Are Users Dumber, Or Software Too Complex?

Tech Support: "What does the screen say now?"
User: "It says, 'Hit ENTER when ready'."
Tech Support: "Well?" Person: "How do I know when it's ready?"

Make no mistake: our civilization runs on software. So be exceedingly glad when developers hide complexity so well something seems intuitive and natural.

Useful Condescending Phrases

This is just humor: don't do this at work! And don't get me wrong: I love cats. It's just that they once were worshipped as gods, and they haven't forgotten....

1. Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.
2. The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
3. I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce.
4. Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
5. I have plenty of talent and vision. I just don't care.
6. I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid.
7. What am I? Flypaper for freaks!?
8. I'm not being rude. You're just insignificant.
9. I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
10. I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you.
11. It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off.
12. Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
13. No, my powers can only be used for good.
14. How about never? Is never good for you?
15. I'm really easy to get along with once you people learn to worship me.
16. You sound reasonable...Time to up my medication.
17. I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.
18. I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...
19. I don't work here. I'm a consultant.
20. Who me? I just wander from room to room.
21. My toys! My toys! I can't do this job without my toys!
22. It might look like I'm doing nothing, but at the cellular level I'm really quite busy.
23. At least I have a positive attitude about my destructive habits.
24. You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.
25. I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
26. Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject.

Traffic Shaping, Not Blocking

Users of RCN broadband access services are complaining about blocking of BitTorrent connections. That seems unlikely, though traffic shaping seems certain. RCN has in the past noted that more than 90 percent of upstream traffic was composed of P2P streams. And since upstream bandwidth is the key resource constraint, RCN traffic shaping was not unexpected. When users are sharing a scarce resource, some "rationing" is simply fairness.

DoCoMo or Softbank for iPhone?

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs reportedly has been talking with NTT DoCoMo and Softbank Corp. about becoming the exclusive supplier of iPhones in the Japanese market, says the Wall Street Journal. That market will be quite helpful if Apple is to meet its promised goal of 10 million iPhones sold by the end of 2008.

Japan's nearly 100 million mobile-phone users buy new phones every two years on average, and aren't adverse to paying for advanced electronics, so it seems a natural iPhone market. And smartphone adoption is headed up smartly, as this forecast by Research and Markets shows.

Apple sold a total of 1.4 million iPhones through late September, which shows the importance of adding the Japanese market to the relative handful of countries where the device can be bought. Travelers from countries where iPhone is not yet available, but which use GSM, have been known to stuff several into their bags before heading home from the United States.

Apple appears to be asking for the same percentage of revenue that it receives from other carriers, estimated at about 10 percent of revenue.

A Must-Attend Conference

I am betting that the Emerging Communications Conference 2008, to be held March 12-14, 2008 in San Jose, Calif., will be one of the best meetings of the year. It is quite hard to get Bellheads and Netheads together in any venue where people actually talk to each other. It is very hard to find venues where people interested in Web apps and communications get together. My guess is that this will be a paramount venue in that regard. You should get there.

The link is http://ecommmedia.com/.

Ribbit!

Ribbit has unveiled a new platform for developing telephony services and integrating them with Web apps, as well as what it says is a new business model as well.

The company says it has a 600-plus developer community and already can be integrated with salesforce.com.

"The world doesn't need another phone company," says Ted Griggs, co-founder and CEO at Ribbit. "What it needs is new kind of phone company, one that liberates voice from its current confines -- devices, plans and business models -- and more readily integrates into the workflow of our professional and personal lives."

At the core of Ribbit's technology offering is an open platform that enables developers to bridge the worlds of traditional telephony and the Web. The Ribbit SmartSwitch, evolved from a Lucent-tested CLASS 5 softswitch, and open Flash/Flex-based application programming interface will enable non-telephony developers to quickly build innovative, rich voice applications and integrate them into Web sites, communities and applications, Ribbit says.

By connecting voice from any Flash-enabled browser to the PSTN (public switched telephone network) and new VoIP (voice over IP) networks, over 750 million computers become the next generation of phones with developers deciding how they work, the company says.

With an assortment of back-office and service delivery infrastructure, the platform also enables developers to not only build services, but sell them as well.

In the first quarter of 2008, the Ribbit for Salesforce workflow integration will be available for salesforce.com customers via the AppExchange.

In the first quarter of 2008, Ribbit will open its service to consumers. Also in the first quarter, the company will sell commercial and enterprise packages. Both the consumer, small, medium and enterprise markets will be areas of focus for Ribbit.

Ribbit is another example of the growing "voice is a mashup" trend, where communications and voice simply are integrated with applications.

VON Coalition Europe to Provide Input to EC

The Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition Europe has formed to provide policy advocacy for IP communications in Europe. The coalition will work to educate, inform and promote responsible government policies that enable innovation and the many benefits that Internet voice innovations can deliver.

The recent release of formal Proposals by the European Commission to amend the existing regulatory framework for communications marks the start of a wide ranging review by the Council of Ministers and European Parliament.

Founding members of the VON Coalition Europe include iBasis, Intel, Google, Microsoft, Rebtel, Skype, and Voxbone.

328.7 Billion VoIP Minutes in Third Quarter

Service providers worldwide recorded an estimated traffic volume of 328.7 billion VoIP minutes during the third quarter, according to iLocus. Of those minutes 72.3 billion were local, 232 billion were national long distance and 24.4 billion were used for international long distance.

About 69.1 billion of those minutes were retail, 3.2 were wholesale local VoIP (white labeling, for example).

There is about 10 percent double counting in national long distance and about 20 percent double counting in international long distance. Double counted minutes are those minutes where the same call is being relayed by two or more carriers and counted as traffic by each one of them.

The top five service providers ranked by minutes were China Telecom, China Netcom, AT&T, China Mobile and Qwest.

13.6 Percent of U.S. Homes are Wireless Only

Preliminary results from the January–June 2007 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) indicate that more than one out of every eight American homes (13.6 percent) had only wireless telephones during the first half of 2007.

In the first six months of 2007, 13.6 percent of households did not have a traditional landline telephone, but did have at least one wireless telephone. Approximately 12.6 percent of all adults—28 million—lived in households with only wireless telephones; 11.9 percent of all children—nearly 9 million children—lived in households with only wireless telephones.

The percentage of adults living in wireless-only households has been steadily increasing since 2003, CDC finds. During the first six months of 2007, one out of every eight adults lived in wireless-only households. One year before, one out of every 10 adults lived in wireless-only households. And two years before that, in 2004, only one out of every 20 adults lived in wireless-only households.

The observed increase in the percentage of adults living in wireless-only households from the last six months of 2006 to the first 6 months of 2007 was not statistically significant.

But other observed increases over time in the percentage of adults living in wireless-only households were statistically significant, CDC finds. These results suggest a possible recent decline in the rate of increase.

The percentage of adults and the percentage of children living without any telephone service have remained relatively unchanged over the past three years. Approximately 1.9 percent of households had no telephone service. Approximately 3.5 million adults (1.6 percent) and more than one million children (1.7 percent) lived in these households.

For the period January through June 2007, the results reveal that more than one-half of all adults living with unrelated roommates (55.3 percent) lived in households with only wireless telephones.

Adults renting their home (28.2 percent) were more likely than adults owning their home (6.7 percent) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.

More than one in four adults aged 18-24 years (27.9 percent) lived in households with only wireless telephones. Nearly 31 percent of adults aged 25-29 years lived in households with only wireless telephones. As age increased, the percentage of adults living in households with only wireless telephones decreased. Wireless-only percentages were 12.6 percent for adults aged 30-44 years; 7.1 percent for adults aged 45-64 years; and two percent for adults aged 65 years or over.

Men (13.8 percent) were more likely than women (11.5 percent) to be living in households with only wireless telephones. Adults living in poverty (21.6 percent) were more likely than higher income adults to be living in households with only wireless telephones. Adults living in the South (14.9 percent) and Midwest (14 percent) were more likely than adults living in the Northeast (8.8 percent) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.

Non-Hispanic white adults (11.3 percent) and non-Hispanic black adults (14.3 percent) were less likely than Hispanic adults (18 percent) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.

CopperCom SoftSwitch Sales Halted

CopperCom is getting out of the softswitch business, says Light Reading.

Light Reading says CopperCom CEO Julian Thomson says CopperCom "will no longer market the CSX, CopperCommander, and Switchmaxx/VoiceMaxx product lines."

The decision was "primarily due to a lack of demand for our products," Thomson says. "We looked at our forecasting, our market sizing, and so forth going forward, and the demand simply wasn't there."

While competitors stand to benefit from one less softswitch vendor in the market, Light Reading says the effect of CopperCom's demise will be minimal because the company hasn't been actively competing in the market for some time.

One might note that the softswitch market is a bit smallish for the number of suppliers. Infonetics data shown above.

Vonage Outage

Users of Vonage's internet telephone service have been reporting a major service failure, ongoing since Friday. In some cases, it appears that incoming calls are not connecting. Vonage is forwarding the attempted calls to subscriber landlines and cellphones, but repeatedly, and late, some customers report.

An anonymous administrator of Vonage Forum, the independent discussion board where gripes were aired, reports that Vonage claims to have resolved the issue this morning, but users continue to report problems.

Vonage can ill afford such lapses, to say the least. Not when its advertising emphasizes how reliable the service is. Not when it faces yet another patent infringement fracas, this time with Nortel. Unfortunately, nobody in the VoIP space benefits much (competitors might enjoy Vonage's travails to an extent) when VoIP has these sorts of issues. Sooner or later, everybody is going to do VoIP, and the residue is going to cling to all the other providers when that happens.

Qwest Plans No Major Acquisitions or IPTV

After completing a months-long stratgic review, Qwest Communications essentially has decided to "stay the course." There will be "no major shifts" in Qwest's basic approach to the market.

People shouldn't expect major acquisitions or a massive move into IPTV, for example. Instead, Qwest seems to be focusing on a balance between capital investment and shareholder return issues, such as reducing debt load, buying back shares and supporting the payment of dividends.

Partnerships are the way Qwest will provide new services in areas such as video and wireless. That's good news for Sprint, who provides Qwest mobility services, and DirecTV for video entertainment. It also means Qwest will be receptive to other partnerships as well.

"We are looking at partnerships to help us with offerings in the home," Mueller says. "Partners will be a huge part of our success, going forward."

But Qwest will not be looking to make major acquisitions, or dramatically change the rate at which it invests in broadband access, undertaking a major fiber-to-home initiative, for example, though it is increasing its "fiber-to-node" efforts in a relatively controlled way.

Qwest expects by 2011 to increase its broadband penetration to increase from 23 percent to 40 percent, with higher access speeds and a nominal increase in operating costs.

The fiber-to-node deployments are not, Mueller emphasized, related to IPTV, but rather to data services. "Qwest doesn't have the scale" for that, Mueller says.

But fixed-mobile products will be launched in late 2008, to leverage the broadband access investments.

Overall, Qwest will attempt to balance capital investment with returns to shareholders, as one would conclude given Qwest's resumption of dividend payments.

Capital run rates now set at about $1.8 billion are a "good run rate for us," Edward Mueller, Qwest CEO says. "We are trying to minimize capex where it doesn't drive growth," he says. "We will try, in the network operation, be picky and minimize capital expenditures in the outside plant where it doesn't make a reasonable return for us." There also will be a bigger emphasis on "success-based" capital investment, in the enterprise space, for example.

Qwest will focus in 20 markets, including its 10-largest markets, for the FTTN upgrades. Those upgrades might include support for gaming services rather than entertainment video, with the 20 Mbps downstream access capabilities the FTTN upgrade will support. Qwest earlier had said it would spend an incremental $175 per home passed to put the FTTN network in place for 1.5 million homes.

Qwest says it will focus its wholesale efforts on "profitable expansion," suggesting a "success-based" approach to out-of-region enterprise services. The hosting part of our business has promise, Mueller says.

90% of Software Can be Delivered Online

Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, envisions that 90 percent of today's computing tasks can be moved online. High-end graphics processing is an example of a computing task probably not well suited to online use.

Google execs also argue that more and more computing tasks are unrelated to productivity suites. "If you're creating a complex document like an annual report, you want Word, and if you're making a sophisticated financial model, you want Excel. That's what the Microsoft products are great at. But less and less work is like that," said Google's Dave Girouard.

For now, 2.000 companies start to use Google Apps every day (most try the free version), Google Docs had 1.6 million U.S. users last month, according to Compete.com, while Gmail doubled its U.S. users to 20.1 million in November, according to comScore.

Why It is So Hard to Do Media These Days

Different audiences now prefer different media. Older users continue to be more comfortable with traditional media. For users 41 and younger, the Web makes more sense.

The Web surfing habits of boomers and over-60s are more firmly rooted in traditional media than those of their younger counterparts, according to a Deloitte & Touche study conducted by the Harris Group.

The study found that 67 percent of boomers visited Web sites after seeing ads on TV or in print. Matures, those between 61 and 75, were just as likely to be driven to the Web by print ads and less likely by TV ads.

Yet these two age groups were less likely than Generation X (25 to 41) or Millennials (13 to 24) to visit the Web as a result of an Internet search engine or ad on another site.

A Lumin Collaborative study reinforced the connection between boomers and traditional media. The company found that boomers, defined as those currently ages 42 to 62, spent an average of 2.69 hours a week online, versus 2.83 hours watching TV and 1.93 hours listening to the radio.

The trends were flipped among the echo boomers (ages 18 to 31) and Gen X (32 to 41), who spent more time online than watching TV or listening to the radio and whose time spent online also exceeded that of their boomer counterparts.

Lumin also noted that only 39 percent of respondents in the boomer demographic regarded the Internet as their primary channel of information about companies or products. This rate was substantially less than Gen X (53%) or echo boomers (60 percent).

Boomers were the most likely group to choose newspapers, broadcast TV or magazines as their main source of information.

All of which means all content has to be delivered dual mode these days: Web for people under 41. Other traditional media for users older than 41, to a certain extent. But the direction of the shift is inexorable. The Web wins.

Why Did Philadelphia Muni Wi-Fi Stumble?

The New American Foundation, a Washington, D.C. policy advocate, argues in a new report that the Philadelphia municipal Wi-Fi effort has stumbled because it opted for private operation of the network, instead of sticking with a originally-recommended non-profit model that also avoided any use of public tax dollars. The report is critical of the decision to award a construction and operation contact to EarthLink.

"An executive committee, set up by the mayor’s office and tasked to study Philadelphia’s options for building a municipal wireless network, assessed
the city’s situation and recommended nonprofit ownership of the network," the report says. But Wireless Philadelphia disregarded those recommendations," the report notes.

"Instead, WP yielded to political pressure when it accepted EarthLink’s bid to own and operate the network."

As a result, the study argues, "WP has underperformed because it de-prioritized public input and constituent interests." The report argues that WP would have been more effective if it had assumed ownership of the network."

I don't know about that. Is it not obvious that a municipal network, even one operated as a non-profit affair, requires a resource generation mechanism? No matter what entity had been chosen to build and operate the network, some way to support construction and operation is necessary, and given the restriction on tax support, some other resource would have to have been available. Donations, grants, commercial fees or some other way of securing support is necessary.

So is it reasonable to assume that even a non-profit approach would have worked? Most observers of the municipal Wi-Fi scene now agree that the resource model is a stumbling block.That is to say, people might very well want to have free or cheap access. But there does not seem to be a sufficient resource input model to support that, if taxes cannot be used.

No approach to building and operating a network can be successful if scores of millions of dollars cannot be raised to construct the network. The legal structure of the entity does not logically seem to be the key impediment here. If tax dollars are not available, some other means of securing the inputs obviously is required. The report contains no suggestion of what that mechanism might otherwise have been. And that, it seems to me, is the big stumbling block. To the extent a non-profit entity had been chosen, what would that entity have been able to do in this regard?

IT Staffing Crisis: Managed Services Opportunity

With only an estimated five million new workers entering a workforce in which twenty-five million will retire over the next twelve years, IT shops are facing an obvious personnel crisis, argue researchers at Ovum. "North American IT shops may well be facing a staffing perfect storm," says Tom Kucharvy, Ovum SVP.

Do the math: Lose 25 million; gain five million, for a net loss of 20 million IT personnel. Assuming technology and software continues to be more important in the future than in the past, it seems rather obvious that enterprise, small business and consumer technology support has to change, and change dramatically.

So is it not reasonable to assume that technology has to be made easier to use; support has to be virtualized (not delivered on site, by a technician)and software has to be delivered as a service?

Two big challenges are certain, Ovum argues. "The impending mass retirement of baby boomers will deplete staff and starve many companies of critical skills."

"Meanwhile, a shortage of replacements due to a smaller crop of college graduates and a dramatic decline in students planning to enter IT-related fields will compound the problem.

"Fundamentally reassessing the skills that will be needed over the next five to ten years rather than attempting to duplicate or replace current skills is the first strategic step companies must take immediately to address the issue," says Kucharvy.

Is U.K. Business Broadband Near Saturation?

By October about 1.76 million (85 percent) of the 2.12 million U.K. workplaces already had Internet access. This is much the same proportion as six months earlier, in March according to Point Topic. Which could lead to several different conclusions. One might argue that the base of potential buyers is nearly saturated. Or one could argue that the remaining 360,000 sites require some new sort of plan. One might also argue that some businesses might not require broadband, for some reason.

Point Topic’s latest results contrast with the 6.3 percent increase found for the period May 2006 to March 2007 when the pace of broadband development was still high.

Part of the problem is that most of the remaining businesses without internet access are small and poor, Point Topic notes. There is a strong positive association between workforce size and business internet penetration. Organizations with more than 250 employees all have Internet access. Businesses with only one or two employees reported 75 percent penetration.

Internet penetration is 100 percent in the businesses with the highest sales volume, particularly those in the finance sector. All businesses with over £20 million in sales have Internet access, but only 77 percent of those in the “£50k to £100k” category do.

The wholesale and business services sectors are both close to saturation with take-up at 95 percent. The least connected is the retail sector, where only 67 percent of companies have Internet access.

About half of businesses say they are making do with an ordinary, low cost, consumer type internet service. But as the number of employees in a business rises, the proportion using consumer-type internet services falls and that using more expensive business-quality services rises.

In terms of internet connection types, cable modem connections are found much more frequently at smaller workplaces, with 20 percent of all Internet-connected one or two employee businesses choosing them.

Take-up is only around five percent at medium-sized sites and they disappear altogether at the biggest ones. More common amongst businesses with greater employee numbers are satellite, fiber, ATM, leased line or frame relay connections. Some dial-up or IDSN connections are found at all workforce sizes – with ISDN much more important at the larger end.

Everybody is an Information Worker: Bill Gates

So says Bill Gates, Microsoft Chief Software Architect: One of the most important changes of the last 30 years is that digital technology has transformed almost everyone into an information worker.

A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity. This isn't true at all.

In almost every job now, people use software and work with information to enable their organisation to operate more effectively.

That's true for everyone from the retail store worker who uses a handheld scanner to track inventory to the chief executive who uses business intelligence software to analyse critical market trends.

So if you look at how progress is made and where competitive advantage is created, there's no doubt that the ability to use software tools effectively is critical to succeeding in today's global knowledge economy.

A solid working knowledge of productivity software and other IT tools has become a basic foundation for success in virtually any career.

Beyond that, however, I don't think you can overemphasise the importance of having a good background in maths and science.

If you look at the most interesting things that have emerged in the last decade - whether it is cool things like portable music devices and video games or more practical things like smart phones and medical technology - they all come from the realm of science and engineering.

The power of software

Today and in the future, many of the jobs with the greatest impact will be related to software, whether it is developing software working for a company like Microsoft or helping other organisations use information technology tools to be successful.

Bill Gates
Lifelong learning is vital

Communication skills and the ability to work well with different types of people are very important too.

A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity where you sit in an office with the door closed all day and write lots of code.

This isn't true at all.

Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs.

I also place a high value on having a passion for ongoing learning. When I was pretty young, I picked up the habit of reading lots of books.

It's great to read widely about a broad range of subjects. Of course today, it's far easier to go online and find information about any topic that interests you.

Having that kind of curiosity about the world helps anyone succeed, no matter what kind of work they decide to pursue.

Nortel Claims Patent Infringement by Vonage

Nortel Networks has sued Vonage Holdings Corp., alleging Vonage is infringing 12 Nortel patents. Of course, in some ways it is a counter-suit, as Vonage earlier had sued Nortel seeking to invalidate three of the patents.

An injunction would prevent Vonage from using technology that relates to 911 and 411 calls, as well as its "click to call" feature.

Business Model Juxtaposition

There are multiple reports from Twitter users on T-Mobile networks that Twitter streams are being interrupted. Separately, photographer Lane Hartwell has taken 5,000 images formerly available on Flickr out of public view. What's the resemblence?

Hartwell objects to images being used on the Web without credit or compensation. "I don't want people just taking my stuff and saying, 'We're going to redistribute this to the masses," she says. She wants to protect her business model, in other words.

Assuming T-Mobile actually is blocking Twitter posts, one would assume there is a similar motivation: to protect the business model.

"It is stealing," Hartwell says of the unauthorized use of her photo in a YouTube video. "I'm not a charity. This is my living."

Likewise, T-Mobile seems to be taking the position that its "short code" service requires a commercial relationship with T-Mobile.

“Twitter is not an authorized third-party service provider, and some services are not available on third-party networks or while roaming," T-Mobile is reported to have replied to a complaint about the apparent Twitter blocking.

"We may impose credit, usage, or other limits to service, cancel or suspend service, or block certain types of calls, messages, or sessions (such as international, 900, or 976 calls) at our discretion,” T-Mobile reportedly has said.

The point is that use of some resources occasionally is a direct assault on some individual's, or some enterprises's, business model, and those entities sometimes take steps to protect their business models.

The observation is that as all content, communications and information moves to IP delivery, these sorts of disputes are bound to multiply.

Search Surges

U.S. users posted a new record for the number of search queries performed on the top engines in November, with over 8.1 billion discrete searches. That’s roughly 48 monthly searches per person on average and 12 more monthly searches than the 36 per month that Compete estimated for November 2006.

Personally, I think I do something more like 48 searches an hour!

Fair Use: Tragedy of the Commons

I might not be the most popular user in defending "fair use" policies, but I have to tell you there is such a thing as the "tragedy of the commons."

Without being overly literal about it, the "tragedy of the commons" is a way of describing how free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource ultimately dooms the resource through over-exploitation.

This occurs because the benefits of exploitation accrue to individuals or groups, each of whom is motivated to maximize use of the resource, while the costs of the exploitation are distributed among all those to whom the resource is available.

As a westerner, I'll illustrate the problem by pointing to the history of conflict over grazing and water rights. Assume you are a cattle or sheep rancher, grazing those animals on open range that actually is owned by the U.S. government. Assume the market for livestock is good. Each rancher then has an incentive to add animals to the herd, increasing the intensity of grazing. At some point, there isn't enough grass to support all the animals.

Now Internet access is a shared resource, by definition. If you use a cable modem, the actual bandwidth is shared by a large number of end users. If you use Digital Subscriber Line, the sharing happens further up in the network, but the resource still is shared. "Oversubscribed," we like to say. One never provisions enough bandwidth to meet the full theoretical demand any single subscriber might use.

Basically, designers use statistics to provide enough bandwidth to meet average demand, at average times of day, and day of week, to meet the demand created by users who actually are online and using the resource at any given point.

But those statistics are based on "typical" demand. So what might be typical? For a consumer user, somewhere between one and three gigabytes of use in a month. My business use--and I am on the Web all day from roughly 6 a.m. to 8 or 9 p.m.--runs about 2.5 Gbytes a month, typically.

There always are a small number of users who "graze their cattle" vastly more extensively than the rest, creating something that might be less than a major "tragedy of the commons" problem, but clearly consuming enough bandwidth that user experience for all the other users paying the same amount of money is degraded.

"T'aint fair." There's a solution for very-high usage: buy a business plan that really offers "all you can eat" bandwidth at the level you require.

At Qwest Broadband, for example, the illustrative volume that really is excessive for a consumer user might be:
• 300,000-500,000 photo downloads in one month
• 40,000 to 80,000 typically sized MP3 music downloads in one month
• 15+ million unique e-mails each month
• Online TV video streaming of 1,000-3,000 30-minute shows each month
• 2-5 million Web page visits (approximately one every second, 24 hours per day)

Those of us who have jobs, spend time outdoors, play sports, garden, ski, raise children, go shopping, read books and so forth really don't have time to consume that much data in a month.

Some people might have to do those sorts of thing for work, but that's the point: buy business bandwidth that clearly is sold with the understanding that if you want to push the network that way, you pay more for the privilege.

So long as access bandwidth is a shared resource, there will be a "freeloading" or "tragedy of the commons" danger. Good citizenship, good manners and good neighborliness requires a little respect for other people here.

I fail to share the "outrage" of people who think they should be allowed to overgraze the commons. Nobody has a "right" to impose those costs on the rest of users who "play nice."

Windows Vs. BlackBerry in Enterprise?

A recent poll of enterprise wireless subscribers found 84 percent of respondents who do use smart phones, use a BlackBerry, according to InfoTech. Palm Treo and HTC devices trail and Microsoft OS devices, though growing fast, appear to fare no better than fourth.

But Windows Mobile finally is making inroads. "As such, the world essentially will come down to RIM vs. Microsoft in the enterprise market," says InfoTech.

More than 70 percent of respondents say email is the most important function of a smartphone, followed by Internet Wi-Fi access at 12 percent, the survey found.

More than 80 percent of respondents indicated they also use text messaging.

About 49 percent of survey respondents across all enterprise sizes said they were using wireless data card, with nearly 38 percent reporting a preference for the Verizon Wireless network.

Sprint the second-largest base at 24 percent. And speed apparently matters. Some 81 percent of respondents would switch operators to get faster speeds.

If Microsoft Had Designed GMail...

A funny spoof at http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-11-20-n35.html

SME VoIP Still a Challenge

Plenty of challenges continue to face successful providers of hosted or premises-based VoIP services. In its most recent survey of IP communications demand in the small and medium business market, Savatar Research found some “good and bad news and some that is disturbing,” says John Macario, Savatar president.

“We were expecting a bump in the market, based on the last three years of work, or at least a growth rate consistent with the past,” he says. “The bad news is that adoption is flat.” There’s not a lot of growth, he says. SME adoption is stalled at about 17 percent.

“There’s increasing frustration among SMEs,” who apparently haven’t yet gotten the message about benefits, which are clear enough based on feedback from executives who have purchased and use IP communications products and services.

It isn’t that SMEs are buying legacy phone systems. They just are not moving. They’re “just sitting on what they’ve got.” And that’s true both for premises phone systems and hosted offerings, Macario says.

All of which suggests many service providers who don’t know how to serve the market, he notes.

Macario says there is some evidence that buying might even have slowed over the last year. For those who have purchased IP communications products or services, “more than 70 percent purchased more than one year ago,” Macario says. “Only 12 percent have purchased between six months to a year ago.”

“About 15 percent have bought last six months,” he says.

The good news is that “the buyers are insanely happy,” Macario notes. About three quarters of respondents say they have gotten economic benefit while 75 percent say the systems are much easier to manage.

About 84 percent say the quality of their IP systems is as good or better than their old systems. The same percentage say the IP systems are as good or more reliable than the old systems.

As you would expect, 82 percent say the IP feature set is far better. Astoundingly, 95 percent say they would recommend or highly recommend the service or system they now use.

They “really are enthusiastic,” Macario says. Among the most-used IP features is the auto attendant capability. For many SMEs, this is the first system that allows them to do so. Half of respondents say they use it. About a third use group-oriented features or informal call center capabilities as well.

About a third use find me/follow me or simultaneous ring, he adds. About a quarter use click-to-dial and the ability to integrate with Microsoft Office applications. “People are starting to explore the feature set and figure out what else they can do,” says Macario.

But it is wireless services of various types that seem to be top of mind and growing in importance. Wireless related services also seem to have huge potential for inducing churn.

Of those who have deployed some sort of IP communications capability, about 71 percent are very or somewhat interested in FMC as a desktop replacement service, if the pricing is acceptable. About 83 percent would be interested in using it as an add-on or replacement for at least some desk devices.

Asked what else they would consider buying from the same vendor who sold the IP communications service or system, about 40 percent indicated wireless was on the list. About one third would buy Web collaboration tools like WebEx or Live Meeting services.

Demand seems to be just as high even for respondents who have not bought any IP communications service or capability. About 75 percent of those who haven’t yet bought are somewhat or very interested in fixed-mobile solutions.

Some 70 percent said somewhat or very likely to switch from their wireline service to an FMC offering and 70 percent said they would switch from their current mobile provider to get the capabilities.

About 71 percent of respondents who haven’t yet bought an IP solution would be interested in mobile desktop replacement as well.

Respondents say they would be willing to consider replacing at least some desktop phones if doing do saves about 20 percent from their total communications bill.

About 35 percent of respondents say they now pay for employee use of mobiles, picking up between 76 and 100 percent of the cost of the service.

Traditional telcos also are getting more traction and mindshare in the business VoIP space, it appears. For two years, traditional phone companies have got a really low share where it comes to SME executive perception about “who” provides business VoIP servicers, says Macario.

This year, telcos moved seven points higher. About 24 percent of respondents now view telcos as providers of business VoIP. Interestingly, 29 percent said cable companies come to mind as providers of business VoIP.

Non-traditional providers fare best at smaller firms. As firm size goes up, telcos do better. In the 50 to 99 employee segment, only 20 percent say non-traditional telcos are logical providers. And note: the cable gets 22 percent of the votes in that segment category.

That might be surprising for CLEC and other executives who think cable will not get traction in the SME space. “When a CLEC or a pureplay provider knocks at the door, they want to know who they are,” says Macario. “Cable has a brand. That helps.”

Cable already has surprising share at the lower end of the broadband access market. In the one-to-four-employees segment, “about half use cable modems,” says Macario.

“Once you get up to five to 19 employees, then 11 percent have T1s,” he notes. “DSL share is 47 percent, 25 percent T1 at slightly larger firms.”

Overall, says Macario, service providers, in a broad sense, aren’t doing a good job of communicating the benefit of making a switch to IP communications.

More Personalized Digital Media

U.S. consumers across all demographics and geographies appear to be adopting digital behavior that is far more personalized, distributed and niche oriented that executives at Avenue A/Razorfish previously had thought. In fact, a recent survey of 475 consumers found that the majority are personalizing their digital experiences and sampling a wide range of niche content.

Those behaviors span recommendation engines, blogs, customized start pages, video consumption, mobile behavior and use of social media. About 60 percent of respondents have customized their home pages, for example. And 82 percent use bookmarks “all” or “most” of the time.

But there is less use of more participatory features. About 18 percent subscribe to Really Simple Syndication feeds “all” or “most of the time.” About 39 percent read “most popular” or “most emailed” links “all” or “most” of the time.

Only about 12 percent use tag clouds “all” or “most” of the time.

According to the survey, nearly 70 percent of consumers read blogs on a routine
basis, and 41 percent have their own blog, or post frequently to blogs. In fact,
46 percent of consumers who responded to the survey read four or more blogs
on a regular basis. All of that blog activity is significantly cutting into the
reach of traditional media outlets, Avenue A/Razorfish notes.

Some 91 percent of consumers rely on the Web to get current news or information, vastly eclipsing more traditional outlets such as television, Avenue A/Razorfish says.

The growing use of niche content also can be seen in respondent consumption of music and video consumption as well. Some 67 percent of consumers watch videos on YouTube or similar sites on a regular basis and 42 percent purchase music online. Avenue A/Razorfish executives conclude that online video not only is becoming more pervasive but also is affecting offline consumption.

For example, 85 percent of consumers have watched a movie preview online before going to see the film at a theater. Some 58 percent of consumers have used a service to download (iTunes) or order (Netflix/Blockbuster) films online, and 71 percent have watched a TV show online.

Consumers also appear to react positively to recommendation engines and personalized services: 62 percent of respondents have made a purchase based on personalized recommendations (by retailers such as Amazon.com) while 72 percent find such services helpful.

Broadband Changes Just About Everything

Broadband might not change everything, but it changes an awful lot for communications and content service and application providers. For starters, broadband drives a tripling of user time spent online, says Nate Elliott, Jupiter Research senior analyst. That means users already spend more time online than with print media.

To the extent that service and application providers support their business models by advertising revenue, that means more revenue for Web sites and applications, less for print vehicles.

Where a typical user might spend three hours a week with print media, users in western Europe routinely spend four hours a week online. But there’s a huge difference. About two thirds of users who are 65 or older spend more than five hours a week with print media. Users between 15 and 24 are more than 400 percent less likely to do so.

By some recent measures, user involvement with content sites has eclipsed use of the Internet for communications. At least, that’s what the Online Publishers Association says.

Jupiter analysts say that does not mean “news” is dead, or that newspapers are necessarily dead, yet. News is the top type of online content, and users are 300 percent more likely to consume news than sports or video content. And rates of consumption of print haven’t changed in four years, Jupiter says.

Without a doubt, online video consumption is getting to be quite mainstream. Last year, 22 percent of Americans and 11 percent of Europeans reported watching video regularly, with 18 percent of French respondents saying they do so regularly, says Jupiter.

Overall, the video audience has doubled since 2003, and Jupiter estimates viewership will double again by 2011.

But something might have happened over the last year. A recent survey by the Pew Internet and American Life project found that 57 percent of all Internet users, and 57 percent of users between 30 and 49, have watched online video. In the oldest age demographic, 39 percent have watched an online video.

Possibly 10 to 18 percent of older users report watching video every day, the Pew research finds.

About a quarter of younger users between 15 and 24 say they watch online video regularly and are more than 12 times more likely to watch video as users who are 55 or older. That doesn’t necessarily mean those viewers have substituted online video for legacy TV, though, as reported TV watching hasn’t changed.

The intensity of involvement might be questionable, however. About 27 percent of users say they regularly multitask, using multiple media at once.

And while some surveys suggest communication activities are decreasing, Jupiter researchers say users “spend most of their online time communicating.” Compared to dial-up users, broadband users are 57 percent more likely to use email regularly, 147 percent more likely to use instant messaging regularly and are 125 percent more likely to blog.

More than 10 percent of European users visit social networks regularly and more than 40 percent visit such sites daily. In the U.S. market, use of social networking sites is spreading to older age groups. About 35 percent of social network users are between the ages of 35 and 54.

The thing about social networks is that they are in many ways substitutes for other activities such as email, instant messaging, texting, calling or entertainment sites and applications.

And while most new online activities are disproportionately engaged in by younger users, just about every new type of activity is being adopted by older users as well.

Big Future for Location-Based Services?

Location-based services might not be a big mass market business yet, but it seems almost inevitable that they will be. You don't get the likes of Nokia and Google placing such big bets on location-based services without something developing.

ABI Research expects personal navigation devices (PNDs) will grow to a global sales volume of more than 100 million units by 2011. While dedicated PNDs will remain the preferred form-factor for use in cars, GPS will increasingly be an expected ingredient in handsets, portable media players (PMPs), ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs), and other mobile devices, ABI forecasts.

Handset-based GPS will grow strongly in North America, reaching a sales volume of 21 million units by 2012, ABI Research forecasts.

In-Stat reaches very similar overall conclusions, though it adds digital cameras and even handheld games to the mix of devices expected to include GPS. In-Stat predicts that sales of mobile devices with integrated GPS will grow from 180 million units in 2007 to 720 million units in 2011.

In fact, mapping-related and location-related Web apps might be more commercially attractive than entertainment was expected to be. For starters, mobile Web advertising revenues in 2011 are expected to be dominated by Web and search. In fact, Strategy Analytics estimates that about 76 percent of all mobile advertising will be generated either by Web apps or search.

All of that dovetails with Google’s thinking about the advertising potential of the mobile Web. And the point is that if consumers find location-based Web apps attractive, and there is a robust advertising support model, carriers are bound to see big increases in broadband service plans, even if they don’t see similarly robust demand for walled-garden enhanced services.

Orange UK: Still Looking for Killer App

Mobile Web appears to be the most-frequently-used mobile app, according to new data from Orange U.K.(France Telecom).

Orange U.K. has 1.4 million broadband wireless customers, but the single most-used application is text messaging, which doesn't require broadband access. Orange U.K. customers send or receive about 71 text messages a day (more than 2,000 a month) but just about 4.3 Multimedia Message Service (MMS) messages a day (129 a month) for users who take advantage of MMS, and most do not.

About 58 percent of Orange U.K. customers can use MMS and six-month usage growth was 37 percent.

In the mobile search area, Orange saw about 250,000 repeat visitors each day, on a base of 1.4 million users. One might therefore estimate that about 18 percent of the base uses mobile search daily.

Orange users downloaded about 7,680 games a day across the user base, up about 3.4 percent over the last six months. Music downloads grew about 15 percent over the last six months to about 3,280 a day.

Orange mobile TV usage is said to be growing at double the management forecast, but one suspects the numbers still are fairly low, as the actual numerical results were not released. Mobile video clip downloads averaged 5,211 a day.

Downloads of logos, wallpapers and pictures averaged 3,233 a day. On the other hand, users are uploading about 23,333 photos a day to online photo albums.

So far, the story would seem to be consistent with what many would have expected: lots of niche applications but no single “killer app” beyond text messaging, which doesn’t require a 3G network. Orange U.K., like other mobile service providers, remains in a “throw it on the wall and see what sticks” mode, watching to see what apps are most compelling to users of 3G services.

So far, no other mobile carrier has discovered the elusive application that users intuitively understand and that is capable of driving 3G access. Right now, that’s the point: keep experimenting.

So far, one would have to conclude that mobile Web usage is the leading app, in terms of daily hits.

No EchoStar Purchase for at&t

at&t appears to have decided not to buy EchoStar to jumpstart its TV business, as it has boosted its dividend and launched a stock buyback program.

In total, at&t might spend roughly $17 billion in 2008 on dividends and buybacks, consuming most or all of the cash its businesses are likely to generate, leaving little to finance a purchase of EchoStar.

at&t also plans to expand U-Verse to cover 30 million households by 2010 in the 22 states where AT&T is the main local-phone company, up from an earlier target of 18 million households.

Broadband access strategy might have played a role in the thinking as well. By speeding its TV capabilities, at&t automatically creates a better network for high-speed access as well.

Make that 9 Reasons IT Won't Support iPhone

Apple appears to be working on improving the iPhone's support of Microsoft's Exchange email platform, which could finally deliver true syncing capabilities, eliminating a potential objection to enterprise adoption. At least that's what one would conclude from a new company job posting.

The listing seeks a "motivated, highly-technical Exchange test/sync engineer with excellent problem solving and communication skills."

"You will join a dynamic team responsible for qualifying the latest iPhone products," the company wrote. "Your focus will be testing Exchange and Outlook functionality with Apple’s innovative new phone."

So far, the iPhone's official support of Exchange has been limited to IMAP functionality.

The lack of full support for the Microsoft platform is commonly cited as one of the primary barriers to adoption of the Apple handset by businesses, as Exchange is widely deployed as the email solution of choice amongst the corporate world.

But there are lots of other reasons enterprise IT might not be rushing to embrace the iPhone as an officially supported device. See the post below.

10 Reasons IT Won't Support iPhone

Forrester Research has put together a really good list of the top 10 reasons enterprise technology managers will not to support the iPhone. The objections are valid and important. And somehow we think users are going to use iPhones anyway, with or without enterprise support. Some of the objections are more important than other.

But Forrester analyts also note that enterprise "C" level executives are using them anyway, so it is only a matter of time before the iPhone filters down the corporate pyramid.

1. Doesn’t natively support push business email or over-the-air calendar sync. The iPhone can sync with Microsoft’s Exchange and IBM’s Lotus Notes over IMAP and SMTP ports, but server and security administrators have to configure their infrastructure to do so or purchase a mobile gateway. The issue is "doesn't natively support" push email. People can work around that, or the email services can be tweaked. A problem, but not a really big problem.

2. Doesn’t accommodate third-party applications, including those internally developed. This is a big problem. But Apple software engineers must know this. And there are rumors Apple already is working on a software developer kit that should take care of this objection.

3. There isn't a way to encrypt data on the device. Yes, this is a pretty big problem.

4. Can’t be remotely locked or wiped in the event of a lost or stolen device. Also a big problem.

5. Lacks a hard keypad that provides feedback, which isn’t ideal for rapid and accurate input. Not a major objection, ultimately. Yes, accuracy typically is less than on a QWERTY keyboard. But this is an irritant, not a show stopper. And people get better at it with practice, it seems.

6. Limited service provider support and its carrier lock-in inhibits flexibility. Issues, yes, but not as big a deal as the security issues.

7. It is expensive. Well, it is being bought by consumers, who bring them into the enterprise environment, so not a direct enterprise problem.

8. Is only the first generation, and lacks 3G support. This problem fixes itself.

9. Lacks a removable battery. Definitely an irritant. Apple doesn't seem to want to sell replacement batteries. But that support isn't available for iPods either, and we have found ways to replace those batteries.

10. There are no case studies of firms that have deployed it enterpris-ewide. Sure, IT will say this, but it isn't a major objection, ultimately.

One reason the iPhone probably is used in smaller businesses is that people don't have all those custom apps to support. And we are entering an era where maybe there are some devices and apps that IT will simply say it won't support, but users can buy them and do their own support. Younger users will do that. Even some of us older users will do so.

Really, its is the security and support for proprietary enterprise apps that are the real barriers.

Qwest to Reinstate Dividend

Qwest Communications will issue its first dividend since 2001, setting a recurring quarterly payout to shareholders of eight cents per share. In some ways, the move represents the final end to the "dot bomb" and telecom crash of the early 2000s.

Zayo Buys Citynet Fiber Network

Zayo Group is acquiring Tulsa, Okla.-based Citynet Fiber Network, the wholesale division of communications provider, Citynet. CFN will become part of Zayo Bandwidth, Zayo Group's fiber based bandwidth business unit.

The CFN network has 8,500 route miles of fiber covering 57 Tier I-III markets in 10 states. The company's on-net buildings encompass many major carrier locations like local exchange carrier central offices, carrier hotels and wireless mobile switching centers.

The transaction is acquisition number six for Zayo, and part of the continuing consolidation trend in the U.S. metro access space.

Conflicting Regulatory Silos Keep Popping Up

One of the problems everybody faces as we move increasingly to a world of IP-enabled communications, information and entertainment is that a growing clash is occurring, piecemeal, between historically-distinct regulatory silos. Whether we can stumble forward forever, without acknowledging the end of regulatory silos, as well as technology or industry silos, remains open to question.

The problem is simply that different sorts of activities and businesses are governed by distinctly-different frameworks. Magazines and newspapers, for example, operate under First Amendment "free speech" rules and have virtually no "common carrier" obligations.

TV and radio broadcasters operate under different rules, with more limited "free speech" rights (broadcasters do not enjoy unrestricted rights to transmit any sort of content). Cable TV regulation is more akin to broadcasting than telecom regulation, but there are some tax and local franchising rules that are more akin to common carrier businesses.

Telecom companies operate under the most-restrictive rules, with legal requirements to interconnect with other telecom service providers and deliver their traffic. Data services and content generally have been immune from these rules, though. That's why the Web, and Web content, have developed essentially as a zone of freedom.

Of course, in the U.S. market there is more talk about "network neutrality", a troublesome issue not because of the immediate implications some attribute to it, but because it is just one more examples of how the old "silos" of regulation are breaking down, and becoming intellecutually incoherent in a world where media, TV, radio, music, talk, testing, Web surfing and data communications all occur over one physical pipe.

Should that not require some harmonization or revamping of the fundamental regulatory regimes each of the media types up to this point has enjoyed? And here's the crux of the matter: how does one square first amendment, "zone of freedom" rules historically applied to newspapers, magazines, data services and the Web, with common carrier rules applied to telcos, or the quasi-regulated broadcasting industry?

The fact that delivery modes change does not alter the zone of freedom newspapers, magazines and other media, even "Web media" are supposed to have. And the U.S. courts have ruled that corporations do possess rights of free speech as well. So the issue is whether the zone of freedom is expanded or contracted as multiple media types are delivered over IP pipes.

So it is that some consumer and public advocacy groups are urging the Federal Communications Commission to declare that "short code" text messages deserve the same nondiscriminatory treatment by telephone carriers as email and voice messages.

So are "short codes" advertising, a direct response mechanism, or are they "speech." And whose "speech" rights are supposed to be protected? Those of the speaker, as the early founders seemed to think, or the rights of the "listener," as jurists increasingly have argued over the past 50 years or so?

The issue is more complicated than sometimes positioned. Text messaging services might include a "zone of freedom" in terms of what is said. But note that the freedom is for the speaker. But who is the "speaker" whenever we are looking at media?

The Washington Post might not accept advertising from its competitor, the Wall Street Journal. Verizon Wireless might not accept ads from Sprint or T-Mobile. Cable companies don't take ads from telephone companies marketing competing services. In those cases, rights of speech are exercised by a "speaker." A TV, cable or radio network has the right not to allow speech (advertising also is speech) to be paid for and transmitted.

The fundamental problem is that as IP pipes carry virtually all communications, information and entertainment, we are going to see more disjointed efforts to regulate "unlike" things in "like" ways. That will be the corollary to regulating "like" things in "unlike" ways.

at&t Renegotiates Yahoo Deal

at&t says it is close to renegotiating a contract with Yahoo Inc. that undoubtedly will result in Yahoo earning less money. Under the current deal, Yahoo earns as much as $250 million a year of revenue. The renegotiation is expected to affect other deals Yahoo has with other telecom service providers.

The renegotiation is a reminder: large telcos often partner with other entities when entering a new market, and sometimes move slowly in those markets. That doesn't mean the relationships are stable. Ultimately, as they acquire the skills they believe they need, and scale, some partners aren't so important and "value" moves back inside the service provider organization.

There sometimes is a perception by outsiders that telcos are too "dumb" or "too slow moving" to dominate new markets. On the contrary, telcos are big enough, and smart enough, to wait for markets to develop before making a move to dominate. It's a business strategy, not an indication of "not getting it."

Mobility and Video Will Drive Growth

If Bear Stearns analysts are correct, mobile penetration will zoom past 100 percent, as will digital TV penetration, quite soon. Which suggests those two types of devices are where ad revenue opportunities are brightest, not to mention other sorts of "for fee" services and applications.

at&t to Drop DirecTV

at&t will stop offering DirecTV services to its customers toward the end of the first quarter. The not-unexpected move came as at&t found itself reselling both DirecTV and Dish Network services as a result of its acquisition of BellSouth, which had been a DirecTV partner. In its own territory, at&t has been partnering with Dish Network.

The Dish Network contract itself expires at the end of 2008, but at&t's longer business relationship with EchoStar, which offers the Dish Network service, probably is decisive.
DirecTV has to have anticipated the decision and has to be expected to roll out new channel and direct sales efforts early next year, to compensate for the loss of sales momentum from at&t.

It will have a lot of work to do. By some estimates, at&t accounted for an estimated 15.2 percent of DirecTV's gross additions but 58 percent of net subscriber growth. And though DirecTV probably will end 2007 with strong subscriber growth at the same level it saw in 2006, 2008 obviously will be more challenging.

Singapore will Structurally Separate NGN

Singapore is issuing a request for proposal to build a next-generation optical access network and has decided it will be built using a "structural separation" regime, where one company will build and own the access facilities and provide wholesale access to any retail provider that wants to use the network.

The RFP to construct the network will therefore provide for structural separation of the passive network operator from the retail service providers. If necessary, the government also is prepared to mandate open access provisions.

Put your finger in the air. The wind is blowing. As Bob Dylan once said: "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

Android: It's the Business Models

The most important thing about Android, the open mobile operating system and platform sponsored by Google, is arguably not the technology or the implications for handset cost: it's the development of business models.

One might think: "well, this is open source, so we will look for business models that are like the existing models for open source." But that's probably not going to be the case. Today's revenue model for open source is payment for enhancements, support and training.

To some extent, the business model is implicit rather than explicit. If I am a hardware or software applications provider, I simply use Asterisk because it is a lower-cost way of implementing something that an end user actually buys, even it the thing being bought essentially is a "legacy" requirement.

Voice mail, phone system or messaging platform are examples. In those cases, the operating system is an input to a business model, but not the model, which is the same one that existed before the open source tool was available.

Translated into a mobile market, it looks different. Open source will not do much, in and of itself, to lower the cost of a handset. So open source doesn't necessarily mean "cheap or free handset."

One can assume handset makers using Android will stabilize their versions so there is little need for third party end user support. That is a bug, not a feature, in the mobile end user world.

And since the whole idea is "easy to use," there shouldn't be much of a market created for training people how to use, develop, maintain and upgrade their operating systems. End users don't want to do that.

Assuming Android devices are used on existing networks (the 700-MHz C band network remains a bit of a wild card), the pricing models for data access are relatively affordable already, so it isn't clear whether there is immediate impact on data plan pricing either.

So consider Android a better way to help create a mobile Web business. The mobile phone business is built on recurring payment of access fees for voice, text and data access. The mobile Web just assumes access.

So the revenue model must begin where the Web itself begins. And that means advertising, to the extent that features and content have to be monetized directly. Of course, there's also content and applications given away for free in hopes that the attention will lead to support for some other business model, be that public relations, consulting, marketing, software or what have you. In that case a content provider doesn't necessarily require a revenue model.

But that's not what service providers, device manufacturers and application providers are looking at. The issue is revenue. And from where I sit, that means a media model.

The media model includes "for fee" and "for free" services and content, with greater or lesser degrees of advertising support. That means "aggregating eyeballs" and "aggregating highly-detailed information about the owners of those eyeballs" and "tracking the behavior of those people." That makes the advertising model quite valuable.

In the mobile arena, valuable as in "can I entice you to visit Starbucks right now; it is around the corner?" Valuable as in "are you hungry and a lover of good Thai food? You are half a block away."

Some will speculate about whether an entirely ad-supported model is conceivable. Well, it's conceivable, but not likely. Broadband access isn't free. But that isn't the point. If the value is high enough, a reasonable fee is not a barrier to usage.

Android is more likely to have an impact in making the mobile Web, and applications built on the mobile Web, far easier to use and vastly richer in functionality.

That's a hugely important and economically significant activity. But I don't think Android is about "free phone calls" or "free Web access" or "free phones," as many either think or hope for. Rich applications will be reward enough for users, who are quite capable of figuring out a value-for-money proposition. Android is about the promise of a mobile Web so useful we won't mind paying access fees to use it.

The one exception is that some users will appreciate "sometimes" being able to use Wi-Fi hot spots to access applications. This is a subset of users who choose not to pay a recurring fee for fully-mobile access, and want to rely on Wi-Fi for all of their connectivity.

Then there are users who occasionally will be happy to have Wi-Fi access for signal strength reasons, even if they are comfortable with a fully-mobile broadband connection.

Still, it seems likely that the early pull of Android applications is going to be location-based. "Where am I? How do I get there? Where can I find it? I didn't know that was on sale. So that's where you are."

Ad-supported phone calls, devices or access might have some role to play, sometimes. But I doubt that's the big impact.

Cable Squeezed on Both Ends

Most observers expect telco-delivered video to gradually take market share from cable operators, though modestly over the next couple of years. Most observers also think satellite-delivered services have crested, and will be lucky to hold onto their current market shares.

But one suspects there will be more change, longer term, than most observers now expect. For starters, video demand itself could shift to other IP formats, including at least some forms of Web video. So far, there isn't all that much evidence of shift. Consumers haven't embraced any of the devices and services that port video over to TV screens, though there continues to be evidence of a lessening of interest in linear television on the part of younger consumers.

Nearer term, satellite providers remain aggressive about high-definition TV services and pricing, and most consumers seem pleased with their satellite service.

And as compelling as many consumers find triple-play or quadruple-play services, not all buyers will find the pricing the most-compelling attraction. Some services, networks or suppliers are going to be picked as "best of breed" by some portion of the market, despite the fact that a bundle can be purchased from two providers in a market.

That will continue to put some incremental pressure on cable providers, who are using bundling, as telcos are, to lock in and protect the current customer base.

at&t U-Verse: 30 Million Homes Passed by 2010

at&t says it expects its U-Verse fiber-to-customer-driven video service to be available in 30 million homes by the end of 2010, compared to 5.5 million as of its last quarter. The company has said it hopes to pass 17 million homes by the end of 2008.

For users not interested in at&t's IPTV offering, the extension of the fiber-to-customer network means higher broadband access speeds will be available as well. For many of us, if not for at&t, that is the more important part of the story.

CLECs Must Race Tide

Even though consumers now account for only about 22 percent of total incumbent telco revenue, and even though dominant telcos are losing share in that market, competitors in the business segment essentially are racing an incoming tide.

That tide is lost incumbent market share. At some point, regulators will decide the market leaders have lost enough share, and give incumbents more freedom to price and package their services, which inevitably will lead to higher wholesale rates for competitors that now rely on incumbent facilities--and wholesale discounts based on their market power--to build their businesses.

So the essential strategic task is to take share now, while it can be more easily gotten, knowing that competitive conditions will sharpen once the incumbents are more free to package and price. And that tide is coming in.

U.S. telcos continue to lose residential phone subscribers to both cable VoIP and wireless subscriptions at a steady seven to eight percent a year, according to Citigroup analyst Michael Rollins. Wireless is a lesser issue, as incumbents own a majority of that business, and simply must cope with product substitution. Wireless penetration should rise from an estimated 83 percent this year to 87 percent by the end of 2008.

Indeed, by 2010, wireless-only households should rise to 27 percent, from 13 percent last year and an estimated 17 percent this year, Rollins argues.

Cable VoIP penetration should jump from 10 percent last year and an estimated 14 percent this year to 25 percent by 2010. If the Federal Communications Commission sticks with precedent, that is going to be enough lost share to trigger an end to wholesale access policies favorable to CLECs.

If Rollins is right, those deregulation rules will start to trigger in just a couple of years. Of course, one can argue that market share losses in residential are not the same thing as losses in the business markets. But that hasn't stopped the FCC from deregulating in the past.

Ironically, incumbent market share loss is the very thing that will unleash them as more formidable competitors.

If Operating Systems Were Airlines: Part 2

If Operating Systems Ran The Airlines...

UNIX Airways

Everyone brings one piece of the plane along when they come to the airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together piece by piece, arguing non-stop about what kind of plane they are supposed to be building.

Air DOS

Everybody pushes the airplane until it glides, then they jump on and let the plane coast until it hits the ground again. Then they push again, jump on again, and so on...

Mac Airlines

All the stewards, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents look and act exactly the same. Every time you ask questions about details, you are gently but firmly told that you don't need to know, don't want to know, and everything will be done for you without your ever having to know, so just shut up.

Windows Air

The terminal is pretty and colourful, with friendly stewards, easy baggage check and boarding, and a smooth take-off. After about 10 minutes in the air, the plane explodes with no warning whatsoever.

Windows NT Air

Just like Windows Air, but costs more, uses much bigger planes, and takes out all the other aircraft within a 40-mile radius when it explodes.

Windows XP Air

You turn up at the airport,which is under contract to only allow XP Air planes. All the aircraft are identical, brightly coloured and three times as big as they need to be. The signs are huge and all point the same way. Whichever way you go, someone pops up dressed in a cloak and pointed hat insisting you follow him. Your luggage and clothes are taken off you and replaced with an XP Air suit and suitcase identical to everyone around you as this is included in the exorbitant ticket cost. The aircraft will not take off until you have signed a contract. The inflight entertainment promised turns out to be the same Mickey Mouse cartoon repeated over and over again. You have to phone your travel agent before you can have a meal or drink. You are searched regularly throughout the flight. If you go to the toilet twice or more you get charged for a new ticket. No matter what destination you booked you will always end up crash landing at Whistler in Canada.
OSX Air:

You enter a white terminal, and all you can see is a woman sitting in the corner behind a white desk, you walk up to get your ticket. She smiles and says "Welcome to OS X Air, please allow us to take your picture", at which point a camera in the wall you didn't notice before takes your picture. "Thank you, here is your ticket" You are handed a minimalistic ticket with your picture at the top, it already has all of your information. A door opens to your right and you walk through. You enter a wide open space with one seat in the middle, you sit, listen to music and watch movies until the end of the flight. You never see any of the other passengers. You land, get off, and you say to yourself "wow, that was really nice, but I feel like something was missing"

Windows Vista Airlines:

You enter a good looking terminal with the largest planes you have ever seen. Every 10 feet a security officer appears and asks you if you are "sure" you want to continue walking to your plane and if you would like to cancel. Not sure what cancel would do, you continue walking and ask the agent at the desk why the planes are so big. After the security officer making sure you want to ask the question and you want to hear the answer, the agent replies that they are bigger because it makes customers feel better, but the planes are designed to fly twice as slow. Adding the size helped achieve the slow fly goal.

Once on the plane, every passenger has to be asked individually by the flight attendants if they are sure they want to take this flight. Then it is company policy that the captain asks the passengers collectively the same thing. After answering yes to so many questions, you are punched in the face by some stranger who when he asked "Are you sure you want me to punch you in the face? Cancel or Allow?" you instinctively say "Allow".

After takeoff, the pilots realize that the landing gear driver wasn't updated to work with the new plane. Therefore it is always stuck in the down position. This forces the plane to fly even slower, but the pilots are used to it and continue to fly the planes, hoping that soon the landing gear manufacturer will give out a landing gear driver update.

You arrive at your destination wishing you had used your reward miles with XP airlines rather than trying out this new carrier. A close friend, after hearing your story, mentions that Linux Air is a much better alternative and helps.

Linux Air

Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start their own airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave the runways themselves. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of printing the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket yourself.

When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a copy of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat is very comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without a single problem, the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell customers of the other airlines about the great trip, but all they can say is, "You had to do what with the seat?"