Do Prices, Speeds Benefit From Robust Broadband Wholesale Policies?

“Open access” policies—unbundling, bitstream access, collocation requirements, wholesaling, and/or functional separation—have played a core role in the first generation transition to broadband in most countries with high access rates and lower prices, a new study by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society suggests.

The authors suggest the same principles will be important in the next phase of development, where higher speeds must be provided, as well.

The highest prices for the lowest speeds are overwhelmingly offered by firms in the United
States and Canada, all of which inhabit markets structured around “inter-modal” competition—that is, competition between one incumbent owning a telephone system, and one incumbent owning a cable system, the report argues.

The lowest prices and highest speeds are almost all offered by firms in markets where, in
addition to an incumbent telephone company and a cable company, there are also competitors who entered the market, and built their presence, through use of open access facilities, the report says.

The argument, in essence, is that robust wholesale policies contribute meaningfully to providing consumers with faster speeds and lower prices.

There is a logic to the argument which is hard to disagree or agree with in the abstract, since another huge issue is the setting of policy frameworks that encourage robust investment in new broadband networks by private entities.

No policy will be effective, in any particular country, if private capital cannot be raised to build the networks. Conversely, any policy can work so long as adequate capital can be raised.

And though the temptation is to argue about the implications for strong "network neutrality" policies, that is a different issue. The issue here is the same argument national policymakers had when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was weighed, namely, "what is role for wholesale policies" in setting pro-growth and pro-competititive policies?

T-Mobile USA Sidekick Data Nearly Fully Recovered

T-Mobile USA and Microsoft now say they have “recovered most, if not all, customer data for those  Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage,” says Roz Ho, Microsoft corporate VP.

"We plan to begin restoring users’ personal data as soon as possible, starting with personal contacts, after we have validated the data and our restoration plan," Ho says. "We will then continue to work around the clock to restore data to all affected users, including calendar, notes, tasks, photographs and high scores, as quickly as possible."

"We now believe that data loss affected a minority of Sidekick users," Ho added. Despite that good news, two class action lawsuits have been filed against T-Mobile USA, alleging that the company misled consumers into believing that their data was more secure than was the case.

Wal-Mart Straight Talk a Tipping Point?

In March of 2009, the Opinion Research Center estimated that 8.7b million Americans already had discontinued their mobile service because of the recession, and suggested that as many as 60 million mobile users would seek ways to reduce spending.

One way many consumers seem to have done so is to substitute prepaid service for contract plans. That would account for robust subscriber growth for virtually all providers of prepaid service since then.

But Wal-Mart's new “Straight Talk” prepaid service, offered at the $30 and $45 levels, could end up being the “tipping point for millions of consumers who are already considering moving away from expensive contract-based cell phone service,” says Allen Hepner, New Millennium Research executive director.

Hepner believes that the $30 plan (with 1,000 minutes, 1,000 texts per month, mobile Web access and no-extra cost 411 calls, with no contract and no penalties) and the $45 plan (unlimited calling, texting, mobile Web and 411) that Wal-Mart now offers under the “Straight Talk” brand are going to get serious attention.

With average monthly contract plans reported to be about $81, the more than 140 million U.S. contract-based wireless customers who use less than 550 minutes a month may now have even more reason to consider switching to a less expensive cell phone option, particularly in a changing environment in which plans for 1,000 minutes are available through Wal-Mart for $30 per month, Hepner argues.

In March 2009, ORC estimated that there were 29 million prepaid accounts in service, representing about 16 percent of the total base of mobile users.

“We see that 8,740,000 Americans, that is 19 percent of consumers without a cell phone, report that they already have ‘discontinued cell phone service in the last six months because of actual job loss, fear of job loss, the recession, or any other related financial concerns," said Graham Hueber, Opinion Research Center senior researcher.

At the same time, ORC suggested that 39 percent of postpaid mobile customers--60.3 million consumers--were likely to cut back on their cell phones to save money, the Opinion Research Corporation estimated.

Wal-Mart Gets into the Mobile Phone Business

Competition in the voice business is about to get more heated, as Wal-Mart now says it will be a  retailer of mobile phone service, partnering with American Movil to sell low-cost service pre-paid service under the "Straight Talk" brand. The company is offering unlimited voice and text minutes for $45 a month, or 1,000 minutes and 1,000 text messages for $30 a month.

AT&T just introduced a new $60 a month pre-paid service under its "GoPhone" brand with unlimited U.S. voice calls and unlimited text messaging to the U.S., Mexico, Canada and more than 100 other countries.

The plan includes unlimited IM picture and video messages. The service does not require a contract, and offers a range of full keyboard devices.

And AT&T recently reevaluated its position on use of Skype from its Apple iPhones, using the mobile network, not just Wi-Fi.

All the moves show the intensified competition in the prepaid wireless segment, one of the few areas of untapped growth for mobile providers.

Still, the new activity around voice pricing only accentuates the on-going trend, which is that voice, though the historic driver of revenue for mobile and fixed providers, will not be the driver in the future.

As JP Morgan analyst Mike McCormack notes, voice accounts for $50-$60 of the $95 in monthly revenue generated by the typical iPhone user. If the average user were to drop AT&T’s unlimited voice plan ($99.99 a month) in favor of its cheapest ($39.99 a month), the carrier could lose upward of 20 percent to 33 percent of its voice revenue, at least from iPhone users.

In the past, industry executives accurately could say they were in the telephone or voice business. That won't work in the future, when they primarily will be in the communications business, with significant operations in the content and application businesses as well.

Peer-to-peer Wi-Fi: Bluetooth Killer?

A new peer-to-peer Wi-Fi specification sponsored by the Wi-Fi Alliance will enable Wi-Fi devices to connect to one another directly without joining a traditional home, office, or hotspot network. 

The Wi-Fi Alliance expects to begin certification for this new specification in mid-2010 and products which achieve the certification will be designated "Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Wi-Fi Direct."

The specification can be implemented in any Wi-Fi device, from mobile phones, cameras, printers, and notebook computers, to human interface devices such as keyboards and headphones. 

Significantly, devices that have been certified to the new specification will also be able to create connections with hundreds of millions of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED legacy devices already in use. 

Devices will be able to make a one-to-one connection, or a group of several devices can connect simultaneously.

The specification targets both consumer electronics and enterprise applications, provides management features for enterprise environments, and includes WPA2 security. Devices that support the specification will be able to discover one another and advertise available services.  

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Wi-Fi Direct devices will support typical Wi-Fi ranges and the same data rates as can be achieved with an infrastructure connection, so devices can connect from across a home or office and conduct bandwidth-hungry tasks with ease.   

Though some might fear the specification will damage sales of Wi-Fi access points, the new P2P networking technique seems more a threat to near-field standards such as Bluetooth. For some applications, such as file sharing, the extended Wi-Fi range will make it a better option than Bluetooth for public near-field communications, for example. 

Such proximity marketing techniques sometimes are used to allow users to interact with electronic billboards, for example. P2P Wi-Fi ought to be easier to use, and also will have greater range. 

Consumers Don't "Want" UC, But they Use It

Unified Communications is one of those buzzword terms people in the communications use, but doesn't necessarily resonate with consumer users. That doesn't mean consumers do not like and use UC, they just don't think about it as "UC."

More often than not, "UC" masquerades as "cool apps" that allow users to manage their communications, voice mail, video services email and other messages. These days, that value is available in the form of mobile apps downloadable from a mobile app store.

That's why users are spending more time checking out apps that actually are forms of UC, even when those apps aren't pitched as being "UC" apps.

Comcast’s mobile application for the iPhone and iPod Touch is an example. The Comcast app  provides one-stop access to key features of Comcast Digital Voice, Digital Cable and high-speed Internet services.

It allows to read and compose emails from Comcast.net, listen to home voice mail from one mailbox, manage landline voicemail through a visual interface, forward home calls to the iPhone, check TV listings, watch on-demand movie trailers, synch all universal address book contacts to the iPhone and add pictures to their favorite contacts.

YouMail, CallWave, PhoneFusion and Google Voice provide other examples. Those apps  allow people to instantly read transcripts of voicemails, screen calls and manage greetings by caller, for example.

Apple’s "MobileMe" service that pushes new email, contacts, web bookmarks, and calendar events over the air to iPhone, Mac, and PC so that data is synchronized.

All of those are examples of how UC looks in the consumer market. People do not seem to care what we call it. They like the higher functionality and use it. But don't ask them whether they "want unified communications." The question won't make sense.

IP Telephony Makes Huge Gains in Business

IP telephony seems to have made huge inroads into global business organizations, especially in China, a new study by Frost & Sullivan suggests. In fact, IP telephony is more the norm than the exception, illustrating the fact that IP telephony is the new normal.

"About 80 percent of respondents who have not yet deployed IP telephony say they will," says Jim Tyrrell, Verizon Business VP. Verizon Business and Cisco Systems sponsored the study.

Chinese organizations are especially active, with 89 percent using some form of IP telephony as their primary phone service.

And though early on many organizations were concerned about adoption, that no longer seems to be a key concern. About 92 percent of IT managers surveyed indicated VoIP quality is at least as good, if not better than traditional wireline phone systems.

The Frost & Sullivan survey included 3,662 information technology or line-of-business decision makers in organizations in 10 countries in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the United States, in enterprise and small or medium-sized organizations, across a range of verticals including financial services, government, health care, high technology, professional services, manufacturing and retail industries.

More than half of respondents say collaboration tools allow for greater balance between work and personal life and help them gain more control over their busy lives.

About 58 percent say there are times they don’t want to be reached while 52 percent of respondents say the new communications devices allow workers to gain more control in their lives. Also almost half (47 percent) said they could not do without the ability to conference remotely.

Confidence in virtual meeting technologies is growing. Some 61 percent see collaboration technologies as reducing the need to travel for business. More than half think using conferencing tools – such as an audio conferencing, web conferencing or video conferencing – is a good alternative to visiting business contacts face-to-face.

Regionally, European respondents like to work in the office (as opposed to working from home) and prefer in-person meetings and business travel over using conference calls. However, respondents in Asia Pac and in the United States see conferencing as a good alternative to face-to-face meetings.

Telecommuting is gaining traction. Almost half (47 percent) of respondents report having a formal telecommuting policy in place. However, less than a third (27 percent) telecommute at least once a week, and 22 percent telecommute on a daily basis. At the same time, 61 percent of respondents say they like to work from anywhere.

The results show India is the most telecommuting friendly country, with 59 percent of its organizations having a formal telecommuting policy, and 48 percent of its workers telecommuting daily followed by Hong Kong, with 54 percent of its businesses having a formal policy, and 26 percent of its workers using it on a daily basis.

The United States and China are tied for third with 47 percent of U.S. organizations and 64 percent of Chinese firms having formal telecommuting policy and 25 percent of U.S. workers and 21 percent of Chinese workers using it daily.