Comcast to Use Smarter Phones to Enhance Wired Experience

Devices increasingly are key as service providers seek to add value to their wired and wireless experiences. "Compelling end user devices are definitely part of the story," says Chris Mairs, MetaSwitch CTO.

So it comes as no surprise that Comcast plans to roll out new cordless phones that add email and other Internet features, as Verizon is doing as well.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=174853&site=cdn

Conference Calls Really Do Need Live Blogging

Seth is right: conference sessions are more valuable--or can be, when a large call is in process--when there is a live blogging or chat function.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/04/reinventing-the-conference-call.html

More Signs of Prepaid Wireless Surge

MetroPCS added more than 1.5 milion gross customers in the first quarter of 2009, up 59 percent over the same point a year ago, and 684,000 customers after accounting for quarterly churn of five percent.

The growth suggests one thing: more wireless users are keeping their mobile service, but downgrading to prepaid plans. We can make a couple of observations: despite fears, wireless is now so embedded in user lives that it cannot be dispensed with.

On the other hand, there are ways to satisfy that need at lower cost, and consumers are taking that option.

Australia to build $31 Billion Fiber to Home Network

The Australian government is moving ahead with a $31 billion national broadband network that will operate on a structurally separated, wholesale-only basis, with all licensed retail providers able to buy and use the network. The network aims to connect 90 percent of Australian homes with service at speeds up to 100 Mbps. 

Every private company bid submitted in any earlier tender process earlier had been rejected by the Australian government as inadequate.

Instead, a public-private partnership will be commissioned to construct the network, with provatization planned for five years after network operations begin. But construction might take seven to eight years, so it will be some time before an privatization event occurs. 

The network would operate on a wholesale-only, open access basis, separating retail operations and allowing Optus, Telstra and other companies to build services into the system.

Telstra, though, will not be barred from applying to manage the wholesale network, once built. In some ways, the scrapping of the original plan might be positive for Telstra, which now will face for the first time a high-speed optical fiber network that virtually any other retail competitor can use. 

The upside is that although Telstra might not savor the new and more-competitive marketplace, it might be able to salvage a role as the wholesale operator, even as it has to compete as a retail provider buying access from the wholesale entity. 

There are other, shorter-term sub-plots as well. One is the mix of motives, from economic stimulation and job creation, that are blending with the concrete goal of creating a broadband platform; as well as the issue of how well the plan will work out in terms of end user pricing, which affects the ability to raise investment capital to build the network in the first place.

Still, the move potentially ends the stalemate that has prevented Australia from moving ahead on badly-needed broadband upgrades that have been stalled by inability of regulators and policymakers to come up with a solution acceptable to Telstra, the national incumbent. 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aBA74wtO9nDc&refer=australia

IM Most Popular French Online Activity

French Internet users in February 2009 spent more time uisng instant messaging than any other application, including email. Instant messaging claimed the highest share of total time spent at 14.3 percent, followed by social networking at 5.7 percent, say comScofre.  In combination, the two categories accounted for one out of every five minutes spent online during the month. 

Online entertainment accounted for 8.6 percent of time spent and online gaming 2.9 percent share of total time spent online. 

http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2763

Wireless "Net Neutrality" Will Lead to Higher Prices

There's a sort of inescapable logic to what wireless network access providers will do if or when mobile VoIP applications are freely enabled, as some policy proponents advocate. Since the entire business model rests on voice revenues, the loss of those revenues will be compensated for in the form of higher mobile broadband access prices.

Existing best-effort plans might be the baseline. But new plans optimized for voice, or conferencing, or other applications, might well emerge. Of course, optimizing might violate some notions of "net neutrality," unless optimizing is available to any provider of voice over a mobile IP network, in which case it might not be a neutrality violation.

But those optimizing services will be an add-on.

You might argue providers can create replacement revenues some other way: selling content or advertising, for example. But the numbers don't work. Build your own spreadsheet and you'll figure that out. There is no conceivable new revenue stream that replaces voice revenues "one for one."

After some years of watching what happens in a robust, mandatory wholesale environment, even European regulators are starting to see what happens. Service providers start spending their money outside the home market, where financial returns are higher.

Investors aren't dumb. Businesses with low growth and margin prospects get less investment than competing alternatives promising a higher return. The current capital stringency is bad enough. Wait until you see a capital strike.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Skypes-iPhone-App-May-Force-FCC-Hand-on-Wireless-Net-Neutrality-527564/?kc=rss

Enterprise Twitter is Coming, Gartner Says

Analysts at Gartner predict that micro-blogging tools such as Twitter will be widely available in enterprise versions, and will be used in four ways.

Firms will use Twitter as a marketing or public relations channel, using them as part of wider corporate communications strategies such as corporate blogs.

Firms will tweet about corporate accomplishments, provide links to press releases or promotional Web sites, and respond to other tweets about the brand. Inevitably, some firms will "overreach" and publish uninteresting or obviously self-serving tweets.

Employees also will use Twitter or other micro-blogging applications to enhance and extend their personal reputations, thereby enhancing the company's reputation, Gartner says. Employees will enhance their personal reputations by attracting followers who go on to read their blogs.

As people enhance their personal brands, some of this inevitably rubs off on their employers, says Gartner.

Employees use the platform to communicate about what they are doing, projects they are working on and ideas that occur to them, though Gartner does not recommend this, for security reasons.

Inbound signaling also will be a value for firms, which will find micro-blogging posts a rich source of information about what customers, competitors and others are saying about a company.

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=920813