New York Dead Zones Are Just a Fact of Life

For the 20 million people living in the greater New York area, spotty cellular service is a constant source of frustration. To document the extent of the problem, The Wall Street Journal examined data on dropped and unsuccessful calls compiled by the Nielsen Co., which sends out equipment-filled vans to make 140,000 test calls a year across the five boroughs, Long Island, northern New Jersey and southern Connecticut.

The results raise a pressing question: Why is the most populous metropolitan area in the U.S. plagued with dead zones?

Carriers deserve only part of the blame, the Wall Street Journal says.  The city is one of their highest-profile markets, and even as they cut capital spending nationwide during the recession, they kept budgets high in New York, even if that spending didn't always keep up with the pace of smartphone sales.

Ask the people who build and maintain the city's networks, and they'll give you a dozen alternative excuses: Too many people. Too many buildings. Too much reflective glass. Too much water. Each plays a role, the Wall Street Journal says.

It all adds up to wireless dead zones dotting the city and its surrounding suburbs.

Take the West Side Highway, a notorious trouble spot where Nielsen recorded eight failed calls up and down Manhattan. There, phones get a signal only on one side of the road, from cell towers high atop office buildings. (The Hudson River is on the other side.) So when there's a hiccup with a connection to the cell tower on the Manhattan side of the river, there's no other tower to back it up, and the call drops.

Dropped calls also happen because of quirks in the way carriers have set up their networks. For example, AT&T Inc. routes calls south of 59th Street in Manhattan to a switch downtown. North of 59th, calls go to a facility in Westchester. So when an AT&T customer crosses 59th, calls can get dropped as the network reshuffles from one switch to the other. Nielsen recorded three fails on or near that dividing line. AT&T declined to discuss coverage at 59th in further detail.

Sometimes, there just aren't enough cell sites to handle the load.  But it always is difficult to get authority to put up new towers, anyplace. In New York, it is harder because of the fragmented ownership of buildings. Outside New York, it often is possible to negotiate once with an owner of hundreds of buildings.

The upshot? Service issues are likely to continue to be an irritant.

$431 Average Unlocked Mobile Phone Cost

The average price of an unlocked mobile phone in April 2010 was $431.49, up from a March average of $387.22. ABI Research found the average subsidized April smartphone price from retailers (not mobile operators) to be $43.64.

In contrast, the subsidized average price available from operators (the big “top four” plus three Tier Two operators) was $117.08. The price differential between the largest four operators is about 18 percent.

The point, if you remember your college economics, is that lower prices for any product lead to higher demand. 

Average Subsidized Smartphone Price from US Operators Rises to $117.08 in April | Press Release | ABI Research

$100 to $150 Android Tablets Coming This Year

Via Technologies Inc., the Taiwanese computer-processor company, expects $100 tablet devices containing its chips to reach the U.S. in the second half of 2010, offering a cheaper alternative to the iPad.

About five different models, ranging in price from $100 to $150, will be available.

Just Another Mobile Phone Blog: Via Says $100 Android Tablets Will Challenge the IPad This Year

Technology Helps Workers Do "More with Less:" It Has To

Nearly one in two Americans (48 percent) who use technology in their everyday jobs say that they are now required to do more work with fewer resources due to the current economic climate. As an example, nearly one third (30 percent) feel that they need to stay connected to work 24/7, even during weekends, breaks or holidays, according to a new survey by Intercall.

That is likely one reason why the United States has the highest percentage of mobile workers in its workforce, according to February 2010 data from IDC, with 75.5 percent of the workforce, or 119.7 million people, expected to be mobile by 2013.

And 79 percent of them plan on taking their work-related devices with them on vacation, according to  Osterman Research.

Fully 72 percent say that advanced technology, such as conferencing and collaboration tools, enables them to work faster, better and improves their morale – because they see the company providing them with the right resources and tools to "do more with less," according to Intercall.

One in two American workers (48 percent) report being constantly required to do more with less, while 39 percent report that they’ve been doing the job of two people because of the impact of the economic recession, Intercall reports. The issue, of course, is if, when and how that will change in the future.

One in two workers say that taking time off of work is increasingly challenging, while one in three
workers say that they feel like they need to stay connected to their work 24/7.

The Intercall survey was conducted online among a national sample of 2500 Americans 18+.

Interall survey results here

see related article here

LTE is About Cost of Providing Service, As Much as Bandwidth

The cost of carrying one megabyte of data over its LTE network would be half to one third the cost of carrying the same data over the company’s current 3G network, Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless’ CEO, says. That is going to be good news both for users and mobile services providers.

Bandwidth services providers universally need to improve the efficiency of their networks, since increased data consumption typically involves non-linear revenue effects. In other words, providers earn less money, on a revenue-per-bit basis, the higher the amount of bandwidth they provide.

And though consumers will not likely appreciate a gradual shift to buckets of usage, so long as the plans, pricing and consumption patterns are relatively closely matched, people can adapt. People are used to buckets of voice and text messaging, for example.

But key to crafting such plans is that they are viewed as fair. A lower cost, higher capacity network that works better for key applications such as voice and video is a likely prerequisite.

User patterns also are changing. Unlimited plans work quite well for users and providers when consumption is low. But most users consume more bandwidth over time, driven especially by video use, which requires an order of magnitude to two orders of magnitude more capacity than voice, for example.

Verizon's coming shift to buckets of usage for multiple devices also makes sense. As users shift to use of broadband for multiple devices, they will not prefer paying for access to each discrete device. Also, usage profiles vary by device.

Cameras and e-book readers will not typically demand much bandwidth. Nor will voice applications. Smartphone web browsing will consume more, but smartphone data consumption typically is far less than from a PC. Blending usage from a range of devices, and allowing consumers to pay once, for access on all the devices, will save users money and provide more value while at the same time allowing service providers to offer service on terms that are sustainable.

FT.com / Telecoms - Verizon to offer 4G customers ‘buckets’ of data

Wi-Fi-Capable Version of Skype for Smartphones Coming Later This Year

A fully-featured Android client from Skype will be available "later this year," Skype says, and that version will include video support and be usable across all mobile networks, unlike the more restricted mode Skype now finds itself using on the Apple iPhone and Verizon Droid, for example, meaning among other things that Wi-Fi support will be available.

That isn't supported today on AT&T or Verizon networks and devices, although there may be times when users are happy their Skype voice sessions on a Droid actually are laundered through the Verizon voice network, for reasons of stability and voice quality.

The move will not dramatically alter the economics of mobile voice services, at least at first. But there isn't much doubt that mobile VoIP will, over time, erode the amount of money and profit margin voice represents for the mobile industry, forcing mobile operators to change their revenue and business models, just as fixed-line operators now are having to adjust.

iPad is What You Want, Not What You Need

Though we are far from knowing the ultimate success or impact of the tablet PC movement, there is some evidence that Apple is, in fact, creating yet another new market, rather than simply reshaping or displacing an older market.

Gartner Group analyst Carolina Milanesi says "I am also more convinced that this is a device that you want and not a device that you need." That is an instructive comment, as it suggests users may be finding the iPad less a full substitute for a notebook PC or netbook and more a "different" device that might be used in different ways.

"Between my iPhone and my MacBook Pro I have to consciously decide to use my iPad to do anything but read a book, which is the only thing I cannot do with the Pro and I would rather not do on the iPhone because of the screen."

The use case here is, as Apple hoped, something potentially different from a smartphone or a notebook PC.

iPad goes on sale today across key markets in Europe