Om Malik has caught Nokia apparently moving away from mobile VoIP a little, by reducing the native support in the latest set of N-Series devices.
Reading through various posts, my take is that the truth is a little more complex.
There are three main ways for developers/ITSPs to get VoIP software running on Symbian phones:
1) Use the native Nokia SIP stack & build your own application around it.
2) Use the native Nokia SIP stack and Nokia "Default" built-in Internet Telephony client, and build a much lighter application around these.
3) Build everything yourself, either with your own SIP stack or a proprietary mechanism.
Most wVoIP companies like Truphone have historically gone for options (1) or (2), although Fring is (I think) closer to number 3.
Lots of mobile conspiracy-theorists and bloggers are speculating that Nokia is somehow bending to the carriers' will by removing VoIP. I'm not to certain that's the main story. I think it's more likely that Nokia's decided that its default VoIP client is largely unused and fairly unloved, and in need of lots of expensive development and maintenance that isn't justified by customer demand.
Another possibility is hinted at on David Wood's (Symbian CTO) blog , which talks about competition vs. the iPhone. To me, this is a very telling comment:
"There are considerably fewer applications built into the iPhone than you can find in a standard S60 phone. That relative simplicity means that some feature-focused users will decide not to use the device. But the device taps into a new market that is arguably underserved by previous offerings. This is the very considerable market of users who don’t need every bell and whistle in feature-packed smartphones"
I'm wondering if Nokia is taking a hatchet to S60 overall, getting rid of some of the less-used features and applications that clutter its interface, in the hope of getting some more Apple-like useability. Pre-installed VoIP is certainly one thing I'd be thinking twice about in that context. If enthusiastic "featurists" want VoIP, they'll know how to get it. But for the masses, there's possibly more benefit in just getting rid of some of the confusing icons and menu items.
Dean Bubley's Disruptive Wireless: Thought-leading wireless industry analysis
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
US elections and innovative mobile apps
Like much of the world, I'm pretty hooked on watching the protracted process of the US presidential elections. In the past, they've largely passed me by with a bewildering slew of wonk-ese jargon terms like caucus and primary and delegates. This time around, vastly improved TV and Internet coverage has made it all more accessible to an international audience.
So it's unsurprising that mobile technology has also been dragged into the media whirl of the election.
Tomi has a great post about the use of SMS notification by Obama, although from a European perspective I can't help thinking that it's not exactly innovative to use text messages for political purposes. This is from Spain in 2004, and this from Hungary in 2002. It's also helped Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe.
Obviously theres loads of blogging, YouTubing and Twittering going on as well. But the latest fad in the US, apparently, is for campaign ringtones. And perhaps more interesting still is the use of candidate-specific video ringback tones by Vringo.
I'm not certain how well these will travel. I can certainly tell you right now that anyone I call that foists a video of Gordon Brown on me at the next UK elections, will be getting SMSs instead of calls until they switch it off.
So it's unsurprising that mobile technology has also been dragged into the media whirl of the election.
Tomi has a great post about the use of SMS notification by Obama, although from a European perspective I can't help thinking that it's not exactly innovative to use text messages for political purposes. This is from Spain in 2004, and this from Hungary in 2002. It's also helped Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe.
Obviously theres loads of blogging, YouTubing and Twittering going on as well. But the latest fad in the US, apparently, is for campaign ringtones. And perhaps more interesting still is the use of candidate-specific video ringback tones by Vringo.
I'm not certain how well these will travel. I can certainly tell you right now that anyone I call that foists a video of Gordon Brown on me at the next UK elections, will be getting SMSs instead of calls until they switch it off.
GSMA toning down rhetoric towards reality
It's always worth double-checking facts. I saw this headline ("Mobile to reach 100Mbps before fixed-line, claims GSMA") and was about to write a pithy response, mentioning awkward facts such as HongKong Broadband Network's residential Symmetric Gigabit service having been available for a year or so.
Then I read the full article, which includes sensible commentary from Dan Warren saying "obviously you never get the top speed and they vary with distance from the base station and interference". Further, the GSMA's recent press release of 50m HSPA subscribers cites "peak data speeds over HSPA are currently between 3.6Mbps and 7.2Mbps. This translates to an end user speed of more than 1Mbps".
In other words, the GSMA is actually being realistic about real-world speeds for mobile broadband, and is in fact now trying not to fall into the trap of equating a cell sector's worth of shared capacity (under ideal radio conditions) with the achievable throughput of individual homes' dedicated wired connections. Good - HSPA is becoming hugely successful anyway, and doesn't need an overdose of cringe-worthy marketing hype.
I can't find any quote which directly suggests the GSMA thinks that it will beat fibre to 100Mbit/s. And in any case, talking about the UK in particular, it's probably worth suggesting that the GSMA might want to have a word with a couple of its members to help this along. O2 and T-Mobile UK currently have legal action pending against Ofcom which is delaying the 2.6GHz spectrum auction. Given the crowded state of the UK mobile market, that frequency band is pretty much the only one in which MNOs are likely to get the requisite 2 x 20MHz channels needed for LTE to run at 100Mbit/s. And it's also worth pointing out that even when that happens, 2.6GHz will struggle with indoor performance in many places, unless helped along by femtocells connected to - wait for it - fixed broadband.
Then I read the full article, which includes sensible commentary from Dan Warren saying "obviously you never get the top speed and they vary with distance from the base station and interference". Further, the GSMA's recent press release of 50m HSPA subscribers cites "peak data speeds over HSPA are currently between 3.6Mbps and 7.2Mbps. This translates to an end user speed of more than 1Mbps".
In other words, the GSMA is actually being realistic about real-world speeds for mobile broadband, and is in fact now trying not to fall into the trap of equating a cell sector's worth of shared capacity (under ideal radio conditions) with the achievable throughput of individual homes' dedicated wired connections. Good - HSPA is becoming hugely successful anyway, and doesn't need an overdose of cringe-worthy marketing hype.
I can't find any quote which directly suggests the GSMA thinks that it will beat fibre to 100Mbit/s. And in any case, talking about the UK in particular, it's probably worth suggesting that the GSMA might want to have a word with a couple of its members to help this along. O2 and T-Mobile UK currently have legal action pending against Ofcom which is delaying the 2.6GHz spectrum auction. Given the crowded state of the UK mobile market, that frequency band is pretty much the only one in which MNOs are likely to get the requisite 2 x 20MHz channels needed for LTE to run at 100Mbit/s. And it's also worth pointing out that even when that happens, 2.6GHz will struggle with indoor performance in many places, unless helped along by femtocells connected to - wait for it - fixed broadband.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Femtocells and 3GPP Rel8 closed subscriber groups
I'm catching up on some of the recent developments in femtocell standardisation (3GPP still officially calls them Home NodeB's). In particular, I'm looking at what progress has been made about the issue I highlighted in my June report - that modifications to handsets will be essential for mid-term massmarket adoption of femtos.
The report included detailed analysis of what needs to change in handsets - both in the radio/protocol part of the phone, and in the OS/application layers.
My discussions with femto suppliers and operators recently have shown growing acceptance of the first part of this - that developments in 3GPP Release 8 specifications will need to be implemented in phones as well as networks. Most of the femtocell deployment models now seem to distinguish between supporting "legacy" pre-Rel8 devices, and the later, more capable ones.
Much of the work relates to the mechanisms for phones to register on specific femtos, avoid unnecessary attempts to register with unsuitable ones, and how certain femtos can be "preferred" - particularly the one in a given user's home or workplace.
The worst-case scenario is for a user to walk down a street with many homes with femtocells, and for the phone to attempt to connect to each one for the 5 seconds during which its signal appears strongest. This would kill the battery on the phone, generate a huge amount of signalling traffic and potentially lead to dropped calls. Various other scenarios are similarly unpalatable - for example, the phone not registering quickly with an expected femto (eg at home), and the user not receiving the promised discounted call rate.
The bottom line is that various new approaches need to be made to "white-list" particular femtos for particular devices, and aid the fast registration onto those cells. This will use a feature in Rel8 called CSG (closed subscriber group).
But while CSGs solve part of the problem, they also bring with them a whole raft of other issues. I discuss these in the report in some depth, but a key issue is how the user & operator can access and manage this white-list. Another issue is how a CSG-enabled phone can know when to look for a suitable CSG, without having to spend the whole time using battery power to scan for one.
Wading through various submissions to 3GPP, it strikes me that the majority of network-centric participants are not especially well-versed in the compromises that need to be made in phone design to accommodate these and other aspects. So you get lines in standards documents like "The user shall be able to request the UE to perform a scan for available CSG Identities." Well, that's great, apart from the minor question of "Yes, but how, exactly?" - presumably, this needs some form of connection manager application, a bit like using WiFi on a PC. Bear in mind that the average "manual network select" application on a phone is horribly primitive, rarely used, and usually buried 4 layers down in the menu structure.
As an operator, do you really want to be fielding customer support queries about provisioning guest access on femtos, on 100 different device and OS software types, with the user facing some clunky menu structure and indecipherable femto IDs that might look like WiFi SSIDs?
Based on both conversations and reading submitted material, the company that I see coming closest to "getting" both sides of the femto/handset problem at a radio level is Qualcomm. For example, this (zipped) document is a thoughtful analysis of the problems involved in finding femtos in various CSG scenarios. It looks at some of the issues around femto "public hotspots" and campus deployments as well as home-installed products. (It's also worth noting that Qualcomm invested in femto vendor ip.access recently).
One thing that Qualcomm is (corporately) very conscious of is the protracted timeline for getting any new handset technology into the market. As well as the network side of the industry, the phone and device chipset manufacturers need to get their heads around this issue ASAP as well.
On that note, I'll use this as a suitable opportunity to plug my Femtocell-Aware Handset report once again, and also that Disruptive Analysis is able to offer customised workshop and consultancy services on this and related topics. Please contact me via [information AT disruptive-analysis DOT com] if you're interested.
The report included detailed analysis of what needs to change in handsets - both in the radio/protocol part of the phone, and in the OS/application layers.
My discussions with femto suppliers and operators recently have shown growing acceptance of the first part of this - that developments in 3GPP Release 8 specifications will need to be implemented in phones as well as networks. Most of the femtocell deployment models now seem to distinguish between supporting "legacy" pre-Rel8 devices, and the later, more capable ones.
Much of the work relates to the mechanisms for phones to register on specific femtos, avoid unnecessary attempts to register with unsuitable ones, and how certain femtos can be "preferred" - particularly the one in a given user's home or workplace.
The worst-case scenario is for a user to walk down a street with many homes with femtocells, and for the phone to attempt to connect to each one for the 5 seconds during which its signal appears strongest. This would kill the battery on the phone, generate a huge amount of signalling traffic and potentially lead to dropped calls. Various other scenarios are similarly unpalatable - for example, the phone not registering quickly with an expected femto (eg at home), and the user not receiving the promised discounted call rate.
The bottom line is that various new approaches need to be made to "white-list" particular femtos for particular devices, and aid the fast registration onto those cells. This will use a feature in Rel8 called CSG (closed subscriber group).
But while CSGs solve part of the problem, they also bring with them a whole raft of other issues. I discuss these in the report in some depth, but a key issue is how the user & operator can access and manage this white-list. Another issue is how a CSG-enabled phone can know when to look for a suitable CSG, without having to spend the whole time using battery power to scan for one.
Wading through various submissions to 3GPP, it strikes me that the majority of network-centric participants are not especially well-versed in the compromises that need to be made in phone design to accommodate these and other aspects. So you get lines in standards documents like "The user shall be able to request the UE to perform a scan for available CSG Identities." Well, that's great, apart from the minor question of "Yes, but how, exactly?" - presumably, this needs some form of connection manager application, a bit like using WiFi on a PC. Bear in mind that the average "manual network select" application on a phone is horribly primitive, rarely used, and usually buried 4 layers down in the menu structure.
As an operator, do you really want to be fielding customer support queries about provisioning guest access on femtos, on 100 different device and OS software types, with the user facing some clunky menu structure and indecipherable femto IDs that might look like WiFi SSIDs?
Based on both conversations and reading submitted material, the company that I see coming closest to "getting" both sides of the femto/handset problem at a radio level is Qualcomm. For example, this (zipped) document is a thoughtful analysis of the problems involved in finding femtos in various CSG scenarios. It looks at some of the issues around femto "public hotspots" and campus deployments as well as home-installed products. (It's also worth noting that Qualcomm invested in femto vendor ip.access recently).
One thing that Qualcomm is (corporately) very conscious of is the protracted timeline for getting any new handset technology into the market. As well as the network side of the industry, the phone and device chipset manufacturers need to get their heads around this issue ASAP as well.
On that note, I'll use this as a suitable opportunity to plug my Femtocell-Aware Handset report once again, and also that Disruptive Analysis is able to offer customised workshop and consultancy services on this and related topics. Please contact me via [information AT disruptive-analysis DOT com] if you're interested.
UMTS/LTE at 3.5GHz - watch out, WiMAX
One thing that 3GPP has been very good at is rolling out support for new frequency bands - arguably too good, some might say, as the number of available 3G/LTE bands now far outstrips the ability of chipsets to support all of them.
The latest in line is 3500MHz (and also 2300MHz), which until now has been the preserve of WiMAX and other similar fixed-wireless technologies. I suggested last November that this was a likely counter-strike by the invasion of the 2.5/2.6GHz band by WiMAX.
With the continued push towards a TDD profile for LTE, my view is that the WiMAX community is in danger of being further squeezed in some markets in terms of spectrum allocation.
The WiMAX Forum really needs to follow 3GPP's strategy and get profiles sorted for both FDD and TDD, in a broad range of frequency bands, as fast as possible. At the moment it is being extremely slow on this. It also needs to stimulate urgently the development of multi-band chipsets - it is probable that there will be only limited harmonisation at a global level, and even less on an operator-by-operator level. Frequency agility (and the ability to configure devices with different band permutations on the same silicon platform) will be critical for scale economies.
The latest in line is 3500MHz (and also 2300MHz), which until now has been the preserve of WiMAX and other similar fixed-wireless technologies. I suggested last November that this was a likely counter-strike by the invasion of the 2.5/2.6GHz band by WiMAX.
With the continued push towards a TDD profile for LTE, my view is that the WiMAX community is in danger of being further squeezed in some markets in terms of spectrum allocation.
The WiMAX Forum really needs to follow 3GPP's strategy and get profiles sorted for both FDD and TDD, in a broad range of frequency bands, as fast as possible. At the moment it is being extremely slow on this. It also needs to stimulate urgently the development of multi-band chipsets - it is probable that there will be only limited harmonisation at a global level, and even less on an operator-by-operator level. Frequency agility (and the ability to configure devices with different band permutations on the same silicon platform) will be critical for scale economies.
When is mobile VoIP not really mobile VoIP?
...when it's actually a circuit-switched call, that just uses an underlying packet bearer connection. So it's an IP "pipe", but the actual voice application is good old-fashioned telephony, without all the usual extra VoIP toys like presence.
I've talked before about CS voice over HSPA data bearers. I've also thrown cold water on the notion of using IMS Multimedia Telephony (MMTel) as the main long-term VoIPo3G / VoIPo4G service.
So there's an important question outstanding... if the long term trend is to move mobile towards LTE (and maybe mobile WiMAX).... how do we deal with voice? Will all phones and networks need to support GSM/UMTS in parallel, in perpetuity? It now seems clear that not all LTE networks will have an IMS core. Some will, but many will not.
My view is that there are three main options in the long term:
1) Some good (and ideally standardised) ways to implement non-IMS NGN VoIP applications over LTE. This doesn't need to be a dumb pipe approach, but could use assorted hooks for QoS, security and so on, if well-engineered.
2) Use LTE as a pipe, and put Skype's / Truphone's / Cisco's / BroadSoft's / whoever's VoIP over the top of it. Deal with issues like handover to other technologies in software in the servers and the handsets - perhaps under control of the operators, but perhaps not.
3) Develop some way to "tunnel" traditional circuit voice over LTE bearers, as we're already seeing with CS over HS.
Martin Sauter over at WirelessMoves has done some sterling work looking at this problem (he calls it the Voice Gap) recently. He's just posted on a proposal for Option 3, as well a related proposal for what's being called IMS Centralised Services.
The idea of re-using CS voice instead of a shiny new VoIP application is not new. Many fixed-NGN operators' VoIP services "look" like circuit-switched telephony to the end user. Many ordinary PSTN services have long transited "virtual circuits" in an IP-based transport network. UMA-based dual-mode VoWLAN does the same - the handset's telephony application remains unaware that it's being transported over WiFi.
Obviously, this is bad news for suppliers of VoIP application servers, whether IMS-based or not. They need to push hard to demonstrate the added benefits of "native" VoIP as an application, as otherwise they risk missing a big opportunity around LTE.
I've talked before about CS voice over HSPA data bearers. I've also thrown cold water on the notion of using IMS Multimedia Telephony (MMTel) as the main long-term VoIPo3G / VoIPo4G service.
So there's an important question outstanding... if the long term trend is to move mobile towards LTE (and maybe mobile WiMAX).... how do we deal with voice? Will all phones and networks need to support GSM/UMTS in parallel, in perpetuity? It now seems clear that not all LTE networks will have an IMS core. Some will, but many will not.
My view is that there are three main options in the long term:
1) Some good (and ideally standardised) ways to implement non-IMS NGN VoIP applications over LTE. This doesn't need to be a dumb pipe approach, but could use assorted hooks for QoS, security and so on, if well-engineered.
2) Use LTE as a pipe, and put Skype's / Truphone's / Cisco's / BroadSoft's / whoever's VoIP over the top of it. Deal with issues like handover to other technologies in software in the servers and the handsets - perhaps under control of the operators, but perhaps not.
3) Develop some way to "tunnel" traditional circuit voice over LTE bearers, as we're already seeing with CS over HS.
Martin Sauter over at WirelessMoves has done some sterling work looking at this problem (he calls it the Voice Gap) recently. He's just posted on a proposal for Option 3, as well a related proposal for what's being called IMS Centralised Services.
The idea of re-using CS voice instead of a shiny new VoIP application is not new. Many fixed-NGN operators' VoIP services "look" like circuit-switched telephony to the end user. Many ordinary PSTN services have long transited "virtual circuits" in an IP-based transport network. UMA-based dual-mode VoWLAN does the same - the handset's telephony application remains unaware that it's being transported over WiFi.
Obviously, this is bad news for suppliers of VoIP application servers, whether IMS-based or not. They need to push hard to demonstrate the added benefits of "native" VoIP as an application, as otherwise they risk missing a big opportunity around LTE.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Truly Mobile VoIP - calling from the skies
I never managed to fly on a plane equipped with Boeing's ill-fated Connexion WiFi service before they shut it down. But there's a new airborne wireless service emerging now - Aircell. This is being rolled out in the US, providing in-flight WiFi access.
And despite the supposed VoIP-blocking mechanisms, my friend Andy Abramson has cunningly found a workaround.
At one level I really don't like the idea of on-flight cellular/WiFi voice. There's enough noise on planes from screaming kids and tedious announcements about duty-free goods. But I certainly applaud another success against the ridiculous packet inspectors and their heavy-handed nannying at an application-by-application level.
Aircell should forget about blocking applications, and instead use their application-aware boxes to scrutinise what their customers want to use. And then improve and tailor the service to meet those needs.
Andy's idea to use Flash Audio makes a hige amount of sense. And I can think of at least two other ways in which VoIP could be disguised to get past censors like Aircell's.
And despite the supposed VoIP-blocking mechanisms, my friend Andy Abramson has cunningly found a workaround.
At one level I really don't like the idea of on-flight cellular/WiFi voice. There's enough noise on planes from screaming kids and tedious announcements about duty-free goods. But I certainly applaud another success against the ridiculous packet inspectors and their heavy-handed nannying at an application-by-application level.
Aircell should forget about blocking applications, and instead use their application-aware boxes to scrutinise what their customers want to use. And then improve and tailor the service to meet those needs.
Andy's idea to use Flash Audio makes a hige amount of sense. And I can think of at least two other ways in which VoIP could be disguised to get past censors like Aircell's.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
So what's up with the 3G performance in the iPhone?
Having been buried in work & on holiday for much of the past month, I hadn't really caught up with some of the news about the 3G iPhone. There seems to be widespread consternation about the performance of the device when connected via 3G, both in terms of connect speed and download performance.
About 200-300kbit/s seems to be a typical connection speed in the US, with some people reporting much worse performance (on the fringes of coverage). However, according to Wired's 3G iPhone performance map, many users in Europe are getting 1-2Mbit/s quite easily.
Various fingers of blame are being pointed - is it the AT&T network in the US? Is it the Infineon chipset?
Or is this just another manifestation of my favourite bugbear - the disconnect between mobile network designers and device developers (and thus by extension the 'real' user experience). It is simply the case that the original usage cases envisaged for HSDPA didn't include the type of rich, demanding applications (and implied traffic patterns) that iPhones generate?
Some thoughts:
- firstly, this could well be a manifestation of the HSDPA "idle mode" latency I discussed a few weeks ago. For iPhone users used to always-on, instant-connect WiFi, or even a nailed-up EDGE connection on a matured & optimised network - the initial "time to connect" could well be notably worse.
- secondly, in many countries, 3G is deployed in a higher frequency band than 2G (1900MHz vs 850MHz for AT&T, or 2100MHz vs 900/1800MHz in Europe). This means it will have shorter range, lesser coverage, and crucially worse indoor penetration.
- the audience of 3G iPhone users is fairly self-selecting: almost all actually use the data capabilities. While some of that is attributable to the phone's useability, it's also the case that it has attracted existing data-oriented users. It also tends to come bundled with data plans. This contrasts with most other popular 3G phones, for which only a small minority regularly use data (or even have a data plan). I'll bet the average Nokia N95 or SonyEricsson K-series user wouldn't notice lousy 3G signal, because they only fire up the browser once a month.
- various blogs have commented on the new 2.0.2 firmware release, wondering whether it contains changes to the radio stack. Some have claimed that they're seeing more bars of signal strength subsequently - although the cynic in me suspects it's easier to change the signal-strength indicator software, than the underlying radio.
- AT&T has not previously had the consumer 3G dongle phenomenon take off the same way it has in many other countries (reflecting different pricing strategies). So its network engineers may be a little behind the curve on dealing with massive, sudden ramp-ups of data traffic growth, often in new and unexpected geographic locations. They're probably faced with a whole range of optimisation headaches, and may even be needing to split cells & find new locations.
- Expectations of WiFi-like performance by end users reading about HSDPA's "headline" speeds may have been unrealistic. Normally, WiFi AP's only have 1-3 users attached simultaneously, whereas a 3G base station might have hundreds - with the available capacity in a sector shared amongst them all. Then there's another set of questions about the backhaul capacity from the cell site, in comparison with WiFi which usually has a home/office broadband connection to exploit.
- Somewhere there must be some side-by-side comparisons of an iPhone running next to another 3G handset (Nokia, Moto, whatever) connected to the same operator's network. If there was a big performance delta, that would point the finger of blame clearly at the phone/chipset rather than the network.
- It could be that the radio chip or antenna has worse performance on AT&T's 1900MHz band than on most European operators' 2100MHz for some reason.
- I'd imagine that the density of iPhone users in the US is higher than in most other countries, and thus more likely to put a strain on AT&T's network in dense urban areas.
Based on what I've been reading, I'm more inclined to point the finger at AT&T than at Infineon. Its 3G network has (to date) been geared more towards corporate PC + datacard users - and I suspect it's realising that massmarket consumer usage patterns are very different indeed.
About 200-300kbit/s seems to be a typical connection speed in the US, with some people reporting much worse performance (on the fringes of coverage). However, according to Wired's 3G iPhone performance map, many users in Europe are getting 1-2Mbit/s quite easily.
Various fingers of blame are being pointed - is it the AT&T network in the US? Is it the Infineon chipset?
Or is this just another manifestation of my favourite bugbear - the disconnect between mobile network designers and device developers (and thus by extension the 'real' user experience). It is simply the case that the original usage cases envisaged for HSDPA didn't include the type of rich, demanding applications (and implied traffic patterns) that iPhones generate?
Some thoughts:
- firstly, this could well be a manifestation of the HSDPA "idle mode" latency I discussed a few weeks ago. For iPhone users used to always-on, instant-connect WiFi, or even a nailed-up EDGE connection on a matured & optimised network - the initial "time to connect" could well be notably worse.
- secondly, in many countries, 3G is deployed in a higher frequency band than 2G (1900MHz vs 850MHz for AT&T, or 2100MHz vs 900/1800MHz in Europe). This means it will have shorter range, lesser coverage, and crucially worse indoor penetration.
- the audience of 3G iPhone users is fairly self-selecting: almost all actually use the data capabilities. While some of that is attributable to the phone's useability, it's also the case that it has attracted existing data-oriented users. It also tends to come bundled with data plans. This contrasts with most other popular 3G phones, for which only a small minority regularly use data (or even have a data plan). I'll bet the average Nokia N95 or SonyEricsson K-series user wouldn't notice lousy 3G signal, because they only fire up the browser once a month.
- various blogs have commented on the new 2.0.2 firmware release, wondering whether it contains changes to the radio stack. Some have claimed that they're seeing more bars of signal strength subsequently - although the cynic in me suspects it's easier to change the signal-strength indicator software, than the underlying radio.
- AT&T has not previously had the consumer 3G dongle phenomenon take off the same way it has in many other countries (reflecting different pricing strategies). So its network engineers may be a little behind the curve on dealing with massive, sudden ramp-ups of data traffic growth, often in new and unexpected geographic locations. They're probably faced with a whole range of optimisation headaches, and may even be needing to split cells & find new locations.
- Expectations of WiFi-like performance by end users reading about HSDPA's "headline" speeds may have been unrealistic. Normally, WiFi AP's only have 1-3 users attached simultaneously, whereas a 3G base station might have hundreds - with the available capacity in a sector shared amongst them all. Then there's another set of questions about the backhaul capacity from the cell site, in comparison with WiFi which usually has a home/office broadband connection to exploit.
- Somewhere there must be some side-by-side comparisons of an iPhone running next to another 3G handset (Nokia, Moto, whatever) connected to the same operator's network. If there was a big performance delta, that would point the finger of blame clearly at the phone/chipset rather than the network.
- It could be that the radio chip or antenna has worse performance on AT&T's 1900MHz band than on most European operators' 2100MHz for some reason.
- I'd imagine that the density of iPhone users in the US is higher than in most other countries, and thus more likely to put a strain on AT&T's network in dense urban areas.
Based on what I've been reading, I'm more inclined to point the finger at AT&T than at Infineon. Its 3G network has (to date) been geared more towards corporate PC + datacard users - and I suspect it's realising that massmarket consumer usage patterns are very different indeed.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Highlights from Ofcom's 2008 report on the UK Communications Market
UK Regulator Ofcom does a sterling job of putting out useful research documents about the real state of the market for communications services, including quite a lot of original surveys and analysis, plus extra detail versus the normal widely-parrotted stats on subscriptions and the like. It also seems to phrase its questions in consumer surveys in a fashion intended not to give biased views - something which is conspicuously different from much of the PR-led "research" that I see.
Ofcom's just released a huge new report on the current state of the industry, incorporating telecoms, broadcasting and related services.
Some interesting insights I've spotted so far:
Ofcom's just released a huge new report on the current state of the industry, incorporating telecoms, broadcasting and related services.
Some interesting insights I've spotted so far:
- Quite a lot of discussion of the resilience of fixed-line comms in the face of the mobile onslaught. Rather than direct fixed-mobile substitution, it appears that the UK sees more mobile-initiated incremental use of voice. Fixed minutes have dropped about 17bn minutes in total over 6 years, but mobile call volumes have risen by 38bn minutes. The UK outbound call total is still around 60/40 fixed:mobile, and 88% of homes still have a fixed line.
- The proportion of mobile-only households has been pretty static for the past few years, currently at 11%. This is considerably lower than elsewhere in Europe (eg 37% in Italy), and is possibly reflecting the prevalence of ADSL. Most mobile-only users are from lower socioeconomic groups.
- 44% of UK adults use SMS daily, against 36% using the Internet
- More than 100k+ new mobile broadband connections per month in the UK in H1 2008, with the rate of sign-up accelerating. 75% of dongle users are now using their mobile connection at home.
- Nearly half of adults with home broadband use WiFi
- 11% of UK mobile phone owners use the device to connect to the Internet, and 7% use it to send email. (It looks like the survey Ofcom commissioned didn't define "the Internet", so this might include some closed WAP usage too - consumers probably don't have a full view on what "the Internet" is at a technical level).
- VoIP usage appears to have fallen from 20% of consumers in late 2006, to 14% in early 2008. However, I suspect that this masks the fact that many instances of VoIP (eg BT's broadband circuit-replacement service, or corporate IP-PBXs), don't make it obvious to the user.
- Over two-thirds of mobile broadband users also have fixed-line broadband
- UK mobile subscribers send an average 67 SMS per month (or 82 / month per head, taking account of multiple subs-per-person). MMS use is only 0.37 messages per user per month.
- Slight increase in overall fixed-line subscriptions in 2007 - attributed to business lines.
- Overall UK non-SMS mobile data revenues were flat in 2007 vs 2006 at £1bn. I reckon that's because the data pre-dates the big rise in mobile dongle sales, and also reflects price pressures on things like ringtones. Ofcom also attributes this to adoption of flatrate data plans vs. pay-per-MB.
- UK prepay mobile ARPU has been flat at £9 / month for the last 4 years. That's a big issue for operators wanting to sell data services to prepay subs in my view.
- 17% of mobile subscriptions in the UK were on 3G at end-2007, although there's not much detail on the actual usage of 3G for non-voice applications.
- Overall, UK households allocate 3.3% of total spending to telecom services. That's been flat since 2003 - ie the slice of the pie isn't getting any bigger relative to food/rent/entertainment/travel etc.
- 94% of new mobile subscriptions are bundled with handsets.
- 11% of UK adults have >1 SIM card. Among 16-24yo users, this rises to 16%. There's an estimate that of the second devices in use in the UK, 1m are 3G dongles, 0.7m are BlackBerries or similar, and 8m are genuine "second handsets". There's also another 8m "barely active" devices that are used as backups, or legacy numbers that get occasional inbound calls or SMS
Advertising and Mobile - Still a net spender, rather than revenue earner
In all the discussion about the opportunities for mobile advertising, it is interest to consider that at present, the wireless industry spends much more on advertising than it gains in revenue. According to this article, the US mobile carriers collectively spent $6bn in 2007 on ads.
I'd imagine that at a global level, the figure is probably $20bn or so - and that's without the handset marketing budgets as well, plus retailers & assorted others. This contrasts with about $3bn predicted in new mobile-based ad cashflow into the industry, which various observers expect to rise about 5x over the next 4 years or so.
In other words, the mobile industry is likely to be a net spender on advertising until well into next decade.
It also throws up another conundrum - how much mobile-operator advertising will go via the mobile channel? Will you get a Vodafone banner while surfing on an Orange-supplied phone?
I'd imagine that at a global level, the figure is probably $20bn or so - and that's without the handset marketing budgets as well, plus retailers & assorted others. This contrasts with about $3bn predicted in new mobile-based ad cashflow into the industry, which various observers expect to rise about 5x over the next 4 years or so.
In other words, the mobile industry is likely to be a net spender on advertising until well into next decade.
It also throws up another conundrum - how much mobile-operator advertising will go via the mobile channel? Will you get a Vodafone banner while surfing on an Orange-supplied phone?
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Femtocells and MVNOs
ip.access' 3G-in-the-home blog highlights an interesting comment on Sprint's Airave femto service. Apparently some people have found that while installing Airave improves their Sprint handset performance and indoor coverage, it kills Virgin Mobile connections stone dead.
(Caveat - these comments are all 2nd / 3rd-hand anecdotes, so some harder verification of this would be useful).
The key thing here is that Virgin is an MVNO on Sprint's CDMA network.
I'm guessing that the RF components of the Virgin phones, when in range of an Airave, go "Oooh, what a strong signal, let's attach to that base station!". But then something in the Sprint femto gateway double-checks the provisioning system and says "No. You haven't subscribed to the Airave package, so get lost". And then for some reason the phone can't "see" the other macro cells nearby (interference? something else to do with cell selection?), and disconnects entirely.
It's made me think about the more general problems of MVNOs + host-operator femtocells. This is not something I've heard discussed at any great length, probably because most MVNOs today are 2G, but most femtos are 3G. But going forward, it's going to add another layer of complexity to femto business models and possibly the supporting architecture. It may also prove to be another reason for future femto-optimised handset modifications that involve improved mechanisms for cell selection and mobility.
(Caveat - these comments are all 2nd / 3rd-hand anecdotes, so some harder verification of this would be useful).
The key thing here is that Virgin is an MVNO on Sprint's CDMA network.
I'm guessing that the RF components of the Virgin phones, when in range of an Airave, go "Oooh, what a strong signal, let's attach to that base station!". But then something in the Sprint femto gateway double-checks the provisioning system and says "No. You haven't subscribed to the Airave package, so get lost". And then for some reason the phone can't "see" the other macro cells nearby (interference? something else to do with cell selection?), and disconnects entirely.
It's made me think about the more general problems of MVNOs + host-operator femtocells. This is not something I've heard discussed at any great length, probably because most MVNOs today are 2G, but most femtos are 3G. But going forward, it's going to add another layer of complexity to femto business models and possibly the supporting architecture. It may also prove to be another reason for future femto-optimised handset modifications that involve improved mechanisms for cell selection and mobility.
Quick thoughts on Tunisia mobile & Internet
I've just got back from a week in Tunisia (hence the lack of posts). While I make a point of avoiding "work" as much as possible when I'm on holiday, I do keep an eye out for anything interesting mobile-wise.
I've spent most of the time in the coastal town of Hammamet, which attracts a mix of local North African (Tunisian & Algerian) & European tourists. I also spent a couple of days in the capital Tunis and elsewhere. For those that haven't visited the country, it's sort of "mid-table" in terms of economy and wealth - roughly on a par with emerging parts of Europe like Macedonia or Albania, or Latin American states like Peru and Ecuador, and a bit higher than China's average (but without quite the same urban/rural polarity).
The first thing to note is that both my phones (one on O2 and the other on 3) failed to access data roaming at all. Ordinary GSM voice & SMS worked fine, but with both steered towards the Tunisiana network, I couldn't even get GPRS access or WAP to work. Maybe there was some fiddling-about I could have done with APNs on the phones, but frankly I really wasn't that bothered to make the effort. In any case, the networks are only 2G - although the shops are full of 3G phones, as people seem to like high-end devices for other reasons.
As in much of the developing world, the main business model seems to be separate purchase of unlocked phones and SIM cards / top-ups. Phones are sold in air-conditioned & modern retail outlets (I saw a full range from basic $40 devices up to $1000+ smartphones), but SIMs/topups are sold everywhere from tiny grocery shops to travel agencies.
Apparently I could have got a prepaid data SIM, but that seemed like too much enthusiasm (and a temptation to remain "connected" when I'm supposed to be relaxing). Instead I turned my phones off, except for about 10 mins a day to check any personal SMS's and voicemails, and also made a 10-minute trip to one of the Internet shops to check my email on a proper screen. If you never switch your phone off except for when you're flying, you should try it sometime for a couple of days - highly therapeutic!
Interestingly, I didn't see any evidence at all of local people using mobile data. No people obviously using handset browsers. Apart from the airport, I saw no BlackBerries. All the numerous mobile advertising hoardings I saw focused on voice and SMS promotions. The Internet shops had a fair number of locals (young and old), and I saw a lot of advertising for ADSL services. In Tunisia at least, the oft-repeated concept of "first usage of Internet on a mobile phone" seems to be clearly untrue at the moment.
I've spent most of the time in the coastal town of Hammamet, which attracts a mix of local North African (Tunisian & Algerian) & European tourists. I also spent a couple of days in the capital Tunis and elsewhere. For those that haven't visited the country, it's sort of "mid-table" in terms of economy and wealth - roughly on a par with emerging parts of Europe like Macedonia or Albania, or Latin American states like Peru and Ecuador, and a bit higher than China's average (but without quite the same urban/rural polarity).
The first thing to note is that both my phones (one on O2 and the other on 3) failed to access data roaming at all. Ordinary GSM voice & SMS worked fine, but with both steered towards the Tunisiana network, I couldn't even get GPRS access or WAP to work. Maybe there was some fiddling-about I could have done with APNs on the phones, but frankly I really wasn't that bothered to make the effort. In any case, the networks are only 2G - although the shops are full of 3G phones, as people seem to like high-end devices for other reasons.
As in much of the developing world, the main business model seems to be separate purchase of unlocked phones and SIM cards / top-ups. Phones are sold in air-conditioned & modern retail outlets (I saw a full range from basic $40 devices up to $1000+ smartphones), but SIMs/topups are sold everywhere from tiny grocery shops to travel agencies.
Apparently I could have got a prepaid data SIM, but that seemed like too much enthusiasm (and a temptation to remain "connected" when I'm supposed to be relaxing). Instead I turned my phones off, except for about 10 mins a day to check any personal SMS's and voicemails, and also made a 10-minute trip to one of the Internet shops to check my email on a proper screen. If you never switch your phone off except for when you're flying, you should try it sometime for a couple of days - highly therapeutic!
Interestingly, I didn't see any evidence at all of local people using mobile data. No people obviously using handset browsers. Apart from the airport, I saw no BlackBerries. All the numerous mobile advertising hoardings I saw focused on voice and SMS promotions. The Internet shops had a fair number of locals (young and old), and I saw a lot of advertising for ADSL services. In Tunisia at least, the oft-repeated concept of "first usage of Internet on a mobile phone" seems to be clearly untrue at the moment.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Inspecting the inspectors - reverse-engineering DPI
In October last year, after Comcast's heavy-handed DPI backfired, I wrote "I'm expecting quite a lot of Comcast-type attempts to be outed by people monitoring traffic flows and reverse-engineering what's causing problems."
Well, I see that a throttling detector has now been formally launched by the EFF.
I'm expecting Keynote-type live reports on ISP traffic-shaping tactics to emerge over the next year or two.
Eventually, it'll be a bit like a weather forecast "We're expecting some heavy VoIP blocking by ISP#1 this afternoon, with patches of throttled BitTorrent on ISPs #2-7 through the rest of tonight. The weekend looks pretty good though, with new neutrality laws from the US Congress and the European Commission coming into force on Friday evening".
Well, I see that a throttling detector has now been formally launched by the EFF.
I'm expecting Keynote-type live reports on ISP traffic-shaping tactics to emerge over the next year or two.
Eventually, it'll be a bit like a weather forecast "We're expecting some heavy VoIP blocking by ISP#1 this afternoon, with patches of throttled BitTorrent on ISPs #2-7 through the rest of tonight. The weekend looks pretty good though, with new neutrality laws from the US Congress and the European Commission coming into force on Friday evening".
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Internet user base is growing faster than mobile in China
In recent days, I've seen a couple more stories along the lines of "The Internet will be dominated by mobile, especially in emerging markets". MobHappy wrote a post on how this might spell doom for Microsoft if the PC loses influence, and Tomi Ahonen has focused more on mobile as a media channel.
Regular readers will know that I'm rather skeptical of the supposed shift from PC to mobile devices, or from "The Internet" to more general mobile platforms for delivery of content or communications.
I've just come across something rather fascinating, which I'd argue backs up my point of view. China's Ministry of the Information Industry and Internet Network Information Centre both release copious quantities of statistics and reports on the uptake of different technologies. In particular, they publish regular stats on mobile subscribers and Internet users.
At the last count (a month ago, at end-June 2008), there were 253m Internet users, and 601m mobile subscriptions.
But there's an interesting twist. According to the CNNIC's last full report published at the end of 2007, "According to the survey findings of CNNIC, each mobile phone subscriber has 1.33
mobile phone cards [SIMs / subscriptions] in average". (It's on page 35 of the report, or page 36 of the PDF). In other words, there are about 450m unique individuals using mobile phones in China - considerably less than the 600m suggests.
mobile phone cards [SIMs / subscriptions] in average". (It's on page 35 of the report, or page 36 of the PDF). In other words, there are about 450m unique individuals using mobile phones in China - considerably less than the 600m suggests.
I haven't got data on how that 1.33 number is trending, but it seems like multiple phone/SIM ownership in China is nothing new over the past year or two.
So I put together a quick spreadsheet on the growth in Internet users and Mobile users in China over the past few years, assuming that 1.33 number as constant. It makes interesting reading:
For those of you reading on RSS without images, it shows that over the last year, the number of Internet users as grown at a faster rate than Mobile users - 43m vs 41m in the last 6 months, and 48m vs 34m during the 6 months before that. By contrast, in the second half of 2005, it was 8m vs 23m.
What appears to be happening is that Internet use in China is being catalysed by wider availability of broadband, and more affordable PCs. 214m out of the 253m users are broadband-based. At the same time, there is some mobile use of the Internet - 73m users of the total access on phones - but virtually all of these are PC-Internet users as well. (There's no double-counting of mobile broadband as China doesn't have 3G yet). Looking at some of the charts on the CNNIC website, it looks like China's Internet use has hit a sudden point of inflection in the past 12 months, and is now on a steepening S-curve trajectory. Mobile is still growing extremely fast, but it doesn't seem to be accelerating at the same level.
This does not necessarily mean the same trends will be seen elsewhere in the developing world. It's worth noting that China is heavily pushing the rollout of fixed broadband - something which is much slower in markets like India and most of Africa. But it does suggest that China is extremely unlikely to have a future population of mobile-only Internet users.
One other interesting snippet from the CNNIC report - the average home Internet-connected PC has 2.7 users. This is worth remembering when considering all the stats on PC vs mobile handset shipments.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Reader survey: thoughts on Twitter?
I'm pretty skeptical of the value of Twitter.
Nobody has been able to construct an obvious reason why I should donate my time to get my head around it, play with it, update it, follow other people and so forth. When I've expressed this view at events and other online forums, the usual response has been "Oh, just start using it, and you'll understand the value over time".
I'm sorry, but that doesn't work for me. I don't like playing around with new social media tools "just for the fun of it", and my primary client-base isn't in the social media industry.
(Edit - the other argument I've heard is "You'll be able to have lots more conversations with lots more people". Which also doesn't work, as I already have more options for conversations than I have time. I unfortunately have to turn away briefings, conference speaking invitations, delay responding to emails and voicemails and deprioritise other interactions. I'd need to know that Twitter wouldn't just add to the problem, and that I'd be conversing with the "right" people more - ie the ones with unique and relevant knowledge, money to spend, or a good sense of humour).
I need a clear & immediate "win" if I'm going to take time away from other work or personal activities. There's a million bits of cool software, social media, or networking technology & events that I could invest time in, so what's special about Twitter? Would say, 4 hours "invested" in Twitter yield more revenue & value than 4 hours spent phoning or emailing some old contacts or clients, whom I haven't had a chance to catch up with in ages? Or 4 hours updating my website? Or 4 hours at something like Mobile Monday?
I'll contrast that with this blog, which I write because it yields obvious benefits in terms of visibility, interactivity with a knowledgeable audience, direct revenue and leads from new clients ("I read your blog regularly, can you also do XXX type of project or YYY type of event?"), and the ability to put down and "claim" ideas I have, when I don't have time to write up full reports.
On the other hand, Jonny Bentwood has highlighted just how many other analysts are Twittering away happily, so maybe it's time for a rethink.
(Socially, I'm totally disinterested in it - none of my non-industry friends have ever even mentioned it. Absolutely zero).
Now, I know that (obviously) quite a few people in the apps/Web part of my audience are avid Twitterers - but I have a variety of other avenues to reach them. Any comments on how you deal with analysts via Twitter would be interesting, nevertheless. But I'm more interested in people from the "techier" parts of this blog's readership - MNOs' radio and architecture and strategy teams, wireless infrastructure suppliers, device manufacturers, semiconductor vendors, regulators and so on. Do you already follow anyone "tweeting" on femtocells, or spectrum policy, or deep packet inspection?
Comments - either on this thread, or via email at FIRSTNAME.LASTNAME AT disruptive-analysis.com are very welcome. I'm willing to change my opinion on Twitter, but it needs to have a clear and demonstrable *business* return on my time. And the response "you won't understand until you've tried it" is unacceptable, as that generic argument could be applied to everything from religious evangelism to a new type of cheese.
Nobody has been able to construct an obvious reason why I should donate my time to get my head around it, play with it, update it, follow other people and so forth. When I've expressed this view at events and other online forums, the usual response has been "Oh, just start using it, and you'll understand the value over time".
I'm sorry, but that doesn't work for me. I don't like playing around with new social media tools "just for the fun of it", and my primary client-base isn't in the social media industry.
(Edit - the other argument I've heard is "You'll be able to have lots more conversations with lots more people". Which also doesn't work, as I already have more options for conversations than I have time. I unfortunately have to turn away briefings, conference speaking invitations, delay responding to emails and voicemails and deprioritise other interactions. I'd need to know that Twitter wouldn't just add to the problem, and that I'd be conversing with the "right" people more - ie the ones with unique and relevant knowledge, money to spend, or a good sense of humour).
I need a clear & immediate "win" if I'm going to take time away from other work or personal activities. There's a million bits of cool software, social media, or networking technology & events that I could invest time in, so what's special about Twitter? Would say, 4 hours "invested" in Twitter yield more revenue & value than 4 hours spent phoning or emailing some old contacts or clients, whom I haven't had a chance to catch up with in ages? Or 4 hours updating my website? Or 4 hours at something like Mobile Monday?
I'll contrast that with this blog, which I write because it yields obvious benefits in terms of visibility, interactivity with a knowledgeable audience, direct revenue and leads from new clients ("I read your blog regularly, can you also do XXX type of project or YYY type of event?"), and the ability to put down and "claim" ideas I have, when I don't have time to write up full reports.
On the other hand, Jonny Bentwood has highlighted just how many other analysts are Twittering away happily, so maybe it's time for a rethink.
(Socially, I'm totally disinterested in it - none of my non-industry friends have ever even mentioned it. Absolutely zero).
Now, I know that (obviously) quite a few people in the apps/Web part of my audience are avid Twitterers - but I have a variety of other avenues to reach them. Any comments on how you deal with analysts via Twitter would be interesting, nevertheless. But I'm more interested in people from the "techier" parts of this blog's readership - MNOs' radio and architecture and strategy teams, wireless infrastructure suppliers, device manufacturers, semiconductor vendors, regulators and so on. Do you already follow anyone "tweeting" on femtocells, or spectrum policy, or deep packet inspection?
Comments - either on this thread, or via email at FIRSTNAME.LASTNAME AT disruptive-analysis.com are very welcome. I'm willing to change my opinion on Twitter, but it needs to have a clear and demonstrable *business* return on my time. And the response "you won't understand until you've tried it" is unacceptable, as that generic argument could be applied to everything from religious evangelism to a new type of cheese.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Should device purchase subsidise connectivity, not vice versa?
Whether or not PCs come with 3G modems embedded (see the debate here) there seems to be a general belief that the way forward is to offer "free laptops" as long as someone signs up for a contract for either fixed or mobile broadband.
While I can see the appeal of this type of subsidy, I'm wondering if it is the wrong way around.
Given that millions of people seem pretty happy to stump up cash (or at least credit cards) for PCs at the moment, why try and dilute value in the industry by persuading them to get computers for nothing instead?
Why not try a different approach - have a $1000 (or $400) laptop, that comes with "connectivity for 2 years" included free in the price, or as a bolt-on upgrade option like extra memory? Lots of physical electronic products come bundled with some service element (eg a warranty) that eventually expires but could be renewed. Just like a warranty, you could have terms and conditions, excusions and policies.
The problem here for the MNOs is that they would no longer "own the customer". But so what? Customers are certainly not owned by the warranty company working with the dealer of their new cars either... but warranty companies are (generally) highly profitable.
This approach - "embedded connectivity" - and the reverse subsidy model of hardware purchase including "free service" isn't new in technology markets either. Telematics products like car tracking systems often come with a year's service included in the upfront price. Software may include a year's maintenance or upgrades.
This also gets around the thorny issue of monthly billing, as well as limiting the credit risk the mobile industry might expose itself to if it started to subsidise a good proportion of the world's roughly $100bn worth of annual laptop sales.
While I can see the appeal of this type of subsidy, I'm wondering if it is the wrong way around.
Given that millions of people seem pretty happy to stump up cash (or at least credit cards) for PCs at the moment, why try and dilute value in the industry by persuading them to get computers for nothing instead?
Why not try a different approach - have a $1000 (or $400) laptop, that comes with "connectivity for 2 years" included free in the price, or as a bolt-on upgrade option like extra memory? Lots of physical electronic products come bundled with some service element (eg a warranty) that eventually expires but could be renewed. Just like a warranty, you could have terms and conditions, excusions and policies.
The problem here for the MNOs is that they would no longer "own the customer". But so what? Customers are certainly not owned by the warranty company working with the dealer of their new cars either... but warranty companies are (generally) highly profitable.
This approach - "embedded connectivity" - and the reverse subsidy model of hardware purchase including "free service" isn't new in technology markets either. Telematics products like car tracking systems often come with a year's service included in the upfront price. Software may include a year's maintenance or upgrades.
This also gets around the thorny issue of monthly billing, as well as limiting the credit risk the mobile industry might expose itself to if it started to subsidise a good proportion of the world's roughly $100bn worth of annual laptop sales.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Why the obsession with monthly billing for mobile services?
I've just been reading this post from SMS Text News about remote-wipe capabilities for handsets. This has been something that's been discussed for years, especially in the context of enterprise-issued devices like BlackBerries or other smartphones.
But while I agree in principle with the idea, I don't agree with the notion that this would best be provided as a service for (say) two pounds per user per month.
Why? Because I perceive this as a sort of insurance policy. And insurance to me is not something that is "worth" a monthly fee, because on a monthly basis nothing is done by the provider. I have an annual car insurance policy, and annual home insurance policy, and (because I travel frequently) an annual travel insurance policy. Each year the premium and the fine-print conditions are renegotiated, and I expect to be able to shop around between competing providers.
... and if and when I actually need to make a claim, I accept that there may be an extra "per event" charge (the excess) involved. And in the case of car insurance, a whole range of extra factors are taken into account to determine my risk level (garage, where I live, job, traffic offences etc) and price the premium accordingly. And for each year that I don't claim, I get a discount on the next year's premium (which is transferrable to a competing provider too).
Now, I understand why mobile operators are focused on monthly billables. They are measured on monthly ARPU by their management and investors. And typical mobile contracts are of variable lengths, 12/18/24 months, so an annual insurance / remote-wipe policy doesn't fit so well.
But some of the work I've been doing recently for a billing & OSS client (Highdeal) has made me think about the lessons that could be learnt, and practices adopted, across industries. In this instance, I think the mobile industry could learn quite a bit about charging for insurance policies. Annual fees make sense, as does some form of recognition of relative risk for individual users. The mix of fixed and per-event fees makes the customer perceive value - even if they don't have their phone stolen and wiped.
It should also be possible to have 3rd-parties providing the insurance, to ensure competition in terms of both price and features. The operator could even act as "insurance broker" in this regard, representing many different device-management providers, and still take a commission and conduct the billing. This would also act as an advantage for those handsets sold through the operator's own channel, as they could be pre-configured correctly. But equally, it needs to be (easily) possible for me to select a totally independent provider (or self-manage the devices if I'm an enterprise) if that makes more sense.
There are plenty of other examples of mobile services for which the current bi-polar choice of "per event" or "per month" are both poor fits with user preferences. To be fair, we are moving to a few "per day" or "per week" options for things like data plans, and some promotional tariffs and linked prices. But there's still a heavy monthly billing-cycle cloud overhanging even innovative pricing methods.
I had an interesting recent example of this: I renewed my main personal mobile contract with O2 via Carphone Warehouse, which had actually been running for a year longer than the original 12-month term. I negotiated an upgraded handset, and a different tariff plan, including a new flatrate data allowance. But could it start immediately? No, not even for a longstanding customer. I had to wait until the next month for it to kick in, before which data was still charged at the prior ridiculous levels. So naturally when I got my shiny new phone, I switched off the 3G to stop myself accidentally racking up huge charges, and made sure not to use the new operator services on it until next month's cycle comes into force. Now, I'm pretty sure that most users' behaviour with a new phone's capabilities is set in concrete by their first week's experience with it. Counterproductive for operators wanting uptake of new services, eh?
So.... I think in general there needs to be much greater flexibility in how mobile services are priced and billed, rather than just using the current lazy catch-all monthly rating mechanisms. There needs to be flexibility on matters like annual billing. And some things need to take effect immediately, not sometime next month.
But while I agree in principle with the idea, I don't agree with the notion that this would best be provided as a service for (say) two pounds per user per month.
Why? Because I perceive this as a sort of insurance policy. And insurance to me is not something that is "worth" a monthly fee, because on a monthly basis nothing is done by the provider. I have an annual car insurance policy, and annual home insurance policy, and (because I travel frequently) an annual travel insurance policy. Each year the premium and the fine-print conditions are renegotiated, and I expect to be able to shop around between competing providers.
... and if and when I actually need to make a claim, I accept that there may be an extra "per event" charge (the excess) involved. And in the case of car insurance, a whole range of extra factors are taken into account to determine my risk level (garage, where I live, job, traffic offences etc) and price the premium accordingly. And for each year that I don't claim, I get a discount on the next year's premium (which is transferrable to a competing provider too).
Now, I understand why mobile operators are focused on monthly billables. They are measured on monthly ARPU by their management and investors. And typical mobile contracts are of variable lengths, 12/18/24 months, so an annual insurance / remote-wipe policy doesn't fit so well.
But some of the work I've been doing recently for a billing & OSS client (Highdeal) has made me think about the lessons that could be learnt, and practices adopted, across industries. In this instance, I think the mobile industry could learn quite a bit about charging for insurance policies. Annual fees make sense, as does some form of recognition of relative risk for individual users. The mix of fixed and per-event fees makes the customer perceive value - even if they don't have their phone stolen and wiped.
It should also be possible to have 3rd-parties providing the insurance, to ensure competition in terms of both price and features. The operator could even act as "insurance broker" in this regard, representing many different device-management providers, and still take a commission and conduct the billing. This would also act as an advantage for those handsets sold through the operator's own channel, as they could be pre-configured correctly. But equally, it needs to be (easily) possible for me to select a totally independent provider (or self-manage the devices if I'm an enterprise) if that makes more sense.
There are plenty of other examples of mobile services for which the current bi-polar choice of "per event" or "per month" are both poor fits with user preferences. To be fair, we are moving to a few "per day" or "per week" options for things like data plans, and some promotional tariffs and linked prices. But there's still a heavy monthly billing-cycle cloud overhanging even innovative pricing methods.
I had an interesting recent example of this: I renewed my main personal mobile contract with O2 via Carphone Warehouse, which had actually been running for a year longer than the original 12-month term. I negotiated an upgraded handset, and a different tariff plan, including a new flatrate data allowance. But could it start immediately? No, not even for a longstanding customer. I had to wait until the next month for it to kick in, before which data was still charged at the prior ridiculous levels. So naturally when I got my shiny new phone, I switched off the 3G to stop myself accidentally racking up huge charges, and made sure not to use the new operator services on it until next month's cycle comes into force. Now, I'm pretty sure that most users' behaviour with a new phone's capabilities is set in concrete by their first week's experience with it. Counterproductive for operators wanting uptake of new services, eh?
So.... I think in general there needs to be much greater flexibility in how mobile services are priced and billed, rather than just using the current lazy catch-all monthly rating mechanisms. There needs to be flexibility on matters like annual billing. And some things need to take effect immediately, not sometime next month.
Latency in mobile - more needs to be done
When most people refer to latency in mobile networks, they are talking about the inherent lag in traffic going through the network, which includes aspects like buffering of traffic in the various nodes like base stations and controllers, as well as any processing in the network core and the handset itself.
There will always be a trade-off between latency and spectral efficiency, because the best compression algorithms have to wait for enough inbound data to arrive before processing it and crunching it down in size. Error correction also plays a part here.
All this is well-known, and the subject of focus in the industry. Recent generations of technology like HSPA have improved latency considerably.
However, there is a second class of latency which often gets overlooked. It is initial call-setup time, or initial data connection time. I'm old enough to remember when the PSTN network was digitalised - and how miraculous it seemed that a call recipient's phone started ringing as soon as you pressed the last digit on your own handset. Yet in mobile, we're still stuck with the type-in-numbers-then-hit-send mentality. We still have to wait for 5, 10, even 20 seconds before the call connects.
And it's the same for data too. What's called the "wake-from-idle" time on the current generation of HSDPA phones and modems is frequently dreadful (although this is also down to how the network is configured). The "idle mode" is used to conserve power, but it's a trade-off against good user experience. The first time I use the browser on a phone during a day (or worse, after I emerge from a tube station) it takes an age to connect, then display a downloaded page. Same thing after the network drops into idle mode during occasional use - it's a noticeable lag compared with a PC. Both connection time to WiFi/broadband, and response time when you go to a web page, are much faster in most circumstances.
HSPA Evolved (aka HSPA+) should help with the data wake-from-idle. But in the meantime, referring to HSPA as always-on is a misnomer. I also suspect that the whole idle/active state thing probably fits very poorly with always-on apps like many background services, presence, AJAX web pages and the like. As usual, there's been a disconnect between the network side of mobile innovation and application/user-behaviour aspects.
Yes, it's only a few seconds, but it's this type of thing that will lead to niggling customer dissatisfaction with mobile broadband compared to fixed connections. If you're used to instantaneous DSL or cable - or better still, ethernet in a school or workplace - then that extra bit of initial latency could have a disproportionate effect on overall quality of experience.
On the voice call set-up time, I'm not sure what the answer is, because I suspect that much of the problem is in the telephony application and signalling, rather than the network. It strikes me that this could well be a killer differentiator for VoIP in mobile - either operator-based or independent. It seems strange now, but I remember well just how different and better phone calls became with instant connection. Never mind price, or fancy voice mashups - maybe wVoIP companies should think about a really obvious and tangible benefit to end users - not wasting 10 seconds of your life every time you make a call.
"Instantaneous" has a lot of value. The mobile industry should focus on it more.
There will always be a trade-off between latency and spectral efficiency, because the best compression algorithms have to wait for enough inbound data to arrive before processing it and crunching it down in size. Error correction also plays a part here.
All this is well-known, and the subject of focus in the industry. Recent generations of technology like HSPA have improved latency considerably.
However, there is a second class of latency which often gets overlooked. It is initial call-setup time, or initial data connection time. I'm old enough to remember when the PSTN network was digitalised - and how miraculous it seemed that a call recipient's phone started ringing as soon as you pressed the last digit on your own handset. Yet in mobile, we're still stuck with the type-in-numbers-then-hit-send mentality. We still have to wait for 5, 10, even 20 seconds before the call connects.
And it's the same for data too. What's called the "wake-from-idle" time on the current generation of HSDPA phones and modems is frequently dreadful (although this is also down to how the network is configured). The "idle mode" is used to conserve power, but it's a trade-off against good user experience. The first time I use the browser on a phone during a day (or worse, after I emerge from a tube station) it takes an age to connect, then display a downloaded page. Same thing after the network drops into idle mode during occasional use - it's a noticeable lag compared with a PC. Both connection time to WiFi/broadband, and response time when you go to a web page, are much faster in most circumstances.
HSPA Evolved (aka HSPA+) should help with the data wake-from-idle. But in the meantime, referring to HSPA as always-on is a misnomer. I also suspect that the whole idle/active state thing probably fits very poorly with always-on apps like many background services, presence, AJAX web pages and the like. As usual, there's been a disconnect between the network side of mobile innovation and application/user-behaviour aspects.
Yes, it's only a few seconds, but it's this type of thing that will lead to niggling customer dissatisfaction with mobile broadband compared to fixed connections. If you're used to instantaneous DSL or cable - or better still, ethernet in a school or workplace - then that extra bit of initial latency could have a disproportionate effect on overall quality of experience.
On the voice call set-up time, I'm not sure what the answer is, because I suspect that much of the problem is in the telephony application and signalling, rather than the network. It strikes me that this could well be a killer differentiator for VoIP in mobile - either operator-based or independent. It seems strange now, but I remember well just how different and better phone calls became with instant connection. Never mind price, or fancy voice mashups - maybe wVoIP companies should think about a really obvious and tangible benefit to end users - not wasting 10 seconds of your life every time you make a call.
"Instantaneous" has a lot of value. The mobile industry should focus on it more.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Mobile widgets - who wants them?
Maybe I'm missing the point, but I'm starting to think that the fascination that the mobile apps industry has with "widgets" (small Internet-connected applications) is misplaced. I'll happily confess that I haven't looked at the sector in huge depth yet, but on first sight there seem to be several weak logical connections in the whole premise. The argument seems to be go something like:
1) Phones are small with small screens
2) Therefore small applications are good, especially if they only take up a small amount of screen space
3) Phones don't have much memory, but are getting better browsers & faster/cheaper data connections
4) Therefore using some sort of central widget "engine" and UI framework makes it easier to have lots of widgets on one phone rather than lots of native applications
5) We want to sell lots of mobile advertising in future
6) Therefore having some sort of closed widget environment (but based on reasonably open standards) with built-in advertising functions gives us a great channel to the mobile user
7) Most "normal" people don't like installing native apps on phones. And developers don't like the fragmentation of platforms.
8) Therefore make a 'library' of mini-applications to enable people to search for and "discover" widgets and download them, working across lots of handsets.
But frankly, based on recent experiences, I can't see where the customer demand lies. I can see why the industry would like widgets to be adopted. But I fail to see why end users are going to be bothered.
In particular, there's a whole range of issues that are unsolved:
1) I still see no evidence that "normal" people want to "discover" stuff to download to a handset. Yes I know that umpty-million people are using iPhone app store, but they're not "normal" in a 3-billion-mobile-users sense of the word.
2) Always-on widgets are battery-killers. And given that different phones (and different networks) have different optimal methods for power-management, the whole abstraction / single-platform notion falls flat on its face. I could fry an egg on my Nokia E71 if I leave some widget stuff running in the background.
3) Based on my (admittedly limited) experience playing around with things like Widsets and Yahoo Go!, widgets are slow, clunky, and make a big song-and-dance (hey! rotating icons! wooo!) about doing basic stuff that could work perfectly well on a normal browser web page.
4) Browsers are getting *much* better. Many of the current widget tasks can be adequately performed with a decent set of bookmarks and RSS functionality, or using server-side aggregation of web services onto a single home screen.
5) Is there actually any evidence that widgets are popular on PCs? I can't remember seeing any newspaper articles about how cool they are. They're certainly not in what I'd call "the popular consciousness" in the same way that (say) Skype is, or even mobile broadband / 3G dongles. Vista's low uptake rate won't have helped either.
6) Wearing my "end user" hat, widgets appear to offer the same stuff that could be done in the browser, but with less flexibility (how do I delete that Yahoo! Entertainment default widget?) but with greater amounts of intrusive advertising. Hmm, let me think about this.
7) Widgets are at the mercy of the handset network connection manager, in dealing with intermittent coverage, use of 2G vs 3G vs WiFi, policy about data access while roaming and so on.
8) Typically there's lousy integration of widgets with the native functions of the phone - especially the dialler, the phonebook & SMS. This might get fixed with initiatives like OMTP's BONDI in the medium term.
As I said upfront, maybe I'm missing the point. I haven't really followed this area in great depth, but that also means I haven't absorbed the hype & groupthink. Or maybe this whole mobile widget thing is just another self-delusional ruse, dreamt up by the mobile apps industry to convince itself that massmarket end-users are actually interested in putting 101 bits of random software on the phones.
1) Phones are small with small screens
2) Therefore small applications are good, especially if they only take up a small amount of screen space
3) Phones don't have much memory, but are getting better browsers & faster/cheaper data connections
4) Therefore using some sort of central widget "engine" and UI framework makes it easier to have lots of widgets on one phone rather than lots of native applications
5) We want to sell lots of mobile advertising in future
6) Therefore having some sort of closed widget environment (but based on reasonably open standards) with built-in advertising functions gives us a great channel to the mobile user
7) Most "normal" people don't like installing native apps on phones. And developers don't like the fragmentation of platforms.
8) Therefore make a 'library' of mini-applications to enable people to search for and "discover" widgets and download them, working across lots of handsets.
But frankly, based on recent experiences, I can't see where the customer demand lies. I can see why the industry would like widgets to be adopted. But I fail to see why end users are going to be bothered.
In particular, there's a whole range of issues that are unsolved:
1) I still see no evidence that "normal" people want to "discover" stuff to download to a handset. Yes I know that umpty-million people are using iPhone app store, but they're not "normal" in a 3-billion-mobile-users sense of the word.
2) Always-on widgets are battery-killers. And given that different phones (and different networks) have different optimal methods for power-management, the whole abstraction / single-platform notion falls flat on its face. I could fry an egg on my Nokia E71 if I leave some widget stuff running in the background.
3) Based on my (admittedly limited) experience playing around with things like Widsets and Yahoo Go!, widgets are slow, clunky, and make a big song-and-dance (hey! rotating icons! wooo!) about doing basic stuff that could work perfectly well on a normal browser web page.
4) Browsers are getting *much* better. Many of the current widget tasks can be adequately performed with a decent set of bookmarks and RSS functionality, or using server-side aggregation of web services onto a single home screen.
5) Is there actually any evidence that widgets are popular on PCs? I can't remember seeing any newspaper articles about how cool they are. They're certainly not in what I'd call "the popular consciousness" in the same way that (say) Skype is, or even mobile broadband / 3G dongles. Vista's low uptake rate won't have helped either.
6) Wearing my "end user" hat, widgets appear to offer the same stuff that could be done in the browser, but with less flexibility (how do I delete that Yahoo! Entertainment default widget?) but with greater amounts of intrusive advertising. Hmm, let me think about this.
7) Widgets are at the mercy of the handset network connection manager, in dealing with intermittent coverage, use of 2G vs 3G vs WiFi, policy about data access while roaming and so on.
8) Typically there's lousy integration of widgets with the native functions of the phone - especially the dialler, the phonebook & SMS. This might get fixed with initiatives like OMTP's BONDI in the medium term.
As I said upfront, maybe I'm missing the point. I haven't really followed this area in great depth, but that also means I haven't absorbed the hype & groupthink. Or maybe this whole mobile widget thing is just another self-delusional ruse, dreamt up by the mobile apps industry to convince itself that massmarket end-users are actually interested in putting 101 bits of random software on the phones.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Femto provisioning - what else is needed?
Interesting to see the Femto Forum look to standardise on a protocol called TR-069 for remote provisioning and management of femtos last week. This doesn't come as a huge surprise to me on a number of grounds, especially as the same approach is used for management of many existing broadband home gateways and modems.
A discussion I had in the past with a remote-management vendor highlighted the possibility of being able to "daisy chain" a number of devices using TR-069. Given that most femtos over the next few years will be standalone, and need to be plugged into the ethernet port of a separate router or gateway (possibly provided by a separate service provider), that is a very important consideration.
It also raises the possibility of outsourced management/provisioning. For example, I have a BT Home Hub gateway attached to my BT ADSL line - given that I'm unlikely to churn to a triple/quadplay provider just to get a femto, I could quite imagine BT offering wholesale "pass-through" device management services to Vodafone or O2 or another licenced-spectrum operator.
However, one aspect is left unclear - and is perhaps for "future development". I believe that it will be important to manage (and reconfigure / download in some cases) software on the handset to enable it to work better with the femto. This is especially the case if the operator wants to enable any new "connected home" services on the phone. While such changes could be done "over the air" or using approaches like OMA DM, it may also make sense to tie these in with the femto provisioning itself.
A discussion I had in the past with a remote-management vendor highlighted the possibility of being able to "daisy chain" a number of devices using TR-069. Given that most femtos over the next few years will be standalone, and need to be plugged into the ethernet port of a separate router or gateway (possibly provided by a separate service provider), that is a very important consideration.
It also raises the possibility of outsourced management/provisioning. For example, I have a BT Home Hub gateway attached to my BT ADSL line - given that I'm unlikely to churn to a triple/quadplay provider just to get a femto, I could quite imagine BT offering wholesale "pass-through" device management services to Vodafone or O2 or another licenced-spectrum operator.
However, one aspect is left unclear - and is perhaps for "future development". I believe that it will be important to manage (and reconfigure / download in some cases) software on the handset to enable it to work better with the femto. This is especially the case if the operator wants to enable any new "connected home" services on the phone. While such changes could be done "over the air" or using approaches like OMA DM, it may also make sense to tie these in with the femto provisioning itself.
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