Auction Starts Jan. 24

Bidding begins Jan. 24 for the 700-MHz spectrum that will, among other things, allow creation of a new broadband network with significant open access requirements for devices and applications. The auction also will allow some regional players to acquire new spectrum on a local basis, either to fill in a national footprint or to serve some new local need. The biggest unknown is whether Google will place an initial minimum bid only, and then watch other bidders increase their bids to win the auction, or make some move to try to win the spectrum.

Under FCC rules, the identities of daily bidders will be kept secret although bid amounts will be posted on the agency's Web site on a daily basis. So we'll know soon enough.

Most observers saay the requirement to support any technically compliant device on the C block national network, as well as any lawful applications, has contributed to a recent "embrace" by Verizon and at&t Wireless of open-network policies even on the existing mobile networks.

At least so far, many observers say Verizon Wireless is the most motivated bidder as it needs additional spectrum more than at&t, for example. Some think at&t will look to the regional allotments in other blocks as a way of filling in its footprint.

at&t launches VoIP in Detroit

At&t says it will soon launch VoIP for U-verse customers. The service has been launched in the Detroit market. The service is a replacement for traditional landline service and is priced accordingly.

A $40 monthly fee provides unlimited domestic calling while a $20 a month plan provides 1,000 long distance minutes. The service includes an online call manager portal, unified messaging, click to call from the TV, and simultaneous ring of up to four separate telephone numbers.

So the long march towards VoIP by dominant telcos begins. As just about everybody now recognizes, VoIP will in some cases represent an incremental change in user behavior, in some cases a replacement for traditional calling and in some cases a better way to do traditional calling with a better user experience.

Pretty soon we'll start to get some insight into the ways VoIP helps traditional telcos, in addition to representing a threat to established revenue streams. Without widespread fiber-to-customer networks and a complete shut-off of traditional time division multiplex infrastructure, it will be hard to say for certain.

But Verizon executives think they will save operating expense when they are able to shut off the TDM voice network and shift everything over to IP.

Employees Spend $693.50 Calling and Texting When Abroad

Global U.S. enterprise travelers spend about $693.50 on an 11-day trip, about 12 times more than the average monthly wireless bill, according to a new survey conduced by Harris Interactive and sponsore dby Brightroam.

“The study shows that 15 percent of employees make at least one international trip per year, which translates into costs of more than $950,000 annually per 10,000 employees," says Jeff Wilson, Brightroam general managers. Voice accounts for about 80 percent of the charges while data charges for Web browsing or testing represent 20 percent of total roaming charges.

About 62 percent of calls are made directly for business purposes while the balance of calls are personal, at 38 percent. Cell phones account for half of the devices being used to make those calls while 29 percent are originated from landlines.

The average number of calls is nine to 10 calls a day. About half of business users have smart phones rather than traditional wireless phones, the survey finds.

About four out of five companies surveyed say cell phones or smartphones are the primary communication tool used when employees travel internationally and 57 percent of all calls made on a trip are made on these devices. Users also are more likely to use a cell phone rather than a land line phone whether they are calling locally, to another country or calling back to the United States from abroad, the survey finds. If not using their cell phone, 60 percent will use a calling card and half will use the hotel phone.

Half of calls are placed back to the United States while 40 percent are local calls within the country traveled to.

Wireless Open Access Watch

With a change of presidential administration, and the high possibility that the White House will be occupied by a Democrat, all bets are off where it comes to the composition, leadership and therefore direction of Federal Communications Commission policy. But it is fair to say that a more heavily regulated approach is likely if Democrats win the White House. Incumbent tier one U.S. telcos won't like that. For other reasons, cable industry leaders will be happy as well. Competitive providers might well think their chances improve as well.

So it might be all that significant that Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democratic member of the FCC, seems to want to give incumbent wireless providers a bit of time to make good on their recent pledges to move towards more open networks, allowing any devices or applications compliant with their networks to be used.

That's an obvious counterweight to any thinking by an eventual owner of a new national broadband network that construction and activation of that similarly open network should be built as slowly as legally possible, essentially "warehousing" spectrum as long as possible. The motivation obviously is to extend the life of current revenue models as long as possible.

Pressure to keep those promises about openness on the Verizon and at&t Wireless networks will remain high if Democrats win the White House. In fact, pressure to open up wireless networks more than before is likely unstoppable if Republicans retain the White House as well. The 700-MHz auction rules about openness were pushed through by a Republican FCC chairman and the market seems to be shifting inevitably in the direction of open devices because of the market force exerted by the Apple iPhone and Google, in any case.

Dominant wireless carriers really would prefer not to deal with more openness. But it appears they no longer have a choice. That's going to be good for some new handset providers, application developers and end users, both consumer and business.

Bidden or unbidden, openness is coming.

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.