Category: Telecom

Tomi Ahonen writes:

In our book we talk about the 4C’s: Commerce, Culture, Community & Conectivity as a means to reliably map whether a commercial initiative will succeed or fail in todays world. We believe you need all 4.

I was asked, what comes next? The 2.0 question. And It was a good question.

My view is that, we are just about witnessing the dramatic reordering of the media industry, and in fact many other industries driven by the falling cost of technology, the fact we are a We species, and the fact that today we are all capable of creating and distributing, knowledge, information and culture.

So what next? The next is the reordering of Medicine Education and Politics. No aspect of what makes our civil society tick will be left untouched. Darwinism is upon us. Forcing us to adapt or die.

ContentSutra interviews Rajiv Hiranandani of Mobile2Win, who offers some interesting stats: “around 15-16 million are CDMA with access to premium content. 7-9 million GSM handsets are GPRS enabled, and 40 percent (3-3.5 million) of these use operator WAP sites. So thats around 18-20 million potential targets for WAP based advertising. The situation with WAP is similar to that of Internet advertising in 1999-2000. The 14-25 year old age group is on WAP, and even the 10-11 year olds are now coming on to the mobile platform.”

Tony Fish writes: “Our mobile device is not only with us, it is increasingly part of us; it has become for many users the most personal thing. Published research suggests that we notice the loss of the mobile device faster than our wallet. The mobile device, if capable, can capture your Digital Footprint [My first impression of this was described as the slug trail in Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte 1996. Digital Footprint is also known as a Lifestream. Lifestreams will soon be structured using APML as a common data interchange format for attention or iPALS – identity, Presence, Attention, Location and Services.] which is our daily actions and activities; when we start moving in the morning, what information was searched, requested or delivered, where we have been, where we stayed and for how long. Relationship analysis using our contact base would detail who we were with and who was nearby. Other Screens of Life [Screens of Life is a phrase explored in Mobile Web 2.0 as a mechanism to describe how we interact with media; both as a consumer of content and as a creator. The screens of life being Cinema, TV, PC, HeadRest (Airplane or Car), Mobile Device, Informational (iPod)] will be unable to repeat this data collection feat, at best a fixed access Web model may get 10% of the available data of your daily pattern, TV maybe 1%, but the mobile device opens the possibility of 90%.”

BBC News writes:

As the numbers turning to 3G are climbing, those mobile networks could be forgiven for thinking that it was only a matter of time before they started recouping the considerable capital cost of buying and building that network.

Unfortunately the relentless pace of innovation may be about to dent the dreams of recovering those costs.
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As hotspots get linked up into mesh networks that offer blanket coverage they create a rival to the 3G networks currently in existence.

Tomi Ahonen writes: “June 2007 marks a watershed moment in time. Much like the Western calendar marks time from before and after Jesus Christ, and how the computer world changed totally by the Macintosh – remembering that Windows is Microsoft’s copy of the Mac operating system – I am certain that the mobile telecoms world will count its time in two Eras. The Era BI: time Before the iPhone, and the ERA AI: time After the iPhone. What will change? Pretty much everything. And funnily enough, most of it is not actually caused by the iPhone, they only happen to occur so closely to the iPhone, that the iPhone will be given much of the credit.”

Technology Review writes about the design of the new mobile phone from Helio: “The Ocean is hefty by today’s sleek standards, pill-shaped in a market of rectangular things. The company’s future will hinge on how much the intended audience appreciates those departures from conventional design. It will hinge on the layout of the device’s QWERTY keyboard. It will hinge on the simplicity of the messaging and search interface (for instance, the way it allows users to start typing from idle mode). And it will hinge on–the hinges. The Ocean (which will sell for $295, plus a monthly fee of $65 to $135 for rich-media subscriptions and varying allotments of voice minutes) sports a pair of them; operated by a novel three-way spring, they enable a keyboard to slide out from one side of the device and a numerical keypad to slide out from another.”

DailyWireless analyses all the statements and theories.

Tomi Ahonen discusses Communication, Consumption, Creation, Commerce, Community, Commercials and Control.

Reuters writes:

Mobile operators around the globe are busy rolling out 3G services and upgrades, dreaming of a day when users casually make video calls and download movies, allowing companies to reap several times more revenue per phone.

But that rosy future remains elusive. Despite the billions of dollars spent on new networks and marketing, operators are still struggling to find the new features customers cannot live without that will finally make 3G pay.
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Analysts say many operators have neglected the development of content and services that their customers want in their headlong pursuit of new technology. Meanwhile users are still mostly just using their phones to make voice calls and send text messages.

Knowledge@Wharton has a progress report:

The pieces appear to be falling in place for wireless broadband: Sprint Nextel says its next-generation high-speed network will be launched in a few markets by the end of 2007. Intel plans on embedding so-called “WiMAX” enabled semiconductors in laptops by the end of 2008, and the Federal Communications Commission on May 1 approved a laptop device that will receive WiMAX signals from a company called Clearwire. Other companies, such as T-Mobile, are supporting hybrid wireless networks so devices can hop between technologies.

Although these developments could be the Next Big Thing in broadband wireless access, it’s too early to say where this will all end up. For years, the industry has had a crystal clear vision of how users will connect to the Internet in the future: High-speed wireless devices will allow consumers to watch videos, share pictures, socialize and do many activities that haven’t even been thought up yet. The big unknown is when technology — or a combination of technologies — will make that vision a reality.