AT&T to Shut Down 2G network by 2017

In a Securities and Exchange Commission "10Q" filing, AT&T said that it will it will shutting down its second generation network so that it can concentrate on upgrading infrastructure to better technologies for the future.

The network shutdown will occur by January 1, 2017, and the spectrum used by 2G services will be reallocated for 3G and 4G use. Currently, about 12 percent of its customers under contract are still using handsets that do not support 3G.

When 95% Fiber Connections are Not a Good Thing

T-Mobile USA has "enhanced backhaul" covering 100 percent of its 4G (HSPA+) network, 95 percent of which is fiber backhaul, says T-Mobile USA. 


For T-Mobile USA and its customers, that is a good thing. For suppliers of those fiber backhaul connections, that is a good thing. 


The only ecosystem provider for whom that is not a good thing are the other suppliers of fiber backhaul services to mobile service providers who are not currently supplying the connections. 


And T-Mobile USA is going to need that bandwidth as it introduces the Samsung Galaxy S,  It is said to be one of T-Mobile’s fastest devices.

The Samsung Galaxy Note also offers the T-Mobile 4G Pro App Pack, a collection of apps and services including Dropbox, Evernote, Square, TripIt, CamScanner and LinkedIn.

The Galaxy Note also offers a variety of entertainment experiences, such as T-Mobile TV in mobile HD for watching live TV programming, Samsung Media Hub for renting and buying the latest movies and TV shows, and Google Play Music. 

The Galaxy Note also features an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, to capture pictures and HD videos to share with friends, family and social networks.

Many of those applications will require lots of bandwidth. 

MetroPCS Launches "Dyle" TV Service on Samsung Galaxy S Lightray 4G

MetroPCS Communications has enabled the Dyle broadcast TV service on the Samsung Galaxy S Lightray 4G handset, the first smart phone in the U.S. market to offer live, local broadcast television using the Dyle mobile TV service.


Dyle offers content from broadcasters NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS Television, LIN Media, Telemundo, Univision, Ion, Belo, Cox Media, E.W. Scripps, Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst, Media General, Meredith, Post-Newsweek Stations and Raycom Media. In total, 92 stations have agreed to work with MCV.

The Mobile Content Venture that owns the Dyle service hopes people will want to watch linear TV on their smart phones, but some are skeptical, though Dyle says its research shows people will watch. 

Dyle research suggests that up to 61 percent of respondents to a survey would be very likely to switch service providers, or somewhat likely to switch service providers, to use such a service. 

One advantage of Dyle is that it does not use Internet bandwidth, simply adding direct ability to display a standard TV broadcast signal on a mobile device. 

Access to the Dyle mobile TV service will be offered in select markets and at no additional charge to customers on a MetroPCS 4G LTE service plan. In some other cases, Dyle has talked about charging a fee to use the service. 

Is Business Bandwidth a Problem?

Most U.S. businesses still use low-speed, 1.5 Mbps T1 connections to run their businesses, despite the fact that consumers routinely have connections running at 20 Mbps to 30 Mbps.

But is that a problem?

That is a matter of opinion. Ignore for the moment the growing ability businesses have to buy faster services, supplied by fixed networks, mobile or even satellite providers. There is a difference between "availability" and "purchase," even in instances where the higher speeds are available. In many, if not most cases, businesses are buying the services required to support their businesses.

And in most cases, 1.5 Mbps might be sufficient for business buyers, as odd as that might sound. For starters, most smaller businesses are not often required to consume much bandwidth as part of their daily operations. Most small businesses use bandwidth in an ancillary way, unlike an Internet or applications business that might well require lots of bandwidth.

Retailers, for example, typically do not require much bandwidth to run their businesses. Office-based businesses that provide services often do need more bandwidth, but anecdotal evidence suggests such businesses generally are able to buy affordable broadband, when they need it, at least in urban areas.

It arguably remains true that many smaller businesses are not served by optical fiber facilities. As of March 2012, fiber facilities were only available to 20.5 percent of commercial buildings across Europe, and to 31.8 percent of commercial buildings in the United States, according to Vertical Systems Group.

But that doesn't automatically mean that smaller businesses cannot buy bandwidth services of 10 Mbps to 20 Mbps, for example, to support web surfing requirements. But that application typically is not mission critical in the same way that voice services or credit card authorizations are important.

In that sense, the current lack of "fiber optic" access, rather than bandwidth, is not a "problem." There are areas, especially in rural settings, where that is not true. But many smaller businesses might be able to buy the levels of bandwidth they require, without much problem.

At least in terms of anecdotal evidence, one doesn't hear of smaller businesses complaining that lack of bandwidth poses peril to their businesses.

Mediacom Consumption Caps Won't be a Problem for 98% of Users

Bandwidth caps are a contentious issue in some quarters, the argument being that it is somehow injurious to customers when "reasonable" usage quotas are a normal condition of service. 


There seems to be no such resistance to the notion that consumption of many other products, including electricity, water, gasoline, natural gas, soap, vegetables, salt, sugar or meat is consumption based. 


New consumption caps for Mediacom high-speed access customers arguably are not going to be a problem for 98 percent of Mediacom customers. Those new plans will be an issue for perhaps two percent of the highest users. 


•Mediacom Launch 150GB (3 Mbps)
•Mediacom Prime 250GB (12-15 Mbps)
•Mediacom Prime Plus 350GB (20 Mbps)
•Mediacom Ultra 999GB (50 Mbps)
•Mediacom Ultra Plus 999GB (105 Mbps)

Do UTOPIA Failures Mean Anything for Google Fiber?

It isn't easy to build a wholesale or retail fiber access business when competing with entrenched cable and telco competitors, as Google Fiber will do in Kansas City, Mo. and Kansas City, Kan. But Google Fiber at least has a couple of advantages.


Its symmetrical 1-Gbps access speed, plus free 5-Mbps service, can be differentiated from what cable and telco providers offer in the Kansas City markets. Where rival service providers cannot do that, they sometimes run into trouble. UTOPIA provides a possible case in point.


The Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency  (UTOPIA) is building a wholesale fiber-optic network that offers its users access to high-speed video, data, and phone services. Operational mistakes aside, UTOPIA might have made a fundamental mistake, namely building a network that, although pitched as a "faster" alternative at the time, has fallen behind as cable and telco competitors have boosted their access speeds, in response. 


To be sure, UTOPIA says it offers a symmetrical 50 Mbps service costing $35 a month, far less than the 50 Mbps service offered by Comcast in Salt Lake City, for example. Still, some would argue that differentiation is less the issue than the degree of difference. At that level, UTOPIA access prices are an order of magnitude better than offered by Comcast.


All venture capitalists are familiar with the problem, namely that a new contestant challenging market leaders has to offer user experience benefits that are perhaps 10 times better than what currently is available. Those benefits can include pricing or performance improvements, but the point is that an order of magnitude better experience is necessary for an upstart to have a chance of unseating a market leader.


In part, the reason is that incumbents, faced with significant new competition, typically will boost their offers, slicing the advantage the new upstart offers, before the upstart has a chance to gain critical mass. That might be the case for Utah's UTOPIA effort.
A new audit shows the agency was unable to complete construction of the network as quickly as
planned. UTOPIA originally planned to build a broadband network in three years and to achieve a positive cash flow in five years.

“However, it has not met that schedule,” the audit says. “Instead, the cost of financing and operating the network increased before UTOPIA could provide a substantial number of
customers with service.”

As a result, revenues have not been sufficient to cover its costs. Year after year, as operating deficits have accrued and the agency has developed a large negative asset balance.

UTOPIA has issued $185 million in bonds to pay the cost of building its network, “but most of the bond proceeds have been invested in poorly utilized and partially completed sections of network,” the report says.

“As a result, the network is not generating sufficient revenue for the agency to cover its annual debt service and operating costs,” the report notes.

Worse, UTOPIA has had to use a large portion of its  bond proceeds to cover operating deficits and debt service costs. “The use of debt to cover the cost of operations and debt service is
symptomatic of an organization facing serious financial challenges,” the audit says.

Since 2003, when UTOPIA began work, only one third of the network has been  completed. Buit that might not even be the biggest problem. “One underlying challenge is that UTOPIA’s infrastructure investment is not producing sufficient revenue,” the study notes. “In most areas where construction has been completed, UTOPIA has insufficient subscribers
to cover the cost of building and operating the infrastructure.”

Though backers had expected to get adoption (penetration) rates of about 35 percent, so far the network has gotten penetration of only about 16 percent.

That has huge implications. A competitive network, facing both entrenched cable and telco suppliers, has economics that are hugely dependent on penetration rate. At 16 percent penetration, UTOPIA is getting half the revenue it had projected, and manhy would argue, as a rule of thumb, that penetration in the 20 percent to 30 percent range is probably requires for long term success, in the absence of additional revenues from voice or video entertainment services.

Among other problems, UTOPIA has used a wholesale model, and therefore has been highly dependent on its retail partners for sales success. And it turns out that many of its retail customers have defaulted on owed payments, which further puts pressure on UTOPIA revenues.

As a direct result, UTOPIA now also has switched to selling retail services directly.

Though the audit attributes much of the difficulty to management failures, and though that likely is an issue, the larger issue might simply be that customer demand for UTOPIA services is simply not as strong as expected, when there are other suppliers with a vested interest in meeting existing demand for high-speed access.

That might not be quite as big an issue for Google Fiber in Kansas City, Kan. and Kansas City, Mo., given the huge difference in access speed Google fiber is able to offer.

UTOPIA uses a “fiber to curb” network architecture that offers speeds similar to AT&T’s U-verse, but arguably less than what cable operators can offer, using DOCSIS and bonded channels.

Some might argue that UTOPIA’s market offer is not “better” than telco or cable offers, in terms of speed and experience. Venture capitalists are familiar with that problem. UTOPIA did not offer an order of magnitude better experience, when it started.


Google Fiber, on the other hand, does have that advantage, clearly, in terms of "speed," and arguably in terms of price, as well. That means Google Fiber might have a better chance of taking 30 percent share, than UTOPIA has been able to do, at least so far.

"Millennials" Now are Global, Mobile

“Millennials” now represent a mobile-oriented demographic on a global scale, not a specifically U.S. generation, says Troy Brown, one50one founder and president. “Millennials globally are nearly identical in their thoughts, habits and values, worldwide.”

The Internet, and mobile, largely are responsible for a growing “psychographic” similarity, worldwide, for “working class” youth, especially in the 21 to 29 age range, he says.

All of that puts a new “spin” on “multicultural” marketing. In the mobile realm, when dealing with Millennials anywhere in the world. Whatever their specific circumstances, “multicultural mobile users generally over-index their use of SMS, mobile web, and mobile advertising, as well as smartphone adoption, says Brown.

“We have identified three market dynamics that will impact multicultural mobile targeting in the next 18 to 24 months,” Brown says.

Two of the trends are directly related to mobile services. Brown says 4G services and devices that can use 4G, location-based services and the need for brands to “blend” all digital, social and mobile campaign elements to drive a personalized experience, are the key trends.

4G networks represent higher speeds, and will drive usage among multicultural demographics in one primary area: video sharing and streaming.

Despite the generality that global Millennials over-index in the use of their mobile devices, each individual accesses the Internet in his or her own personalized way, says Brown. Thus, brands and marketers need to cover all the bases across digital, social, and mobile domains.