Is Net Neutrality a Case of "Feeling Good" Rather than "Doing Good"?

With typical wit, Andrew Orlowski at the U.K.-based "The Register" skewers "network neutrality" as a squishy, intellectually incoherent concept. It is so nebulous it can mean anything a person wants it to be, and often is posed as a simple matter of "goodness." Which makes people feel righteous, without having to noodle through the logical implications.

Yes, there often is a difference between feeling good, and doing good, and Orlowski wants to point that out.

"As a rule of thumb, advocating neutrality means giving your support to general goodness on the Internet, and opposing general badness," he says. "Therefore, supporting neutrality means you yourself are a good person, by reflection, and people who oppose neutrality are bad people."

"Because neutrality is anything you want it to be, you have an all-purpose morality firehose at your disposal," he says. "Just point it and shoot at baddies."

Beyond that, there are fundamental issues that seem hard to reconcile, because they are hard to reconcile. Consider the analogy to freedom of speech.

In the United States, at its founding, the right of free speech was said to belong to citizen "speakers," engaged in clearly political speech. Recently, the opposite view has been taken, that the right belongs to "hearers of speech." But that means there is tension: is it the creator of speech who is to be protected, or those who might, or might not, want to listen.

Does copyright protect creators of intellectual content, or those who might want to access it? Do property rights in real estate protect those who own property, or those who want to own it?

Network neutrality essentially poses similar issues, and they will not be easy to reconcile.

412 Million M2M Subscriptions Globally by 2014, Juniper Research Predicts

The number of mobile connected machine-to-machine and embedded devices will rise to almost 412 million globally by 2014, say researchers at Juniper Research. That is one answer to the question many are asking about where service providers--mobile and fixed--will replace lost voice revenues with new services.

Though much discussion logically centers on new services or products that can be sold to end users on broadband connections, the attraction M2M represents is that it frees service providers from a frustrating reliance on selling more things to human beings.

Up to this point multi-service bundles have been a primary way service providers have increased average revenue per user. But there are limits to how much can be gained that way. As industry executives might put it, getting an additional $10 a month revenue from a consumer customer is a big deal, and hard to do.

Enterprise spending on communications is not increasing as much as some might expect, in part because organizations are using IP-based communications to get more for less money. The big exception has been mobility support, which likely is the fastest-growing part of any large organization's communications spend.

M2M services might represent less gross revenue per connection, on a monthly recurring basis, but there are lots of devices to be connected. In the Indian market, for example, Bharti Aitel is making a big push to complete reliance on mobile networks for meter reading, for example, says David Nishball, Bharti Airtel president of enterprise services.

http://www.juniperresearch.com/analyst-xpress-blog/2010/01/19/will-mobile-m2m-create-the-next-5-billion-cellular-connections/

App Store Software Sales $30 Billion in 2013, Advertising Nearly $8 Billion

Advertising-sponsored mobile applications will generate almost 25 per cent of mobile application store revenue by 2013, amounting to nearly $8 billion in revenue.

Consumers will spend $6.2 billion in 2010 in mobile application stores while advertising revenue is expected to generate $0.6 billion worldwide, according to Gartner analysts.

Mobile application stores will exceed 4.5 billion downloads in 2010, eight out of ten of which will be free to end users.

Gartner forecasts worldwide downloads in mobile application stores to surpass 21.6 billion by 2013. Free downloads will account for 82 per cent of all downloads in 2010, and will account for 87 per cent of downloads in 2013.

“Games remain the number one application," says Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner.

"No incremental cost" applications will use other revenue models, she says. Developers will charge for additional functionality, sales of products and services or advertising.

Worldwide mobile application stores’ download revenue exceeded $4.2 billion in 2009 and will grow to $29.5 billion by the end of 2013.

Verizon Offers New Bundle Pricing and Features

Starting Jan 18, 2010, qualifying customers can order double- or triple-play bundles with up to 7.1 megabits per second high-speed Internet access for the same price as bundles with up to 3 Mbps, a $10 per month rate reduction.

Consumers in select Verizon regions can also order quad-play bundles at the new 7.1 Mbps bundle price.

In addition, new voice and high-speed Internet access customers ordering qualifying double-, triple- or quad-play bundles are eligible for their choice of a Compaq Mini netbook or $150 back in the form of aVerizon Visa Prepaid card.

Existing Verizon customers who add either new home voice or High Speed Internet service in a qualifying bundle are eligible to receive a $100 Verizon Visa Prepaid card along with the other incentives.

Bundles eligible for these offers include the triple play featuring "Verizon Freedom Essentials" unlimited local and long-distance calling, up to 3 or 7.1 Mbps HSI and DirectTV's "PLUS DVR" service, including a free DVR upgrade, and the double play with Verizon Freedom Essentials and up to 3 or 7.1 Mbps HSI.

Customers who sign up now can get all this value for just $94.99 per month for the triple play and $69.99 per month for the double play, with the prices guaranteed for 12 months. One-year Verizon agreements and two-year DirecTV agreements apply.

Triple-play bundles that feature up to 1 Mbps HSI, Verizon Freedom Value and the DirecTV "Choice" package are offered at $84.99 per month for 12 months.

Double-play bundles that feature Verizon Freedom voice options with either HSI or DirecTV programming are also available, many at carryover or lower pricing from 2009, and range from $54.99 to $89.99 per month for 12 months.  One-year Verizon agreements and two-year DirecTV agreements apply.

New HSI customers with Verizon home voice service who do not opt for a bundle can order the broadband service for $19.99, $29.99 or $39.99 per month for up to 1, 3 or 7.1 Mbps service, respectively, and enjoy a lifetime price guarantee as long as they maintain the same tier of service and Verizon HSI is available at their service location.

Telecom Italia Sparkle, iBasis Activate First All-IP Bilateral Operational

iBasis and Telecom Italia Sparkle have migrated all their bilateral traffic between Italy and the Netherlands to IP, using i3 Forum specifications. "We are pretty sure this is the first all-IP bilateral agreement," Chris Ward, iBasis senior director says.

All traffic over the connection uses iBasis premium voice service, with quality of service guarantees.

"I already sense some real energy about what we are doing, where there is greater access to the full range of resources at KPN," says Ward, because of the recent acquisition of all of iBasis by KPN.

Right now iBasis represents about seven percent of KPN revenue, but KPN obviously expects that to grow significantly. In part, that optimism results from a change in iBasis strategy of late.

"We have been very focused on margin growth over the past couple of years," says Ward. "But revenue growth is now more important."

KPN's corporate resources will play a part, but also KPN's status as a "member" of the global carrier club. To the extent that financial stability and resources are an important requirement for carrier business partners, the new ownership structure should prove reassuring.

But the iBasis core strategy hasn't changed. It wants to be a leading provider of global voice operation outsourcing for carriers who frankly have many other priorities and might prefer to focus on customers and products with 30-percent profit margins rather than the four percent to seven percent margins international long distance now provides.

"You can't be Neiman Marcus and Wal-Mart all at the same time," says Ward. "You have to choose."

As carriers migrate traffic to IP, we are a natural partner for outsourced international voice operations, says Ward."It doesn't make sense to run international long distance, for most people, unless you are a specialist."

"It's sort of like email, in a way," he says. "Don't devote resources to it, if you can avoid it."

U.S. Mainland to St. Thomas Route Upgraded to 20 Gbps

The Americas I North Submarine Cable System between Vero Beach, Florida and St. Thomas, USVI; and the Columbus 2b Submarine Cable system between West Palm Beach, Florida and St. Thomas, USVI has been upgraded from  a single 2.5 Gbpschannel to 20 Gbps using Xtera Communications gear.

This upgrade project significantly increases capacity between the United States and the Caribbean. The consortium parties participating in this upgrade are ANTELCOM, AT&T, SETAR, Tricom and Verizon Business.

Are Apple and Google Reshaping Mobile Phone Competition?

At a deep level, the developing contests in the high-end smartphone business are less about the devices, and more about the applications and business ecosystems the devices will help to support.

Mobile app stores have become the surprise success of the smartphone business. Unfortunately, it isn't a business for most, as most of the apps available on popular app stores are offered free, and most sell for less than a dollar.

And that's where advertising might be important. If developers cannot profit at all, or not much, from direct app sales, perhaps advertising might develop as a key revenue model. Some skeptics will note, rightly, that "advertising" is the magical business model many free Internet app providers have claimed would be their ultimate revenue model.

Some will make it work, but most will not. On the other hand, who would want to bet against Apple and Google being at the very forefront of firms that could find a way to make it work?

So how could Apple or Google make advertising work much better? By vastly improving the relevance of every message, using location and existing profiles of user behavior, and by making "advertising" a more entertaining experience.

To do so, Apple needs a network of advertisers and the technology to target ads to customer behavior, which most observers would say Apple now has with its purchase of Quattro.

Nor might Apple necessarily be thinking of "out-Googling" Google in mobile search. That isn't the way Apple's executives think. Rather, they think about creating whole new businesses, not improving existing businesses.

That is the thinking many have in asserting that mobile apps might someday replace search in a mobile context. The reason is partly the chores of interacting with small screens and text input. Apple will be looking at that, and so will Google. The whole idea will be to automate the process of finding things, so it is a more natural, certainly more easy process.

The other angle is simply screen real estate. Some would argue display ads work better on small screens, as the ad might sometimes occupy the entire screen. Users are likely to see such approaches as intrusive.

Oddly enough, the new shift to app stores and mobile advertising might lessen the value of hardware ingenuity, because the new game is monetizing applications and creating commercial transaction potential using location. There is a sense in which the mobile device battler is shifting from hardware to software.

Right now, it would be hard to argue that Apple and Google are in the strongest positions where it comes to software and advertising.