Vodafone: Pipes, Not Content?

Vodafone had a good quarter. It might also have had an instructive quarter. The stand out? Organic growth of 45 percent in non-messaging data revenue. In fact, non-messaging revenue is now up to a level of half that of messaging (text and multimedia messaging.

"The organic growth in data revenue of 45.1 percent was particularly strong and can be attributed in part to increasing penetration of Vodafone Mobile Connect 3G/GPRS data cards and handheld business devices," the company says. Translation: Wireless notebook computers and BlackBerry style email devices are driving data growth.

Vodafone handhelds in the business category increased by 112.6 percent since September last year and Vodafone Mobile Connect 3G/GPRS data cards grew by 78.9 percent. Assume there are 1.8 million data cards in use and 1.4 million email-centric handhelds as well.

Assume the monthly revenue stream for a notebook card is £35 a month. Assume an email device such as a Blackberry represents £25 a month. That suggests £294 million in revenue from data cards and £165 million from email devices, or £459 million, over a six-month period. EU-wide, Vodafone got something like £843 million in non-messaging data revenue over the same period.

So "pipe" revenues have increased from 46 percent to 54 percent of Vodafone's European data revenues over the last year. "Dumb pipe" trumps "content," in this case.

Another Ridiculous Patent Suit

Technology Patents, a Maryland entity having its principal place of business in Potomac, Md, (address P.O. Box 61220, Potomac, MD 20859, http://www.arismardirossian.com/), has filed a patent infringement suit claiming that 131 carriers, handset suppliers and application providers have infringed a patent covering global transmission of text or short message service (SMS) communications.

Technology Patents alleges that all of the defendants, which include T-Mobile, Vodafone, China Resources Peoples Telephone Company Ltd, AT&T, Samsung, Palm, Microsoft, and Yahoo! (among the 131 defendants), have caused international text or SMS messages to be sent to and from Maryland, thereby resulting in infringement of the asserted patents in Maryland.

TPLLC has asked for a permanent injunction against the defendants, enjoining them from providing international messaging operations and capabilities in the U.S. market.

My views on this, as previously mentioned, are that there is way too much use of "patents" as a business weapon or means of extortion, and too little use of patents as a genuine way to spur the formation of intellectual capital. We aren't talking about one or two "infringers." We are talking virtually the entire global telecommunications industry here. Can that possibly be the case? Or is this yet another example of "prior art" that should never have been given patent status in the first place?

It's crap.

iPhone Not Enterprise Class? Avaya Says It Is

Avaya says its Avaya one-X Mobile unified communications platform will support Apple iPhone. The company also announced the availability of Avaya one-X™ Mobile for RIM, Palm, Java and WAP mobile devices. The first company to announce access to enterprise communications from the iPhone, Avaya now extends this access from the broadest range of mobile devices of any enterprise communications manufacturer today.

Avaya one-X Mobile unites enterprise and mobile networks, allowing the two to work together more effectively while increasing the value of existing investments in communications infrastructure.

With Avaya one-X Mobile, mobile devices from Apple, RIM, Palm, Motorola, LG, Nokia, Samsung, Sanyo, Sony Ericsson and others become endpoints on the corporate network.

From the iPhone, users will have iPhone optimized access to the Avaya one-X Mobile interface, providing the same ability to make the iPhone their personal remote control for enterprise communications.

Flat Rate Data Roaming from Asian Mobile Providers

A group of Asian mobile carriers early next year will provide traveling users data access for a flat daily fee.

The carriers call themselves the Conexus Mobile Alliance, and include Hong Kong's Hutchison, Indonesia's Indosat, Japan's NTT DoCoMo, the Philippines' Smart, Singapore's StarHub, South Korea's KT Freetel, India's Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., Manager Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) and Taiwan's Far EasTone. The alliance covers 11 territories and 160 million consumers.

All the carriers use the Wideband Code Division Multiple Access data standard operating faster than 3G.

Some of the carriers already have deployed high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), supporting speeds up to 1.8 Mbps. NTT DoCoMo already offers 3.6Mbps, and plans to launch a 7.2M bps service early next year.

The carriers hope the new alliance will boost data usage within Asia.

Major Reform of EU Telecom?

In a major revamp of its rules on wholesale access to optical loops, the European Commission executive branch has decided that, where competition is weak, incumbents must create separate “wholesale access” companies that sell services to all service providers.

Known as “structural separation,” the model resembles that current in the U.K. market, where BT and all other wireline providers buy access services from a wholesale OpenReach company.

The plan still must be ratified by member nations, and opposition is expected. National regulators are happy to be given more powers, but do not want the EU executive to be allowed to overrule their decisions and insist that they do not need an EU watchdog.

The European Commission says the new rules could be applied by the end of 2009, but observers expect EU states such as Germany, France and Spain to water them down.

If ratified, however, the decision essentially means competitors will have wholesale access to incumbent fiber-to-home facilities. The decision stands in stark contrast to rules in the U.S. market, where cable and telco providers are not required to lease such facilities to competitors.

Android Web Browser Renders Well

The Android Web browser seems to render Web pages nicely, based on these screenshots from Google Operating System.

Android Reminds me of Apple

Not since Steve Jobs over at Apple has a company apparently worked so hard on the look of fonts. But it appears Google has something of that same passion for user experience as it develops Android, its open source platform for mobile computing and communications devices. Here are the fonts users will be interacting with. Nice. Pleasing. But just as important, a sign that mobile user experience might now be really be an obsession at two companies.

Don't get me wrong. My BlackBerry is one of two devices I can't seem to dispense with, simply because it handles email so well. But it doesn't do voice very well, the key placement is occasionally awkward, and camera and media support is woeful.

The other, curently a Nokia N95, does photography, audio and video really well, has much more personality and uses a much better Web browser. RIM's browser is awful. Still, when I find I am reading the manuals, over and over, to learn how to use either device, which was my experience, something isn't being done as well as it might.

Syncing of data, calendar items and so forth is easy using either RIM's Intellisync or Nokia's PC Suite. And the picture-handling Nokia LifeBlog is interesting. The point is that software and navigation are getting to be more important now that mobiles are computers. Apple always gets this. Android might as well.

These fonts are nice. They also hopefully are a sign.