Business FMC Still a No-No?

Major mobile service providers--in general--seem to remain cautious about fixed-mobile convergence for business customers, mostly because of continuing uncertainty about the business model impact.

In fact, many mobile executives continue to believe they stand to lose more revenue than gain if they get aggressive about allowing mobile handsets to communicate using fixed broadband facilities, say researchers at In-State.

"This is clearly the case in the United States, with the exception of T-Mobile, which has primarily been focused on the consumer market," says David Lemelin, In-Stat analyst.

In-Stat estimates that 20 percent of businesses with Wi-Fi use it to make voice calls, which is one reason mobile providers cannot be sure business users would not simply shift former mobile traffic back to the wired network if it is possible to do so.

Most executives would agree that adding FMC can be a marketplace differentiator. Clearly T-Mobile hopes it will be. But there seem to be more questions about whether FMC is anything more than a feature to attract and retain customers.

T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel have more incentive than Verizon and AT&T to try, however. T-Mobile and Sprint do not have fixed access accounts or usage to cannibalize. If either carrier can slice its churn by promoting FMC, especially to business users, that's probably enough reason to do so.

At a higher level, there obviously is some interest in determining the extent to which business customers can be convinced to abandon some or all traditional landlines in favor of wireless-only service.

FMC--as opposed to simply installing indoor signal repeaters (femtocells)--raises revenue issues. With the femtocell approach a mobile provider still can offer the benefits of better indoor signal quality, an advantage touted by FMC proponents.

And if the FMC attraction is lower calling costs, mobile providers can create "home" or "office" zones where calls are less expensive than on the macrocell network, providing the end user lower prices, without shifting traffic to the wired broadband network.

But FMC is likely to get more attention as mobile broadband usage grows and shifting some traffic--especially non-voice applications--to the landline network and off the mobile network.

Of course, that's why fourth generation wireless networks are being built: to handle all that new broadband traffic.

Still, Strategy Analytics thinks dual-mode mobiles with built-in Wi-Fi will proliferate. People will want to use the feature. But choices have to be made: femtocell or dual-mode? Cannibalize some wireless revenue or risk losing share? No wonder carriers are cautious.

Do Browsers Matter? Revisiting an Old Thesis

It has been quite some time since anybody seriously thought "control of the browser leads to control of the customer." But mobility and Web-based applications--especially on mobile devices--might be developing in a new way. In some cases, the browser could be the path to delivering applications to "locked" devices.

Consider the iPhone and Android and LiMo devices. The iPhone is now a true software platform with a rapidly growing installed base. But it isn't an "open" platform. There are things a developer cannot do, and users cannot access, for that reason.

As it turns out, though, the browser is the way around such closed or controlled environments. Web browsers from firms such as Mozilla and Opera obviously want to be available on every device, for example. And the browser, in a mobile environment, can create a different user interface and application experience.

Mozilla’s recently introduced Firefox 3.0 differs significantly in form and function from Apple’s Safari for Mac OS X and Windows. A different rendering engine and fresh take on a browser’s touchscreen-optimized interface might be preferable to to some iPhone users.

A third-party browser could incorporate one of the most-requested features not on the iPhone at the moment: an accessible third-party plug-in architecture that would allow the inclusion of Adobe Flash, RealPlayer and other apps.

We'll have to see where this goes. Still, it's an interesting development. Browsers might matter more in a mobile context than they do in a PC context.

Jaduka: Measurable Progress in Voice Mashup Business

Jaduka Voice Services, which provides Web-based voice services in mash-up mode, has surpassed four million minutes a month of end-user volume. That includes voice conferencing; Web-initiated phone calling; automated voice alerts and notifications; broadcast messaging; and VoIP-based PC-to-phone services.

That may not seem like much, but that's fair volume for voice mash-up applications with a commercial model.

Separately, Jaduka's transaction services initiative supports creation of 28 million new user accounts a day, processing of 300 million database queries a day, and processing 1,285 account transactions per second.

Additionally, Jaduka is interconnected with major global Point of Sale Activation (POSA) networks with connections to over 506,000 retail locations. If you are thinking stored value cards, you have it right.

Peering Potrential

In principle, most international voice traffic is amenable to interconnection using some type of neutral peering federation.

The reason is that it is expensive and time-consuming to negotiate separate bilateral interconnection agreements with the ever-growing number of carriers.

If all one wanted to do was pass traffic back and forth between mobile networks, a company might have to negotiate more than 300 separate agreements.

The advantage peering federations provide is a simpler, faster way to create those business and technology agreements by joining a federated interconnection provider's community, much as Internet service providers peer with each other.

In principle, much interconnection now handled by bilateral agreements could shift, not to mention wholesale traffic, which generally isn't exchanged using a bilateral agreement because the cost of doing so is prohibitive.

Win Some, Lose Some for AT&T, Verizon, Qwest

Verizon grew consumer average revenue per unit by 9.6 percent during the quarter; AT&T grew ARPU 5.4 percent and Qwest grew ARPU 7.8 percent.

But there were gains and losses: video and fiber-based broadband were bright spots. Voice lines were not.

The former RBOCs added 2.3 million RGUs during the first quarter, helped by wireless.

During the first quarter of 2008, AT&T, Verizon and Qwest also lost lost 2.237 million access lines, though. So far, the tier-one telcos basically continue to trade market share with cable, gaining on the wireless front but not keeping up in wired services.

The quarter was by no means a disaster. But neither have the former RBOCs yet stabilized the market share battle on the wired services front.

33% Broadband Penetration at 10 Mbps = Half of Global Electricity

If a third of global citizens ever do wind up with some form of broadband access running at 10 Mbps, and current core network technology does not change, about half of all global electricity supplies will be consumed just for the transport and access of that bandwidth.

Obviously this doesn't scale. Among the solutions is use of more photonic techniques in the core and access networks.

Executives at ADVA Optical Networking argue it is better to use layer 2 rather than layer 3, and optical transport instead of layer 2, where possible.

High-density routers and switches in data centers also will help. In the access network, optical rather than electrical technology is preferable, especially passive optical networks.

What Video Does to Bandwidth Demand

When Facebook added video streaming features, there was a sharp spike in bandwidth consumed by Facebook users. That's one reason Cisco is so confident about its expectations for continued growth of global IP traffic. Video is coming, and video drives lots of bandwidth consumption.

There also seems to be a high degree of consensus that IP bandwidth demand is growing between 50 and 60 percent overall. Access and wide area network operators are reporting annual growth of about that amount on a fairly wide basis.