Who Buys Sprint?

With its stock price now so low, it is inevitable that speculation will grow about the fate of Sprint Nextel as an independent company. There has always been some level of speculation about Comcast's possible interest in Sprint. Most likely there also will be talk of what Google might want to do with those assets. There are lots of plusses and minuses for either company.

Given the growing importance of product bundling, as well as wireless, it might make sense for Comcast to have its own wireless assets, it is argued. Comcast is a part owner of some wireless spectrum through SpectrumCo and also uses the "Pivot" offering developed by Sprint to offer a branded wireless service to cable customers.

Then there is the fourth-generation WiMAX asset Sprint could provide. But there are lots of arguments why Comcast can't, or shouldn't consider buying Sprint. Start with the WiMAX network, which obviously would operate outside Comcast's cable franchise territory. There is one big unstated "no no" among leading cable operators, and that is that one never competes with another cable operator. "I have mine, you have yours" has been the rule since the industry began in the late 1940s. Comcast would not likely want to be first to break the taboo.

Comcast shareholders also seem to be terrified that Comcast might embark on just such an expensive acquistion. The last time Comcast tried, attempting to buy Disney, the stock was pounded. Any Sprint acquisition would likely have the same effect this time, and Comcast's stock price already is beaten way down.

Comcast also says it continually monitors what is happening in the wireless industry, and one could make the observation that as crucial as wireless has been as a revenue growth engine, slowing has to occur as the market reaches complete saturation in just a few years. Nor is it clear that cable customers see wireless as a "natural" part of a bundle. That's arguably not the case for buyers of "phone service," who may well see a wireless-broadband-voice bundle as "natural" and "logical."

Google, on the other hand, might also be seen as a logical consolidator. It clearly wants mass in the wireless market, and control of Sprint's customer base would be helpful. The price tag is really low. The 4G network makes much more sense for Google than it does for Comcast, and the cost of the spectrum is already baked into Sprint's share price.

On the other hand, Google wants to work with all the major wireless carriers, and becoming a competitor doesn't help. Nor will Google want to mess with operation of three networks or Sprint's marketing challenges. Still, to the extent that ownership of a national broadband wireless network might be helpful, and if the eventual owner of the 700 MHz C block spectrum is a company like at&t or Verizon, who might drag their feet putting that spectrum into service, Google and other supporters of a mobile Web approach untethered from legacy considerations about voice might want a chance to move ahead with WiMAX using a new business model.

Perhaps Google could even work out a pre-planned buy of all of Sprint, and then immediately spin off the non-WiMAX assets, to avoid becoming a competitor to at&t and Verizon. Other scenarios obviously will make sense to people if Sprint's share price doesn't climb soon.

Easier BlackBerry Use

It's going to be easier to read and respond to text, attachments and image-formatted documents on Research in Motion BlackBerries sometime later this year. RIM says it will upgrade its software so users can edit documents directly from the device and to view messages in their original formatting. That sort of functionality is obvious on Windows Mobile devices, so RIM has to keep pace. Apple's growing presence and market share also might be an issue, as the "easy to use, the whole Web" philosophy has got to be changing user expectations about what they ought to be able to do, and how, on their smart phones.

In the third quarter of 2007, Apple captured 20 percent of all U.S. smart phone shipments, Gartner Inc. says. RIM got 39 percent.

Enterprise iPhone

Enterprise iPhone users now have a specific set of plans and a financial inducement to sign up for a minimum two-year enterprise iPhone plan. The inducement is a $25 a month discount through December 2008 for new accounts. Users can sign up for the typical voice plans, and then pay a new enterprise data fee. At least that appears to be the case. The Web site isn't crystal clear about the matter.

The enterprise data plans include visual voice mail, unlimited data with both email and Web inside the United States, plus a bucket of text messages.

Data plans range from $45 to $65 a month. For users requiring data access outside the United States, at&t also offers data global roaming plans costing $24.99 a month with 20 megabytes of global data access, and a $59.99 a month plan offering 50 Mbytes of data access in 29 countries outside the United States.

It will be interesting to see how user perception of the value of a smart phone changes over time. Up to this point, the Web browser, though seen as useful, as been of the "nice to have" rather than "must have" feature, as this survey data from InfoTech suggests. So far, though, Web browser use and mobile searches by iPhone users have been significantly higher than is the case for a typical smart phone user.

As the developing trend of use of Web-enabled enterprise software continues to grow, the browser obviously will assume new importance.

Thailand, SE Asia iPhone Deal?

It doesn't appear to be a done deal. In fact, it might be premature to say the deal will get done, but Thailand’s Advanced Info Services is collaborating with shareholder Singapore Telecom and Australia’s Optus to win the right to bring Apple’s iPhone to Thailand and the southeast Asia-Pacific region.

AIS Chief Marketing Officer Sanchai Thiewprasertkul says " up to 60,000 iPhones have been smuggled into Thailand so far," according to TeleGeography.

Wireless Substitution: in China

China Telecom, the nation's largest fixed line company, reported a decline of 2.7 million local access lines in 2007, as a result of great competition from wireless carriers. The number of fixed line subscriptions fell by 1.48 million in December, its fifth consecutive monthly loss, to takes China Telecom’s total to 220.3 million.

China Mobile added 68.1 million users in 2007 to take its total to 369.3 million, while Unicom added 18 million subscribers to reach 160.3 million subs.

Fixed line substitution isn't just a problem occurring in North America and Europe, apparently.

iPhone Drives Learning About Contextual Search

If engineers, analysts and marketers at Google are smart, and we would agree they are smart, lots of really important data is being gathered about what it is that mobile Web users do on their mobile browsers. The reason is that the preliminary data suggests that iPhone users are much more heavy browser users than users of other makes and models of mobile devices.

That sort of information is going to be really important as software designers at Google and elsewhere try to unravel the secrets of mobile search. So far, everybody seems to think there are contextual factors to mobile search that make it different from desktop PC search. In other words, people probably are going to be asking different questions and trying to do different things when initiating a mobile Web search. Directions have to be right at the top.

My own usage tends to be "what's the address of the place I am going to" and "where can I find the closest book store." Another favorite: "where can I find good Thai food close to where I am?"

Everything beyond that remains to be discovered.

Free Muni Wi-Fi in Colorado Town: But It's Bad News

Residents of Longmont, Colo. temporary have free access to the municipal Wi-Fi network operated there by Gobility. Access is free because Gobility lost its billing contract and literally can't bill for access. It's bad news because the network is for sale, Gobility apparently finding it cannot raise additional funds to keep the network in operation.

Kite Networks, owned by Texas-based Gobility, provides wireless broadband service in Longmont and to approximately 17,000 customers across 21 markets.That works out to about 809 customers per market. So it is probably no surprise that Gobility is finding the business a really tough proposition.

Longmont’s city council is taking a look at whether the city itself could buy and run the network. But Longmont has Digital Subscriber Line service available from Qwest starting at about $20 a month and Comcast offers cable modem service for about $40 as a stand-alone service. There are no particular signal coverage limitations that prevent use of wireless broadband from the major national suppliers and perhaps a dozen third party ISPs offer DSL service as well. It just isn't clear that a municipal Wi-Fi network is needed or that paying customers exist in sufficient numbers to sustain a business, even if operated by the city.

A vote of Longmont residents would be required before Longmont could consider a bid.