ITU Forecast Shows U.S. Service Provider Growth is All Mobile

This forecast by the International Telecommunications Union for the U.S. service provider market suggests why fixed-line network broadband investments are contentious.

If the ITU forecast is correct, the balance of revenue between mobile and fixed sources will shift dramatically in the direction of mobile services by about 2014.

The issue is how much capital a company ought to invest in a declining business, when it has another growing business.

Few service providers with both wireless and wired network assets will be able to ignore the change. Put simply, the financial return from just about any type of fixed-line investment is going to be sharply limited over the next decade, at the very least. If the ITU forecast is correct, fixed-line revenue is going to keep declining between now and 2015.

AT&T' U-verse Build Virtually Over

AT&T is scheduled to reach 30 million U-verse homes passed by the end of the year with their U-Verse service, or roughly 55 percent to 60 percent of homes.

AT&T President John Stankey now suggests that is about the limit of AT&T's intentions for U-verse. He suggested that 25 percent to 30 percent of AT&T homes will continue to use ADSL and that 20 percent of homes are "not a heavy emphasis for investment."

Those figures illustrate a couple of important strategic considerations. AT&T serves many lower-density customers where a fiber-to-neighborhood approach does not provide an adequate return on the investment.

That doesn't necessarily mean AT&T cannot provide higher bandwidth using other platforms. As often is the case in developing regions, wireless can make the most sense.

But that also suggests why, over the long term, it remains likely that satellite video providers might wind up being the preferred linear video delivery channel, irrespective of whether either or both leading U.S. providers wind up as actual parts of either AT&T or Verizon.

AT&T's Stankey: U-verse Build Virtually Over

How Brands Use Facebook

Social Media: Some Channels Seen as More Important Than 2 Years Ago

Over the last two years, it appears that business perceptions of the value of social media have shifted. Some channels, such as a company blog, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, now are deemed more important than in 2009. Other tools are seen as less important. The one consistent theme is that all of the more-popular social media channels involve content creation.

Android, iOS Lead Apps Market

paidContent Mobile 2011: Flurry On Trends In Apps

How Do You Price Mobile Content Subscriptions?

Nielsen suggests consumers are willing to pay $10 a month or less for mobile content subscriptions. That's an unexpected result. Lots of consumers will say they are willing to consider purchases at that level. The issue is getting them to follow the stated willingness with an actual purchase.

That is harder than it sounds. In consumer markets, getting customers to pay an extra $5 to $10 a month for anything is a pretty significant accomplishment.

Mobile Content Subscriptions Work At $9.99 Or Less - Nielsen Survey | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

Smart Phone Share Shifts

It isn't news anymore when smart phone sales grow. What is probably a more-watched indicator is shifts in sales share. In that regard, Gartner reports that in the first quarter of 2011, Nokia’s share has dipped to 25 percent, Samsung is down to 16 percent, and LG dipped to 5.6 percent.

Apple had 3.9 percent share, Research in Motion had three percent, HTC had 2.2 percent, Motorola had 2.1 percent, and Sony Ericsson had 1.9 percent.

Apple and HTC are among handset manufacturers whose share has grown, relative to the same quarter of 2010. Nokia is the biggest loser.

Mobile market grew 19% year over year in Q1