If You Build It, Will They Come?

"Build it and they will come" turned out not to be true for many application and service providers in the Internet and telecom bubble of the late 1990s. But where it comes to broadband, might it be true?

Service providers might tend to be skeptical, having lived through one bubble, and more importantly, having begun offering 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps services already, with relatively modest take rates. But Blair Levin, executive director of an entity called Gig.U , a coalition of 29 U.S. universities, thinks that is precisely what has to happen.

To some extent, bandwidth and innovation are a bit of a "chicken and egg" problem. Apps don't get built until bandwidth is available, but consumers don't buy more broadband unless there are compelling apps.

Gig.U is meeting with service providers, businesses, nonprofits and any other interested parties to flesh out plans to build it first and then see what happens, at least in college towns.

If you build it, will they come?

Apple iPhone Could Drive 1 Million Sales at Sprint in 4th Quarter

Michael Nelson at Mizuho Securities USA argues that Sprint getting the right to sell the Apple iPhone could have quite a material impact on Sprint's revenue. Sprint will be able to sell the iPhone with unlimited data plans, which could "significantly stimulate subscriber growth."

Mizuho believes Sprint could sell one million iPhones during the fourth quarter of this year and five million in 2012, though the majority of those sales, up to 80 percent, would likely be to existing Sprint customers.

Sprint's iPhone Opportunity

Technology Devices Have to Get Traction Fast

Consumer electronics has gotten to be a "get traction fast" or fail sort of business, it seems. Since most technology products have a lifecycle of perhaps a year to 18 months, that makes sense. A product that doesn't get to sales fast is a product that never will.

So, in recent years, technology companies have been cutting their losses with increasing speed.

Google's Wave, its platform of collaborative work tools, to the general public in May 2010. It canceled Wave 77 days later.

Palm announced its first tablet, the Foleo, on May 30, 2007. By Sept. 4, 2007, the company halted development and the product was never sold. The Hewlett Packard Company "TouchPad tablet is only the latest example.

Technology Devices Have to Get Traction Fast

Virginia Earthquake Drops Voice Calls

Very little damage was reported following the 5.8-magnitude earthquake in Virginia on Aug. 23, 2011, but wireless circuits wound up jammed, as you would expect. The four major wireless carriers in the U.S. reported disruptions to their voice services following what one called a “mass-calling event,” leaving text messages and wireless data services as a more-reliable way to communicate, some would argue.

For at least an hour or two after the earthquake struck at 1:51 p.m. Eastern Time, trying to make voice calls from major cities on the Eastern Seaboard was pointless, users on the east coast say.

Earthquake Drops Voice Calls, Data Gets Through

Sprint to Get Apple iPhone 5 - WSJ.com

Sprint Nextel Corp. will begin selling the iPhone 5 in mid-October 2011, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Sprint thinks getting the Apple iPhone will help Sprint reverse its post-paid subscriber slide in its most-recent quarter.

It is reasonable enough to believe that without the ability to sell the iPhone, Sprint simply is losing customers to AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

One salesman at an AT&T Wireless retail location said customers come in the door and "want the iPhone, even though we have lots of other interesting devices." Sprint needs the iPhone, for that reason.

Sprint to Get Apple iPhone 5 - WSJ.com:

Netflix Offers Lessons For Digital Disruption In Any Industry | Forrester Blogs

Netflix was supposed to be "toast." As successful as it had been in the DVD-by-mail business, it was supposed to be crushed by the transition to online delivery. At least so far, it hasn't turned out that way.

But Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey says is a powerful example of disruptive digital product strategy with lessons for other industries and firms. In a sense, Netflix was a mimic of Apple, which always emphasizes controlling the product inputs to maximize end user experience. You might argue Netflix has followed the same playbook.

"The company that controls the user’s total product experience will win, whether retailer, producer, distributor, or platform," says McQuivey. As you can imagine, that has implications for long-standing debates about the merits of "open" and "closed" approaches to product development. And the implication might be that the relatively more closed approach is winning.

"Makers of products as wide-ranging as sleeping pills, running shoes, and auto insurance should all follow Netflix’s lead and control the total product experience they deliver," says McQuivey.

There might be other lessons as well. Firms such as Amazon use digital processes in every facet of the business. Digital becomes a key element of product design, development, testing, production, distribution, and customer satisfaction. This way, a company dramatically reduces its cost to satisfy customers as well as the time it takes to trial and release new products, leading to an economic advantage.

Netflix also has used disruptive pricing based on current and future costs, not historical rates. Such "forward pricing" arguably was used deliberately by any number of service providers in the last Internet boom of the late-1990s. One can argue with the wisdom of those moves up to a point. Still, lower prices seem always to be a feature of Internet-based competition these days.

Netflix Lessons For Digital Disruption In Any Industry

Dish Network Wants to be Quadruple-Play Service Provder

Dish Network is asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to use some of its satellite spectrum to build a Long Term Evolution network that would allow rural users to communicate directly to satellites for mobile service, or to ground-based radios where feasible. Dish asks FCC for permission to build LTE network

Dish Network wants to combine the S-Band spectrum licensees it acquired from TerreStar Networks and DBSD North America and use those frequencies to underpin an LTE-Advanced network.In return for the waiver, Dish said it will commit to a "substantial terrestrial network deployment" intended to increase wireless broadband competition, including in rural areas.

"We are putting together the building blocks to be able to provide a whole suite of services to the customer," Dish President and Chief Executive Joe Clayton said. "Wireless voice, broadband, video, mobile … we're going to have the capability to do all of the above." Dish wants to be quadruple-play provider

Read more about Dish Network’s plan for its LTE network here. It is hard to say which service Dish Network might potentially offer will emerge as the anchor service. It might as arguably be mobile video as broadband access.