Friday, February 11, 2011

SureWest Sees Light Demand for 50 Mbps, Almost None for 100 Mbps

SureWest CEO Steve Oldham recently confirmed a stubborn fact: not many customers are willing to pay for a 50-Mbps Internet access service. “We have a 50 Mbps service that a few people are interested in. We would offer a 100 Mbps service if we had anyone who would want to buy it,”Oldham said.

Apple Working on Cheaper IPhones?

Apple is working on new versions of the iPhone that are aimed at slowing the advance of competing handsets based on Google Inc.’s Android software, according to Bloomberg.

One version would be cheaper and smaller than the most recent iPhone. Apple also is developing technology that makes it easier to use the iPhone on multiple wireless networks.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Mary Meeker's Latest Take on Internet Trends: Mobile has Critical Mass

http://www.scribd.com/doc/48586092/KPCB-Top-10-Mobile-Trends

Sprint Makes More Progress

Sprint’s fourth quarter highlighted a company that has rebounded nicely, with almost 1.1 million net subscriber additions includng prepaid and postpaid customers.

Sprint added 58,000 postpaid subscribers, 519,000 net subscribers to its brand and prepaid subscribers of 646,000 to the Virgin Mobile, Assurance Wireless and Boost Mobile brands. Overall, Sprint added almost 1.1 million wireless subscribers—the most additions since the first and second quarters of 2006.

Postpaid churn also improved to 1.86 percent in the fourth quarter compared to 2.11 percent a year ago. Now that figure isn’t anywhere near the churn figures Verizon Wireless and AT&T enjoy, but Sprint is doing something right with its value pricing.

78% Use Mobile Location Features

Location-based services and apps are increasingly important. A new survey by JiWire shows 78 percent of mobile consumers use location-based apps on their phone, and 29 percent use them multiple times a day.

Some 34 percent clicked on an ad in response to location specific message, while 57 percent are more likely to engage with an ad that is relevant to their location, an increase from 46 percent in the first quarter of 2010.

About 17 percent have made a purchase in response to a location-based advertisement and 84 percent of people who use app-enabled phones have participated in a shopping activity.

On average, the mobile audience uses 1.6 devices to connect while on the go.

Will Google or Facebook Buy Twitter?

Executives at both Facebook and Google, among other companies, have held low-level talks with those at Twitter Inc. in recent months to explore the prospect of an acquisition of the messaging service, according to the Wall Street Journal. The talks have so far gone nowhere, these people say.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Mobile Banking Can Deliver 300% Returns, Accenture Says

A study of 20 financial institutions around the world that offer mobile banking, commissioned by Accenture and conducted by TowerGroup, has found a Middle Eastern bank that is getting an eye-popping 300 percent return on investment by letting its two million mobile banking customers pay bills on their mobile devices, including topping up their pay-as-you-go mobile phones, paying utility bills, or paying a fixed monthly fee for a premium services package.

Another bank in Asia Pacific has achieved an ROI of 230 percent since launching mobile banking in 2007, according to the Accenture report.

Zoom Wants to Become a "Digital Twin Equipped With Your Institutional Knowledge"

Perplexity and OpenAI hope to use artificial intelligence to challenge Google for search leadership. So Zoom says it will use AI to challen...