Major Multitasking

If you try to add up all the hours people report spend online, consuming media, sending messages and so forth, you realize that if those people have jobs or go to school, they must be multi-tasking. More important for anybody whose business touches advertising, online advertising spending lags time spent by users on their media. Over time, that gets rectified as advertisers move more money in an online direction.

Hence Google's interest in the mobile Web.

FTTH: No Business Case or No Investment Case?

British Telecom has to this point been unwilling to spend heavily on a new fiber to the home network for the UK. Even UK regulators have agreed with the thesis that clear evidence of demand, sufficient to provide a payback, is lacking.

"No one would be more delighted if a commercial incentive emerged that enabled us to fiber the nation," says Peter McCarthy-Ward, BT director. "We are not facing large numbers of people today who are constrained by their bandwidth."

BT also faces intense investor resistance. Everywhere service providers have pondered widesparead FTTH, investors have made their displeasure clear by hammering equity prices of the companies that have done so.

What does seem clear is that in cases where a national, or other units of government, do not subsidize FTTH programs heavily, the investment case is questionable, even if the strategic value might outweigh even the near-term pro forma. Investors might not appreciate the replacement of copper access networks with optical fiber networks, when the immediate outcome is simply a replacement of lost voice revenues with new service revenues made possible by the existence of the fiber.

But that's a better outcome than sustained decline, which might be the outcome if the upgrades are not made.

FTTH makes clear business sense, even if it does not always seem to make immediate investment sense, in markets where a national government is not heavily subsidizing the program.

Apple to Bid for 700-MHz Spectrum?

Technology pundit Mark Stephens insists Appls is going to bid for 700-MHz spectrum, most likely in concert with Google and possibly two additional partners brought in to lessen the amount of capital each partner has to kick in. So far, all we know is that Google will submit an opening bid at the reserve price. But Google has the ability to bring in other partners.

Perhaps Apple has decided it likes the recurring services revenue approach to life. Perhaps getting a portion of recurring revenues has whetted appetite for getting 100-percent of the recurring revenues (shared with the other partners, of course)?

Up to this point, "services" such as iTunes were simply a way to sell iPods. iPhone is the first product in Apple's history where recurring services revenue was a huge part of the business model, even though selling the devices obviously is primary. Like all other consumer products manufacturers and software providers, Apple knows that services are becoming a bigger part of the overall value proposition for any "product."

Can it be that access and services built on access are seen as a bigger part of Apple's future? One wonders. At least, Stephens does. Perhaps the other Stephens (Randall) also is wondering what is afoot. Wouldn't it be a shock if Google was not simply using the 700-MHz bid as leverage to get what it wants (openness) from the wireless service providers?

Broadband Access Revenue: Bad News

Broadband access penetration might be climbing just about everywhere. Unfortunately, it looks like revenue is going to fall significantly, if Yankee Group analyst Vince Vittore is right. He projects Digital Subscriber Line revenue, which represents the overwhelming share of global revenue, is set to fall precipitously.

You might think fiber-to-home (OLT)revenue or cable modem revenue (CMTS) is poised to take up the slack. Vittore doesn't think so.

It looks like broadband access is turning out to be a product just like the Internet: useful, ubiquitous, necessary and something service providers can't make much money on.

European VoIP Market Soars

Though VoIP might largely be driven by cable companies in the U.S. market, the 22 million-plus VoIP subs in the European market bear witness to dramatically different market dynamics. In part because of robust local loop unbundling rules, independent broadband competitors have had quite a field day, both as providers of broadband access and VoIP services.

In the French market, for example, France Telecom (Orange) is "the number two provider of VoIP in the world," says Carlos DeSilva, France Telecom director. "In France, 30 percent of all calls are VoIP and it is used by about eight million customers."

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.