...overheard a quick comment from a fellow conference goer today, which underscores some of my issues with the opportunity for operator-controlled IMS services:
"Well, obviously for my work life I use my company email address at ___.com ... but personally, I've been a Yahoo! Mail user for years - I even pay for it - and if my carrier tried to block access to it from my mobile, I'd obviously move to another provider"
Amusingly ___.com is a very large European cellular equipment vendor, that is currently pitching operator IMS solutions very loudly indeed....
Dean Bubley's Disruptive Wireless: Thought-leading wireless industry analysis
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Monday, November 28, 2005
killing time?
I'm in Korea for a conference at the moment, and spent a few days in Seoul before coming down to the island of Jeju for the event. I've been keeping an eye on the way the Koreans buy and use their cellphones and other bits of technology.
One of the things that I've noticed is just how much "personal technology" there is around. Not just cellphones, but also huge numbers of MP3 players (but few iPods), and also "proper" digital cameras. It's also telling that this is a very low-crime society, so nobody worries about the risks of wearing a few hundred dollars-worth of gizmos on a lanyard around their necks or in their handbags.
Also, as is well-documented elsewhere, there are hundreds of PC gaming / Internet shops known as PC-Bangs (as well as DVD-Bangs and other "outside of home" pay-per-hour technology locations that would normally be covered by home consumer electronics usage in Europe or North America)
Koreans use their phones a lot. Sit (or more likely stand) on the Seoul subway, and there is a large percentage of people pecking away at keys (mostly games or SMS), and a substantially smaller number actually talking (there's decent cellular coverage in the metro). Interestingly, there are far fewer people actually talking on their phones on the streets & other locations as well.
This has got me thinking about the way some of the much-vaunted new applications like mobile-TV and gaming are being pitched in Europe. Quite often, I've heard terms like "ways of killing time", "info-snacking", "mobisodes" and so on. The idea being that when people have a couple of spare minutes, they could use these new mobile apps rather than perhaps read a newspaper.
But in the UK certainly, and probably elsewhere in "chatty" countries with few taboos about talking on the phone in public (Italy, for example), I'm wondering if larger bundles of voice minutes & better in-building coverage would just make people use more voice instead. If you've got a few minutes free - why not call your friends or family? why bother trying to download music onto your phone (and paying through the nose for it), when you could have a good gossip instead "for free"?
One of the things that I've noticed is just how much "personal technology" there is around. Not just cellphones, but also huge numbers of MP3 players (but few iPods), and also "proper" digital cameras. It's also telling that this is a very low-crime society, so nobody worries about the risks of wearing a few hundred dollars-worth of gizmos on a lanyard around their necks or in their handbags.
Also, as is well-documented elsewhere, there are hundreds of PC gaming / Internet shops known as PC-Bangs (as well as DVD-Bangs and other "outside of home" pay-per-hour technology locations that would normally be covered by home consumer electronics usage in Europe or North America)
Koreans use their phones a lot. Sit (or more likely stand) on the Seoul subway, and there is a large percentage of people pecking away at keys (mostly games or SMS), and a substantially smaller number actually talking (there's decent cellular coverage in the metro). Interestingly, there are far fewer people actually talking on their phones on the streets & other locations as well.
This has got me thinking about the way some of the much-vaunted new applications like mobile-TV and gaming are being pitched in Europe. Quite often, I've heard terms like "ways of killing time", "info-snacking", "mobisodes" and so on. The idea being that when people have a couple of spare minutes, they could use these new mobile apps rather than perhaps read a newspaper.
But in the UK certainly, and probably elsewhere in "chatty" countries with few taboos about talking on the phone in public (Italy, for example), I'm wondering if larger bundles of voice minutes & better in-building coverage would just make people use more voice instead. If you've got a few minutes free - why not call your friends or family? why bother trying to download music onto your phone (and paying through the nose for it), when you could have a good gossip instead "for free"?
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
xMax.... there's something there, but I can't be sure exactly what....
Met up with xG Technology the other day - those guys with the seemingly-unbelievable wireless broadband technology that they reckon is orders of magnitude more efficient (power, range etc) than WiMAX or other emerging technologies.
Unlike some journalists, I haven't had a demo, but I got to chat with their execs in some detail. They answered lot of my questions about latency, indoor performance and so on, but it seems like a lot of this will be up to exactly how the radio is implemented by any future licencees. There's nothing obviously untoward in the basic technology itself which would act as a limiting factor.
Apparently it works by modulating a signal onto a single wave cycle, rather than the 100s / 1000s of cycles more commonly used in other types of radio. (The long-buried physicist in me does wonder if this might induce any odd quantum effects, by trying to interpret a single wave, rather than averaging out a property measured over 100s - anyone else out there have a view on what Heisenberg & co might have to say about all this?)
More interesting was the commercial status & focus of the company. Essentially, they seem to be fending off various approaches from all and sundry in the telecoms industry, from chipmakers to equipment suppliers and carriers. Apparently, they don't need cash - they've been in stealth mode for 5 years & are quite happy on their own.
They are involved in an interesting game of chess - they want to create enough interest in their technology that someone agrees to licence it... but they don't want to give enough short-term concrete proof points that other companies try and use 1000s of engineers to reverse-engineer it themselves, emulate the idea and then adopt a "Go, on, try & sue us, how many lawyers have you got?" strategy.
Basically, their position is "we reckon we've got something cool, we want to create some buzz & speculation & excitement.... but we're quite happy if everyone else rubbishes it for a while longer, as it gives us a chance to navigate the mountains of unrealistic NDAs and liability legalese that prospective licencees are trying to foist on us".
It still sounds interesting, though.... and I guess there's half a chance some chipset manufacturer (Intel? Qualcomm?) might take a punt....
Unlike some journalists, I haven't had a demo, but I got to chat with their execs in some detail. They answered lot of my questions about latency, indoor performance and so on, but it seems like a lot of this will be up to exactly how the radio is implemented by any future licencees. There's nothing obviously untoward in the basic technology itself which would act as a limiting factor.
Apparently it works by modulating a signal onto a single wave cycle, rather than the 100s / 1000s of cycles more commonly used in other types of radio. (The long-buried physicist in me does wonder if this might induce any odd quantum effects, by trying to interpret a single wave, rather than averaging out a property measured over 100s - anyone else out there have a view on what Heisenberg & co might have to say about all this?)
More interesting was the commercial status & focus of the company. Essentially, they seem to be fending off various approaches from all and sundry in the telecoms industry, from chipmakers to equipment suppliers and carriers. Apparently, they don't need cash - they've been in stealth mode for 5 years & are quite happy on their own.
They are involved in an interesting game of chess - they want to create enough interest in their technology that someone agrees to licence it... but they don't want to give enough short-term concrete proof points that other companies try and use 1000s of engineers to reverse-engineer it themselves, emulate the idea and then adopt a "Go, on, try & sue us, how many lawyers have you got?" strategy.
Basically, their position is "we reckon we've got something cool, we want to create some buzz & speculation & excitement.... but we're quite happy if everyone else rubbishes it for a while longer, as it gives us a chance to navigate the mountains of unrealistic NDAs and liability legalese that prospective licencees are trying to foist on us".
It still sounds interesting, though.... and I guess there's half a chance some chipset manufacturer (Intel? Qualcomm?) might take a punt....
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Mobile TV: good idea..... but will it work?
There seems to be a groundswell of naysayers around Mobile TV. I've been at a couple of conferences recently where the mantra of "why would anyone pay for it?" seems to have been chanted.
Is it a technology in search of a market?
I actually think these observers may have it the wrong way round. For me, it's one of the few recent inventions in the mobile business that actually seems to make sense. People know what TV is, and many of them pay for it already, so they understand intuitively about mobile TV.
The marketing message is pretty simple "It's telly. But on your phone" . Job done.
Contrast that with, say, the MMS proposition, which is trying to train users to do something utterly new:
"Yes! You can take lousy low-quality images, compress the living daylights out of them further, put them in a cumbersomely-constructed message, and spend lots of money to send them to someone else, who might occasionally receive them OK. No! Don't just upload the image to a PC and email it for free more easily instead"
Or Push-to-Talk:
"Yes! It's Voice-over-IP! But you pay more for it, not less! And, er, don't ask us about the latency"
And I'm still unconvinced by the whole download-music-over-the-air thing as well, but at least the idea is relatively easy to understand, even if the pricing is silly. (But at least it's only a factor of 2-3x silly, so that's not too bad, when you consider that international mobile data roaming is often priced 10x-1000x silly)
So, for once, I'm a believer. Mobile TV makes sense, conceptually. People will "get it". I don't know if I'd use it personally (I don't pay for cable or satellite TV at home), but I can understand the millions who might want football / soaps / news / "adult" content on their 2.5-inch screen.
One fly in the ointment, though.... (leaving aside the usual theme of handset price & user experience) is in-building penetration. I did a quick scan of some studies about DVB-H and the general consensus seems to be that if you want decent indoor coverage, you'll need transmitters on cell sites as well as existing TV transmission towers. Which changes the cost of deployment very significantly. I haven't had a chance to find out if Qualcomm's Media-FLO and the satellite DMB approaches have the same shortcomings yet.
Bottom line in this case, for me at least, seems to the reverse of the usual:
Is it a market in search of a technology?
Is it a technology in search of a market?
I actually think these observers may have it the wrong way round. For me, it's one of the few recent inventions in the mobile business that actually seems to make sense. People know what TV is, and many of them pay for it already, so they understand intuitively about mobile TV.
The marketing message is pretty simple "It's telly. But on your phone" . Job done.
Contrast that with, say, the MMS proposition, which is trying to train users to do something utterly new:
"Yes! You can take lousy low-quality images, compress the living daylights out of them further, put them in a cumbersomely-constructed message, and spend lots of money to send them to someone else, who might occasionally receive them OK. No! Don't just upload the image to a PC and email it for free more easily instead"
Or Push-to-Talk:
"Yes! It's Voice-over-IP! But you pay more for it, not less! And, er, don't ask us about the latency"
And I'm still unconvinced by the whole download-music-over-the-air thing as well, but at least the idea is relatively easy to understand, even if the pricing is silly. (But at least it's only a factor of 2-3x silly, so that's not too bad, when you consider that international mobile data roaming is often priced 10x-1000x silly)
So, for once, I'm a believer. Mobile TV makes sense, conceptually. People will "get it". I don't know if I'd use it personally (I don't pay for cable or satellite TV at home), but I can understand the millions who might want football / soaps / news / "adult" content on their 2.5-inch screen.
One fly in the ointment, though.... (leaving aside the usual theme of handset price & user experience) is in-building penetration. I did a quick scan of some studies about DVB-H and the general consensus seems to be that if you want decent indoor coverage, you'll need transmitters on cell sites as well as existing TV transmission towers. Which changes the cost of deployment very significantly. I haven't had a chance to find out if Qualcomm's Media-FLO and the satellite DMB approaches have the same shortcomings yet.
Bottom line in this case, for me at least, seems to the reverse of the usual:
Is it a market in search of a technology?
Monday, November 21, 2005
Service, application or feature?
I'm doing quite a bit of research on IMS at the moment. Apart from the head-spinning array of acronyms, one of the things that jumps out at me is how differently the IP and mobile worlds treat "things that people can do with their phone & the network".
There seem to be three main schools of thought:
- "It's a service" - which means "we, your carrier, will install a bunch of complex kit, maybe customise your end device, and bill you for using this thing every time/month/per-byte/etc. We might also try & charge you for using someone else's service, and bill you on their behalf."
- "It's an application" - which means "we, your carrier, will try and sell you some software that makes this thing work, and maybe even host it for you. However, you will 'own' it, which means that any problems are yours to solve"
- "It's a feature" - "we, your carrier, are annoyed that Microsoft / Symbian / someone else has bundled this in with the software of the phone, and that it connects to some server outside our control, relegating us to the role of 'bit pipe', without any chance to earn extra revenues, even if we're adding no appreciable extra value".
There's also the fourth school of thought, which is "It's bait for out community/advertisers/OS, and if it's not good enough, we'll keep adding extra bits until it is". Which translates as "we, Google / Microsoft / Yahoo / eBay will gladly give you a whole bunch of stuff for free, because we know it's actually pretty cheap to provide, even though you value it quite highly"
It strikes me that one of the things that IMS will enable is much simpler service vs. application vs. feature arbitrage. Of course, this isn't the IMS intention at all, which is purely about services - but to make IMS work, it seems likely that phones (and networks) will need such a lot of upgrade in terms of "smartness" and performance, that the feature & application stuff will probably sneak in regardless.
There seem to be three main schools of thought:
- "It's a service" - which means "we, your carrier, will install a bunch of complex kit, maybe customise your end device, and bill you for using this thing every time/month/per-byte/etc. We might also try & charge you for using someone else's service, and bill you on their behalf."
- "It's an application" - which means "we, your carrier, will try and sell you some software that makes this thing work, and maybe even host it for you. However, you will 'own' it, which means that any problems are yours to solve"
- "It's a feature" - "we, your carrier, are annoyed that Microsoft / Symbian / someone else has bundled this in with the software of the phone, and that it connects to some server outside our control, relegating us to the role of 'bit pipe', without any chance to earn extra revenues, even if we're adding no appreciable extra value".
There's also the fourth school of thought, which is "It's bait for out community/advertisers/OS, and if it's not good enough, we'll keep adding extra bits until it is". Which translates as "we, Google / Microsoft / Yahoo / eBay will gladly give you a whole bunch of stuff for free, because we know it's actually pretty cheap to provide, even though you value it quite highly"
It strikes me that one of the things that IMS will enable is much simpler service vs. application vs. feature arbitrage. Of course, this isn't the IMS intention at all, which is purely about services - but to make IMS work, it seems likely that phones (and networks) will need such a lot of upgrade in terms of "smartness" and performance, that the feature & application stuff will probably sneak in regardless.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
It will only get worse.....
Vodafone's gloomy outlook today does not really surprise me. What surprises me is that the City doesn't appear to have priced in what seems apparent to everyone I meet: that margins in the cellular business are going to face continuing pressure, despite the promise of whiz-bang new services and networks.
Voda is blaming its future difficulties on high levels of mobile penetration (exactly why this is surprising is beyond me, it's hardly as if its suddenly happened), and falling termination rates. Its continuing problems in Japan aren't helping in the short-term either.
Which is interesting, as it tells me that the likely additional pain from IP-derived pressure on roaming, plus price erosion for indoor and fixed "nomadic" use of mobile phones is not yet priced in.
Basically, customers (and competitors / substitutes) are waking up to the fact that the "mobile premium" on voice pricing is only acceptable when you're actually mobile - ie moving around. If you're stationary, sitting at home in or in the office, all that cool cell-to-cell handover technology in the network has zero value to you. And, increasingly, there will be ways to avoid paying for it in those cases.
At the moment, the IP-based options to play arbitrage games (like dual-mode phones) are still clunky, but they're evolving in various guises over the next few years. Other cellular-only options will also give lower-priced indoor phone calls. Voda itself has a "HomeZone" type service in Germany, offering low-cost calls ostensibly to substitute for fixed-line voice, but also to compete with O2's successful Genion product.
This is why conferences like last week's Wireless VoIP event are so telling - it's the cellular carriers that have the defensive presentations, talking about blocking VoIP, or pricing data traffic to mitigate the risk of Skype. It's also why I think the more aggressive fixed/mobile hybrid operators will be the ones to benefit from new network architectures like IMS.
I'm chairing this event on next-generation networks tonight, so if anyone's around, say hello.
Voda is blaming its future difficulties on high levels of mobile penetration (exactly why this is surprising is beyond me, it's hardly as if its suddenly happened), and falling termination rates. Its continuing problems in Japan aren't helping in the short-term either.
Which is interesting, as it tells me that the likely additional pain from IP-derived pressure on roaming, plus price erosion for indoor and fixed "nomadic" use of mobile phones is not yet priced in.
Basically, customers (and competitors / substitutes) are waking up to the fact that the "mobile premium" on voice pricing is only acceptable when you're actually mobile - ie moving around. If you're stationary, sitting at home in or in the office, all that cool cell-to-cell handover technology in the network has zero value to you. And, increasingly, there will be ways to avoid paying for it in those cases.
At the moment, the IP-based options to play arbitrage games (like dual-mode phones) are still clunky, but they're evolving in various guises over the next few years. Other cellular-only options will also give lower-priced indoor phone calls. Voda itself has a "HomeZone" type service in Germany, offering low-cost calls ostensibly to substitute for fixed-line voice, but also to compete with O2's successful Genion product.
This is why conferences like last week's Wireless VoIP event are so telling - it's the cellular carriers that have the defensive presentations, talking about blocking VoIP, or pricing data traffic to mitigate the risk of Skype. It's also why I think the more aggressive fixed/mobile hybrid operators will be the ones to benefit from new network architectures like IMS.
I'm chairing this event on next-generation networks tonight, so if anyone's around, say hello.
Friday, November 11, 2005
International roaming and VoIP
Does anyone know what proportion of carriers' international roaming calls is accounted for by long, outbound calls? It strikes me that it's probably quite high - business people phoning into conference calls, ringing back to head office or to clients - or even tourists phoning home.
I think this section is uniquely vulnerable to PC-based VoIP substitution, unlike inbound calls transferred to the user, quick outbound calls for voicemail and so on.
At a conference the other day, a substantial section of the audience (admittedly attending a Mobile VoIP event) had been using Skype or some other form of VoIP over in-room broadband or hotel WiFi whilst they had been there.
I did myself - I had to have a 30min+ conference call with someone in the US, while I was myself roaming in Belgium. Given a choice between my mobile, the hotel phone, or the (relatively painful) €20 WiFi charge + pennies on SkypeOut, it was no contest.
Add in the fact that the timing of the call is often known in advance, the user (especially a business traveller) will likely have a PC anyway, the desirability of having web access to Google or a client's website while on the phone, and the ergonomics of a headset, and it's a bit of a no-brainer.
What's not clear to me is just how much of a typical carrier's voice roaming falls into this category - but I suspect it's a pretty sizeable chunk.
I think this section is uniquely vulnerable to PC-based VoIP substitution, unlike inbound calls transferred to the user, quick outbound calls for voicemail and so on.
At a conference the other day, a substantial section of the audience (admittedly attending a Mobile VoIP event) had been using Skype or some other form of VoIP over in-room broadband or hotel WiFi whilst they had been there.
I did myself - I had to have a 30min+ conference call with someone in the US, while I was myself roaming in Belgium. Given a choice between my mobile, the hotel phone, or the (relatively painful) €20 WiFi charge + pennies on SkypeOut, it was no contest.
Add in the fact that the timing of the call is often known in advance, the user (especially a business traveller) will likely have a PC anyway, the desirability of having web access to Google or a client's website while on the phone, and the ergonomics of a headset, and it's a bit of a no-brainer.
What's not clear to me is just how much of a typical carrier's voice roaming falls into this category - but I suspect it's a pretty sizeable chunk.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Wireless VoIP
I'm currently at a conference on the technology, applications and commercial issues around Wireless VoIP. I've been speaking myself (on the topic of enterprise use of VoWLAN), and generally harassing most of the other speakers with questions.
Some interesting snippets that are emerging:
- Skype is already doing VoIPo3G with E-Plus in Germany, initially from laptops with UMTS data cards. It's looking at other operators, and also at working over EDGE. At present it creates about 1MB traffic a minute, so it's not useful on the hideously overpriced 3G data services available in Europe (often $1-3 per MB, and much worse on international roaming). E-Plus is one of the first operators with a sensible flat-rate data pricing strategy.
- Interestingly, another analyst at the event (coming from a very defensive and cellular-operator centric position) suggested carriers should maintain this type of pricing structure to limit the threat of wireless VoIP. Given that my view that wireless data transport in Europe is 2-6 orders of magnitude too expensive, it seems that this is a massive opportunity either for new entrant cellular "challengers" or WiMAX / TDD / other wireless IP broadband operators. Back to my rallying call of "Just give me a pipe!"....
- Disagreement on the timelines, volumes and impact of dual-mode WLAN/cellular devices and converged FMC services. My view is that volumes will be lower than many think (I've been forecasting complex stuff for too long to draw oversteep hockey-stick uptake curves - I think there are lots of practicalities that will dampen the market growth rate), but the wider impact on cellular pricing and strategic realignments in the industry will be greater. I'm also ever more convinced that UMA is a non-starter - not so much because of the technology, but because of the commercials and ways of building the user interface, customer support and billing etc. I'm also starting to wonder about the timelines on SIP-based dual-mode, and whether my (relatively low-ball) predictions may be too bullish. I'm particularly skeptical about the market opportunity for non-smartOS phones with WiFi
- Starting to see more people talking about using cellular over low-power GSM/3G picocells as an alternative to VoWLAN in-building. I've been mentioning these at FMC conferences for at least a year, but it's the first time I've seen so many other people appear to take them seriously. This fits in with trends & opportunities observed by these guys and also the recent announcement from these other guys, that could help drive wider development of picocells, and even the new "flavour of the month", home "femtocells" hanging off DSL lines. I'm already looking forward to the Daily Mail's headlines about base stations in your living room.....
Some interesting snippets that are emerging:
- Skype is already doing VoIPo3G with E-Plus in Germany, initially from laptops with UMTS data cards. It's looking at other operators, and also at working over EDGE. At present it creates about 1MB traffic a minute, so it's not useful on the hideously overpriced 3G data services available in Europe (often $1-3 per MB, and much worse on international roaming). E-Plus is one of the first operators with a sensible flat-rate data pricing strategy.
- Interestingly, another analyst at the event (coming from a very defensive and cellular-operator centric position) suggested carriers should maintain this type of pricing structure to limit the threat of wireless VoIP. Given that my view that wireless data transport in Europe is 2-6 orders of magnitude too expensive, it seems that this is a massive opportunity either for new entrant cellular "challengers" or WiMAX / TDD / other wireless IP broadband operators. Back to my rallying call of "Just give me a pipe!"....
- Disagreement on the timelines, volumes and impact of dual-mode WLAN/cellular devices and converged FMC services. My view is that volumes will be lower than many think (I've been forecasting complex stuff for too long to draw oversteep hockey-stick uptake curves - I think there are lots of practicalities that will dampen the market growth rate), but the wider impact on cellular pricing and strategic realignments in the industry will be greater. I'm also ever more convinced that UMA is a non-starter - not so much because of the technology, but because of the commercials and ways of building the user interface, customer support and billing etc. I'm also starting to wonder about the timelines on SIP-based dual-mode, and whether my (relatively low-ball) predictions may be too bullish. I'm particularly skeptical about the market opportunity for non-smartOS phones with WiFi
- Starting to see more people talking about using cellular over low-power GSM/3G picocells as an alternative to VoWLAN in-building. I've been mentioning these at FMC conferences for at least a year, but it's the first time I've seen so many other people appear to take them seriously. This fits in with trends & opportunities observed by these guys and also the recent announcement from these other guys, that could help drive wider development of picocells, and even the new "flavour of the month", home "femtocells" hanging off DSL lines. I'm already looking forward to the Daily Mail's headlines about base stations in your living room.....
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Too good to be true?
I've woken up this morning to several news stories, emails & blogs telling me about the "new new thing" in wireless broadband - a proprietary technology being called xMax by its inventors xG Technology . In fact, the technology is supposedly applicable to wired applications as well (although that's true of UWB as well)
It all reminds me a little of other "You what?!" broadband innovations - sending signals through gas pipelines , or via hovering airships. There are always stealth startups popping up, claiming to be about to change the world. Sometimes I guess it comes true.
It certainly sounds clever. And it may well work as claimed for certain usage cases. Whether it's commercial or not is another question. On the other hand, it certainly addresses some of my usual questions asked to mobile broadband evangelists: "will it work in-building?", "will it be low-powered enough" and "will it work internationally?".
But ever the cynic, I'm also looking for any possible stumbling blocks. I have to admit that some of the fine-grain discussion around RF modulation and encoding is beyond me, so many of my questions may have simple and obvious-to-some answers. But.....
- Are there any issues around latency? Does lots of clever signal-processing and error-correction add so much time to a "roundtrip" that it's useless for realtime apps like voice?
- Is there anything about xMax that means it doesn't work well with IP or ethernet protocols?
- Is there anything else new or around-the-corner that could interfere with it? Other types of UWB, for instance?
- Can the receivers be small enough to fit into phones?
- How well does it work with moving devices / users? At what speeds?
... and so on. Clearly, there are 100s of other questions that need answers.
My overall take is that xMax if probably now over the first hurdle - people are taking it seriously enough to at least sit up and notice it. I'll be watching it carefully, for one.
It all reminds me a little of other "You what?!" broadband innovations - sending signals through gas pipelines , or via hovering airships. There are always stealth startups popping up, claiming to be about to change the world. Sometimes I guess it comes true.
It certainly sounds clever. And it may well work as claimed for certain usage cases. Whether it's commercial or not is another question. On the other hand, it certainly addresses some of my usual questions asked to mobile broadband evangelists: "will it work in-building?", "will it be low-powered enough" and "will it work internationally?".
But ever the cynic, I'm also looking for any possible stumbling blocks. I have to admit that some of the fine-grain discussion around RF modulation and encoding is beyond me, so many of my questions may have simple and obvious-to-some answers. But.....
- Are there any issues around latency? Does lots of clever signal-processing and error-correction add so much time to a "roundtrip" that it's useless for realtime apps like voice?
- Is there anything about xMax that means it doesn't work well with IP or ethernet protocols?
- Is there anything else new or around-the-corner that could interfere with it? Other types of UWB, for instance?
- Can the receivers be small enough to fit into phones?
- How well does it work with moving devices / users? At what speeds?
... and so on. Clearly, there are 100s of other questions that need answers.
My overall take is that xMax if probably now over the first hurdle - people are taking it seriously enough to at least sit up and notice it. I'll be watching it carefully, for one.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Just give me a wireless pipe....
Great piece by James Enck at EuroTelcoblog today . But my view is that the IP/Internet issue is going to hit the mobile operators even harder than the fixed guys, and that the cellular industry is even more ostrich-like in its state of denial at present.
I reckon a lot of the hybrid fixed/mobile operators like FT/Orange, TI/TIM and BT(+MVNO) now "get" the issues around VoIP, and the impact of MSN, Yahoo!, Google, Skype/Ebay et al.
They might not like it, but I reckon most of them understand its importance.
It is notable that BT is pretty cozy with Yahoo and FT with Microsoft.
I also think they have internalised that the way they will make money in the future is by becoming "smart pipes". They are rushing to deploy IMS or other IP-based NGN core transport networks, with various types of application platform layer sitting above it.
Sure, they will try & slow down the rate of change, but fundamentally, the fixed operators have long understood the value-added opportunities associated with network connectivity. This is because they have long dealt with selling wholesale services to other carriers, and above all the complexities of the enterprise communication world.
Fixed operators sell plenty of "smart pipes"already. They provide IP-VPNs, managed security services, they resell and maintain IP-PBXs and do all sorts of other complex nuts-and-bolts services with acronyms like MPLS. Increasingly, they are pushing into mainstream IT services, and enterprise LAN/WAN sales and management.
And although there have been some strange outbursts about MSN, Skype et al from some carriers, the fact remains that they have long accepted the existence of 3rd-party VoIP for millions of users. Fixed carriers aren't complaining that corporate firms are using "their pipes" for services delivered via grey boxes with Cisco and Avaya logos. Many of them sell & install IP-PBXs themselves.
None of this is glamorous stuff. It doesn't involve glossy TV advertising campaigns with pop stars & footballers. Their office Christmas parties will probably be full of boring people in boring clothes, talking about boring network widgets. But it's got a fighting chance of being profitable. It's difficult to commoditise hardcore network engineering expertise.
But the mobile operators are different. They are addicted to the consumer market, to glossy marketing, and the idea that absolutely everything is a "service" and therefore billable. Although some grudgingly wholesale capacity through MVNOs, they're still incredibly sensitive about being seen as pipes, especially "dumb" ones. Most don't have a sophisticated enterprise group that is educating the rest of the organisation that pipes can be "smart", albeit at the cost of being dull. Instead of trying to offer robust mobile IP-VPNs so users can deploy their own VoIP solution, they're still trying to pretend that "mobile PBX" solutions can succeed. Many also seem convinced they can offer billed IM services that don't interoperate well with MSN and Yahoo.
Many seem uncertain about deploying IMS, worrying that it could open the floodgates to 3rd-party IP applications. What they don't realise is that it's going to happen anyway, and that opening the floodgates is the only way to avoid drowning in the flood.
I reckon a lot of the hybrid fixed/mobile operators like FT/Orange, TI/TIM and BT(+MVNO) now "get" the issues around VoIP, and the impact of MSN, Yahoo!, Google, Skype/Ebay et al.
They might not like it, but I reckon most of them understand its importance.
It is notable that BT is pretty cozy with Yahoo and FT with Microsoft.
I also think they have internalised that the way they will make money in the future is by becoming "smart pipes". They are rushing to deploy IMS or other IP-based NGN core transport networks, with various types of application platform layer sitting above it.
Sure, they will try & slow down the rate of change, but fundamentally, the fixed operators have long understood the value-added opportunities associated with network connectivity. This is because they have long dealt with selling wholesale services to other carriers, and above all the complexities of the enterprise communication world.
Fixed operators sell plenty of "smart pipes"already. They provide IP-VPNs, managed security services, they resell and maintain IP-PBXs and do all sorts of other complex nuts-and-bolts services with acronyms like MPLS. Increasingly, they are pushing into mainstream IT services, and enterprise LAN/WAN sales and management.
And although there have been some strange outbursts about MSN, Skype et al from some carriers, the fact remains that they have long accepted the existence of 3rd-party VoIP for millions of users. Fixed carriers aren't complaining that corporate firms are using "their pipes" for services delivered via grey boxes with Cisco and Avaya logos. Many of them sell & install IP-PBXs themselves.
None of this is glamorous stuff. It doesn't involve glossy TV advertising campaigns with pop stars & footballers. Their office Christmas parties will probably be full of boring people in boring clothes, talking about boring network widgets. But it's got a fighting chance of being profitable. It's difficult to commoditise hardcore network engineering expertise.
But the mobile operators are different. They are addicted to the consumer market, to glossy marketing, and the idea that absolutely everything is a "service" and therefore billable. Although some grudgingly wholesale capacity through MVNOs, they're still incredibly sensitive about being seen as pipes, especially "dumb" ones. Most don't have a sophisticated enterprise group that is educating the rest of the organisation that pipes can be "smart", albeit at the cost of being dull. Instead of trying to offer robust mobile IP-VPNs so users can deploy their own VoIP solution, they're still trying to pretend that "mobile PBX" solutions can succeed. Many also seem convinced they can offer billed IM services that don't interoperate well with MSN and Yahoo.
Many seem uncertain about deploying IMS, worrying that it could open the floodgates to 3rd-party IP applications. What they don't realise is that it's going to happen anyway, and that opening the floodgates is the only way to avoid drowning in the flood.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Presence or Absence?
I seem to be bombarded with companies wanting to talk about "federated presence" at the moment. There seem to be 100s of variations on a central theme:
"People have too many phone numbers / devices / services / IM accounts / all of these. Nobody can ever reach them without leaving messages like "I'll call you on your mobile instead" or "u there?" How can we simplify this & make some money as well?"
There are operator-based solutions, web-based ones, PC-based ones, handset-based ones, enterprise collaboration-based ones and IP-PBX based ones. Some of them rely on the user to update their presence information, others infer it from factors such as whether your mobile phone is switched on, your Skype client online and so on.
The idea is that you (or your service provider) should be able to set rules.... "don't phone after 8pm with work inquiries unless you're my boss"... "don't phone me when I'm travelling in a different timezone & it's 3am"... "I'm on a phone call, but email me if it's urgent"... "send my email headers to me via SMS except when I'm logged into MSN in which case IM me instead", or whatever.
All this is great in principle. But I have my doubts about just how viable this wonderful "unified presence" concept really is. Can people really be bothered to update their presence religiously? It doesn't "degrade gracefully" with non-compliance.
I reckon that if 90% of the users use the system 90% of the time, it'll be great.
If it's 80% of people & 80% of time, it'll be marginally useful.
But if it's 70% of people complying 70% of the time, it'll be an active pain in the backside & create more problems than it solves.
And if you're really important, do you actually care if other people have to jump through hoops to find you? Surely that's their problem, not yours?
Maybe "absence" will be simpler and more important then "presence". Rather than try & tell people the "best" way to reach you, why not just tell them which is worst? "Don't both calling my mobile, I'm on a plane". "I've got 1000 emails to reply to. Try something else."
Overall - it all sounds utopian. But I have a sneaking feeling that practicalities may get in the way rather a lot. The user interface is going to a major stumbling block, even if the back-end technology works.
"People have too many phone numbers / devices / services / IM accounts / all of these. Nobody can ever reach them without leaving messages like "I'll call you on your mobile instead" or "u there?" How can we simplify this & make some money as well?"
There are operator-based solutions, web-based ones, PC-based ones, handset-based ones, enterprise collaboration-based ones and IP-PBX based ones. Some of them rely on the user to update their presence information, others infer it from factors such as whether your mobile phone is switched on, your Skype client online and so on.
The idea is that you (or your service provider) should be able to set rules.... "don't phone after 8pm with work inquiries unless you're my boss"... "don't phone me when I'm travelling in a different timezone & it's 3am"... "I'm on a phone call, but email me if it's urgent"... "send my email headers to me via SMS except when I'm logged into MSN in which case IM me instead", or whatever.
All this is great in principle. But I have my doubts about just how viable this wonderful "unified presence" concept really is. Can people really be bothered to update their presence religiously? It doesn't "degrade gracefully" with non-compliance.
I reckon that if 90% of the users use the system 90% of the time, it'll be great.
If it's 80% of people & 80% of time, it'll be marginally useful.
But if it's 70% of people complying 70% of the time, it'll be an active pain in the backside & create more problems than it solves.
And if you're really important, do you actually care if other people have to jump through hoops to find you? Surely that's their problem, not yours?
Maybe "absence" will be simpler and more important then "presence". Rather than try & tell people the "best" way to reach you, why not just tell them which is worst? "Don't both calling my mobile, I'm on a plane". "I've got 1000 emails to reply to. Try something else."
Overall - it all sounds utopian. But I have a sneaking feeling that practicalities may get in the way rather a lot. The user interface is going to a major stumbling block, even if the back-end technology works.
Monday, October 24, 2005
How do we deal with Multi-WLAN households?
I reckon a battle is brewing for control – or lack of it – in the home WLAN space.
About 30-40m homes around the world are thought to have WiFi networks already, although that number is skewed quite heavily towards the US market. Most of these are bought retail at ever-lower prices. An increasing number of broadband service providers are sneaking in WLAN to new subscribers' homes (whether they need it or not) in integrated home gateways. Although some providers are tempting users to trade-in their old equipment, I bet many users still run two APs or routers in parallel (or at least keep one in the cupboard).
But that's not all. Future home PCs may have WiFi AP's built-in, with some Digital TV set-top boxes going the same way. Dedicated TV-centric WiFi solutions are emerging. It may be that your company gives you a separate secure AP to connect to the corporate network. Your mobile carrier might give you another one in a wirelessly-backhauled gateway box. Maybe your next super-dooper games console / hifi / toaster has one too. And you can see your neighbour's one through the wall, and the local municipality's hotzone from the lamp-post in the street.
What this means is that any WiFi device will need to have some damn good connection-management software and an easy and flexible user interface. Services providers and equipment suppliers have to assume that homes will have multiple APs/routers. And customer service departments dealing with wireless-related inquiries will need some pretty impressive skills to navigate users through this minefield.
It also strikes me that there's a whole bunch of product opportunities out there waiting for enterprising vendors. Just don't give me the "you only need our box" pitch, because it's plain that the average broadband household in 2009 will have 2+ separate wireless networks. Oh, and add in WiMAX/TDD/Flash-OFDM/HSDPA/EV-DO/etc while you're at it.....
About 30-40m homes around the world are thought to have WiFi networks already, although that number is skewed quite heavily towards the US market. Most of these are bought retail at ever-lower prices. An increasing number of broadband service providers are sneaking in WLAN to new subscribers' homes (whether they need it or not) in integrated home gateways. Although some providers are tempting users to trade-in their old equipment, I bet many users still run two APs or routers in parallel (or at least keep one in the cupboard).
But that's not all. Future home PCs may have WiFi AP's built-in, with some Digital TV set-top boxes going the same way. Dedicated TV-centric WiFi solutions are emerging. It may be that your company gives you a separate secure AP to connect to the corporate network. Your mobile carrier might give you another one in a wirelessly-backhauled gateway box. Maybe your next super-dooper games console / hifi / toaster has one too. And you can see your neighbour's one through the wall, and the local municipality's hotzone from the lamp-post in the street.
What this means is that any WiFi device will need to have some damn good connection-management software and an easy and flexible user interface. Services providers and equipment suppliers have to assume that homes will have multiple APs/routers. And customer service departments dealing with wireless-related inquiries will need some pretty impressive skills to navigate users through this minefield.
It also strikes me that there's a whole bunch of product opportunities out there waiting for enterprising vendors. Just don't give me the "you only need our box" pitch, because it's plain that the average broadband household in 2009 will have 2+ separate wireless networks. Oh, and add in WiMAX/TDD/Flash-OFDM/HSDPA/EV-DO/etc while you're at it.....
Friday, October 21, 2005
Personalisation portability
I had an interesting thought during an IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) presentation at an industry event today... if operators (fixed or mobile) start to act as aggregation points for "user identity" (ie linking together your service subscriptions, phone #s, IM accounts and so on), will users face absolute lock-in with their contact lists / buddy lists etc? This certainly seems to be one of the possibilities / threats being posited about IMS-based networks & applications.
Does this mean that you will have to accept you have an "operator for life"?
Or will there have to be cooperation (or laws) about "personalisation portability"? (in the same way I discussed the lack of email portability recently). How would this work?
Or will users be better off with (free) "operator independent" Internet-based identity hubs like MSN, Google or Yahoo!
Does this mean that you will have to accept you have an "operator for life"?
Or will there have to be cooperation (or laws) about "personalisation portability"? (in the same way I discussed the lack of email portability recently). How would this work?
Or will users be better off with (free) "operator independent" Internet-based identity hubs like MSN, Google or Yahoo!
The multimedia delusions of "Old Mobile"
I'm listening to a presentation by a major mobile network infrastructure vendor. It's about the opportunity for mobile content distribution - over-the-air downloads of music, streaming video, and various new and innovative ways of delivering "traditional" content like ringtones.
Much of the pitch seems to be trying to convince a roomful of analysts that various historical oddities and asymmetries of the mobile business (like $4 for a ringtone, vs $1 for an Internet music download) are not only sustainable, but justifiable and extensible. Phrases like "creating a conversation around the content" and (& no I'm not joking here) “surfing your own taste curve” are being used to explain why things like ringback tones and paid video clips will continue to generate substantial revenues for mobile carriers.
I'm unconvinced this logic (or marketingspeak) applies universally, if at all. It strikes me as another attempt by the increasingly-cloistered "Old Mobile" industry to pretend that it can defend its worldview against growth of the Internet, home broadband, IP, iTunes, Bittorrent and various other emerging multimedia technologies.
Two factors lead me to think that this model is over-optimistic:
- firstly, mobile devices have multiple ways of getting content on and off the device - cellular, WLAN, memory cards, Bluetooth, USB etc. They're also getting smarter - full operating systems like Symbian and Windows Mobile, better Java and so on. Basically, the user will find it easier to play arbitrage games, getting cheaper/better/more convenient content via the PC or other sources, without DRM limiting their content portfolio to a single device or mobile carrier (fancy losing your music or video library when you switch operators?)
- secondly, an ever-increasing population is getting used to broadband home Internet access. This is rapidly setting an expectation that there's a lot of "good free stuff" available, with even more "premium but not that expensive stuff". That expectation didn't really exist in massmarket perception 2 years ago, and is now growing incredibly rapidly - more rapidly than the use of mobile content on phones. I believe that these attitudes will rapidly extend to the mobile world, and will undermine the supposed value of the "conversation" around mobile content.
Last word goes to another wonderful line from the presentation:
“Most profitable business models are still being tested”.
Much of the pitch seems to be trying to convince a roomful of analysts that various historical oddities and asymmetries of the mobile business (like $4 for a ringtone, vs $1 for an Internet music download) are not only sustainable, but justifiable and extensible. Phrases like "creating a conversation around the content" and (& no I'm not joking here) “surfing your own taste curve” are being used to explain why things like ringback tones and paid video clips will continue to generate substantial revenues for mobile carriers.
I'm unconvinced this logic (or marketingspeak) applies universally, if at all. It strikes me as another attempt by the increasingly-cloistered "Old Mobile" industry to pretend that it can defend its worldview against growth of the Internet, home broadband, IP, iTunes, Bittorrent and various other emerging multimedia technologies.
Two factors lead me to think that this model is over-optimistic:
- firstly, mobile devices have multiple ways of getting content on and off the device - cellular, WLAN, memory cards, Bluetooth, USB etc. They're also getting smarter - full operating systems like Symbian and Windows Mobile, better Java and so on. Basically, the user will find it easier to play arbitrage games, getting cheaper/better/more convenient content via the PC or other sources, without DRM limiting their content portfolio to a single device or mobile carrier (fancy losing your music or video library when you switch operators?)
- secondly, an ever-increasing population is getting used to broadband home Internet access. This is rapidly setting an expectation that there's a lot of "good free stuff" available, with even more "premium but not that expensive stuff". That expectation didn't really exist in massmarket perception 2 years ago, and is now growing incredibly rapidly - more rapidly than the use of mobile content on phones. I believe that these attitudes will rapidly extend to the mobile world, and will undermine the supposed value of the "conversation" around mobile content.
Last word goes to another wonderful line from the presentation:
“Most profitable business models are still being tested”.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Wireless "policy management" and "packet inspection"?
Recently, there has been a huge surge of interest in bits of equipment that fit within mobile networks, and treat different types of traffic in different ways. "Block Skype", "Prioritise XYZ application", "Filter dodgy content", "Offload ABC application to a separate network" and so forth.
While some of this falls into the "fair enough" category, for example stopping children accessing dodgy websites on their phones, or stopping peer-to-peer traffic from bringing down a network, the more heavy-handed tactics smack somewhat of bad grace and censorship.
Quite a lot of this discussion has been based around the concept of stopping users from accessing apps or data hostile to the operator's business model (Skype or other 3rd-party VoIP, off-portal content etc) - or at least charging them more.
“We know that you, our customers, want to use that nice free stuff on the real Internet via your mobiles. We know you’re already used to using it over broadband at home and at work. And we know we could just give you a mobile “pipe”. But we’ve spent lots of money on our brand and beautiful walled garden, so we’ll throw our toys out the pram if you dare go to MSN, Google, eBay or content owners direct, rather than use our restricted and overpriced range of stuff. And don’t even think about comparing VoIP or IM with our oh-such-good-value voice and SMS tariffs. So we’re blocking it or degrading it out of spite, because we can't compete head to head & we're scared of the big bad IP world coming round the corner”.
I reckon that we’ll see two levels of this type of filtering / routing:
- "Service aware" networks are very believable and arguably essential. Services like video streams, mobile synchronisation signals and (maybe) voice require specific transport-related QoS criteria to be fulfilled in order for them to work. They are latency sensitive, need guaranteed bandwidth and so on. Having routers or “packet inspection” gear in the network to spot, optimise and variably route these traffic streams will happen. It will drive cheaper aggregated backbones, and enable triple-play type services. But there are only a certain number of these types of “service profile”, they don’t evolve that quickly, and they are likely to relate to in-house or partners’ services, which will be developed by cooperative individuals or companies.
- “Application aware” mobile networks, however, will probably fail. Applications (and programming techniques) evolve much faster than the policies can be developed to manage them. They are often developed by people who are uncooperative, and who will look for arbitrage opportunities. They are being aided and abetted by ever-smarter devices. And trying to separate a "friendly" app from an unfriendly one isn't as easy as it seems... and it will get even harder with wider use of applications made up of multiple components. Oh, and it's also worth noting that in some cases this is likely to be illegal anyway, even if it's technically feasible.
Who is to know if a Bittorrent transmission is an illegal video, or an investment bank's clever new way of distributing realtime prices to its dealers? Is that video stream Tom & Jerry, or a doctor's new telepresence app, or a video add-in to an enterprise application? Who knows what's inside that IP-VPN tunnel, especially if it's encrypted?
And even if some operator tries to block certain apps and prioritise others, surely some innovative software developer will tweak the "profile" of the application. Maybe an enterprising open-source coder will work out a way to make VoIP look and behave like SAP? And what happens when applications are written in component form? Trying to work out what application(s) a chunk of XML or .NET code ultimately fits into will be nigh-on impossible. And what happens where you have "layered" applications, like an email form, within a web page, accessing a portal, which feeds into a back-end e-commerce application?
This all reminds me of the late-1990s marketing hype for enterprise network policy management... "restrict the marketing department to 10% of Internet bandwidth except after 6pm", "de-prioritise email in favour of voice". That mostly failed, as companies realised they'd have to employ people called "policy managers", with a combination of IT, HR and business skills, in order to actually work out the policies effectively. In the end, everyone more-or-less gave up, threw more bandwidth at the problem, and just separated out a couple of the most sensitive data streams like voice.
To borrow from and extend a famous comment about the Internet by the EFF's John Gilmore....
"Smart applications will treat packet inspection as damage and route around it"
While some of this falls into the "fair enough" category, for example stopping children accessing dodgy websites on their phones, or stopping peer-to-peer traffic from bringing down a network, the more heavy-handed tactics smack somewhat of bad grace and censorship.
Quite a lot of this discussion has been based around the concept of stopping users from accessing apps or data hostile to the operator's business model (Skype or other 3rd-party VoIP, off-portal content etc) - or at least charging them more.
“We know that you, our customers, want to use that nice free stuff on the real Internet via your mobiles. We know you’re already used to using it over broadband at home and at work. And we know we could just give you a mobile “pipe”. But we’ve spent lots of money on our brand and beautiful walled garden, so we’ll throw our toys out the pram if you dare go to MSN, Google, eBay or content owners direct, rather than use our restricted and overpriced range of stuff. And don’t even think about comparing VoIP or IM with our oh-such-good-value voice and SMS tariffs. So we’re blocking it or degrading it out of spite, because we can't compete head to head & we're scared of the big bad IP world coming round the corner”.
I reckon that we’ll see two levels of this type of filtering / routing:
- "Service aware" networks are very believable and arguably essential. Services like video streams, mobile synchronisation signals and (maybe) voice require specific transport-related QoS criteria to be fulfilled in order for them to work. They are latency sensitive, need guaranteed bandwidth and so on. Having routers or “packet inspection” gear in the network to spot, optimise and variably route these traffic streams will happen. It will drive cheaper aggregated backbones, and enable triple-play type services. But there are only a certain number of these types of “service profile”, they don’t evolve that quickly, and they are likely to relate to in-house or partners’ services, which will be developed by cooperative individuals or companies.
- “Application aware” mobile networks, however, will probably fail. Applications (and programming techniques) evolve much faster than the policies can be developed to manage them. They are often developed by people who are uncooperative, and who will look for arbitrage opportunities. They are being aided and abetted by ever-smarter devices. And trying to separate a "friendly" app from an unfriendly one isn't as easy as it seems... and it will get even harder with wider use of applications made up of multiple components. Oh, and it's also worth noting that in some cases this is likely to be illegal anyway, even if it's technically feasible.
Who is to know if a Bittorrent transmission is an illegal video, or an investment bank's clever new way of distributing realtime prices to its dealers? Is that video stream Tom & Jerry, or a doctor's new telepresence app, or a video add-in to an enterprise application? Who knows what's inside that IP-VPN tunnel, especially if it's encrypted?
And even if some operator tries to block certain apps and prioritise others, surely some innovative software developer will tweak the "profile" of the application. Maybe an enterprising open-source coder will work out a way to make VoIP look and behave like SAP? And what happens when applications are written in component form? Trying to work out what application(s) a chunk of XML or .NET code ultimately fits into will be nigh-on impossible. And what happens where you have "layered" applications, like an email form, within a web page, accessing a portal, which feeds into a back-end e-commerce application?
This all reminds me of the late-1990s marketing hype for enterprise network policy management... "restrict the marketing department to 10% of Internet bandwidth except after 6pm", "de-prioritise email in favour of voice". That mostly failed, as companies realised they'd have to employ people called "policy managers", with a combination of IT, HR and business skills, in order to actually work out the policies effectively. In the end, everyone more-or-less gave up, threw more bandwidth at the problem, and just separated out a couple of the most sensitive data streams like voice.
To borrow from and extend a famous comment about the Internet by the EFF's John Gilmore....
"Smart applications will treat packet inspection as damage and route around it"
Monday, October 17, 2005
Who cares about mobile phone volume shipments?
Why is it that the mobile phone industry (and its financial watchers) still clings to "volume market share" as such an important indicator? Given that phone prices span the range from $30 to $1000, surely it's an increasingly irrelevant statistic.
It's notable that watch manufacturers tend to quote revenue numbers rather than units. And if people do comment on volumes, they focus on a specific segment like "fashion watches" - they don't lump Fossil, Swatch and Seiko shipments in with cheap $5 watches from China or $20k Rolexes.
Personally, I expect cellphone market volumes to continue to rise, but predominantly at the low end. I'll make a bet that exhibitors at trade shows in 2009 will be giving away cute freebie branded phones with $2 prepaid credits, instead of mouse mats, coffee mugs or USB memory sticks. They'll start coming free in packets of cereal by 2015.
So forget volume, unless it's in a particular market segment like "featurephones". Tell us about the aggregate value or the profit margin instead.
And don't get me started on the mystical status of mobile operator ARPU as a useful number either.
It's notable that watch manufacturers tend to quote revenue numbers rather than units. And if people do comment on volumes, they focus on a specific segment like "fashion watches" - they don't lump Fossil, Swatch and Seiko shipments in with cheap $5 watches from China or $20k Rolexes.
Personally, I expect cellphone market volumes to continue to rise, but predominantly at the low end. I'll make a bet that exhibitors at trade shows in 2009 will be giving away cute freebie branded phones with $2 prepaid credits, instead of mouse mats, coffee mugs or USB memory sticks. They'll start coming free in packets of cereal by 2015.
So forget volume, unless it's in a particular market segment like "featurephones". Tell us about the aggregate value or the profit margin instead.
And don't get me started on the mystical status of mobile operator ARPU as a useful number either.
Mobile broadband and phones....
I've spent some time recently thinking about the various flavours of wireless/mobile broadband and talking to assorted hopeful vendors.... Qualcomm/Flarion's Flash-OFDM, IPWireless' UMTS-TDD , Intel's favoured WiMAX , and assorted others, as well as various companies attempting to suggest that evolved "normal" cellular technologies like HSDPA could become viable ADSL/cable-rivalling broadband replacement technologies. The proponents of these technologies are already busy fighting among themselves . I'm wondering where the overall sector is going, and how long it'll take to get there.
There seem to be 3 main target markets
- laptops (data cards or embedded)
- fixed-wireless as an alternative to ADSL or cable broadband
- PDAs and phones
Laptops
The clearest demand (and perhaps the smallest ultimate addressable market) is in laptops. Following on from WiFi's success (especially post-Centrino), and reasonable uptake for WCDMA and EV-DO data cards, it is something of a no-brainer to suggest customers want faster, cheaper, more reliable and ubiquitous connections for their notebooks. There also isn't that much of a large market for people wanting to run VoIP from laptops, so the thorny issue of cannibalisation of voice revenues doesn't really matter here.
However, there are still plenty of problems around indoor coverage, which is generally lousy for all these technologies. I'm also very skeptical of the idea of embedded EV-DO / HSDPA capability being shipped by the manufacturer - who wants to tie themselves to a specific service provider for the 3-year life of a laptop? I shudder to think of the software hassles if you want to change to another network....
Broadband replacement
Is broadband wireless a DSL replacement? Hmmm. We've been here before . A million-odd customers in the US and 5m worldwide since about 1997. Big deal. Sure, there are a couple of early deployments of wireless broadband that are great for sparsely-populated, low-competition areas in wealthy countries like Finland and New Zealand, where the local fixed/cable operators haven't been forced to roll out networks. And TDD and WiMAX seems to have found a promising niche as backhaul for on-train WiFi, while a few brave operators are using fixed WCDMA for home data users.
I'm entirely unconvinced this is a mass-market option, however.
The main problem? Copper (or fibre) is cheaper than spectrum. The other problem? It's usually easier to get planning permission to dig up a street, than to put a new base station on a roof. And most existing cell sites don't have enough backhaul capacity (or power) to turn them into the equivalent of a DSLAM or cable head-end. Most European 3G base stations have an E1 (2Mb/s) backhaul pipe. Adding capacity is complex, expensive and time-consuming. So while fixed broadband is already driving down the bandwidth curve... 512k, 1M, 2M, 8M, 24M, 45M, 100M, I've even heard plans for residential Gigabit Ethernet... the wireless options are still mostly at the stage of shared 2M capacity amongst an entire cell's user base.
Overall - it's another niche. At some places and some points in time, wireless (of any flavour) might temporarily compete with fixed pipes, but it's not a massmarket urban-area solution. "Everything" certainly won't be wireless, despite the hype. Ever.
Handsets
There seem to be 3 main target markets
- laptops (data cards or embedded)
- fixed-wireless as an alternative to ADSL or cable broadband
- PDAs and phones
Laptops
The clearest demand (and perhaps the smallest ultimate addressable market) is in laptops. Following on from WiFi's success (especially post-Centrino), and reasonable uptake for WCDMA and EV-DO data cards, it is something of a no-brainer to suggest customers want faster, cheaper, more reliable and ubiquitous connections for their notebooks. There also isn't that much of a large market for people wanting to run VoIP from laptops, so the thorny issue of cannibalisation of voice revenues doesn't really matter here.
However, there are still plenty of problems around indoor coverage, which is generally lousy for all these technologies. I'm also very skeptical of the idea of embedded EV-DO / HSDPA capability being shipped by the manufacturer - who wants to tie themselves to a specific service provider for the 3-year life of a laptop? I shudder to think of the software hassles if you want to change to another network....
Broadband replacement
Is broadband wireless a DSL replacement? Hmmm. We've been here before . A million-odd customers in the US and 5m worldwide since about 1997. Big deal. Sure, there are a couple of early deployments of wireless broadband that are great for sparsely-populated, low-competition areas in wealthy countries like Finland and New Zealand, where the local fixed/cable operators haven't been forced to roll out networks. And TDD and WiMAX seems to have found a promising niche as backhaul for on-train WiFi, while a few brave operators are using fixed WCDMA for home data users.
I'm entirely unconvinced this is a mass-market option, however.
The main problem? Copper (or fibre) is cheaper than spectrum. The other problem? It's usually easier to get planning permission to dig up a street, than to put a new base station on a roof. And most existing cell sites don't have enough backhaul capacity (or power) to turn them into the equivalent of a DSLAM or cable head-end. Most European 3G base stations have an E1 (2Mb/s) backhaul pipe. Adding capacity is complex, expensive and time-consuming. So while fixed broadband is already driving down the bandwidth curve... 512k, 1M, 2M, 8M, 24M, 45M, 100M, I've even heard plans for residential Gigabit Ethernet... the wireless options are still mostly at the stage of shared 2M capacity amongst an entire cell's user base.
Overall - it's another niche. At some places and some points in time, wireless (of any flavour) might temporarily compete with fixed pipes, but it's not a massmarket urban-area solution. "Everything" certainly won't be wireless, despite the hype. Ever.
Handsets
Lastly, phones. Here, the argument is more WiMAX/TDD/F-OFDM vs. 3.5G (EV-DO, HSDPA). Will "3rd-party wireless IP" free our phones from the tyranny of cellular operators' data services? Clearly, there are already phones on sale which include EV-DO and WCDMA, with HSDPA in the pipeline. There's WiFi in some phones already .
Will we all be using TDD- or WiMAX-phones in urban areas instead? Not this decade, no.
Apart from all the previous arguments about indoor performance, base stations and backhaul, there are a whole range of issues in actually creating phones with these technologies in. First off is the problem of convincing the major chipset suppliers (especially TI) to support them. Then there's a whole spectrum (pun intended) of RF problems in designing-in and testing new technologies that work at a wide range of frequencies. Then there's battery life - and even heat dissipation (remember how warm your modem gets? fancy a phone with fan?).
And the software layer - an IP-only phone will need a firewall and maybe anti-virus, which means an expensive "open" OS. And a whole bunch of complexity around the user interface and how it behaves. In general, adding ANY new software to a phone is much more involved (and time-consuming / costly) than the majority of observers expect. It's not just a case of saying "it only needs an extra $10 chip - what's the problem?"
Conclusion
This post isn't intended as an exhaustive round-up of wireless broadband technologies. But it highlights some of the practical problems, and is intended to deflate some of the hype. As usual, there's a couple of good stories (eg rural broadband, cellular network backhaul, road warriors' laptops) obscured by mountains of marketing guff and rampant over-optimistic speculation. I'm broadly optimistic on the laptop-broadband sector (I'd use it) but the "residential fixed broadband replacement" and "handset cellular replacement" sectors don't really fly in my view.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Nokia E-Series enterprise phone thoughts
Nokia's new E-Series of enterprise devices looks very well-thought out, and answers the "yeah, but what are the devices?" questions arising from previous announcements with Cisco and Avaya about dual-mode WLAN/cellular phones.
Notable from the announcement and the press conference has been the near-omission of any mention of the cellular carriers. This is absolutely spot-on from my point of view - in the enterprise, the IP-PBX vendors (and their channel partners) will be the kingmakers, with cellular providers playing second fiddle.
The interesting question will be to see which of the hybrid fixed/mobile operators are first to leverage their historic enterprise PBX business divisions and deep reach of their corporate sales forces to push these devices. My bet is on these devices (and maybe some more from Motorola and HTC) being part of the BT Fusion Enterprise service which will probably emerge over the next 6 months, possibly with France Telecom and Telecom Italia following suit in rapid order. The US market, where mobile carriers have much greater control over device distribution (and much greater fear of VoIP), may well lag, despite BellSouth's well-publicised trial of the earlier Motorola/Avaya solution.
One last thought for now - Nokia's lack of emphasis on "seamless" handover of voice calls between cellular and WLAN is also spot-on. My view is that this is very much a "nice to have", and can wait until later. More important in enterprise is the ability to hand off well from one WLAN access point to the next.
Update
Having played around briefly with a prototype of the E70, I can say that it's the first ever Nokia device I'd consider buying myself. Great spec, reasonable form-factor given the keyboard, and no heinous omissions or errors (unlike the unfortunate Sony Memory Stick in the otherwise-cool Sony-Ericsson P990 I saw yesterday).
Notable from the announcement and the press conference has been the near-omission of any mention of the cellular carriers. This is absolutely spot-on from my point of view - in the enterprise, the IP-PBX vendors (and their channel partners) will be the kingmakers, with cellular providers playing second fiddle.
The interesting question will be to see which of the hybrid fixed/mobile operators are first to leverage their historic enterprise PBX business divisions and deep reach of their corporate sales forces to push these devices. My bet is on these devices (and maybe some more from Motorola and HTC) being part of the BT Fusion Enterprise service which will probably emerge over the next 6 months, possibly with France Telecom and Telecom Italia following suit in rapid order. The US market, where mobile carriers have much greater control over device distribution (and much greater fear of VoIP), may well lag, despite BellSouth's well-publicised trial of the earlier Motorola/Avaya solution.
One last thought for now - Nokia's lack of emphasis on "seamless" handover of voice calls between cellular and WLAN is also spot-on. My view is that this is very much a "nice to have", and can wait until later. More important in enterprise is the ability to hand off well from one WLAN access point to the next.
Update
Having played around briefly with a prototype of the E70, I can say that it's the first ever Nokia device I'd consider buying myself. Great spec, reasonable form-factor given the keyboard, and no heinous omissions or errors (unlike the unfortunate Sony Memory Stick in the otherwise-cool Sony-Ericsson P990 I saw yesterday).
Symbian show musings part 2....
Some quick thoughts:
... Symbian really needs to persuade one or more licencees to produce a ruggedised smartphone for enterprises. Many companies will start deploying mobile applications on high-end handhelds from companies like Symbol, and then work "downwards" towards other mobile devices. If they deploy applications on Microsoft-powered ruggedised devices for field service employees, they are unlikely to port these to Symbian OS when they look at enabling phone-based users.
... an increasing number of Symbian (and Microsoft) phones are featuring WiFi. There seems to be disagreement as to whether applications and users need to be "bearer aware" - ie should they know if they are connected via cellular, WLAN, or both (and in future WiMAX and other broadband technologies). I think it's imperative - end users, be they consumer or business - already behave differently when they use WiFi. They don't think about data volumes (think about large attachments, or web radio streaming), they want access to local resources (PC, corporate servers, HiFi etc), and their dependencies on security, latency, QoS and price all differ. It isn't obvious at present whether Symbian (and by extension Series 60 and UIQ) have fully understood this yet.
... Symbian really needs to persuade one or more licencees to produce a ruggedised smartphone for enterprises. Many companies will start deploying mobile applications on high-end handhelds from companies like Symbol, and then work "downwards" towards other mobile devices. If they deploy applications on Microsoft-powered ruggedised devices for field service employees, they are unlikely to port these to Symbian OS when they look at enabling phone-based users.
... an increasing number of Symbian (and Microsoft) phones are featuring WiFi. There seems to be disagreement as to whether applications and users need to be "bearer aware" - ie should they know if they are connected via cellular, WLAN, or both (and in future WiMAX and other broadband technologies). I think it's imperative - end users, be they consumer or business - already behave differently when they use WiFi. They don't think about data volumes (think about large attachments, or web radio streaming), they want access to local resources (PC, corporate servers, HiFi etc), and their dependencies on security, latency, QoS and price all differ. It isn't obvious at present whether Symbian (and by extension Series 60 and UIQ) have fully understood this yet.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
At the Symbian smartphone show....
Trekked out to the desolate wastelands of East London, to the barn-like Excel conference centre today. Been listening to new Symbian CEO Nigel Clifford wax lyrical about the potential for extending its existing addressable market. The mobile phone OS company is intending to push down into the next tiers of devices, usually referred to as featurephones.
It is also loudly pitching mobile operators on the benefits of consolidating their supported handset software platforms. At the moment, most operators implicitly endorse a dozen or more embedded and "open" OS's on the phones they sell, largely because they leave the decision up to their handset suppliers. This, Symbian claims reasonably, drives up the cost of selecting, customising and testing phones. So, "obviously", the ideal solution is to become a Symbian-only operator, benefiting from the wonders and efficiencies of open operating systems....
But it's not that simple.
I remain distinctly unconvinced about the chances of convincing operators to become much more proscriptive about which OS's they support, despite this logic. The only operator that has really done this successfully is NTT DoCoMo in Japan, which develops its own flavours of Linux and Symbian OS and UI, and licences these back to the manufacturers of its 3G FOMA phones.
Other operators have either specified certain bits of the "application layer", (eg telling suppliers to use certain types of Java or Qualcomm BREW on top of their base platform), or have just written lengthy specification documents about how phones should behave.... and left it up to the manufacturers to choose their own way of achieving these ends.
Yes, in theory it would be great for Vodafone or O2 to force Nokia, Motorola, LG et al to just use Symbian Series 60, or Windows Mobile 5.0, or some variety of Linux. But in my view this just won't work.
Firstly, there will be certain customer segments that make their own choice - especially enterprise customers. If the IT director wants Microsoft phones, they'll get Microsoft phones. If their sales force has car kits that only work with XYZco's handsets, they'll get XYZco phones, irrespective of whether the operator doesn't like the embedded OS.
Secondly, there's the RAZR factor. No operator is going to want to pre-judge 2007's coolest phone now. And when it arrives, and their customers are clamouring for it, they are not going to say "sorry, it's got the wrong OS, you'll have to churn to our rivals if you want one".
Thirdly, all the manufacturers have got huge resources, personnel, intellectual property, customer loyalty and product roadmaps tied up in their midrange proprietary platforms, and they won't be binning this any time soon. Symbian's biggest competitor isn't Microsoft, it's the Nokia Series 40 team. And the Motorola Java-Linux team, and Samsung's in-house OS people are also pretty much entrenched.
Lastly, the cheapest phones will always be non-smart, knocked out for $25-50 by an ODM in Taiwan or China. They may well be cool & funky, and they'll appeal to pre-pay customers or those that just want a voice device. Forcing an expensive phone on a $15 per month user is ridiculous.
Overall, I can see some operators logically wanting to reduce the number of (implicit) OS suppliers supported via their portfolio of phones. But I just can't see it making it past the drivers of customer demand (ie cool devices) and inertia from their suppliers. Add in the fact that most users neither know nor care about their phones' "smartness", and the idea of Symbian taking over the world looks as far-fetched as ever, although its sales volumes will certainly rise. Of course, all these arguments are also true for Microsoft and the increasingly-fragmented mobile Linux fraternity as well. Bottom line? Full-blown smartphone OS's will remain niche, especially outside Nokia and DoCoMo.
It is also loudly pitching mobile operators on the benefits of consolidating their supported handset software platforms. At the moment, most operators implicitly endorse a dozen or more embedded and "open" OS's on the phones they sell, largely because they leave the decision up to their handset suppliers. This, Symbian claims reasonably, drives up the cost of selecting, customising and testing phones. So, "obviously", the ideal solution is to become a Symbian-only operator, benefiting from the wonders and efficiencies of open operating systems....
But it's not that simple.
I remain distinctly unconvinced about the chances of convincing operators to become much more proscriptive about which OS's they support, despite this logic. The only operator that has really done this successfully is NTT DoCoMo in Japan, which develops its own flavours of Linux and Symbian OS and UI, and licences these back to the manufacturers of its 3G FOMA phones.
Other operators have either specified certain bits of the "application layer", (eg telling suppliers to use certain types of Java or Qualcomm BREW on top of their base platform), or have just written lengthy specification documents about how phones should behave.... and left it up to the manufacturers to choose their own way of achieving these ends.
Yes, in theory it would be great for Vodafone or O2 to force Nokia, Motorola, LG et al to just use Symbian Series 60, or Windows Mobile 5.0, or some variety of Linux. But in my view this just won't work.
Firstly, there will be certain customer segments that make their own choice - especially enterprise customers. If the IT director wants Microsoft phones, they'll get Microsoft phones. If their sales force has car kits that only work with XYZco's handsets, they'll get XYZco phones, irrespective of whether the operator doesn't like the embedded OS.
Secondly, there's the RAZR factor. No operator is going to want to pre-judge 2007's coolest phone now. And when it arrives, and their customers are clamouring for it, they are not going to say "sorry, it's got the wrong OS, you'll have to churn to our rivals if you want one".
Thirdly, all the manufacturers have got huge resources, personnel, intellectual property, customer loyalty and product roadmaps tied up in their midrange proprietary platforms, and they won't be binning this any time soon. Symbian's biggest competitor isn't Microsoft, it's the Nokia Series 40 team. And the Motorola Java-Linux team, and Samsung's in-house OS people are also pretty much entrenched.
Lastly, the cheapest phones will always be non-smart, knocked out for $25-50 by an ODM in Taiwan or China. They may well be cool & funky, and they'll appeal to pre-pay customers or those that just want a voice device. Forcing an expensive phone on a $15 per month user is ridiculous.
Overall, I can see some operators logically wanting to reduce the number of (implicit) OS suppliers supported via their portfolio of phones. But I just can't see it making it past the drivers of customer demand (ie cool devices) and inertia from their suppliers. Add in the fact that most users neither know nor care about their phones' "smartness", and the idea of Symbian taking over the world looks as far-fetched as ever, although its sales volumes will certainly rise. Of course, all these arguments are also true for Microsoft and the increasingly-fragmented mobile Linux fraternity as well. Bottom line? Full-blown smartphone OS's will remain niche, especially outside Nokia and DoCoMo.
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