C Spire, the Mobile Company, to Build Fixed Gigabit Networks in Mississippi

C Spire Wireless (formerly Cellular South), the Mississippi-based mobile service provider, now will build gigabit fixed networks for Internet access, video and voice services to several cities and towns in Mississippi.

Internet access will be available for $80 a month, $100 a month for combined Internet and home phone, $140 a month for Internet and digital TV, and $160 a month for the entire package.

Batesville, Clinton, Corinth, Hattiesburg, Horn Lake, McComb, Quitman, Ridgeland and Starkville were selected from 33 cities and towns who submitted applications to be the first to get gigabit access from C Spire.

That C spire Wireless is making a move into fixed access networks for the first time tells you something about the perception of opportunity in the gigabit networks business. 

EE Launches Beta of LTE-Advanced, Supporting 300 Mbps

U.K. mobile service provider EE has activated what it calls “the fastest 4G mobile network in the world” in a portion of London in a beta format, with commercial launch expected in mid-2014.

The network runs the LTE-Advanced air interface, capable of reaching 300 Mbps, initially covering London’s Tech City, and is the first live activation of new LTE spectrum acquired by EE during the recent LTE spectrum auction.

The EE 300 Mbps 4G network will be rolled out across London throughout 2014, but initially will provide Wi-Fi style access, as devices supporting LTE-Advanced will not be available until mid-2014.

Routers and dongles are expected to be first to market, with LTE-A-enabled smart phones following a few months after.

SFR, France's second largest mobile carrier, also is testing LTE-A, and has reported real-world download speeds in the region of 175 Mbps and, like EE, it's using carrier aggregation with the 1800 Mhz and 2.6 Ghz bands.

As part of the beta launch, some firms in Tech City will use CAT6 Huawei routers to support mobile Wi-Fi connections.

LTE-Advanced works by bonding channels. In this case, EE uses 20 MHz of 1800 MHz spectrum and 20 MHz of 2.6 GHz spectrum.

Spanish Firm Building Private Wi-Fi Offload Network in New York City

Another Spanish firm wants to build new networks from Wi-Fi networks, both private and public, and will test the idea in New York, N.Y.

Gowex, which says it already provides Wi-Fi networks in more than 80 cities globally, wants to combine public Wi-Fi and private access Wi-Fi services from mobile operators and businesses to create seamless mobile data coverage for consumers.

Called We-2, the new service will launch in December in New York with an initial network of more than 2000 Wi-Fi hotspots across New York,  with plans to further expand aggressively across the busiest corridors of Manhattan, Queens and The Bronx.

The company also hopes to create We-2 Wi-Fi hotspot networks in more than 300 cities by 2020.

The business model is what makes the initiative different from Fon.

Apparently, We-2 will be a network created and sold to mobile service providers who want Wi-Fi offload capabilities.

“We are giving operators the chance to improve mobile data access for the customers and offload traffic from congested networks,” said Carlos Gomez Vendrell, CEO We-2.

The idea is not new. Cable operators in both the United States and United Kingdom have considered creating wholesale Wi-Fi networks whose customers would be mobile service providers, not end users.

A Business Model for Licensed Wi-Fi Spectrum? Globalstar Thinks There is One

Is there a business model for repurposed satellite spectrum that was purchased by a firm that entered bankruptcy? Globalstar aims to find out, and has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to repurpose its mobile satellite spectrum for Wi-Fi.

The twist is that Globalstar wants to create a capability for private Wi-Fi services it could monetize, such as supporting the Amazon “Whispernet” delivery of Kindle content.

Amazon presently uses the AT&T mobile network for such purposes, and Amazon probably rightly assumes it could save money if there were an alternative supplier eager to create such a network for a single enterprise customer.

By using a privately-managed network, Amazon presumably would gain more control over quality of service, for example.

That would seem to be the thinking behind Globalstar’s interest in terrestrial “low-power” service (TLPS), an air interface it could use to support such a private Wi-Fi network.

Precisely what “low power” means is a question, since a terrestrial network would still have to be built.

Globalstar argues that the typically lightly-used or unused adjacent unlicensed spectrum would mean a new TLPS network could be created using existing mobile cell tower sites, far outstripping the actual “low power” coverage area of standard Wi-Fi.

Specifically,  Globalstar wants to use its former satellite spectrum to support “low-power” Internet access services using its licensed spectrum at 2483.5-2495 MHz, as well as adjacent unlicensed spectrum (which can be used for Bluetooth or Wi-Fi) in the 2473-2483.5 MHz band, pursuant to the applicable technical rules for unlicensed operations in that band.

To put it mildly, nobody ever has using licensed spectrum for Wi-Fi services.

Separately, Globalstar has asked for permission to build a Long Term Evolution network in both the S band (2483.5-2495 MHz) and L band (1610-1617.775 MHz) “over the longer term.”

As part of the proposal, Globalstar says it will provide 20,000 free access points to public and non-profit schools, community colleges and hospitals in the United States.

Globalstar also says it will provide mobile satellite services free of charge to customers in federally declared disaster areas following natural or man-made disasters for the duration of the disaster.

Presumably the backhaul network would use Globalstar’s satellite capacity, and the ground stations might be co-located with existing mobile tower networks.

Time Warner Cable in Play?

Charter Communications Inc is weighing a bid for Time Warner Cable that could occur before the end of 2013, Reuters reports. That move would have been entirely improbable a decade ago, when Time Warner Cable still was considered among the best-managed cable TV companies and Charter was debt-burdened and unprofitable.

Beyond the immediate performance issues, some believe structural changes lie ahead for the cable TV business, which might well be eclipsed or transformed by streaming delivery.

“Ultimately over the long term I think that the whole video product is eventually going to go to the Internet,” Cablevision Systems Corp. CEO James Dolan has said.

That doesn't mean cable TV companies will get out of the access business. Quite to the contrary, the revenue driver will shift to providing Internet access. 

But the economics of the subscription video business could well change. And though the conventional wisdom among consumers is that prices will drop, that might not happen. In principle, the costs of building and operating an access network are included in current costs of video service. 

But many other costs, including sales, marketing and fulfillment, would remain, if it altered form. If the costs of the network are mostly shifted to the voice and data services, cable operators would, in principle, have some room to alter pricing. But content acquisition costs would still be an issue.

It is not clear that content suppliers would willingly cut prices for their product, simply because the delivery method changed. Some might argue that content owners would prefer to deliver content direct to end users, but others would argue the content companies simply are not well set up to do so, as their current revenue models are "business to business," not "business to consumer."

That still suggests a vital role for distributors. Perhaps the bigger issues are whether current bundling methods would change, or at least be made available. Some might argue that the bigger innovation is not over the top delivery, but unbundled delivery (ability to buy a single TV episode or a TV series or a single channel on a subscription basis).

Android Surges to 81%b Global Market Share, and That is Not the Big Story

Android has managed to gain 81 percent share of the global smart phone operating system market, according to Strategy Analytics.

But some would say that is not the big story. 

Rather, some would say, the important news is that Windows Phone has been shipped on more than 10 million smart phones globally in a single quarter.

That is the first time that has ever happened, and represents Microsoft Windows Phone doubling its market share to become the world's fastest growing smart phone operating system.

Microsoft has doubled its global smart phone market share from two percent to four percent in the past year.

Microsoft grew its smart phone shipments by 178 percent annually in the third quarter of 2013.

Global smart phone shipments reached 251 million units in the third quarter of 2013, Strategy Analystics says.

Global smart phone shipments grew 45 percent annually from 172.8 million units in the third quarter of 2012 to 251.4 million in the third quarter of 2013.

Android’s gain came mainly at the expense of BlackBerry, which saw its global smart phone share dip from four percent to one percent in the past year.

Microsoft’s growth is almost entirely due to Nokia and its steadily improving Lumia portfolio across Europe, Asia and the United States.

OECD Mobile Broadband Users Paying 4% Less for Speeds Up 123%

Mobile Internet access users in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development areas are paying less for access to faster connections, the most recent mobile broadband price benchmarking results from Strategy Analytics shows.

The average monthly cost for a tablet user needing 2 GB per month has fallen four percent since the same period last year, to USD PPP 17.79, while average advertised speed for the same basket has risen by 123 percent, to 26 Mbps.

For a laptop user requiring 5 GB per month, the cost has fallen by nine percent, and currently averages USD PPP 25.24, while the speed has risen by 35 percent over the year, and now stands at just under 24 Mbps.

The data was generated by a survey of 3,549 SIM-only, modem, laptop and tablet plans from 107 mobile network operators in 34 OECD countries.

SIM-only plans account for around 25 percent of all plans covered as part of the survey, suggesting those accounts are used by consumers in addition to their primary service.

Some 51 percent of all plans have an advertised maximum download speed of 20 Mbps and above. About 31 percent of all plans are 4G Long Term Evolution tariffs, an increase of about three percent since June 2013.

Also, some 29 percent of all offerings include WiFi or public hotspot access.