cablevision reported “Improved subscriber performance with largest quarterly gains in both customer relationships and high-speed data, in more than two years,” in its second quarter of 2015.

Average monthly cable revenue per customer of $158.52 was an increase of $5.80 or 3.8 percent, compared with the same quarter of 2014.

“Customer relationships” is not the same thing as “accounts,” but an indication of total services sold to any single account.

So the bundle still works for Cablevision. But there are limits. Unless at least one major new revenue source is found, Cablevision will eventually find it cannot simply keep raising prices to maintain revenue volume.

And by “major” one might suggest a new revenue source the size of voice, entertainment video, mobility or Internet access.

At some point, without discovery of a major new consumer revenue source, or new sources outside the consumer sphere, Cablevision’s bundling strategy will falter--as it will for any service provider--as consumers balk at ever-higher prices.

Why 5G Partnerships are the Rage

NEC Corporation is working with KT Corporation on fifth generation (5G) next-generation mobile networks. Such agreements are commonplace these days.

SK Telecom is working with Ericsson. Nokia is working with NTT. Huawei is working with Softbank. The European Union and Japan also are working together on 5G. China Mobile is working with Alcatel-Lucent.  

What might be instructive, though, is the range of technologies and platforms NEC and KT are exploring in relation to 5G: Software-Defined Networking (SDN), Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Management and Network Orchestration (MANO).

That might be the larger point. One reason so many efforts are underway is that 5G will be the most-comprehensive mobile network generation ever launched, requiring much more than an air interface and modulation protocols.

In a real sense, 5G is a complete network vision, not a radio or mobile air interface, speaking to application support and full network performance, not just the radio link.

In other words, 5G represents the most-complex next generation network ever attempted in the mobile realm. And that’s the point: 5G is not restricted to the mobile realm.

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Qualcomm and Ericsson will present their visions of coming 5G networks at the Spectrum Futures conference, Sept. 10 and 11, 2015, in Singapore.

Other confirmed speakers will discuss spectrum sharing between LTE operators, spectrum sharing between Wi-Fi and LTE, new access platforms and the critical role spectrum plays for coming 5G networks.

At the same time, the intimate relationship between applications (Internet of Things), core networks (SDN. NFV, cloud computing, fog computing) and all access networks will be examined.

In the coming next generation network, clearly separating spectrum and mobile networks from Wi-Fi and fixed network access, core networks and cloud infrastructure, will be nearly impossible.

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Ting Ponders Gigabit Network Expansion to Perhaps a Half Dozen New Locations

Ting, perhaps better known as a mobile services supplier, also sells gigabit Internet access in two U.S. communities, Winchester, Md., a community of about 18,600, and Charlottesville, Va. , a community of about 45,000, and home to a major Virginia university.

The company now is looking at entering other markets. “We are probably looking at going forward with five or six markets,” said Elliot Noss, Ting CEO.

It would not be surprising to see Ting target communities unlikely to get Google Fiber.

In many ways, the new trend of independent Internet service providers building new gigabit Internet access networks reminds me of the earlier development of competitive local exchange carriers in the wake of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

You had an explosion of providers, including many independent firms, but also firms such as AT&T and MCI (Worldcom, at some point).

In the end, most of the CLECs faltered, including AT&T and Worldcom (MCI).

But something substantial did happen: cable TV providers emerged nationwide as the long term winners in the CLEC business. At the same time, a few legacy telcos, including notably Frontier Communications and Windstream, emerged as significant CLECs.

What eventually happens with the growing number of U.S. gigabit ISPs is yet to be settled. The CLEC market initially featured lots of players--with a few name brand contestants. It might not have been expected that cable TV companies would come to dominate the business.

Other surprises are possible with the gigabit ISP market as well.

Why LTE-Advanced Matters

LTE-Advanced matters for end users because it means downlink speeds can range as high as 300 Mbps, in principle. 

Sistema Syam TeleServices Goes "Wi-Fi First"

Sistema Shyam TeleServices, commonly referred to as MTS, is  an Indian mobile service provider with about one percent market share. When you have that share in a market, you have to do something different.

So Sistema now is wiring whole towns for Wi-Fi. It appears Sistema is doing with a de facto "Wi-Fi first" model for mobile Internet services.

Bhadra, in that regard, is the first city in India to be completely covered by Wi-Fi. Bhadra has some 40,000 residents.

Sistema also plans to build public Wi-Fi networks in about a dozen towns. The others are Navrangdesar, Asalsar, Nakrasar, Dhawa Forest, Baramsar, Hodsar, Partapur, Dundara, Posaliyan, Netra and Nalbari.

There is a business model. Sistema sells mobile service, but can rely on Wi-Fi to provide an enhanced Internet experience, without relying on licensed spectrum. And it appears that Wi-Fi access coss money, just as use of mobile data would.

Wi-Fi plans start with a Rs 25 starter pack offering 150 MB over a three-day period and going all the way to a Rs 749 monthly pack, offering 10 GB of data.

source: Telecom Lead

How Many Linear Video Subs Did Dish Network Lose in Recent Quarter?

Parsing numbers sometimes is a challenge when looking at subscriber gains and losses in the consumer telecom business.

An illustration: how many subscribers did Dish Network gain or lose in its second quarter of 2015? And did HBO lose linear video subs when it launched HBO Now, the stand-alone streaming service?

Dish Network reported losing 81,000 video subs in the quarter, about double the loss of 44,000 subs in the same period of 2014.

But its actual loss of satellite TV customers may have been more like 151,000, according to MoffettNathanson.

The reason is that Dish Network included gains from the over the top Sling TV service in its basic subscriber count.

Dish Network gained 70,000 Sling accounts in the quarter.

When we launched Sling TV, Dish Network expected to get subscribers from three categories, cord-nevers (people who never have bought any subscription video product), cord-cutters (former linear video subscribers) and supplementers who buy linear video and also Sling TV.

“The vast, vast majority of the subscribersthat we take on do not currently have Pay-TV at the time they subscribe to Sling TV,” said Roger Lynch, Sling TV CEO.

That suggests most of the Sling TV net adds are not coming from the ranks of linear video subscribers. But the combined figures also obscure the extent of Dish Network linear video subscriber losses.

HBO says less than one percent of HBO NOW subscribers are former HBO linear subscribers who dropped the linear service to subscribe to HBO Now.

As with Dish Network's Sling TV service, it appears that new subscribers to the over the top subscribers are not cord cutters. 

They are, as Dish Network hoped would be the case,  “cord nevers,” those who never have purchased cable TV.

A broader shift from linear to streaming still is coming. But, at the moment, the linear providers seem to be succeeding at attracting brand new consumers to their OTT services. 

Linear to OTT Video Inflection Point Grows Nearer

By some reports and studies, ESPN lost 3.2 million customers in less than a year, and the company recently said ESPN could be sold direct to consumers in the future, all signs that a fundamental change in the linear TV subscription business is closer.

Disney says such reports are wrong, though acknowledging some slippage. That is intended to reassure investors, and others, that the ESPN business model remains intact.

Big and fundamental changes in markets rocked by changing technology tend to happen rather slowly at first, then reach an inflection point where everything changes rather quickly.

That is one reason why some believe Netflix will not be challenged, once the inflection point is reached. “Netflix is the most powerful content aggregator in the world today,” said Charlie Ergen, Dish Network CEO. “And there's nobody that's even close.”

That illustrates one element of inflection points. Contestants sometimes think “we have time” to jump in one the inflection point clearly has been reached. The problem is, by that point it is too late. The leaders will zoom and dominate the new market; late entrants will struggle and generally fail.

Just how close we are to the inflection point still is not clear, but Netflix continued growth, subscriber losses in the linear business and what is happening to the fabled ESPN franchise are indicators the inflection point is coming closer.

To be sure, in its third quarter of 2015 report, ESPN owner Disney reported stronger revenue and earnings per share, net income and cash flow.

In fact, the number of subscribers for ESPN overall actually grew, but apparently not at the flagship ESPN network itself.

“ESPN has experienced some modest sub losses, although those have been less than reported by one of the prominent research firms and the vast majority of them, 80 percent, were due to decreases in multichannel households with only a small percentage due to skinny packages,” said Bob Iger, Disney CEO.

It is true that 83 percent of all U.S. households watched ESPN in the first quarter. But that’s the thing about inflection points. Once reached, everything changes, fast. In other words, 80 can become 20 in a rather quick period of time, compared to all the slow, grinding shifts that happened before the inflection point.

New IP Networks Must Offer Equivalent of Legacy Special Access and Rates, FCC Says

Former incumbent telcos have regulatory burdens not faced by other contestants in their markets. One example: The Federal Communications Commission has imposed new rules on former incumbents that want to replace their legacy networks with new IP networks.

Specifically, the FCC said former incumbents are free to replace legacy copper networks with fiber-based  IP networks, so long as no current service is discontinued, reduced, or impaired.

At least on an interim basis, the Commission also voted to require the offering of replacement services to competitive providers (wholesale customers) at rates, terms and conditions that are reasonably comparable to those of the legacy services.

The FCC is looking at special access rules more generally in a current proceeding, and could make such rules permanent, or establish other rules offering former incumbent carriers more flexibility.

The special access rules matter for wholesale customers as their business models often are built on special access rates that are perceived as advantageous by the buyers. Infrastructure providers, of course, would prefer the freedom to create new tariffs for IP-based fiber network services, while retiring the legacy networks and services.

Incumbent carriers still need approval from the FCC before shutting off copper networks in cases where they intend to reduce or discontinue service.

One new rule requires providers to directly notify retail customers—including consumers and businesses—of plans to retire copper networks at least three months in advance," the FCC said.
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H Sama Nwana, Executive Director, Dynamic Spectrum Alliance, United Kingdom; Jeffrey Yan, Director, Technology Policy, Microsoft Corporation, Singapore; Rajan Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India, India; Peter Stanforth, CTO and Co-founder, Spectrum Bridge, Inc., USA; and Apurva Mody, Chairman, WhiteSpace Alliance, USA, will speak about TV white spaces at the Spectrum Futures conference, Sept. 10 and 11, 2015, in Singapore.

Other confirmed speakers will discuss spectrum sharing between LTE operators, spectrum sharing between Wi-Fi and LTE, new access platforms and the critical role spectrum plays for coming 5G networks. At the same time, the intimate relationship between applications (Internet of Things), core networks (SDN. NFV, cloud computing, fog computing) and all access networks will be examined. In the coming next generation network, clearly separating spectrum and mobile networks from Wi-Fi and fixed network access, core networks and cloud infrastructure, will be nearly impossible.

FCC Clarifies TV White Spaces Rules, Keeps 30-MHz Spectrum Reserve for 600-MHz Auction

The Federal Communications Commission has modified its existing Part 15 rules related to use of license-exempt spectrum, allowing TV white spaces devices (fixed and portable), as well as wireless microphones, to use channels in the 600 MHz and television broadcast bands.

Separately, the Commission also declined to increase the “spectrum reserve” beyond 30 MHz for the upcoming auction.

The Commission’s Part 15 rules permit devices to operate on unused TV channels, generally known as “TV white space” spectrum.

Following the upcoming 600-MHz incentive auction, there may be fewer white space frequencies in the television band for use by such devices.

The new rules--largely technical--allow for more robust unlicensed use and promote spectral efficiency in the 600 MHz band.

The rules allow use of the duplex gap and guard bands, and channel 37, on a shared non-interference basis with medical telemetry and radio astronomy.  

The rules permit sharing of spectrum between white space devices and unlicensed microphones in the 600 MHz band, and expand the location and frequency information in the white space databases and update database procedures.

The Commission also set new transition periods for the certification, manufacturing and marketing of white space devices and wireless microphones that comply with new rules.

The Federal Communications Commission reaffirmed its decision to set aside a spectrum reserve of up to 30 megahertz of spectrum in next year’s 600-MHz incentive auction, though some including T-Mobile US had requested a larger set-aside.

Non-nationwide providers as well as nationwide providers who currently hold less than one-third of available high-quality low-band spectrum in a given license area will be eligible to bid for the reserve spectrum.

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H Sama Nwana, Executive Director, Dynamic Spectrum Alliance, United Kingdom; Jeffrey Yan, Director, Technology Policy, Microsoft Corporation, Singapore; Rajan Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India, India; Peter Stanforth, CTO and Co-founder, Spectrum Bridge, Inc., USA; and Apurva Mody, Chairman, WhiteSpace Alliance, USA, will speak about TV white spaces at the Spectrum Futures conference, Sept. 10 and 11, 2015, in Singapore.

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Could U.K. Fixed Line Voice Fall 50%?

It is hard to say where fixed network voice adoption would stand, were most consumers not buying voice as part of a multi-product bundle.

To be blunt, one way to get people to buy something they might not want, is to make the purchase of that product a prerequisite for buying a product in high demand.

Most observers might agree that fixed voice services are bought at a higher rate because they are bundled with Internet access and entertainment video, which now are the key services supplied by a fixed network.

In other cases, voice adoption is bolstered because consumers on telephone networks must buy voice to get Internet access.

Some might say the requirement to buy voice to get Internet access artificially boosts voice purchasing.

But in other markets where such requirements are not in place, bundled services have been quite effective at stemming fixed network subscription losses as well.

Some 80 percent of United Kingdom households now have fixed broadband, while 60 percent access the Internet routinely on their mobile devices. For the percentage of consumers purchasing a DSL-based service from a telco, that automatically means a voice line purchase.

Customers who buy cable TV operator Internet access might not have to do so. Perhaps 26 percent to 30 percent of U.K. households use cable TV for Internet access.

Fixed broadband connections in the United Kingdom were reported in 78 percent of households in 2015, compared to 73 percent in 2014.

The proportion of households with fixed telephony and mobile telephony remained stable, at 84 percent for fixed and 95 percent for mobile in 2015. Many would argue the continuing fixed adoption would not be as high as 84 percent without bundling.

In fact, even with bundling, in some markets, fixed line voice service is being abandoned.

In 2013, About 41 percent of U.S. households used mobile phones exclusively for voice service, a study by the National Center for Health Statistics found.

For the same period of 2014, mobile-only households had grown to about 44 percent.

That might suggest that, absent a mandatory provision to buy voice to get Internet access,  fixed voice adoption might be as low as 40 percent in the United Kingdom.

In other words, up to half of present voice consumers in the United Kingdom might choose not to buy, were it not a requirement for getting Internet access.

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Facebook will keynote Spectrum Futures in Singapore, Sept. 10, 2015, featuring Chris Weasler, Facebook and Internet.org global head of spectrum policy & connectivity planning.Facebook and Internet.org.

Other confirmed speakers will discuss spectrum sharing between LTE operators, spectrum sharing between Wi-Fi and LTE, new access platforms and the critical role spectrum plays for coming 5G networks.

At the same time, the intimate relationship between applications (Internet of Things), core networks (SDN. NFV, cloud computing, fog computing) and all access networks will be examined.

In the coming next generation network, clearly separating spectrum and mobile networks from Wi-Fi and fixed network access, core networks and cloud infrastructure, will be nearly impossible.

REGISTER NOW