NEC Sets Out Vision for Small Cell Wireless Backhaul for Small Cells

NEC Corporation says it will build its small cell backhaul system using unlicensed 60 Ghz spectrum. NEC has identified 60GHz radio as the key technology behind its Backhaul for Small Cells proposition. Bandwidth availability at 60GHz and the uniquely high channel re-use characteristics of this spectrum are ideally suited to deliver high capacity and low latency connections to hundreds of cell sites, which will be rapidly deployed in concentrated coverage areas of busy city squares and avenues. NEC Wireless Backhaul for Small Cells

NEC's small cell system aims to provide significant reductions in the cost of ownership compared to existing macro-cellular backhaul networks.

The choice of the zero-cost 60GHz spectrum allows the design of compact products, which can be easily installed and aesthetically concealed within a wide variety of urban environments. Furthermore, NEC has developed features for intelligent provisioning of backhaul resources and protection against performance degradations, resulting in improved capacity efficiency and elimination of costly manual maintenance and troubleshooting.

Lower Backhaul for Developing Regions?

The "WiBACK" wireless backhaul system developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems FOKUS in Berlin aims to bring lower-cost broadband to remote areas in developing regions.

In Zambia, the Institute is setting up an "eKiosk" with a number of PCs. The system aims to significantly reduce both the capital expenditure and the operating costs involved in providing such service. In part, that cost advantage flows from the cost of the WiBACK routers. Cheaper backhaul

Netflix Adds DVD-Only Unlimited $7.99 Plan. Huh?

Netflix says it has added a DVD-only rental plan, costing as little as $7.99 a month. Frankly, I'm  confused. 

We thought that was what Netflix had done back in the summer of 2011, when it said that it was creating DVD-only and online-only options. 


As one might recall, Netflix said it was creating a $7.99 a month "one DVD at a time"  plan and $11.99 a month for a "two DVDs out at-a-time" plan. Other plans allow users to have larger numbers of discs out at any time. 


But the new change seems to allow unlimited rentals at that price. In principle, the older $7.99 plan, allowing users to have one disc out at any time, also was unlimited. 


Over the years, I have argued that Netflix was underestimated, in terms of its business strategy and execution. Since the summer of 2011, Netflix has suffered unusual gaffs. 


I admit I'm confused. I thought Netflix had created this plan back in the summer of 2011. What is new here? 


Netflix has been drop dead simple. But this is confusing. 

How Big is the Mobile Apps Business?

It's getting harder to figure out how big the mobile apps business is, despite its growth. Actually, it is because of its growth that the tracking is becoming more difficult. A few years ago, one only had to track sales of mobile apps, or use of mobile apps, or downloads of mobile apps.


In 2012, mobile application revenues from in-app purchases will pass pay-per-download revenues, according to ABI Research.  One might argue that "revenue is revenue," but there is a big difference between gross revenue and net revenue. 


To be sure, apps sold in most app stores represent about 70 percent "net" proceeds for the app supplier. But proceeds from in-app purchases can be a different story, depending on what it is that is being sold. Up to this point, arguably most in-app purchases were digital goods designed to be used inside an app. 


But someday that will change, and more of the in-app sales volume will be of all sorts of products, and one has to anticipate that more of the sales volume over time will be of products that do not provide 70-percent "net" proceeds to an app provider, because the products are created by third parties, while the app serves mainly as a sales channel. 


In such cases, revenue for the sales partner will be quite minimal, compared to sales of in-app digital goods that essentially are parts of the app experience. 


“As a revenue model, in-app purchase is very limited today,” says Mark Beccue, ABI Research senior analyst, mobile services. “The vast majority of current in-app revenue is being generated by a tiny percentage of people who are highly-committed mobile game players.  We don’t believe the percentage of mobile game players making in-app purchases will grow significantly, so for in-app purchase revenues to grow, mobile developers other than game developers must adopt it.”


Despite these challenges, in-app purchases will successfully spread outside of games. Total mobile app revenues from pay-per-download, in-app purchase, subscriptions, and in-app advertising will soar over the next five years, growing from $8.5 billion in 2011 to $46 billion in 2016, according to 


A 2010 study by Chetan Sharma Consulting, commissioned by the GetJar app store, projected that the global mobile apps economy is set to be worth $17.5 billion by 2012. 


Mobile app downloads were expected to increase from over seven billion downloads in 2009 to almost 50 billion in 2012. 


The study also found that in 2008 there were just four apps stores, while there are 38 in 2010. 


ExperTech, a recruiting firm for information technology professionals, notes that  “82 percent of our clients have said they plan on developing a mobile app in 2012,” says Joe Budzienski, XperTech EVP.

And it would be hard to miss the dramatic growth of the mobile apps trend. Trade group TechNet says mobile app development is creating jobs at a dramatic pace.

According to a new TechNet study, there are now roughly 466,000 jobs in the so-called “app economy” in the United States, largely defined as jobs involved in the creation of apps or jobs at firms that create and sell apps. 


That’s a dramatic improvement over 2007, when the number of people involved in the mobile apps business arguably was close to zero. Mobile app employment study

Apple is in a Class By Itself

Apple is in a class by itself, both financially and in terms of its leadership of the technology industry. Consider that Apple represents a 3.8 percent weighting in the Standard & Poors 500 Index. 


In the fourth quarter of 2011, S&P 500 firms grew earnings 6.6 percent. But remove only Apple from the index and S&P 500 and the index grew at only a 2.8 percent rate. In other words, Apple performs so much better than most other firms that it distorts perceptions of the market. 


In the product area, though many firms "compete" against Apple, few can approach it. In very real terms, there is not yet so much a "tablet" market as there is an "iPad" market, as Apple holds a 62-percent share of unit sales.


In smart phones, the story is not so much unit shipments as profit. In the third quarter of 2011 Apple earned about 61 percent of total smart phone profits, globally, all by itself. 


Although soaring sales of Amazon’s Kindle Fire and other low-priced tablets trimmed Apple Inc.’s media tablet market share in the fourth-quarter, it was Apple’s own newly introduced iPhone 4S that proved to be the strongest competitor for the iPad during the final three months of 2011.

 

Small Signs of Change in TV Habits

The vast majority (90.4 percent) of U.S. TV households pay for a TV subscription of some type (cable, telephone company or satellite), while 75.3 percent buy broadband Internet.

Changes are brewing, however, as consumers seek out the subscription service that makes the most sense for them, NIelsen says.

Some of the changes involve simple shifts of market share. The number of homes subscribing to wired cable has decreased 4.1 percent in the past year at the same time that telephone company-provided and satellite TV have seen increases of 21.1 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively.

But nearly a million more homes are subscribing to broadband while skipping a traditional paid TV subscription, a fact that might lead some to argue that users are using their broadband connections to watch streaming video as an alternative to buying a TV subscription.

There are also are 5.1 million broadcast-TV-only homes that buy broadband, another potential sign that people are substituting streaming video for a subscription.

But most of the market buys both video and broadband. Some 80.8 million homes are in that category, while 22.3 million homes subscribe to cable TV but do not buy broadband.

Though broadcast only, but broadband-buying homes comprise the smallest subscriber group, the number of these homes has increased by 22.8 percent since the third quarter of  2010.

The increase in broadcast-only/broadband homes is not necessarily an indication of downgrading services, though.  


Though less than five percent of the television households, U.S. consumers in homes with broadband Internet access and free, broadcast TV stream video twice as much as the general cross-platform population . They also watch half as much TV. You might conclude that evidence of change in TV consumption is most clear in this segment of the market.

Deutsche Telekom Evaluating Everything Everywhere Sale?

Deutsche Telekom AG is said to be evaluating its options for selling or otherwise monetizing its stake in the Everything Everywhere joint venture in the United Kingdom, an apparent direct result of the failure of the AT&T deal to buy T-Mobile USA. 


Deutsche Telekom had been counting on proceeds from that sale to support investment in fourth generation networks in Germany and elsewhere. Deutsche Telekom and AT&T Inc. in December 2011 called off a $39 billion deal that would have allowed Deutsche Telekom to cut its debt by 13 billion euros and repurchase five billion euros of its own shares. 


The problem now is that Deutsche Telekom still needs cash to accomplish those goals.