Rethinking Communications, in 7 Parts

Stealth and Partners Not Seeing Downturn

House Broadband Stimulus Bill Fails to Define "Open Access"

As sometimes happens, some lawmakers have proposed legislation possibly specifying policies they cannot define. In approving $2.9 billion for network build-outs in rural and underserved areas, the House Energy and Commerce Committee insisted that the funding comply with the Federal Communications Commission's statement of "Internet Freedoms" contained in FCC 05-151.

The House bill also calls for grant awards to be made for broadband networks using "an open access" framework that complies with the FCC 05-151 principles. The term ‘‘open access’’ is to be defined by the Federal Communications Commission not later than 45 days after the date of enactment of the law.

Those principles include the right of consumers to access the lawful Internet content of their choice and run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.

Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network and

are further entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.  

Those "Internet freedoms" are not exactly the same thing as "network neutrality," though many observers seem to think they are identical.

Still, the Senate also has to approve the bill, so it remains unclear whether the language will be retained, in any case.

Some observers interpret this as calling for some form of network neutrality, though the term itself is a muddle whose meaning nobody can seem to agree on.

The House version of the bill panel calls for funneling new funds to the existing grant programs operated by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The House version calls for 25 percent of the $2.9 billion to be spent on areas of the country with no broadband access with the remaining 75 percent poured into "underserved" areas.

The other half of the $6 billion dedicated to broadband build out in the House stimulus package calls for $2.9 billion in grants and loans to administered by the Rural Utilities Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

If the language survives in the Senate or any reconciled bill, presumably, any service provider that accepts the funding will have to comply with whatever the FCC defines as "open access" for all customers and services on that network.

One wonders whether content delivery services ultimately will be allowed, in that case, as CDNs must, by definition, employ packet discrimination to make their features work.

More Surprising News on Small Business IT Spending in 2009

Though it is possible decision-makers have changed their minds since late November, as of that period, nearly a third of 2,000 U.S. IT decision-makers in businesses of all sizes said they expected their 2009 budgets would increase over 2008 levels, according to research from Compass Intelligence. 

If respondents follow through with their stated intentions, U.S. IT spending will grow more than four percent by the end of 2009, with growth rising through 2013, Compass Intelligence says.

Growth will tend to stem from small and mid-sized companies and less from enterprise businesses. While the total U.S. IT market will grow 4.1 percent in 2009, enterprise spending will account for just 2.8 percent of spending growth.

About a third of respondents expect to spend more, about a third expect to spend the same amounts as in 2008 while a third expect budgets to shrink. We might add that this is not an atypical finding. 

However, 2009 ICT revenues will not come easy and are likely to be earned after the first quarter of this year because IT decision-makers also indicated they will cautiously plan their investments in the first couple of months.

"This isn't the first time that we've seen a recession in the last decade, and most ICT decision-makers have been in troubled times like this before - so have the line-of-business managers influencing them," says Kneko Burney, Compass Intelligence president. "Most IT & Business decision-makers are planning to spend through this slow-down."

Key areas of spending priority for 2009 are computer systems, wireless applications and services, business Web sites or Web infrastructure and business networks according to the IT decision-makers surveyed.  The order of key priorities varies among size of business, but the top four priorities are, for the most part the same, regardless of business size, Burney notes.

63% of Mobile Subs Are On Family Plans

Family Plans, offering a shared bucket of usage that multiples devices can share, have to  be judged one of the more important marketing innovations yet devised by the mobile industry.

About 63 percent of respondents to a recent survey conducted on behalf of Sprint Nextel said they were on such plans. Another 15 percent said they would consider joining such a plan. About 22 percent said they were not interested. 

Among the 22 percent of users are single people, who, by defintion, do not have family members to share buckets of usage with. 

Aside from that innovation, only the abolition of the difference between "local" and "long distance" calling rates had comparable impact on subscribership. 

33% of Wireless Users Say Mobile is "Only Phone I Need"

About a third of mobile users surveyed by Sprint Nextel say a mobile is the only phone they will ever need. About 76 percent say they would consider going "mobile only" because it is "more cost effective." 

Presumably that translates more or less directly with the notion that cutting a landline reduces cost. Still, there are indications that unified communications could be a problem solver as well.

About 36 percent say it is more convenient to receive calls on one line. About 33 percent of respondents say it more convenient to manage a single voice mail account. 

15% or 40%? WiMAX Share Could Hinge on Capital Markets

Whether WiMAX winds up being a 15-percent share or a 40-percent share of market might hinge on developments in the credit markets, in particular as it affects the fortunes of smaller and independent providers, says Paul Obsitnik, BridgeWave SVP.

Most observers think Clearwire is going to get the funding it requires, one way or the other. But “if credit markets stay frozen for 18 to 24 months,” it could be another matter. Of course, we might all agree that if that happens, we are all going to have problems bigger than WiMAX availability.

“If I had to bet, I’d say LTE will be the market share leader,” says Obsitnik, a prediction just about anybody would admit is the likely outcome, given the embrace Long Term Evolution has gotten by the global GSM mobile industry and even users of CDMA platforms.

“But WiMAX will have a good chunk of the fourth-generation business,” Obsitnik says.
“On WiMAX side, the big challenge is that it is difficult to build that much infrastructure very fast.”

But Obstinik says mobile broadband is a huge opportunity. “Every operator I’ve talked to sees a big usage explosion when unlimited plans are instituted,” he says. Some report that their demand is growing 100 percent every six to eight weeks.

The obvious challenge is to monetize that usage. “With full mobile broadband, all you can eat is an issue,” he notes. In a sense, Clearwire is unfettered because it is not cannibalizing a big installed voice base or existing mobile data revenue streams, he says.

That will make it easier to market plans where multiple devices can use a single bucket of usage, as voice and text messaging now are offered as part of family plans.

“We add value by providing ability to assist the scaling of networks more effectively,” Obsitnik says. TDM and SONET operations are an issue for cellular operators, who need to be careful about cutting over networks to IP. That’s why BridgeWave allows mobile operators to run both TDM and IP simultaneously, and then gradually shift, when LTE is a real-world commercial issue, he says.

I do think mobile side of the house is following the fixed line pattern, Obsitnik says. “First voice drives the model, then email, then Web, then video,” he says.