Amp'd Up

Amp'd Mobile ended 2006 with more than 100,000 subscribers, 89 percent of which are on postpaid contracts. Most significantly for the mobile virtual network operator, the company surpassed its own expectations for data revenues and mobile content usage.

Average content and data revenue per user exceeded $30 a month (compared to an industry average of $6.80) and total ARPU exceeded over $100 a month.

Notably, content accounts for nearly 60 percent of the $30 of data ARPU, in contrast to approximately 25% among other carriers. The results are important as a test of MVNO viability, as well as the content-centric strategy for an MVNO, in view of the shuttering of ESPN's MVNO effort.

MediaZone Goes Beta: Bandwidth Issues to Follow?

MediaZone announced a beta version of its social TV platform, allowing the creation of "linear" TV channels. MediaZone has delivered more than 2000 sports, entertainment and cultural events each year, including the Wimbledon Championships, the ING New York City Marathon and the FIBA Basketball World Championships. The company has also developed long-term exclusive content partnerships with major media brands including NBC Sports, AOL and the Shanghai Media Group.

MediaZone's latest platform introduces new features surrounding video programming, including chat with others watching the same show, ratings and comments, blog publishing, and other tools to deliver a far more comprehensive interactive platform than current video sites offer. Viewers can share their thoughts and passions while watching Social TV's numerous hard-to-find programming channels.

The platform accommodates TV producers, networks, cable outlets, media libraries and other content partners seeking to build full-time linear internet video channels, the company says.

Aside from the obvious competitive impact on existing media channels, there is a serious issue about how much bandwidth, both in the backbone and in the access network, might be chewed up if streaming video really starts to take off. If a broadband access service limits total usage to 2 Gigabytes a month, then the limit is reached in just 20 hours of standard TV viewing.

One Way of Looking at Bundling

DirecTV executives point out that a move into new services such as voice and high definition TV hasn't hurt the satellite provider's ability to keep growing, as this DirecTV graphic indicates. But there's another way to look at matters. What cable's ability to create Triple Play services has done is break the trend line of DirecTV's growth. DirecTV might have grown much more rapidly had cable not begun to flex its muscles with voice, broadband access and other services.

Vonage to Go Dual or Triple Play

Vonage Holdings Corp. is creating a subsidiary to resell EarthLink Municipal Wi-Fi access. EarthLink Wi-Fi is live in New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Anaheim and Milpitas, California. EarthLink's San Francisco network isn't operational yet, but has been approved. That will make Vonage a "dual play or quasi-triple-play" provider, moving Vonage beyond the "over the top VoIP" or "minute stealer" position it has had in the market.

Vonage now will be a provider of broadband access, VoIP and wireless VoIP, since its Wi-Fi phone will work throughout areas of the municipal Wi-Fi footprint where the signal can be received. One might question the ultimate viability of either independent mass market broadband access, VoIP or muni Wi-Fi businesses, but the move gives Vonage a chance to move in a new direction, gaining many of the benefits of "bundled" services approaches.

IPTV: China, France, United States Lead in 2011

China will have the most subscribers, France the highest penetration, the United States the greatest service provider revenue, in 2011, according to Informa Telecoms & Media.

Top 5 IPTV Markets in 2011
Ranked by Subscribers (000)
China 11,182
USA 3,429
France 3,390
Japan 3,075
Germany 2,626

Ranked by Penetration
Hong Kong 37.6%
France 14.8%
Singapore 11.9%
Norway 9.2%
Israel 9.2%

Ranked by Revenue $ Millions
U.S. 2,198
Japan 1,847
France 1,586
Italy 1,085
U.K. 810
Source: Informa Telecoms & Media

New GrandCentral Spam Filter

GrandCentral Communications announced at the International Consumer Electronics Show a new community-wide PhoneSpam Filter. The first of its kind, this free service combines a GrandCentral database of abusive callers together with a user-generated list of telemarketers to filter out unwelcome or insidious calls with a check of a box. As visitors and users report telemarketers and other unwanted callers to GrandCentral at www.grandcentral.com/stopphonespam, the numbers are confirmed and added to the PhoneSpam Filter.

Whenever one of the numbers on the list calls a GrandCentral user who has enabled the filter, those calls will be caught by GrandCentral and sent directly to the users’ Spam Voicemail folder. As more telemarketers and abusive callers are reported, the community-wide system increases in its effectiveness and provides even greater protection to GrandCentral members.

GrandCentral's addition of community or social networking features is one way new providers are adding value to voice communications by extending features in ways that go way beyond historic PSTN features. Basically, that means services become richer and more valuable as the end users create value and add knowledge. That's a big shift from the past, when a service provider essentially defined all the features.

My GrandCentral number is 303.997.1275, by the way.

TalkPlus Goes Mass Market

TalkPlus has unveiled its "multiple number, one device" service for Spint, Cingular, T-Mobile and Verizon mobile handsets. The company says mobile-centric professinals and "socially active" users are the early lead adopter targets. The service probably will appeal to people who really live by their mobiles and want to clearly separate their work and private lives, while gaining additional privacy by using virtual public numbers.

Some 15 to 17 percent of mobile phone users in North America usemore than one mobile phone, typically one phone for personal use and one for work. But some use a standard cell phone for most voice calls and have a second device, usually a BlackBerry, as their second phone.

A TalkPlus Number can be quickly created, used for temporary situations and then discarded. If a TalkPlus subscriber is selling a car online, they can get a disposable number just for the sales process, the company suggests. Using Mirror Numbers, mobile subscribers can instantly alter their caller ID to any approved phone number. TalkPlus can be activated on any of today's mobile phones in seconds and adding a new TalkPlus Number doesn't require any new hardware or changes to a subscriber's existing carrier plan, even for prepaid customers, the company says. TalkPlus doesn't require access to a computer to make calls, asking others to download software, or conducting complicated call set-up processes.

The TalkPlus Basic Plan includes:
* TalkPlus Number
* Call Screening
* Voicemail
* Web-based control center

Basic plans start at less than $9 per month. TalkPlus Pro adds:

* Multiple TalkPlus Numbers (up to 10) All numbers will have their own voicemail and call history.
* Mirror Numbers -Subscribers can clone a home or office number onto their mobile phone. This feature allows users to present an alternative caller ID when making calls. Up to 10 Mirror Numbers can be added to one mobile phone.
* Conference Calling - Subscribers can make up to 10-way conference calls.

Pro plans start at less than $17 per month.