Demand and Supply are Issues for 1-Gbps Internet Access

It is easy to criticize big Internet access providers for arguing there is little to no demand for symmetrical 1-Gbps high-speed access services of the type Google Fiber is providing in Kansas City, Mo. and Kansas City, Kan. It comes off as an attempt to downplay the significance of a competitor's offering.

At least in part, such statements often are "jawboning" efforts to shape opinion. But there are other legitimate aspects as well. Consumers in some markets who can buy 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps or faster services, often have shown they are willing to buy slower-speed services. 

The other practical problem is that the rest of the Internet is not yet optimized for 1-Gbps speeds. Consider a recent test of Internet service provider access speeds for Netflix video streams. 

Without question, Google Fiber was the most consistently fast ISP in America for watching Netflix streamed content, according to Netflix. 

But keep it in perspective: Netflix streaming only happens so fast, on a 1-Gbps or much slower connections. In other words, a few consumers might want 1-Gbps like they want other products: for "bragging rights." 

In practice, a faster access pipe will always be bound by all the other access pipes, servers and backbone transit routes and equipment in between any two connections. Upgrading just one link doesn't actually provide that much value. It simply shifts the bottleneck elsewhere.

63% of Mobile Video Consumption Happens at Home

Fully 63 percent of digital video screening on mobile phones does not happen on-the-go, but rather at home, a study conducted on behalf of  the  Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has found. 

Some 36 percent of these home-based digital video activities happen in a room where a second screen also is present (television, PC or tablet), IAB says. 

This is perhaps the inkling of a future shift in the mobile video medium. 

Initially, the thinking was that people would watch bits of video in "interstitial" time, between other activities, or while waiting at a bus stop, for example. Also, the general thinking was that people would naturally want to use the biggest available screen.

The IAB findings tend to refute the notion that mobile video is something consumers use haphazardly,  at odd times of the day, when they have nothing else going on and no other screen available. 

That might suggest users have a preference for the mobile experience even when they are stationary and have other screens available, and that a distinct "fourth screen experience" is developing, with potential attributes different from television, PC and tablet video consumption. In fact, use of a phone to watch video when other screens readily are available suggests there is something about mobile viewing that users see as "better" than viewing on a larger screen, for whatever reason.


Mobile video usage also appears to taking on some of the patterns of traditional television consumption, with a "prime time" period in the evening.  About 22 percent of video interactions were purposefully planned, while 18 percent of views were "because I was bored" motivations, and only three percent of mobile viewing happened because no other screen was available.

On the other hand, the study also shows that short form content remains the driver for mobile viewing.  The most-frequently-viewed genres in mobile video included music videos (45 percent), movie trailers (42 percent), tutorials/How-To's (41 percent) and funny short video clips (37 percent).

Humorous short clips (66 percent) and music videos (52 percent) are the most likely to be shared. And it is that sharing that is shaping up as a distinctive feature of the mobile video experience.

The findings continue to suggest that short form content is best suited to mobile consumption, or at least that is what consumers choose to do, at the moment. Where people are watching (at home), what they are watching (short form content), when they are watching (prime time) and why they are not using a larger screen are relevant observations. 

It remains possible that many mobile viewers do not use a larger screen, even when it is available, for some technology reason (TV doesn't have Internet connection), because others are using the other screens at the moment or simply because they prefer the mobile experience. 

Nor does the study shed much light on a related, but different issue, namely whether users would choose to view long-form content on a mobile screen when other screens are available, and whether the type of content to be viewed makes a difference. In other words, it is conceivable a single person watching news would choose to view on a tablet, but that same person might prefer to watch a high-definition movie on the biggest screen, especially when it is a shared experience. 

The IAB study does not address those other questions. 

Consumer "Media" Preferences are Shifting

If, over the last four years, consumers have consistently spent less time with television, radio and print media, while steadily spending more time consuming media on mobile devices, what would that tell you?

True, we haven't yet seen significant shifts in revenue for video entertainment services, and one might argue that advertising revenues related to media consumption have not yet budged much, either. 

But, sooner or later, advertising follows audience attention. 

Mobile Broadband Became Majority of Access in G-20 Countries in 5 Years

It sometimes is hard to comprehend just how fast trends related to the Internet can change. 

Consider that, in the G-20 countries, mobile broadband went from negligible to a majority of all access connections in just five years, between 2005 and 2010. 

In five more years, in 2015, mobile G-20 Internet connections will be about 80 percent of all connecttions, Business Insider estimates.

Middle Class Will Explode Globally, So Will Use of Broadband Internet

Middle classes most everywhere in the developing world are poised to expand substantially in terms of both absolute numbers and the percentage of the population that can claim middle class status during the next 15-20 years, according to the National Intelligence Council. 

That has huge implications for providers of communication services, especially Internet-related applications and services. India, China and the rest of Asia provide examples, as those regions will far outstrip the share of middle class consumption in the United States, Japan and European Union, for example. 

At the same time, the United States, European, and Japanese share of global income is projected to fall from 56 percent today to well under half by 2030.

Note the dramatic increase in economic growth the Council expects will happen between now and 2030. It took Britain 155 years to double gross domestic product per capita, The United States and Germany took between 30 and 60 years to do so.

India and China are doing this at a scale and pace  not seen before: 100 times the people than Britain and yet a doubling of GDP in one tenth the time. By 2030 Asia will be well on its way to returning to being the world’s powerhouse, just as it was before 1500, NIC analysts say.

Sub-Saharan Africa, rural India, and other traditionally isolated regions are being globally connected. Mobile devices are becoming increasingly rich sensor platforms, enabling nearly all communication mediated by technology to be tracked and analyzed at a fine level of detail.

More than 70 percent of the world’s population already has at least one mobile device; global mobile data traffic in 2010 was three times the size of the entire Internet in 2000.

By 2015, in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East, more people will have mobile network access than with electricity at home.

As much as it has been a "problem" figuring how to ensure that billions of humans who "never have made a phone call" is a problem we have largely solved, the next challenge is assuring that those billions of people who do not presently use the Internet can do so.

The amount of change we will see will be breathtaking.

Samsung to Build Galaxy Note III with 6.3-Inch Screen?

The upcoming Galaxy Note III will feature a 6.3-inch screen using an OLED display, Korea Times reports. 

That is going to blur the line between the biggest-screen smart phones and the smallest-screen tablets even further. 

To be sure, some are skeptical about the new form factor. As with "tablets" themselves, many in the past have tried to create such a device, and largely failed. 

But ABI Research 208 million "phablets" will be shipped in 2015, globally. Of course, much could depend on how one defines a "phablet." ABI Research reserves that category for devices with phone functionality and a touch screen between 4.6 and 5.5 inches. 

That wouldn't be a phablet, that's just a smart phone, in my estimation. But users will decide. Somewhere between a seven-inch screen, the present low end of tablets, and five or so inches, the current high end of smart phone screens, is where the issue has to be decided. 

It may come down to how many users want a communicating tablet that is highly portable, versus users who want a Web-oriented phone. Some of us might harken back a few years, when the primary reason for using a smart phone was to get mobile email.

For some of us, there came a time when easy "Web" use became important, then more important than email, and that's when some of us might have decided it was time to ditch the BlackBerry. 

These days, though I find I expect my smart phone to work as a phone, more of the mission critical functionality continues to migrate to Web and apps, where a larger screen really makes a difference, and where one expects an app to work pretty much the same on the smart phone screen as it does on a larger-screen device. 

Portability is important, which is why some of us always thought a seven-inch tablet would be well received by a significant portion of the user base. These days, though, "device creep" can be an issue.

For many people who travel, for example, or who work outside the office, a tablet is a reasonable substitute for a notebook. That is not an option for some of us, who still wind up traveling with a notebook, one or two smart phones, then a tablet and an MP3 player (the smallest possible unit that can be clipped on running shorts). As always, the ability to ditch at least of those devices is helpful and valuable. 

That's a bit of a niche, but some of us still would say there is a market for smart phones with big screens, if only because of the growing importance of things we need to do with screens, as opposed to "phones."

US Won't ratify UN Internet Treaty

The United States said Thursday that it will not ratify a United Nations telecommunications treaty after raising concerns that it would disrupt the current governance structure of the Internet and open the door for online censorship.





The U.K. and Canada also said they would not ratify the treaty after negotiations ended at a conference hosted by the U.N. International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Dubai.

TechNet, TechAmerica, the Computer and Communications Industry Association and The Internet Association argued that the ITU should be excluded from decisions regarding the governance of the Internet.