Why Sprint is Capping Tethering

Despite fairly widespread confusion about the matter, Sprint Nextel Corp. is only capping mobile broadband usage by customers using the Wi-Fi hotspot feature. Data consumed directly by Sprint smart phones remains unlimited.


The disparity between smart phone and Wi-Fi hotspot data consumption explains the move.


Sprint and Clearwire Corp.are near an agreement to extend their existing network- sharing agreement for three to five years, Bloomberg said. That would allow Sprint to keep using Clearwire for support of either WiMAX or Long Term Evolution customers. But the contract terms explain the change of retail pricing for tethering. Sprint, Clearwire talk new contract


Jonathan Chaplin, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG, said he thinks Sprint will pay Clearwire between $6 and $10 per gigabyte of data, compared with the current charge of about $10, and he believes it will be close to the $6 figure.


Assume a monthly payment by the end user of $60 a month, and a wholesale payment to Clearwire of $6 per gigabyte, or $30. Were a specific end user to consume 10 Gbytes a month, revenue would be $60 and cost would be $60, just for bandwidth. Smart phone data consumption

That's why Sprint changed its tethering plans, in large part, one could argue, though support for the Apple iPhone also likely played an important role in shaping Sprint's thinking. Of course, now that Sprint has negotiated a new contract with Clearwire, the economics will change. 


Under the new deal, Sprint pays Clearwire a flat fee for 4G access, so usage is no longer an issue for Sprint, through the end of 2013, at least.


In the last 12 months (June 2010 to June 2011), the amount of data the average smartphone user consumes per month has grown by 89 percent from 230 Megabytes in the first quarter of 2010 to 435 MBytes in the first quarter of 2011.


The point is that a typical smart phone user consumes 435 Mbytes. A PC user typically consumes gigabytes. At the 80th percentile and below, users consume 500 Mbytes or less each month. In the 60th percentile, users consume 250 Mbytes or less each month.


The point is that the expected "breakage" between wholesale bandwidth cost and retail consumption and pricing is quite larger for a smart phone user, quite a bit less for a Wi-Fi hotspot user.

Internet Drives Capacity Demand

As of 2011, international Internet bandwidth exceeds voice and private network bandwidth by a factor of 400 percent, says TeleGeography.

Given the Internet’s dominant role in bandwidth usage, Internet capacity data is an excellent proxy for overall demand for lit bandwidth on long-haul wholesale networks.

Internet IS bandwidth

YouTube Launching 96 Channels

YouTube is launching 96 new channels, as part of its bid to create more original and professional programming in a context that is familiar and acceptable to advertisers.


The new channels span a variety of genres, initially funded by about $100 million in grants from YouTube to content creators . 96 new YouTube Channels

Here's a look at the formats and positioning of the new channels, which will start to launch in November 2011. Original Channels

Very-Small Businesses Use Social Media, But Spend Little

Very-small businesses, especially those with one to 10 employees, do not spend much money on their social media efforts. In fact, perhaps 42 percent say they spend nothing additional to support their activities, and perhaps 17 percent spend $100 or less on an annual basis, a survey by Zoomerang suggests. As many as 74 percent of respondents further say they do not employ anybody to manage social media programs.

None of that should be terribly surprising. One of the attractions of using social media is that, while it takes time, it does not necessarily require incremental spending.

Nearly half of the surveyed SMBs use social media to market to customers; of those, an overwhelming majority (86 percent) have Facebook accounts.

The top three favorite features used by both SMBs and consumers are photos, messages and status updates. At the same time, the reported "most effective" tactics for businesses to reach customers are wall posts and direct messages.  Zoomerang SMB survey:

The top three reasons SMBs use social networks are: connecting with customers, visibility and self-promotion. In other words, SMBs use social media for a mix of reasons, including lead generation and branding, loyalty and customer acquisition.


The top three things businesses want to know from customers on Facebook are customer satisfaction with products, customer satisfaction with service provided, and ideas for new business promotions. In other words, "how do you like our products," "how do you like the experience of buying" and "what can we do to convince you to buy more?"

Microsoft, RIM Visions of the Future

Microsoft paints a world inhabited only by beautiful people, in which smartphones are about the size of a business card, and just about any surface you come into contact with has a touch-sensitive interface.

Cloud connections as the primary form of content transference, whether that be from a phone to a book-like tablet, or from a tablet to the kitchen table.

Interestingly, the “phone” type device (which no one actually speaks on throughout the whole video) sports a “live tile” interface very similar to the current Windows Phone Mango platform. There’s not a shred of paper in the video, which is bad news for the print industry should Redmond’s vision come to fruition.




RIM’s vision of the future, like Microsoft’s, is one that’s heavily powered by touch. Meanwhile, BlackBerrys have grown to be considerably more robust, and are able to seamlessly integrate with screens and surfaces that extend their functionality. Working on a long email and need a keyboard? Set your phone down on a table or a countertop and a keyboard pops up next to it.


BlackBerry Future Visions 2 from Evan Blass on Vimeo.


BlackBerry Future Visions 1 from Evan Blass on Vimeo.

Social Media ROI Still Tough to Measure

Since marketing is a "staff" function rather than a "line" function, it is hard to measure results. That's not unusual, as it can be hard to measure the return on investment from lots of other business activities, ranging from finance and accounting to legal support or most forms of operations support that are not customer-facing. 


On the other hand, marketers "need to prove" to resource allocation authorities that return from content or other forms of marketing actually can be measured. That's the driver behind current desire for better measurement of social and content marketing efforts.


Only 13 percent  of respondents in a recent Chief Marketer survey thought they were very effective at measuring social media campaigns, while 47 percent said somewhat effective, 28 percent  said not very effective and 12 percent said not at all effective. 


Data from the August 2011 Chief Marketer “2011 Social Marketing Survey” found that only 26 percent of marketing professionals saw amassing total followers as an aim for social media marketing. More popular goals included driving traffic to a website (66 percent), generating sales or leads (48 percent), and identifying and addressing brand fans (47 percent).


The most popular tactic among survey respondents was including a social sharing button in emails or on a company website, with 69 percent of respondents saying they did that. Additionally, 59 percent offered unique content for social media fans and followers, 58 percent had a Facebook “like” button on their websites and social pages, and 54 percent posted videos to social video sites. Marketers Seek to Measure Social Media Success

Why Did Amazon Profits Take A Hit? It Is Investing In The Future (Content And Web Services) | TechCrunch

If one is going to slam Netflix for investing in its future, one might as well add Amazon to this list. Amazon’s third quarter 2011 profits are down 73 percent and on Oct. 25, 2011 is being slammed in after-hours trading (down $28 a share).

As also was the case at Netflix, revenues were up, in Amazon's case, up 44 percent to $10.9 billion.

Orders for the new Kindle Fire apparently are substantially above what Amazon had projected, so Amazon is building millions more units than it originally expected.

Amazon also is ramping up investments in the backend infrastructure to support all the digital media it expects people will want to consume on their Kindles, especially their Kindle Fires. Amazon spent $769 million on “technology and content” in the quarter, up 74 percent from a year ago.

Sometimes companies have to take risks. Sometimes they have to invest. Investors don't like the quarterly fluctuations.

Why Did Amazon Profits Take A Hit?