Apple' Sales Volume Drops In Two Biggest Markets

Lots of people are waiting for Apple's next launch of new products, or are finding other alternatives, it appears.



Apple revenue from its two biggest segments -- Europe and the Americas -- have begun to contract, Fortune reports.



In the first quarter of 2014, Apple's combined Asian sales were $17.4 billion, more than Europe ($13 billion) and closing in on the Americas ($20 billion).

2008 was Inflection Point for Mobile Broadband

Global mobile connections will grow from 6.5 billion connections in 2013 to nine billion in 2018, according to researchers at iGR. And that probably is not the most-significant change likely to happen between 2013 and 2018.

Instead, the big change is the overwhelming role mobile will have in bringing Internet access to end users. As recently as 2008, broadband Internet access remained a primarily fixed network service.

Oddly enough, 2008 also was the year mobile broadband subscriptions reached an inflection point.

Business Segment Drives Time Warner Cable Growth

Despite continuing challenges in its consumer segment, namely net customer losses, Time Warner Cable managed to grow full-year 2013 revenue 3.4 percent year over year.



Business customer revenues grew 21.6 percent, while consumer high speed Internet access revenues grew 14.4 percent. 



Fourth-quarter 2013 average monthly revenue per residential customer relationship (ARPU) grew 2.2 percent to $106.03, the highest rate of growth since the first quarter of 2012, Time Warner Cable says.



Residential high-speed data ARPU increased 12.4 percent to $46.21. Time Warner Cable says it  now offers residential high-speed data speeds of 100 Mbps in several cities and regions, including Los Angeles, Kansas City and Hawaii. 



Residential wideband high-speed data subscribers (which includes the 30, 50, 75 and 100 Mbps tiers) more than doubled year over year to 910,000 subscribers. 



But consider that Time Warner Cable has 11.08 million total residential high speed Internet access customers, meaning that just eight percent of Time Warner Cable customers actually buy a tier of service at 30 Mbps or higher. 



It isn't that the higher speeds are unavailable; just that consumers apparently do not see the value-price relationship of the faster tiers as providing good value, at the moment. 



And that is a key point: whether high speed Internet access services are available for purchase is one issue. Whether people actually buy those services is a separate issue. One might argue that only eight percent of Time Warner Cable customers buy 30 Mbps, 50 Mbps, 75 Mbps or 100 Mbps service because it is not provided. That largely is untrue.



What is true is that people are choosing to buy service at lower speeds. That means Time Warner Cable has a demand issue, not a supply issue, even if some would say Time Warner Cable has lagged in investment that would boost speeds higher. 



Some might argue investment is not the immediate issue. Instead, consumer demand is too low. That is a far-different sort of problem than lack of supply.

Telecom Industry is Backwards Looking: Government Makes it So

Mobile networks have experienced four complete transitions of network technology in a few decades, doing so about once every 10 years.



The fixed network has been through a couple of network eras, without completely revamping the whole platform.



Looking at switching, it moved from simple crossbar switches to analog electronic switches to digital switches. In access technology, it has begun to move from copper wires to optical fiber. 



The biggest single transition, though, is the move from time division multiplexing to Internet Protocol, a subject the Federal Communications Commission will address at its Jan. 30, 2014 meeting, taking up an AT&T request to run trials related to the transition from TDM to IP.



Many of the issues are largely "social" rather than "technical" in nature, relating to how universal service and consumer protections are maintained. Emergency calling and preservation of competition likewise will have to be addressed, though none of those issues is fundamentally a technology issue.



It is fair enough to criticize large telcos for not moving fast enough. Sometimes they can't help it. The government makes them move slow.

Amazon to Enter Retail Payments Business

Amazon, the Wall Street Journal reports, is hoping to sell retailers a Kindle-based retail checkout system, likely positioned like Square and other providers of mobile credit card reader systems. 



The attraction would seem to be the access to customer data, not so much the lucrative payment terminal business. 



But Amazon might also be thinking it can bring other "value add" to the systems, compared to existing offers from other established payment system providers. The immediate inducements could relate to offers, promotions or discounts, especially related to retailer sales on Amazon.com



Longer term, Amazon might eventually leverage other assets. Amazon Web Services could come into play, or possibly logistics support. 



Amazon also reportedly is considering a mobile wallet service that would be used by consumers. 

Google Selling Motorola Mobility

Google says it is selling what remains of Motorola Mobility--while retaining the patent portfolio, to  PC maker Lenovo for $2.9 billion.



Google, which bought Motorola Mobioity for $12.5 billion in May 2012, already had sold off the part of the business building cable set-top boxes, and seems now to retain what it really wanted: the patent portfolio. 



The move does not completely address the channel conflict of Google being in some parts of the device market, such as it now is with Nest, the home automation supplier. But the move does ease the channel conflict potential to a significant extent. 

U.S. Justice Department "Skeptical" About Possible Sprint Acquisition of T-Mobile UA

Sprint's Possible T-Mobile US acquisition, to nobody's surprise, is viewed "skeptically" by U.S. Department of Justice officials, Sprint board members Masayoshi Son and Dan Hesse apparently have been told at a meeting. 



But nothing is ever as it appears on the surface, where it comes to key communications developments. AT&T, in formally announcing it has no plans to make an immediate bid for Vodafone, might trigger thinking that AT&T does not want to make such a bid.



That undoubtedly is the wrong way to view the declaration. By law, AT&T, when asked by U.K. authorities, whether it planned to make such a bid in the next 30 days, had to answer "no," and thereby wait at least six months before making any such bid. 



But AT&T would not have made such a bid within the next 30 days. Too much depends on how European regulators treat other pending deals, in particular consolidation in Germany. AT&T had no choice but to respond the way it did.



Likewise, some might think Sprint could not win approval for a deal to buy T-Mobile US, no matter what the concessions. That probably also is not entirely certain. 



The Justice Department, though having a view that the U.S. mobile market already is too concentrated, and though it favors a minimum of four providers, might also be presented with an acquisition plan that maintains four providers, and especially the robust attacks T-Mobile US is making.



It could happen.