Free Content Needed to Prime the Pump

Since consumers are not sold on mobile video services, mobile service providers should try offering users free content to prime demand, say researchers at Parks Associates.

While nearly one third of U.S. households have a video-capable mobile phone, operators are struggling to find an audience for their mobile video services, according to John Barrett, Parks Associates research director.

Most consumers with a video-capable mobile phone never have used the video features, Parks Associates finds. About 56 percent never have watched a video clip using a mobile phone, Barrett notes

“Buy before you try is always a tough sell,” says Barrett. "Many consumers are hesitant to pay for a new, unfamiliar service, but they will remain unfamiliar with the service until they or someone they know uses it.”

U.K. Broadband Saturating

In the U.K. market, as in the U.S. market, the number of likely new customers for broadband access services is dwindling. In the U.K., there now are about a million dial-up users left.

"The number of dial-up homes ripe for migration to broadband is rapidly dwindling, there are barely a million of them left now and they are an increasingly resistant minority," says Tim Johnson, Point Topic chief analyst.

There are about 16,735,000 broadband lines already in service, and it would be reasonable to expect a sharp deceleration in 2008. For the 12-month period from June 2006 to June 2007, nearly three million new subscribers were added. Between June 2007 and June 2008 about two million were added. With just about one million dial-up subscribers left to convert, it seems unlikely the gross additions will hit even a million between now and June 2009.

There are 9.6 million households without Internet access at all, but that includes homes with no PCs as well as homes with users who do not use the Internet. Point Topic estimates 58 pecent of U.K. households use broadband, about 4.5 percent use dial-up while 37 percent have no access.

Economic woes might be having some effect, but the primary issue is market saturation.

Netflix Users: 89% on "3 or fewer" Plans

Netflix has never given a breakdown on the number of subscribers in each type of rental plan, but using Feedflix, a site set up to allow Netflix users to track their usage of Netflix, some guesses can be made.

According to Netflix’s latest earnings report, they currently have 8.4 million subscribers. By extrapolating Feedflix’s breakdown of Netflix service plans to the larger subscriber base, we get the following estimates on where customers are spending their money, according to an investment advisor who goes by the pen name of Davis Freeberg.

1 at a time - 2.1 million subscribers
2 at a time - 2.4 million subscribers
3 at a time - 3.1 million subscribers
4 at a time - 500K subscribers
5 at a time - 168K subscribers
6 at a time - 84K subscribers

Since heavier users cost Netflix more (more postage, more DVD rentals, more handling), one would assume the profit is generated by the lighter users who rent less (less postage, fewer rentals, less handling cost).

VoIP 40% of French Market Traffic

VoIP now represents close to 30 percent of all telephone subscriptions in France, according to French regulatory authority ARCEP, and is growing by about one million subscriptions every quarter.

IP calls now represent 40.5 percent of traffic originating on fixed phones(compared with less than 27 percent a year earlier) and 59 percent of traffic for international calls. VoIP traffic now represents 42 percent of in-France calling and 18 percent of traffic to mobiles.

VoIP services are generally used more intensively (5 hours and 34 minutes) than “traditional” telephone service (3 hours and 16 minutes) per subscriber, per month in the first quarter of 2008.

Most fixed lines (66 percent) in service represent a single “traditional” telephone subscription on the PSTN, dropping by three percentage points each quarter. The reduction primarily is caused by customers substituting VoIP services.

Some 15 percent of lines in service at the end of the first quarter 2008 support both VoIP and legacy telecom.

Text Still Will Dominate Mobile Data in 2011

Text messaging is now, and will still be, the top revenue-generating mobile data application in 2011, say researchers at Informa. Video is the application that will have the fastest growth rate between now and 2011, though.

AT&T to Clarify DSL Speed Expectations

AT&T expects to modify the way it packages its broadband Internet service, offering more precise levels of service that promise minimum and maximum transmission rates.

AT&T Senior Vice President Robert Quinn told the Federal Communications Commission the company would offer "non-overlapping tiers" of broadband service, rather than its current offerings which go "up to" varying speeds of data transmission.

"When we provide broadband services based on speed, we will do so in discrete tiers that are disclosed to our end-user customers," Quinn said.

Quinn said the changes were among "clarifications and improvements" AT&T plans to make to its customer disclosure policies, which the company hopes to roll out later this year.

"If we find that we are not providing service within the ordered speed tier, AT&T will take action either to bring the customer's service within the ordered tier or give the customer an option to move to a different tier," Quinn said.

Comet Resurrects "Push"

If Web-based applications are to have a true shot at displacing apps run off local hard disk drives, response time issues must be solved. As is typical for Web apps, though, new tools may help solve that problem. Comet (or Reverse AJAX), for example, is a significant departure from the “click-and-wait” interaction we traditionally associate with Web applications.

In fact, as with so many innovations--recall "push" technology or "application service providers"--timing is everything. Some applications that simply were too cumbersome 10 years ago now are possible with the spread of broadband, faster broadband, caching, peer-to-peer and software such as Comet.

Being right often is less "good" than being timely.

Comet is said by its supporters to resurrect push capabilities with better IP communications.

Simply put, push communications like Comet remove the requirement for an end user to explicitly click on a link or button to request information from a server.

Instead, the server is free to send messages to clients anytime a server-side event occurs. Therefore, content no longer needs the tried and true “click” to reach you. Web pages from hereon out will simply update as new data is made available, finally laying to rest the refresh button on your browser.

That has implications for bandwidth usage profiles, bandwidth intensity and usefulness of interactive or social applications.

Comet makes it possible to build any application that requires real-time updates, enabling true desktop-like functionality to be delivered over the Internet. That has implications for the effectiveness of chat applications, social networking, online games; news updates and online collaboration, for example.