Mobile Music Downloading Doubles

About 4 percent of American mobile phone owners aged 12 and older have downloaded full digital music songs over-the-air in the past 30 days, doubling proportions seen in 2005, says Ipsos North America. Males are twice as likely as females to have ever downloaded full songs. Teens are the most likely to have ever done so (11%), with younger adults 18 to 34 being the next most likely (8% among 18 to 24 year olds and 7% among those 25 to 34).

Some 14 percent of U.S. mobile phone owners say they have full-song download and playback capability. On average, over-the-air mobile music downloaders have 6 tracks stored on their mobile phones, similar to the number of ringtones stored. The average mobile music downloader spent roughly $7.00 in the past month on ringtones, songs and ringback tones.

Cable VoIP to Dominate

Assuming this forecast is correct, we can also assume that cable companies will have something like 25 million VoIP accounts. And since cablers sell POTS replacement service, we can assume that nearly all those 25 million accounts will come at the expense of telcos. You might be thinking that is bad enough, representing something like 15 percent of existing POTS lines. But it might be worse. Assume that by 2010 there are just 70 million POTS lines in service. That would make cable company share about 36 percent of lines. Of course, by that point, "lines" won't be needed to provide "voice," at least not dedicated, application-specific lines.

More Realism on Walled Gardens

In a refreshing move, Verizon Wireless and other wireless carriers seem to be moving away from exclusive reliance on walled garden business models for content. Instead of forcing users to buy from the branded portals, carriers now seem to be edging more in the direction of allowing third party content providers to sell direct.

Verizon has signed agreements with several companies that sell games, ringtones and other mobile content, including VeriSign Inc.'s Jamster, Fox Mobile Entertainment's Mobizzo and Yahoo Inc. Analysts estimate Verizon's slice of revenue is about 30 percent on such deals.

Cingular Wireless has been on the third party route for about two years, and now has 46 percent mobile-content market share, says The Yankee Group.

The Yankee Group estimates U.S. mobile content sales will reach $11 billion by 2010. It isn't yet clear how much will come from video. We probably will be surprised by the ultimate shape of the demand curve, as we were surprised by SMS success.

Video Downloads from BitTorrent, Wal-Mart

BitTorrent and Wal-Mart both are going to sell movie downloads. BitTorrent features material from Hollywood studios Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate and Twentieth Century Fox Film, as well as TV shows from MTV Networks starting in February. Wal-Mart for its part has begun testing digital downloads. To avoid cannibalizing its DVD sales, Wal-Mart offers the download for a few extra dollars to customers who have bought a DVD copy of the same movie.

It's getting to be a crowded space. Since August, companies including Apple Computer, AOL, and Amazon have started selling downloads of movies from a variety of studios. Microsoft, meanwhile, started selling film downloads on its Xbox 360 console.

Download pricing hasn't standardized yet. Prices range from $8 to $20 per movie. In many cases, purchasing a download is just as expensive--or more expensive--than purchasing a DVD would be. A download is arguably far less convenient as well. All of which is to be expected for a channel in its infancy.

Nearly 1/4 of VoIP Installs Require Rework

Which is why Tektronix's Minacom division recommends loopback testing when doing a VoIP install. Also, with the complexity of in-home audio-video-PC-networking systems increasing, we wouldn't be at all surprised if telco and cable technicians start having to spend more time on first visits, with a devilishly high rate of return visits for rework, despite more advanced testing.

A telco or cable VoIP service is a traditional managed service, for the most part. A customer in-home network running Wi-Fi, VoIP, broadband, video moving between PC and TV, plus PC devices and fixed-mobile integration of handsets is a local area network supporting multiple applications and devices. Setting up a LAN of this type requires more work, and is more tricky, than a managed service with one network termination and then one or two pieces of customer premises equipment (video decoder and ATA, for example).

Disney Pins Hopes on Mobile Video

Disney Media Networks Co-Chairman Anne Sweeney says the ability to watch television on mobile devices is a "critical" area of growth. The launch of live wireless TV services, such as Verizon Communications Inc.'s MediaFlo service next year, obviously could provide a potentially lucrative new channel for Disney's top-rated television shows.

Sweeney said Disney Media Networks, a unit of Walt Disney Co., expects the ability to watch live TV on cellphones and other mobile devices to help media companies reach new audiences.

Disney's ABC Television network has licensed about 250 hours of its top shows "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" to South Korean wireless phone operator TU Media Corp. "We're learning from Korea about a transition that will be happening in the rest of the world," she says.

Asked when she expected live mobile TV would reach the U.S., she said, "I'd say ... certainly within the next 12, to on the outside, 24 months -- more like 12-18."

To be sure, mobile video is likely to reach critical mass in markets such as South Korea before that happens in the U.S. market, just as U.S. consumers were slower to adopt mobile services and SMS compared to European and East Asian consumers.

So why are mobile consumers in South Korea and Japan such avid innovators in mobile applications? Perhaps in part because they spend so much time away from home, so much commuting time is spent in crowded public transit, homes are smaller, argues Andy Capener, Starent director of marketing. "You just can't carry a laptop on a train," Capener says. It may also be a cultural thing. "They love gadgets and the latest and greatest," he adds.

"They are risk takers and have succeeded economically because of innovation, so now it is ingrained in popular culture," muses John DePietro, Starent product marketing manager.

But there might be some natural inhibitors in the U.S. market. Fewer people spend lots of time commuting using public transportation. Lots of people commute by car. But you can't very well watch video on your mobile and drive at the same time.

Run on Packed Snow or Ice

So it has been snowing in Denver for 24 hours. Maybe 7 or 8 inches and it is 14 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course, cars have melted some of the snow so now there are sheets of ice mixed in with the packed snow. On such a day I typically postpone my run. But today I slapped a pair of Yaktrax on my running shoes and went out. Yaktrax are the running shoe equivalent of chains for your tires. Worked like a charm. The "Pro" version costs about $30 retail. Great technology.