Category: Telecom

Fortune writes:

For a while it was assumed that Google wanted to operate a vast wireless network itself as part of its global-domination plan. Looking at Meraki, it’s clear that so long as Google can help spread free Internet access – and get its lucrative search box in front of grateful users – it’s not so particular about who provides the service.

Meraki is a small but interesting vessel for Google’s ambitions. Founded a year ago, the company grew out of research into so-called wireless mesh technology at MIT by its three founders, led by Sanjit Biswas, Meraki’s 25-year-old president and CEO. Wireless mesh allows cheap routers, or repeaters, to form a network by connecting themselves to a high-speed Internet source like a cable modem or DSL line. Meraki sells a $50 router about the size of a bar of soap that allows its user to sponge off nearby connections.

MocoNews has a commentary by Ely Ousmane Fall: “Isnt it 2007? You would think that by this time it would be common to use your cellphone to pay for your parking tickets or groceries or to start your car before leaving the office etc The possibilities are endless. The first purpose of a mobile phone was to communicate freely, regardless of your location, with humans. Now the purpose extends to communicating with our environment. In India, some users even send daily prayers to their temple by SMS. Now the purpose of mobility is to make your lifestyle easier and integrate with most of your repetitive activities…So what is slowing the evolution from Human Only to Environment Also?”

The New York Times writes:

The new AT&T has 66.5 million land-based telephone lines, 61 million wireless subscribers, 12 million broadband lines, and sells local phone service in 22 states. It has 302,000 employees.

AT&T’s $242.77 billion market capitalization by far surpasses that of the next largest phone company, China Mobile, at $ 183.13 billion, and is double that of the nearest American competitor, Verizon Communications, at $109.62 billion. The companys come a long way largely on Ed Whitacres vision, said John C. Hodulik, an analyst with UBS. Right from the beginning, he realized the benefits of scale in the telecommunications business.

WSJ writes:

In the next two to three years, consumers will be able to get TV broadcasts on their cellphones with better picture quality than current video offerings — and a greater range of live programming from major networks like NBC, FOX, ABC and Comedy Central.

Users will also get sophisticated software applications for surfing the mobile Web, and more services to connect with friends, share videos and exchange photos. And they’ll likely see mobile devices that can roam seamlessly across Wi-Fi hot spots, cellular networks and new high-speed data networks, bringing a much faster and smoother surfing experience.

And that’s just the beginning. In the longer term, advances in battery, display and storage technology could make it possible to squeeze ever more functions onto smaller handsets. And cellphones could extend even further beyond the realm of communications, to be used as credit cards to pay for groceries and airline tickets, ID cards to swipe at security checkpoints and data-storage devices.

IEEE Spectrum writes:

A cellphone based on software-defined radio would be lighter, smaller, cheaper, and more power efficient. Whats more, it would be better at making calls: instead of being stuck with one frequency or even one cellular carrier, it would automatically search out the best and least expensive way of connecting. And equipment makers wouldnt need to overhaul their products to fit every new telecommunications standard. Wireless providers would be able to roll out new services easily and troubleshoot technical glitches with a simple download.

We arent there yet, but software-defined radio is definitely coming. Dont expect an overnight transformation, though. After all, it took years for the PC to sweep aside the IBM Selectric typewriter. This revolution, too, is bound to happen in a series of incremental but significant steps.

Steps like this: Vanu, a small Cambridge, Mass., company, says that this year it will begin selling the first cellular base station that can simultaneously process two waveformsCDMA (short for code division multiple access) and GSM (global system for mobile communications)all in software running on off-the-shelf computer servers.

Xen Mendelsohn interviews John White:

MMS has not failed; the industry had totally unrealistic expectations of MMS in the first place. MMS was hyped as the natural replacement for SMS, but that shows a misunderstanding of SMS and the reasons why SMS has been such a big hit worldwide. SMS owes its success to its simplicity. It is the quickest, easiest and cheapest way for two people to communicate a short and simple message and as such it serves as an extremely useful communications option that is affordable universally, even among some of the lowest income groups of society.

MMS, on the other hand, has been misunderstood from the start. MMS should be seen more as a mobile entertainment service than as a messaging service. MMS is more complex and expensive than SMS, so consumers are unlikely to use MMS to communicate a simple message, when SMS does the job so quickly and easily and costs so little. MMS will always look like a failure when compared alongside SMS, yet when you consider MMS in its own right, as an entertainment application and content delivery tool, then MMS can be seen as a very popular and successful service.

MediaPost has an article by Steve Smith:

Likewise with phones, drilling for applications and WAP favorites, passing photos to one another and downloading music is just on the other side of the tipping point of convenience. The content is not that good to induce us to learn new habits — and the alternative, easier channels to the same information are just not that far away.

I think that mobile content would do well to get over itself. Let’s face it; having in-hand my headlines, email, games, MySpace, etc. just is not that important. Mobile data is convenient, which is different from important. Important is connecting with family and friends, which is why we learned to navigate phone interfaces to begin with, and why low-tech SMS is the mobile cash cow that mobile TV can only dream of becoming.

Forbes has an article by Clay Christensen and others:

The combination of the dramatic growth of new wireless Internet access technologies such as WiFi, the ability to use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to make voice calls and the potential rise of companies willing to give away wireless service makes disruption a real possibility.
…
What happens if companies go beyond charging a low flat rate that undercuts wireless carriers? What if they actually give away wireless voice and data service?

Free wireless access for all may be the wave of the future. In January 2006, serial entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky launched FON, an open WiFi community where members agree to share their broadband Internet connections through WiFi access points in return for the ability to use the WiFi access points of other community members. Just one month later, FON received financial backing from Google, Skype and a number of prominent venture capital firms.

Knowledge@Wharton writes about the high-speed network Verizon has built in the US:

Verizon is betting billions of dollars on a new fiber-optic network that could transform it from a telephone company to a cutting-edge technology player. If Verizon’s “build it and they will come” strategy works, the company could leapfrog over rivals, such as AT&T and Comcast, by offering faster Internet service and potentially richer video on demand. But if its fast network fails to entice consumers, the company will have created a multi-billion-dollar boondoggle.

Verizon’s new network brings fiber optic lines directly to a customer’s house. In theory, this network — the equivalent of an Internet fire hose — would give the company a platform to offer new services such as television and video games. Here’s what makes the network faster: Typically, Internet speeds slow as they get closer to a home and hit a morass of telephone lines (think of a garden hose connected to a straw). To avoid this issue, Verizon is laying the groundwork for what is called a fiber to the premises (FTTP) network — that is, fiber optic lines connected directly to a customer’s residence — that will result in speeds as fast as 50 megabits per second in selected areas. The typical cable broadband connection is about 6 megabits per second. AT&T has a similar fiber-optic network initiative but isn’t running the fiber optic lines directly to homes.

MEX discusses the buzz that Apple’s iPhone and the rumoured Google phone are getting:

If I was a Nokia or a Sony Ericsson or even a Vodafone or an Orange, Id be worried. Id be asking myself: Why, after years of trying to develop revenues from non-voice services and billions spent on marketing and R&D can companies with nascent mobile teams capture such huge consumer momentum without even shipping a product?

This question wont have a material impact on revenues today and maybe not even for several financial quarters. Even if Apple and Google were shipping killer handsets right now, its unlikely device manufacturers would feel any effect for some time. They have the advantage of massive distribution through well established channels to defend their entrenched market positions. However, it is definitely a strategic challenge which needs to be addressed at the most senior level by both hardware companies and network operators.