When Counting Anything, Methodology Matters

Methodology always matters, when conducting Internet speed tests or most any other phenomenon. So it is that Ookla apparently is taking some heat from small Internet service providers over a change of methodology by Ookla.

Specifically, Ookla now measures access speeds for the providers that serve most customers in any area. That is unfair, some small ISPs say, since, by definition, they do not serve many of the customers in any given city or state, and will not be included in speed indexes any longer.

The complaint is understandable. But Ookla’s methodology also makes sense. As somebody who routinely tracks the size and composition of markets, there are some realities. If you want to know what is happening in the U.S. mobile or fixed network market, you pretty much only need to know what is happening at the four biggest mobile providers, not “all” mobile providers, or only the few largest telco and cable TV companies.

The smaller providers do not have enough mass to affect the basic trends, one way or the other. It’s sort of the same reality as looking at “North American” trends in any area (Canada and the United States, for example).

Canada tends to represent about 10 percent of “U.S. plus Canada” activity in any area.

So to know the fundamental trend in “North America,” one basically must know what is happening in the U.S. market, as all of Canada only represents 10 percent.

A similar situation exists in other intra-U.S. markets, such as fixed network markets. In the past, all independent telcos collectively have represented up to 10 percent of total U.S. “telco” activity.

Today, with the emergence of cable TV providers as major providers, the rural and independent segment arguably represents an even smaller share of total local access activity.

To know a trend, one must know what is happening at the relatively small number of largest providers. The rest is nuance.

Verizon Wireless Radically Restructures Service Plans

Verizon Wireless is radically simplifying its consumer mobile service plans, creating just four service plans, of 1 Gbyte of data; 3 GB; 6 GB and 12 GB. All plans offer shared data, so the incremental decisions are simply to choose a device and the number of devices.

The 1 GB plan costs $30 a month; the 3 GB plan $45 a month; the 6 GB plan $60 a month and the 12 GB plan $80 a month.

Verizon also is further simplifying its “monthly line-access” charges (the price to use voice and messaging on a device).

On the new plan, every smartphone line is $20 per month, tablet and Jetpack lines are $10 per month, and connected device lines for devices like smart watches are $5 per month.

New Verizon customers who want to take advantage of the new plan may do so by buying a new smartphone using Verizon’s device payment option, formerly known as Verizon Edge, or by paying the retail price.  

Current customers can keep their existing plan or move to the new plan, with some restrictions.

Apparently larger data plans are available, but they do not seem to be emphasized or promoted, at the moment.

Aside from the impact Verizon Wireless hopes will occur, namely simplifying buying decisions, the shift to “installment or buy outright” policies for devices will allow consumers to easily identify the actual cost of their devices, as separate from the service.

That has advantages. Verizon Wireless can market “lower prices.” Device costs will be more transparent, and Verizon arguably will gain a measure of independence from device suppliers.

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5G, Wi-Fi sharing with LTE, LTE sharing with LTE, new Internet access platforms will be featured at the  Spectrum Futures conference, Sept. 10 and 11, 2015, in Singapore.

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.

Since I am the conference convener, I have a few no-charge passes to attend the event. Email me at garykim.denver@gmail.com if you want to attend. 

As a believer in the value of marginal cost pricing, a few passes will be made available at our marginal cost!

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.