A Location Based Service Somebody Needs to Develop

As someone who spends lots of time at conferences and trade shows, and who randomly bumps into people, it occurs to me that one location-based service that would really be helpful is a way to have your mobile alert you when somebody you have been communicating with over a recent user-defined period is in your vicinity. The reason is simple enough: quite often one works with people for years without ever physically meeting them. And if the opportunity presents itself, one would like to stroll over and say hello.

The issue is that I don't know how well GPS will work when all of us are inside a large meeting hall. Bluetooth would help for short distances, I suppose. It might also be nice if the app could run in the background when synchronized with one's notebook or desktop and collect photos of your contacts, putting them into your contact database so you know roughly what the person you want to meet looks like.

For that matter, scouring public sources and putting a picture into my contact directory might also be nice if I weren't a Facebook user, which essentially provides that function.

Sprint Loses CEO; 337,000 Subs

Sprint Nextel says it expects to report a net loss of approximately 337,000 post-paid subscribers in the third quarter, and also announced the resignation of CEO Gary Forsee. Perhaps the company has spent too much time on the WiMAX network is hasn't yet built, and too little time stemming serious subscriber losses in the voice and third generation business it does have.

Help Us Figure Out What We Can Do with Wi-Fi: BT

To stimulate development of new applications using Wi-Fi hotspots, BT is running a contest with a £1000 prize for the best new Symbian-based mobile application. To enter the challenge, an application should make use of the device's Wi-Fi connection for some of its operation. Applications will be judged on the innovative use they make of Wi-Fi connectivity, how easy they are to use, and their commercial potential. There are smaller prizes for runners-up. The challenge is open from October 16 and the closing date for entries is January 16, 2008.

Vonage Settles with Sprint

Vonage has settled its Sprint Nextel Corp. patent infringement lawsuit for $80 million. As part of the settlement, all claims are resolved and Sprint has licensed to Vonage the Sprint portfolio of more than 100 patents covering the connection of calls between a regular telephone network and a packet-switched network such as the Internet.

The $80 million Vonage agreed to pay consists of $35 million for past use of the patents, $40 million for a fully paid future license, and $5 million in prepayment for services.

Vonage has maintained it has sufficient reserves to pay both the Verizon and Sprint Nextel patent infringement awards without long-term damage to its business model. There has been some speculation that the patent infringement damage awards would push Vonage over the edge into bankruptcy. The countervailing point of view has been that the patent disputes were a serious financial distraction but not alone capable of damaging Vonage's long-term prospects. More dangerous by far is the threat posed by cable providers bundling VoIP with video and broadband access services.

In that sense, EarthLink faces much the same problem. It has a reasonably-sized Internet access business that has to contend with triple play bundles as well, though EarthLink arguably has made better progress in creating a double play offering of broadband plus voice.

The settlement of the Sprint lawsuit is helpful primarily in removing a huge distraction and source of uncertainty.

Smartphones are Different; So are Users

If device choices are an accurate reflection of user preferences and behavior, there is a big different in use cases of BlackBerry and Palm devices. To wit, BlackBerry users seem quite fixated on business use, while Palm uses are much more likely to use their smartphones for managing details of their lives as consumers. Windows Mobile users also tend to use their smartphones more heavily in "personal" rather than "work" modes.

So personal considerations are more important factors in driving smartphone purchases and usage than you might suspect. Some 83 percent of consumers say they use their smartphones for personal reasons in some form or another. 71% of consumers tell researchers at Compete that they have a smartphone to stay organized in their personal life, while 46 percent say they use the devies to stay connected to work. Given that until now most smartphone makers have primarily focused on the business-user segment, these are surprising results, Compete researchers say.

att Tilt: A Small Reason Sprint is in Trouble

A decade ago, Nextel was the star of the U.S. mobile industry, with way-above-average revenues per subscriber based on its business user base. Today, Sprint Nextel is struggling to find its way. We point out the introduction by at&t of the new Tilt phone as an example of why Sprint Nextel is faltering. It isn't the technical performance of the phone, though it is among the "smartest" of smart phones available, or the form factor or the industrial design, though some will appreciate it.

Of course, it hasn't helped that Sprint still is struggling to get the separate Nextel and Sprint networks and technologies to mesh. But it might be argued that Nextel's market success now is a large reason for Sprint's undoing. The reason is simply that the gravitation pull of Nextel's business customer base might have defocused Sprint on the consumer-lead dynamic of the mobile phone market.

As with so many other elements of technology adoption these days, innovation is seeping into the market, and into the fabric of business life, from the consumer segment. And one might argue that Verizon, at&t (Cingular)and T-Mobile have done a better job, of late, of tapping into that dynamic.

As phones and mobiles increasingly have become fashion items, Verizon and at&t have seemed better able to capture the spirit. Perhaps in some largely unconscious fashion Sprint executives relied too heavily on the "pin drop" quality of the network, rather than offering fashion-forward devices.

That isn't to ignore technical parameters of the user experience. But most users realize that every network has some limitations, largely negating the "our network is better" positioning. Sprint has had to integrate two completely different air interfaces, to be sure. You might think "data network" when you think of Sprint. You aren't nearly as likely to think "cool phones." And that increasingly is what is driving the market these days.

The Tilt is the first at&t-enabled Windows Mobile 6 smart phone, and features a slide-out QWERTY keypad design, a 3-megapixel camera, 3G data speeds from AT&T's UMTS/HSDPA network and global connectivity.

Designed by HTC, the AT&T Tilt features a 2.8-inch color screen that slides back to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard, then tilts up to position the screen perfectly for reading and creating e-mail, browsing, watching videos or playing games.

The Tilt supports Bluetooth 2.0, which allows for up to six Bluetooth devices to be wirelessly connected simultaneously to the device and also supports Bluetooth Stereo.

The Tilt also features the latest version of TeleNav GPS Navigator and address sharing, which allows users to share their current locations or the location of their favorite businesses with other mobile users. Business users also can use TeleNav Track, a mobile workforce management solution that includes GPS-enabled tracking, timesheets, wireless forms, navigation, job dispatching and bar code scanning.

The Tilt also operates in Japan and Korea, as well as in 135 countries using the GSM air interface.

Wi-Fi is built in. The Tilt also comes with the highest-resolution camera available on any at&t mobile phone (3 megapixels). The device also accommodates 4GB MicroSD flash memory cards and is capable of supporting up to 32GB MicroSD cards to expand storage for pictures, video, music and more.

The at&t version of the Tilt also will be the first Windows Mobile device in North America to include BlackBerry Connect version 4.0 software, which provides BlackBerry email service, security and device management for IT administrators and the benefit for users of wireless synchronization of email, calendar, contacts, task list and memo pad information.

BlackBerry Connect v4.0 supports push email for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise through the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and personal email through the BlackBerry Internet Service.

Customers can also use the AT&T Tilt to access their personal email. Better than most devices, the Tilt bridges the business-focused BlackBerry segment with the media player personal device.

And that's the issue: people buy devices. The network and the plan just follow along.

Level 3 Provisioning Issues?

Level 3 Communications has made seven acquistions in the last 18 months, including Broadwing, part of the Savvis portfolio, TelCove, Looking Glass and ICG. Several of the buys related to its new content delivery network portfolio. But many of the sizable acquisitions are related to its core bandwidth business.

If you have been around the business long enough, you know what is happening in the back office. Disparate systems are running in parallel. Manual reports have to be built. Billing systems don't talk to each other. Inventory cannot be interrogated in real time. Provisioning backlogs are the inevitable result.

That is one possible reason Level 3 reported relatively light revenue and earnings growth in the most recent quarter. Demand for its services isn't the problem. If anything, in light of the back office issues, demand possibly is outstripping provisioning.

Any company would have at least some issues getting new customers provisioned efficiently were it to digest as many acquisitions as Level 3 has made recently. So we would not be surprised if the company is having issues getting the new customers onto the network.

In fact, it probably is safe to say that bandwidth in service has grown at an unprecedented level over the last year. If one looks at total in-service bandwidth provisioned by Level 3 in its entire history up to about 12 months ago, the amount of bandwidth in service probably has doubled again in the last 12 months.

That rate of growth would cause issues for any service provider. So we wouldn't be surprised if there was some hiccup in provisioning new orders. In fact, the backlog could be great enough that three months might have to pass before the provisioning teams can catch up. Level 3 wouldn't be the first company to have problems with too much success.