Teens IM; Adults Send Email

About 25 percent of surveyed respondents send IMs from their cell phones, including one in three (32 percent) teens, according to the second annual AP-AOL Instant Messaging Trends Survey.

Keyboards make a difference, it seems. So do social networking services and the IM providers themselves, all of which now support IM-over-mobile capabilities. All of the major instant messaging services also let users have their instant messages forwarded directly to their cell phones when they're on-the-go. In addition, IM users are instant messaging from within their social networking profiles.

Workplace use also is becoming commonplace. More than one in four (27 percent) users say they use instant messaging at work. Further, half of at-work IM users say that instant messaging makes them more productive at work, a 25 percent increase over last year.

More than half (55 percent) of teen IM users have used instant messaging to get help with their homework. This is a 17 percent increase over last year. Meanwhile, 22 percent of teens say they have sent an IM to ask for or accept a date.

Forty-three percent of teen IM users say they have used instant messaging to say something they would not say to someone in person. Teenage girls are more likely than boys to do so. Nearly half of teenage girls surveyed have used instant messaging to say something they would not say in person, compared with just over a third of teenage boys.

Teens today are more likely to upload photos (42 percent in 2007 vs. 34 percent in 2006) while instant messaging. They are less likely to conduct online research for school (57 percent vs. 63 percent) or update their blog or social profile (33 percent vs. 42 percent) while sending IMs.

Nearly three in four teens (70 percent) and one in four adults (24 percent) send more instant messages than emails.

IM users tend to engage in multiple online activities while sending instant messages. Checking email is the most popular activity among eight in ten adult and teen IM users. After email, adult IM users most often conduct online searches (49 percent), while teens say they like to research homework assignments online (57 percent).

Nearly four in five (79 percent) at-work IM users say they have used instant messaging in the office to take care of personal matters. One in five (19 percent) IM users say they send more instant messages than emails to their co-workers and colleagues.

CLECs Touch Few Buildings in 6 Verizon Markets

By now, you'd think there would be significant optical fiber pulled to commercial buildings in major and secondary markets, even though you'd suspect it is tough getting fiber in outlying suburban strip malls, for example. But it appears optical fiber connections to commercial sites remains a significant work in progress. In six Verizon markets, for example, all competitors to Verizon put together can reach but a small fraction of sites.

Limited Fiber in 6 Verizon Markets

In disclosing for the first time its own facilities-based access to buildings in the New York market, XO Communications provides evidence of just how tough the high-bandwidth metro access business remains.

Specifically, XO has its own facilities in place at just 0.01 percent of all commercial buildings in six markets Verizon serves, and in which Verizon seeks further deregulation of its wholesale obligations.

XO Communications's data on alternate access facilities is consistent with GeoResults data showing the total on-net building presence, XO says. In aggregate, competitors serve only 1.49 percent of commercial buildings in the six markets.

XO Communications also says that even in the areas where Verizon central offices have the highest density of alternate high-capacity facilities, competitors have slight access to most buildings, reaching a bit more than four percent of commercial buildings only in Virginia Beach, Va.

In Boston, less than 1.5 percent of commercial buildings have alternate facilities-based access, even in the areas with the highest density of alternate providers. In Philadelphia and Providence, R.I., less than one percent of commercial buildings have competitive access facilities.

At least one-third of all wire centers in five of the six MSAs have no competitive provider lit fiber at all. In Pittsburgh, nearly 80 percent of all wire centers have no competitor lit fiber connecting any commercial buildings.

Google will Bid for 700-MHz Spectrum

Google plans to submit at least an initial bid for 700-MHz wireless spectrum, the Wall Street Journal reports. There is some thinking that with Verizon's declaration of willingness to open its network to any technically-compliant device, as well as similar open access provisions for any winner of 700-MHz C block spectrum, Google has less need to acquire its own spectrum to ensure an open environment for wireless Internet services.

Google also is working with Sprint and T-Mobile on open devices and applications on those wireless networks, plus Clearwire for WiMAX service. Given all of that recent development, there simply is less need for Google to own spectrum simply as a way of ensuring an open environment.

Sprint Turns Down $5 Billion

Sprint Nextel Corp. has rejected a $5 billion investment by South Korea's SK Telecom Co. and buyout firm Providence Equity Partners Inc. that would have brought back former Chairman Tim Donahue to run the mobile-phone company, according to Bloomberg.

The investment group reportedly proposed buying Sprint securities that would later convert into equity for 20 percent to 30 percent more than the current stock price.

Sprint's board apparently didn't meet with Donahue or the investors before turning down the deal, nor does it appear SK Telecom and Providence were interested in a hostile takeover.

Sprint Stands Alone

Now that Verizon Wireless has selected Long Term Evolution as its fourth-generation platform, and if Sprint continues with its WiMAX fourth-generation network platform, prospects for CDMA are dim in the U.S. market.

Of course, there always is the possibility that Sprint might reverse course and abandon WiMAX. But Sprint Nextel at the moment really stands alone in the platform area. It runs the Nextel iDEN network that no other major carrier supports and CDMA-based 3G that Verizon says it will abandon.

It is hard to imagine T-Mobile adopting anything other than LTE, so it appears CDMA is at a deadend in the U.S. market.

Verizon to Dump CDMA for 4G

Verizon Wireless will base its fourth-generation mobile broadband network on LTE – Long Term Evolution – the technology developed within the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards organization and based on GSM.

The selection of LTE means Verizon wants to align itself with the scale opportunities the global standard will provide, rather than extending its existing CDMA platform.

Verizon and Vodafone have a coordinated trial plan for LTE that begins in 2008. Trial suppliers include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia-Siemens, and Nortel. Discussions with device suppliers have expanded beyond traditional suppliers such as LG, Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson, as consumer electronics companies anticipate embedded wireless functionality in their future products.

Users won't see 4G for several years, however, so there's no need to worry about existing CDMA equipment. The decision does call into question how much actual developer interest there will be in Verizon's new "open" CDMA platform, however.