California's $500-billion pension time bomb

The state of California's real unfunded pension debt clocks in at more than $500 billion, nearly eight times greater than officially reported.

That's the finding from a study released by Stanford University's public policy program, confirming a recent report with similar, stunning findings from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Why should Californians care? Because this year's unfunded pension liability is next year's budget cut. For a glimpse of California's budgetary future, look no further than the $5.5 billion diverted this year from higher education, transit, parks and other programs in order to pay just a tiny bit toward current unfunded pension and healthcare promises.

That figure is set to triple within 10 years and, absent reform, to continue to grow, crowding out funding for many programs vital to the overwhelming majority of Californians.

In other words, at some point, virtually all the money in the educastion budget will go towards paying pension obligations, and zero for educating children. Most states have some version of the problem.

Economists talk about government spending crowding out private investment. Now we've got pension obligations crowding out on-going programs. If we aren't careful, we'll relatively soon have virtually all tax collections supporting debt service and pensions. 

California's $500-billion pension time bomb - Los Angeles Times

More Than 20% of Consumer Broadband Lines Now Come with VoIP

Voice over IP is becoming increasingly important to service providers as a bundle component, say researchers at Point Topic.

“Over 22 percent of consumer broadband lines worldwide now come with a Voice over IP service, and in some markets, such as France, penetration surpasses 90 percent.

Point Topic says there are more than 100 million consumer VoIP subscriptions in service, while another 12 million subscribers were added in the first half of 2010,” says Point Topic’s Senior Analyst John Bosnell.

In some cases, the apparent "killer app" status is likely an artifact of how services can be bought. In many countries, a broadband connection requires purchase of a voice line as well. It might be going too far to say voice is the killer app for broadband access. For most people, Internet access likely is that driver. But voice has emerged as a key feature for broadband access packages, at the very least.

More Than One in Five Consumer Broadband Lines Now Come with VoIP

Android Passes iPhone in Revenue, Millennial Media Says

Millennial Media, which claims to have the largest data set of any third-party U.S. mobile ad network, reports that Android revenue exceeded iPhone-only revenue for its network, in September 2010.

Android requests grew by 26 percent from the previous month,and 1283 percent since January.

Anrdoid Passes iPhone in Revenue on Major Ad Network

Pricing Trends in the Web Conferencing Business

Prices for Web conferencing services continue to decline as the technology hits early stage mainstream adoption, say researchers at Frost & Sullivan.

Vendors are offering deeper discounts as they get into larger enterprise deals, bringing the average selling prices down by 10 percent to15 percent annually.

Vendors are addressing the market with a wide range of pricing models, but as the market matures, buyers are moving to named-user pricing. Frost & Sullivan estimates that more than 75 percent of revenues for Web conferencing services come from named-user licenses.

No Jitter | blog | Pricing Trends in the Web Conferencing Market

40% of Small Businesses Use Social Networks

Small business owners increasingly are tapping into social media to reach customers and prospects. Four-in-ten now indicate they use at least one social media platform; Facebook is by far the most popular platform, with 27 percent of relevant businesses on board. By comparison, only one-in-ten business owners a year ago were using online social networking to market their businesses.

Business confidence also seems to be improving, if frustratingly slowly. Over the last eighteen months, business owners have been streamlining business operations and cutting costs. Now, as a result of those tough decisions, many business owners appear to be in stronger financial position to jump on growth opportunities that might materialize.

Fewer report having cash flow issues (53 percent, down from 60 percent this spring), and while hiring plans remain stable overall, the number of business owners who plan to hire full time employees in the next six months has doubled to 10 percent versus spring 2010. That's the good news.

The bad news is that roughly half of small business owners still say cash flow issues are a problem. And 90 percent of small businesses continue to say they have no plans to hire full-time workers in the next six months.

While their confidence in the overall economy declined, more business owners said they thought sales over the next six months would be higher compared to last year (39 percent) and employee morale has shown modest improvements.

Of course, the same survey also can be read as suggesting 61 percent of small businesses do not think sales revenue will be higher in the next six months.

Small Business Owners Poised to Capitalize on Growth Opportunities, According to the American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor

4G Revenue Model Still Emerging?

Up to a point, the business model for fourth-generation wireless is "more:" more speed and more bandwidth. Up to a point, the business model also is about "less:" Less cost to deliver end users bits. Beyond those basics, there remains much cloudiness about how additional value--and revenue--can be added.

The wireless industry remains deeply divided on how best to monetize the deployment of next-generation wireless technologies, says Light Reading.

In his opening comments at the event, Heavy Reading senior consultant Berge Ayvazian shared research findings that show how average revenue per user figures flatten out over time unless a mobile data service provider is able to offer value-added services.

It isn't clear whether 4G will be any different than 3G on that score, unless compelling new applications and revenue models can be created.

Light Reading Mobile - 4G/LTE - Revenue Still the 4G Question

Fiber to the Home for Smart Grid Apps