Tpad Gives Away SIP Addresses

Tpad now provides a unique incoming SIP number to every customer free of charge. All of which points out in a concrete way that while the cost to do such things is not "free," revenue models are not dependent on packaging cost elements in any linear fashion. Tpad has to cover it costs and make a profit, but the way it does so might be enhanced by doing some things in an unusual way and earning revenue someplace else.

"We believe that it is unfair to charge people just for a number to receive calls," says Steven Johns, Tpad marketing manager. Tpad also bills by the second, rather than rounding up to the next full minute.

GrandCentral and Gizmo Project Get Hitched

GrandCentral's unified communications service now is interoperable with SipPhone's Gizmo Project PC calling client. GrandCentral customers can now designate their free Gizmo Project profile ID, which appears like a 747 area code number in their Gizmo profile, as one of their destination numbers which will ring on their personal computers or select next generation Nokia dual mode Nseries mobile phone or Internet Tablet, whenever a call comes into their GrandCentral number.

This new GrandCentral feature also provides existing Gizmo users with the ability to receive calls for free directly from the traditional telephone network (PSTN) on their Gizmo enabled Nokia portable devices, Apple Macintosh and Windows PCs. Which eliminates at least one more direct inward dial number any user has to contend with.

Owners of Nokia dual mode N80-Internet Edition mobile phones, the Internet Tablet 770 or N series 800 Internet Tablet which access the Internet over Wi-Fi can also use versions of Gizmo Project on these handheld devices to receive calls without incurring any roaming charges or using any cellular minutes when connected to Wi-Fi networks.

Vonage to Try an "EarthLink"?

Vonage says it will start offering wireless services to subscribers during the second half of 2007, after announcing it would support dual mode phones working over Wi-Fi connections. The company also expects to announce new agreements to resell other carriers' broadband Internet access services, as well as new content deals later this year, sources say. That will make Vonage into something resembling an EarthLink.

Even residential video services, in some markets, might be offered. Though margin will be an issue, as it always is with resale, the moves will address the average revenue per unit problem Vonage has. Namely, its cost of acquiring a new customer is in line with what a cable company, at&t or Verizon would expect, but the monthly revenue is far below what those other providers typically get.

GigE at Desktop Taking Over

More than half of new Ethernet ports now being sold are gigE rather than 10/100 Mbps, says Jeff Fulton, Netgear network consultant. “Historically, 10Mb to 10/100 took place when the price per port for Fast Ethernet was $30," he says. "We are at that changeover now for 10/100 to GbE." The price for 10/100 has sunk to $10–$15 per port. The lower prices are fueling continuing Ethernet growth, says The Yankee Group.

The Dell'Oro Group says worldwide sales of optical transport equipment reached the highest level in five years during the fourth quarter of 2006. WDM system sales grew 42 percent year-over-year and accounted for all of the market increase.

Additionally, more than half of networking executives see the cost of wide area network facilities to be their primary concern this year. Also, 94 per cent of companies believe that they will need additional bandwidth than they are currently using over the next year, say researchers at the Aberdeen Group.

Access, Not WAN, is Bandwidth Issue

As always, the bandwidth choke point remains the access network. Local area network bandwidth is easy to upgrade. Long haul bandwidth also is not much of an issue, on most routes. The issue, for any service provider except a cable company or satellite company, is that replacments for linear TV will have to be delivered over the IP pipe, not a special purpose video delivery network. Multicast or broadcast networks are the best way to deliver linear TV. IP networks are a better way to deliver any sort of symmetrical service, but grossly inefficient for streaming content on a unicast basis. Access remains the choke point.

iPhone, at&t Deal Still is Significant

Big changes take time in the global communications industry, for good and not so good reasons. Still, it's important to recognize that Apple has succeeded where others have failed. It has wrested some significant degree of control away from normally powerful wireless carriers. But not in the way many disrupters prefer. As Apple tends to do, it demanded a great degree of creative control because that's the only way to ensure the sort of user experience it wants to provide. And the iPhone is no exception.

at&t agreed to leave its brand off the body of the phone. at&t also abandoned its usual insistence that phone makers carry its software for Web surfing, ringtones and other services. The deal also calls for Cingular to share with Apple a portion of the monthly revenues from subscribers, says the Wall Street Journal.

In another break with standard practice, the iPhone will have an exclusive retail network: The partners are making it available only through Cingular and Apple stores, as well as both companies' Web sites. The deal points the way to how service providers can balance control and freedom, vertical integration and horizontal innovation.

Cingular executives were willing to cede control to Mr. Jobs for the privilege of being the exclusive U.S. provider of one of the most highly anticipated consumer electronics devices in years, and to deny rivals a chance to do the same. Considering the number of music-capable mobile phones now being sold, a wise move.

Not many companies will have the bargaining power to do the same, but it will be better for mobile providers if they can learn to do this on a wider scale. Some things have to be controlled, for technical reasons. Some things have to be controlled for user experience reasons. But not everything has to--or should be--controlled by the carrier.

There's Always an Elephant in the Room

That's not a problem if it is your elephant. Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin warns his mobile compatriots that “as an industry it takes us a long time to get things done; we need to move faster otherwise others will eat our lunch." Forgetting for the moment about Microsoft, Google or the likes of Skype, what about WiMAX, which sometimes is seen as a comeptitive business platform, and sometimes just a platform?

"WiMAX is now a serious contender for mobile broadband," he thinks, positioning WiMAX as a platform any mobile provider can adopt, as Sprint Nextel already has done. Others might see WiMAX as a competing business platform that will be used by attackers to assault the legacy mobile providers, whatever technology they may use for fourth generation networks.

Nobody seems to disagree about the need, though. “If we don’t build our broadband networks we will have this opportunity taken away from us,” Sarin says. For some time Vodafone has distanced itself from the "3G or WiMAX" debate, in part because it seems to be thinking it will have to adopt WiMAX as its fourth generation network standard.

Vodafone subsidiary SFR in France may already have begun WiMAX testing. Vodafone network partner MTC-Vodafone recently won a license for WiMAX spectrum in Bahrain. The company also is expected to bid on WiMAX licenses to be auctioned in Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the coming months.

Vodafone acquired a WiMAX license in Greece last year, and is deploying a network in Malta. The company also has been testing WiMAX in New Zealand, and in South Africa.

Sarin notes that less than 10 percent of Vodafone revenues are derived from 3G services. The implication, it seems to us, is that 3G has proven to be not much more than a "wideband" niche between narrowband and broadband. Sort of like the analogy of narrowband voice (64 kbps); basic rate ISDN (up to 128 kbps) and "true" broadband in the megabit per second range.

So if legacy mobile carriers adopt WiMAX, how much sense does it make to track WiMAX deployment separately from wireless provider 4G? Really, the issue is not WiMAX. The issue is whether WiMAX can provide the platform for a competitive challenge to dominant wireless providers, because the early notion had been that WiMAX would open up another access alternative. But it won't if the dominant service providers simply offer it themselves.

There's an elephant in the room. The question is, whose elephant is it?