63% of Mobile Consumers Want "Quality of Experience" Measures

Fully 74 percent of U.S. mobile users say they have experienced quality issues when using smartphones and laptops on the mobile broadband networks, YouGov and Acision report. Slow speeds, poor network coverage, inability to get connected and lost connections are among the top reported problems.

The most-encountered problems were slow speeds (60 percent), poor network coverage (35 percent), inability to get connected (29 percent) and connection loss (29 percent).

About 63 percent of respondents say they support an active approach to maintaining quality of experience. That includes support for
optimization of data traffic and the differentiation of mobile broadband services. In other words, the very "packet discrimination" that network neutrality supporters say they want.

About 65 percent of those surveyed were unaware that in many networks just a small number of users generate over 80 percent of broadband traffic, causing slow download speeds and connection problems. When those surveyed were made aware of the issues surrounding the fair distribution of bandwidth, 63 percent responded positively to an active approach to fairness aimed at distributing bandwidth between as many people as possible to ease congestion to benefit all users.

Service providers call that traffic shaping. Net neutrality supporters call that "discrimination." It appears users agree with service providers, at least in this survey.

Between 30 percent and 63 percent of respondents even agreed they would be open to pay a small fee for carrier measures that meant a better broadband experience. Net neutrality supporters say they want to outlaw Internet access "fast lanes." It appears users want them.

The research also confirmed the popularity of video services, with almost half of consumers questioned (49 percent) accessing  video sites using their mobile connection. As you might expect, 78 percent encountered QoE issues such as frequent pauses, and as many as 68 percent experienced these problems on a regular basis.

Fully 69 percent would accept an optimization policy that improves performance of a video service. For example, consumers were supportive of measures carriers could take to improve the quality of mobile video by decreasing video size to enable uninterrupted playback.

Consumers surveyed stated they would be willing to pay a small fee to receive services such as notifications when they have reached a certain spend limit on their mobile broadband service (48 percent), fair distribution of bandwidth between consumers (45 percent), personalization capabilities (46 percent), a bundle sharing plan (46 percent) and the ability to set spending limits on their mobile broadband account (42 percent).

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At least according to this survey, mobile subscribers support traffic shaping and other optimization measures, including the opportunity to buy higher grades of service. As we have seen in recent days, consumers often do not want the policies and programs some elites think "are good for people."

New $15 Verizon Smartphone Plan

Verizon Wireless is testing a new lower-cost smartphone data plan offering 150 megabytes of data each month for $15.

AT&T’s $15 plan includes 200 megabytes of data, and the carrier also sells 2 gigabytes of data for $25 a month. The 2 Gbyte plan is more than enough access for 98 percent of users, AT&T maintains. In fact, most users consumer a few hundred megabytes of data a month, not even a gigabyte.

Verizon data plan challenges AT&T

Smartphones are taking over our lives - Oct. 19, 2010

By 2015, smartphone ownership will surpass 80 percent in the United States, up from 17 percent of the population today, research firms Frost & Sullivan and Forrester Research estimate.

Worldwide, 1 billion people will own smartphones in 2013, according to a forecast from Informa Telecoms & Media.

Smartphones are taking over our lives

"Advertised" U.S. Broadband Speeds and "Experienced" Speeds Quite Closely Related, Ookla Finds

Despite the general carping one often hears about how U.S. broadband access speeds are woefully out of touch with "advertised" speeds, Ookla, the Internet access measurement service considered by many to be the most accurate, finds that "advertised" and "experienced" speeds are very close, especially considering that some amount of signaling overhead (Ookla says 10 percent to 20 percent is typical) is necessary in all cases.

As of October 3, 2010, the Ookla worldwide 'Household Promise Index" shows that globally, providers are delivering 87.25 percent of promised service speeds, with the APEC (Russia, Canada, United States, Australia) at 85.67 percent, the European Union at 84.83 percent, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development at 83.24 percent and the G8 (France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Russia) at 80.28 percent.

In addition, the top five countries are Republic of Moldova (110.26 percent), Lithuania (99.13 percent), Russia (98.86 percent), Slovakia (98.74 percent) and Ukraine (97.80 percent), with the United States at number 11 (93.00 percent).

As of October 3, 2010, Ookla's "House Value Index" shows the global cost of broadband at $4.36 per Mbps, with the top five countries in terms of "Relative Cost of Broadband" being Luxembourg, United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway and Denmark — the United States ranked 12th (out of 26 countries) at 1.21 percent of gross domestic product per capita or $46.75/month.

Comparing several U.S. States shows South Dakota ranks first at $2.91 USD per Mbps, New York ($4.22) ranks 8th, Washington State ($5.44) ranks 15th and California ($5.80) ranks 19th, with Alaska ranked 51st at $16.77 per Mbps.

The United States ranks 20th in cost per Mbps (out of 26 countries total), but ranks 15th when taking into account gross domestic product per capita, Ookla says.

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Mobile Advertising Grows 79% in 2010

Some people might say an upside surprise for mobile advertising spending in 2010 means that mobile marketing has broken through to reach the mainstream of digital advertising in 2010. Others would be happy to note the unexpected growth, even if it is still a bit premature to call mobile advertising "mainstream."

This year, U.S. mobile ad spending will be up 79 percent to reach $743 million, eMarketer now forecasts. That growth will slow somewhat to still-dramatic double-digit rates as spending hits over $1.1 billion in 2011 and more than $2.5 billion by 2014. 

Earlier estimates had called for 2010 growth to perhaps $570 million. 

For now, however, text messaging still is the largest channel, with spending of $327 million estimated for 2010. But growth is fastest for video advertising, mobile display and mobile search.

Still, $743 million is a fraction of all U.S. advertising. That is a market worth about $170 billion, so it is a bit premature to talk about how "mainstream" mobile advertising or mobile marketing has become. 

Online advertising is still about 12 percent of total advertising. If you are looking for where the growth is, online and mobile are good bets. But if you are looking at where organizations and businesses spend their money today, mobile would not be one of the largest buckets.

Mobile Ad Spending Up Nearly 80% in 2010

60% of Office Workers Say They Don't Need Their Offices

 A new study funded by Cisco found that 60 percent of workers around the world believe that they do not need to be in the office anymore to be productive. This was especially the case in Asia and Latin America. More than nine of 10 employees in India (93 percent) said they did not need to be in the office to be productive. This sentiment was extremely prevalent in China (81 percent) and Brazil (76 percent) as well.


In fact, their desire to be mobile and flexible is so strong that 60 percent of workers would choose jobs that were lower-paying but allowed work outside of the office over higher salaried jobs that lacked such flexibility. 


According to the study, which involved surveys of 2,600 workers and IT professionals in 13 countries, 13 percent of respondents noted that having the flexibility to work anywhere would dictate their company loyalty, while 12 percent said it would have an impact on their choice of jobs. In fact, two-thirds of respondents said they would take a job with less pay and more flexibility in device usage, access to social media and mobility over a higher-paying job with less flexibility.

A Whale of a Problem

The stage now is set for huge conflict between state public-sector workers and taxpayers, and the reason is pension obligations.

Because almost all states are required to balance their budgets, general fund monies must be used to pay pension obligations if the pension funds come up short. They certainly will do that. The funds are generally underfunded, and make assumptions about fund returns that simply are not credible.

Utah has calculated it will have to commit 10 percent of its general fund for 25 years just to pay for the effects of the 2008 stockmarket crash, for example.

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States use the expected return on the assets in their pension funds as a discount rate. This is often around eight percent, and reflects the performance of the past 20 to 30 years.

However, such returns will be hard to come by in future. Given current bond yields of two percent and a typical portfolio with 60 percent  in equities and 40 percent in bonds, a total return of eight requires a return of 12 percent on equities.

With American equities yielding just two percent to 2.5 percent, that in turn would require dividends to grow by nine percent to 10 percent a year.

That simply is not plausible. In a state such as Colorado, nearly 55 percent of all funds will have to be spent on pension obligations, effectively reducing the amount of money available to fund on-going operations by fully half....IF investment returns come in at an overall eight percent.

That isn't going to happen. Nor do these forecasts take into account financial "black swan" events that destroy huge amounts of equity.

Who would bet that between now and 2022  there will not have been at least one major financial event that wipes out huge chunks of pension plan equity?

These forecasts are not realistic. Colorado will wind up spending most of its general fund revenues to pay pensions, unless something quite dramatic happens, and quite soon. That is not a "political" issue. It is a simple mater of public finance getting severely out of whack. Something will have to be done, and it won't be pleasant.

Either we get an unpleasant fix, or we decide now that in 12 years there is no money to fund on-going state government services.