Is zero rating of mobile data usage a violation of network netrality norms or only a marketing tactic? MIcrosoft India thinks it simply is a value of adding value for buyers of Lumina smartphones.
Microsoft India plans to sponsor 4G mobile data access for Bharti Airtel customers who buy Lumia 4G smartphones, though the deal is not finalized. As presently envisioned, buyers of Lumia devices will get use of twice as much data.
Airtel 4G customers purchasing the Lumia 950 or 950 XL will get free data bundled with the devices, as well as the Lumia 550.
Some would argue there is no difference between this proposed practice and the well-established practice whereby buyers of Kindle content can have that content delivered over some mobile networks without incurring any usage of a mobile data plan.
Nor, in principle, is this any different from promotions offered rather routinely by mobile service providers, where bonus data is provided for purchase of some plans, or for customers who switch from another provider.
In principle, does it matter whether it is an advertiser, a device supplier, an app provider or a mobile service provider that offers "no incremental charge" mobile data access?
Monday, December 14, 2015
Does it Matter Which Ecosystem Participant Provides Zero-Rated Mobile Data Access?
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Netflix Programming Exclusivity Works, Survey Finds
Access to original programming is a key method by which networks attempt to gain distinctiveness in a competitive market. And there is at least some evidence that the tactic works.
A survey conducted by RBC Capital Markets found that original content affected the buy decision for 49 percent of respondents.
More than 25 percent of respondents said that having access to original content convinced them a great deal, or a good amount, to subscribe to Netflix.
Original programming, as a strategy, really helps Netflix, as it does other networks.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Does SDN Need a Faster Version of TCP/IP?
The transport layer of the protocol stack has direct implications for use of software defined networking, many would argue, and therefore creates a need for SDN-optimized versions of TCP/IP.
So it is that the new OpenFastPath Foundation, founded by Nokia Networks, ARM and industrial IT services player Enea, seeks to create an open source TCP/IP stack which can accelerate the move towards SDN in carrier and enterprise networks.
AMD, Cavium, Freescale, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Linaro also are supporting the effort to create a standardized, accelerated TCP/IP stack that provides top performance for SDN-ready network functions.
For network operators, the new fast-path stack should lead to reduced IP latency, higher capacity and thus faster packet forwarding, and lower implementation costs.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Public Cloud Services Market Will Grow 19% in Middle East, North Africa in 2016
The public cloud services market in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is projected to grow to 19.3 percent in 2016 to total $ 880 million, up from an estimated $737 million in 2015, according to Gartner analysts.
followed by Cloud Management and Security, growing 21 percent, and Infrastructure as a Service growing 19 percent in 2019, year over year.
Business Process as a Service (BPaaS), the largest segment of the cloud services market in MENA, is expected to grow 7.3 percent year over year in 2016 to reach $266.2 million.
The fastest-growing market, cloud management and security services, is projected to grow 29.3 percent in 2016, year over year.
Gartner predicts that in 2019, total public cloud services spending in the MENA region will rise to $1.45 billion, with Software as a Service accounting for 22.6 percent of the market.
followed by Cloud Management and Security, growing 21 percent, and Infrastructure as a Service growing 19 percent in 2019, year over year.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Global PBX Market Up in 3Q, Down for Year
Global sales of pure IP, hybrid and TDM PBX enterprise telephone systems totaled $1.6 billion in the third quarter of 2015, up 3.9 percent from the previous quarter, while unified communications solutions grew 5.4 percent, according to Market research firm IHS.
On a year-over-year basis, the PBX market was down seven percent in the third quarter, while the unified communications market was flat.
IHS predicts the worldwide PBX market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of -0.1 percent between 2014 and 2019, reaching $6.9 billion in 2019.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Will Linear Video Revenues Drop 66%?
Skinny bundles costing $30 are the future of linear video linear video, says CBS head.
If an average linear video monthly bill is $90 a month, and the future is $30 a month, average revenue per account will drop 66 percent.
That illustrates, after similar devlines in voice revenue, why all service providers are searching aggressively for new revenue sources.
source: CableOne
If an average linear video monthly bill is $90 a month, and the future is $30 a month, average revenue per account will drop 66 percent.
That illustrates, after similar devlines in voice revenue, why all service providers are searching aggressively for new revenue sources.
If an average linear video monthly bill is $90 a month, and the future is $30 a month, average revenue per account will drop 66 percent.
At AT&T, for example, voice revenue is only the third-largest revenue source, representing perhaps 22 percent of total revenue.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Xfinity Wi-Fi is Ready for Wholesale. Are Buyers Ready?
As always, every regulatory model and policy has direct implications for conceivable business models, whatever the other policy considerations.
Consumer Internet access, presently mandated as “best effort only,” allows no creation of quality-assured access services that might have direct end user experience benefits for consumers.
Voice and real-time video communications are among the historic examples, as both are sensitive to latency, the problem packet prioritization tries to solve.
Inability to support quality mechanisms for consumer Internet access has been a business model issue for mobile and fixed Internet service provider services.
That is not true for business-focused public hotspot services.
An emerging issue is the degree to which quality-assured services will become a bigger potential business for networks built upon consumer platforms.
Business services are allowed to use such quality of service mechanisms without restriction.
And that is one angle Comcast and others are counting upon to create new revenue streams from a network that has largely, to this point, been an important Internet access feature, but not much of a direct revenue generator.
Comcast and others hope that will change as network footprint increases, seamless authentication and handoff to mobile networks (NGH and Passpoint) are possible, and there are extensive roaming agreements, improved quality of service and security.
What then will be possible are business models that in the past have been difficult or impossible.
Quality-assured access will open up new possibilities for business-class services requiring more security and quality of service mechanisms; services based on ultra-reliable machine-to-machine communications, or video entertainment.
It is reasonable to assume that the customers for such services will be other enterprises, including mobile service providers, app providers and possibly device manufacturers, to an extent.
Since the likely application includes carrier voice and messaging or other business services, there are no network neutrality infractions.
Given the growing importance of traffic offload from mobile networks to Wi-Fi, the likelihood is that both retail and wholesale opportunities to support offload of carrier voice and messaging are possible, creating a new wholesale opportunity for Xfinity Wi-Fi, for example.
Comcast’s 11 million public-facing hotspots have achieved at least one objective so far: access is surprisingly widespread. I sometimes get signal in the middle of Denver intersections with six lanes one way, four lanes the other.
The network is not intended to substitute for the mobile network, but it is surprisingly useful as an untethered access mechanism many of the places I move about, when in a Comcast region. I haven’t found it works quite as well when outside a Comcast region, but in a zone where Cable Wi-Fi roaming agreements are in place.
Though it is hard to see AT&T or Verizon sourcing capacity from Comcast to densify coverage, others might be more willing, and that is one of the potential enterprise revenue streams Comcast always as aimed for, in building the Wi-Fi hotspot network.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
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