Apple iPhone 50% More Bandwidth Efficient than Android?

Sprint thinks iPhone is 50% More Bandwidth Efficient

"There is a misperception that our launch of the iPhone will increase the load on Sprint 3G network and require us to spend more 3G capital," says Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. "The reverse is true."

"IPhone users are expected to use significantly less data than the typical user of a dual-mode, 3G-4G device," he says. Apple iPhone might help Sprint on bandwidth


"Even adjusting for more total new customers being added to the network, we believe it will put less load on our 3G network than they would have if we did not carry the iPhone."

Some of that difference might be due to user behavior, but some is undoubtedly related to signaling overhead, something AT&T worked on with Apple, and which is being addressed in the latest update to the Android operating system as well. Signaling overhead a big issue


As it turns out, mobile applications and handsets can be tweaked to reduce signaling load on mobile radios, something that alleviates network congestion. Signaling can cause congestion

YouTube’s top channels rival cable audiences

The top five channels on YouTube get the same number of average daily viewers as the top five U.S. cable channels, YouTube says. That's a fairly remarkable statistic, as it suggests the potential YouTube has to outgrow its somewhat chaotic past and become a venue for "the next generation of cable channels." YouTube’s top channels rival cable

As a way of creating a viable and interesting revenue stream for YouTube, that has huge promise.

Separately, comScore says 180 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in August 2011 for an average of 18 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in a record 6.9 billion viewing sessions. comScore reports YouTube traffic

Video music channels VEVO (60.6 million viewers) and Warner Music (30.9 million viewers) assumed the top two positions. Gaming channel Machinima ranked third with 17.7 million viewers, followed by Maker Studios with 10 million, Demand Media with 8.4 million and Revision3 with 6.6 million. Within the top 10 partners, TheGameStation demonstrated the highest engagement with 76.5 minutes per viewer on average. Machinima was a close second on average engagement at 72.6 minutes per viewer.

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YouTube Channel	Uniques (000)	Videos/ Viewer	Minutes/ Video
YOUTUBE.COM*	158064.57	114.3	3.1
VEVO	59708.68	14.1	4.7
Warner Music	31251.43	6.3	4.5
Machinima	16925.82	15.7	4.6
Demand Media	15222.32	3.0	4.0
Maker Studios	11445.24	8.9	4.3
Revision3	7593.84	3.4	4.6
Clevvertv	7301.64	2.4	4.3
Associated_Press__AP_	6580.30	2.2	3.8
IGN	5863.12	3.7	4.4
Next New Networks	4771.56	4.4	4.0
Discovery Communications	3831.53	2.8	4.1
Break Media	3727.32	2.9	4.1
Hearst Television Inc.	3102.47	2.1	4.0
Smosh	3051.76	8.8	4.3

Explaining "Klout" can be a Humorous Undertaking

It can  be hard to explain what "Klout" is.

Mobile Payments Business is Starting Over, Says Schropfer

The mobile payments business is starting over, says David W. Schropfer, a partner at Luciano Group. Ironically, as both Isis and the Google Wallet systems now essentially disclaim any interest in revenue from the transaction process, seeking instead to build new businesses based on advertising and loyalty, the “wallet” part of the mobile commerce business now seems to have “substantially slowed mobile commerce development in the rest of the developed world.”

To a large, though not complete extent, “payments” now are taking a back seat to “wallets,” which probably means we are headed for a period where “mobile commerce” becomes the headline phrase, not necessarily “mobile payments.”

The new direction, at least for many significant players, seems to be a recognition that “significant revenue is available from the advertising, retention and rewards programs,” says Schropfer. That’s the upside.

The other recognition is that the payments ecosystem cannot easily afford to support many new “mouths to feed” in the revenue chain. Complicated ecosystem That being the case, the incumbent participants have every incentive to use their considerable resources to thwart entry by a new category of participants, says Schropfer.

Make no mistake, there still remains  a potential disruption here. But it is a disruption of the broader commerce process, not the “payments” process in a narrow sense.

One might also argue that the “commerce” angle, aiming to reinvent the shopping experience, almost automatically answers the question of “what’s in it for retailers” in a way that “payments” systems have not. Merchants care about loyalty, customer retention and promoting customer traffic. The “Wallet” approach addresses all three of those concerns, in addition to providing value for consumers.

Loyalty programs and systems generally refer to programs intended to bring a consumer into a specific merchant with incentives such as coupons, discounts, and other incentives, says Schropfer. The advantages for consumers and merchants therefore are pretty clear.

“Remarkably, there are over 2.1 billion loyalty and rewards programs currently
issued to customers in the United States,” Schropfer says. “With only 300 million total
population, this equates to almost seven accounts for every individual in the United States.”

Just as important, retailers are willing to spend money to acquire new customers. “In a study by international consultancy Deloitte, the company estimated that merchants  are willing to pay between seven percent and nine percent of a transaction amount to acquire a new sale,” Schropfer says. 

That’s important because it suggests where a wallet revenue model lies: getting paid by a merchant to deliver a customer.

“Starting over” is a bold statement. But it is hard to deny that, with some exceptions, much of the activity in what used to be the “mobile payments” business now has shifted in the direction of “mobile wallet,” with a revenue model based on loyalty, offers, advertising, marketing, promotion and other elements of the commerce system.

One might argue that there are some areas, such as enabling use of a smart phone as a credit card reader, or integration of PayPal as a retail payments method, various forms of social and virtual currency or overseas or person-to-person remittances continue to be important for some segments of the “payments” business. 

Still, for the moment, “wallet” seems to have emerged as the more-important aspect of change in the mobile commerce arena, eclipsing “payments” for the moment, even though “wallet” value is sometimes harder to describe. “Starting over” is an important phrase, whether one agrees or not.

Verizon to use small cells to supplement LTE

Verizon Wireless will deploy small cell technology to supplement its Long Term Evolution coverage and help manage its network capacity. "Small cells are one way we will keep up with the growth," said Verizon Wireless' executive vice president of network planning, Bill Stone. Verizon to use small cells to supplement LTE


That has obvious implications for mobile backhaul, including the likely need for more-affordable access circuits than are used to support macro cells. Up to this point, femtocells have been seen as tools to give consumers better in-home voice coverage. In an increasing number of cases, though, small cells will be used by carriers to beef up bandwidth in congested urban areas. 

Sprint Says It Needs to Raise Up to $7 Billion in Capital as Loss Narrows - Bloomberg

Sprint Nextel Corp., the third- largest U.S. wireless carrier, said it needs as much as $7 billion in capital to pay for new handsets and a network upgrade.

Sprint plans to refinance $4 billion of its debt and seek $1 billion to $3 billion in financing from suppliers, elaborating on capital plans Sprint first talked about earlier in October 2011.

Separately, Sprint also says it is working with Clearwire on ways to ensure that Clearwire Long Term Evolution facilities can be made seamless for users of Sprint's new Long Term Evolution network. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse says "you're right to think of 2013 as the period of time that Clearwire LTE capacity would begin to come along, that we would use Clearwire's LTE capacity to augment our own network capacity going forward."

Clearwire clearly could use help from Sprint to build out a new LTE network in markets where it also provides WiMAX services, while Sprint could benefit from the additional LTE bandwidth, whether or not LightSquared actually gets clearance to launch and raises additional funding.

Sprint Says It Needs to Raise Up to $7 Billion

Commonwealth Bank Launches Kaching: P2P, Facebook, NFC Payments

Australia's Commonwealth Bank is launching Commbank "Kaching," a mobile payments service supporting both
peer-to-peer payments using the mobile phone’s contacts and email addresses, and social payments to a user’s Facebook friends, along retail payments using near field communications.

The new service will simplify day-to-day payments to anyone, including friends, family, mainstream retailers and small businesses, says David Lindberg, Commonwealth Bank executive general manager. "Now, for the first time, Australian consumers will no longer have to rely on cash or cards to make payments to family, friends or even businesses."

Kaching works with the 42,000 MasterCard-enabled PayPass terminals across Australia.

Kaching launches in Australia