Microsoft Branded Smart Phone on the Way?

Though Microsoft naturally insists the release of its own line of branded tablets does not pose any risk of channel conflict with its traditional partners, that might not be the case. Nomura analyst Rick Sherlund says he has learned that Pegatron is also working on a handset for Microsoft. 


The project isn’t likely to be completed until 2013, but will contradict Microsoft's assertions that it is not competing with its customers. Google has faced the same issue with its ownership of Motorola Mobility.


The Microsoft move would emphasize for all third party device manufacturers that the mobile phone world is changing. Microsoft now will supply operating systems for third parties, but also will compete with its own branded devices, as Microsoft has signaled it will do in tablets.


Given Apple's highly-developed content ecosystem, the Android application community and now Microsoft's own move into tablets and, presumably, smart phones, third party suppliers who do not own their own operating system and content communities will find themselves at a serious disadvantage. 

Tablets Will Drive Personal Hotspot Adoption

Mobile modem sales will see a 16 percent compound annual growth rate to 2017, says Strategy Analytics.


Where 150 million units will be sold globally in 2012, 312 million will be sold in 2017, according to Strategy Analytics. 


By 2017, over 35 percent of stand-alone modems will be mobile hotspot routers, driven by growth in consumer electronics devices such as eBook readers, tablets and ultrabooks. 


In 2012, cellular modem sales will grow fastest in North America, at 69 percent year on year growth, followed by Asia Pacific at 34 percent;


The mobile broadband device installed base of USB modems, PC cards and embedded notebooks and netbooks will grow from 266 million units in 2012 to 688 million by 2017 and LTE will comprise 48 percent of all cellular modem shipments by 2017, Strategy Analytics says. 

Spanish Mobile Churn Hits Record Levels

Spanish mobile phone operators lost a record number of clients in April 2012, with some 70 percent of defections occurring at Telefonica and Vodafone, as they stopped subsiding smartphones for cash-strapped customers, CNBC reports. 


Observers will quickly speculate on why the historically-high rate of churn is happening. Some obvious explanations include the economic crisis, or perhaps the end of device subsidies, which might reduce demand for new phones. 


Around 380,000 customers ditched their mobile phone lines in April, marking the third straight month of decline in the overall customer base in austerity-crippled Spain, where one in four people is unemployed, the Spanish regulatory body says. 


"This crash for mobile phone operators has been especially notable in the prepay sector, which lost 297,984 clients," regulator Comision del Mercado de Telecomunicaciones says. 

Will U.S. Fixed Network Voice Connections Continue to Drop?

The latest report on U.S. fixed network voice connections by the Federal Communications Commission suggests that voice connections declined three percent between June 2010 and June 2011. That raises an obvious question: will number of fixed voice connections continue to drop, without end, to zero?


Some of us would argue that there is some stable number of connections, a non-zero number, that ultimately will be reached. How to encourage people to buy fixed network voice connections is the issue. "Value" is part of the equation. But some of us might argue that retail packaging is more important. 


Verizon Wireless "Share Everything" plans provide a key answer. Voice and text messaging are purchased as a basic part of the access service. No voice, no smart phone service. When you buy an automobile, you don't buy parts, you buy a car. Share Everything is the same sort of idea. 

How Much Better Can Telcos Do in IPTV Business?

For anybody who has followed the U.S. video entertainment market for some decades, that U.S. cable operator video penetration is as low as 44 percent of TV homes is a shocking statistic. There was a time when penetration was as high as 70 to 80 percent of homes in some areas.


Competition from satellite and telco competitors is the reason for the sharp reversal. So the question is how much more upside might exist in the IPTV business for telcos.  It isn't so easy to answer. 


In saturated markets with strong contenders, new accounts mostly come from defecting customers. And strong contenders don't give up customers very easily. 

What, How Big is Broadband Adoption in the United States?

There are some 93.3 million broadband subscriptions in service in the United States in the first quarter of 2012, according to the Broadband Forum. And it is possible those figures both overstate and understate actual broadband penetration. 


The "overstate" could occur if business accounts are included in the tallies. The "understate" would occur because those surveys do not seem to include mobile broadband, used by a significant and possibly growing number of households.


There are more people relying on mobile broadband as their primary form of Internet access and applications, these days. 

What Business Are AT&T and Verizon in, Really?

You might justifiably argue that the idea of “dumb pipe” scares telecom and cable TV executives, but not really for reasons often supposed. The notion implies, though it often is unstated, that dumb pipe means “low margin, commodity” access.


The problem is that the notion is partly true, and partly untrue. “Share Everything,” the new Verizon Wireless pricing policy, makes voice and text messaging a “flat-fee price of admission” to use the mobile network. Internet access, on the other hand, becomes a variable-fee feature based substantially on usage.


The point is that dumb pipe is a part of the business, not the whole business, nor is it the only business service providers already are in. But it is pointless to argue about whether dumb pipe is a business access providers must be in: they must, and will.


But that doesn't ever mean it is the only business they are in. Also, though there always is thinking and some action about access providers becoming app providers, historically, nearly all the money comes from apps that are closely tied to the core access function and network. That probably won't change.