In recent months, I've noticed an interesting misconception.
Some observers - notably from North America - seem to be under the impression that netbooks are, by default, mobile-connected. And, in particular, that they are major contributors to 3G data traffic.
As far as I know, this is not really true. Yes, in the US (and, I think, Japan), a fairly decent proportion of netbooks are sold through mobile carrier channels, with embedded or bundled 3G modems, usually on monthly plans.
Elsewhere, although that model exists, it is far from the most important. The majority of netbooks are sold through ordinary PC retail, corporate or online channels. And these generally do not have in-built wireless modules. Yes, some get used with USB 3G dongles (such as the one I'm writing this post on, from my local cafe), but many are just used with WiFi or even ethernet.
In 2010, there will probably be around 40m netbooks shipped. I'd be surprised if more than 10% are sold with built-in 3G, with maybe another 10-15% used with separate dongles. Ordinary retail netbooks rarely ship with 3G modules, as the cost is a very large % of the manufacturer gross margin - so the OEM won't wear the cost unless they're certain of either getting a higher retail price (unlikely as dongles are cheap), or some form of bounty from operators when/if customers sign up (rare).
The majority of PC-based mobile broadband traffic is generated by ordinary, larger *notebooks*, not netbooks, as both the installed base and new shipments are far higher than those for netbooks.
Dean Bubley's Disruptive Wireless: Thought-leading wireless industry analysis
Friday, March 05, 2010
Thursday, March 04, 2010
CTIA....
... I'm not going to be there, so please don't bother inviting me to events or meetings. (If it's like MWC, for which I got about 250 invites, I probably won't get a chance to write individual "no thanks" replies)
Thanks.
Thanks.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Mobile traffic management - video confusion
A lot of my meetings at MWC two weeks ago were about managing mobile broadband traffic - by offload, by compression, by policy and various other means.
There is a total lack of agreement on where the emphasis should be. Everyone has a solution - and it's far from obvious that they are not pulling in opposite directions. Dump most traffic to WiFi, and it becomes much harder to justify restrictive policies when the phone is "on net". Offer "premium" or "platinum" connectivity - and get let down by poor coverage. Put femtocells in place - and then try to distinguish femto vs. macro traffic in the policy engine, because throttling someone's 3G access *on their own cell & broadband* is a recipe for disaster.
And all this is before we get to the fun-and-games which will ensue in a world with widespread connection-sharing.
The starkest choices seem to be around "what to do about mobile video". Endless copies of Cisco's Visual Networking Index charts were trotted out (or other large vendors' inhouse equivalents) showing terrifying increases in forecast mobile video traffic, swamping all other types. Even leaving aside that other new apps might be even more traffic-generative (maybe augmented reality, for example), there are still huge issues about how to treat video.
First off, let's be clear - there is no single application called "video". There's a mix of downloads and streaming, one-way and two-way, embedded and standalone, numerous codec and frame rate options and so on.
In the eyes of a user, clicking "I like" for a YouTube clip shared on Facebook by a friend, is a very different application to watching the same thing on YouTube.com in a separate window. Context is very difficult manage in a policy engine, especially if it's a web mash-up.
One theme that I heard repeated a few times was the idea that some sort of server or gateway would intercept inbound video traffic on an MNO's main Internet connection, spot who/what was requesting it, and (let's be polite here) "mess about with it" in order to reduce the impact on the network.
It's a very similar idea to the various Web messing-about-with engines ("transcoders" or "content adaptation") we've seen before from the likes of Novarra, ByteMobile and Flash Networks. Yes, they sometimes reduce load, but when first introduced they mangled content and advertising, caused problems with mobile commerce and did some horrible things to sites that were *already* mobile-optimised by the original website owner. Over time, the worst effects of these seem to have been ameliorated, with some sort of grudging consensus now almost attained.
The same set companies, as well as a group of new ones like Acision and Ericsson, are now talking up the idea of compressing video traffic on the fly to protect the network. One comment made was that the network could choose to buffer video traffic itself, rather than let the phone/PC buffer fill up quickly, over the air. YouTube was cited as being "aggressive" in encouraging users to download whole videos upfront, when sometimes they closed the video window and "wasted" a lot of bandwidth, because they hadn't watched the whole thing.
To punish this sort of profligate downloading behaviour, it's envisaged that the network could either compress the video traffic, or "drip feed" the buffer.
Cue consternation from other people they haven't yet spoken to.
First up are the radio guys, who, paradoxically, would much *rather* whole videos downloaded fast rather than being drip-fed. It's more efficient for base stations to blast as much traffic as possible at a user, in a short space of time, if it's not actually congested. And it's also much better for the user's battery to download a big gulp of data in one go, and then switch the radio off. Keeping the connection up for longer may also increase the signalling load even if the actual traffic is reduced.
There is also an interesting regulatory angle here - if mobile broadband speeds have to be advertised on the basis of average actual speeds, rather than theoretical peaks, then the drip-feed approach could have serious marketing consequences.
The compression side of the equation is also likely to be extremely controversial. There's an interesting set of issues of liability if you've paid for HD video (or an advertiser has), and the network arbitrarily steps in and mangles it for you during delivery. There's another interesting set of questions of whether the network can work out exactly what video stream to compress, if it's sent via a CDN like Akamai, which might peer at various points in the network.
But all of these are minor compared to the likely outrage from various video content and aggregation companies that have their content "messed about with".
Put simply, any attempts to "optimise" video in the core of the network are likely to be very ham-fisted, especially if they attempt to compress or transcode. The core is unlikely to be able to know how best to compress a video as it will vary immensely on a genre-by-genre or even scene-by-scene basis.
Content can be delivery-optimised in various ways: frame rate, frame size, key frame rate, audio rate, etc. all can affect bandwidth, however the best encoding recipe may be influenced by the type of content: sport, talking heads, music video, being genres of content that could be argued to have opposing views as to what's the best encoding recipe. Think of an interviewer static in a chair with a fixed background, versus a live-streamed F1 race. Applying a single policy to both videos is likely to be very crude, and result in a very poor user experience.
Some policies are already causing consternation - for example, by blocking overhead-light delivery protocols such as RTSP/RTP over UDP, forcing publishers to more inefficient alternatives.
Other side-effects of network-centralised video policy management may be to push a greater processing burden down onto the handsets (and hence their batteries) - for example, re-coding video in formats like H.264. As well as requiring a lot of network-side processing power to do this in real time, we could end up with the interesting situation of power consumption differing on a per-network basis. That could make for some interesting marketing angles for operators "Get your XYZ handset on the network that gives you 3 hours longer between recharges!"
(Hat-tip here to input from my friend David Springall, CTO of Yospace, which provides platforms to mobile video content publishers).
One answer seems to be to optimise mobile video through a balanced combination of editorial control and network technology. If operators (or their network partners) provide adequate guidelines on making mobile-friendly video, it may be that providers all the way back through the value chain can help - for example, content can be editorially controlled to be more compressable, such as by avoiding unnecessarily moving cameras during production. This is similar to attempts by operators and device vendors to encourage their app developers to follow "network friendly" approaches like fewer server pings.
It seems unlikely that video publishers will pay operators "cold hard cash" for QoS (or even an SLA) on mobile broadband, despite the rhetoric around DPI / policy management boxes. It's simply too difficult to control end-to-end quality as far as the device UI - and *prove* it to the content provider. But publishers would likely respond to doing what they can with their video content to make it 'work better' on mobile networks. Although they don't have the technical ability to do this, they are using third-party platform providers to deliver their video and it is these third parties that can implement whatever is considered best practice by the networks.
Operators could publish clear guidelines to help third parties optimise video on their networks; platform providers should work to these guidelines in the interests of delivering a better user experience (assuming some measure of consistency across operators, of course - it's unlikely that they would wish to see 800 different sets of rules across the world - or, worse, 2400 if they vary for 2G, 3G and pseudo-4G networks). It would also help video content publishers if MNOs provided APIs that provided more information about the network quality in realtime, allowing platform providers to be more sympathetic to the network. While this may also be feasible via handset-side APIs, the network may enable a more consolidated view to be provided. Over time, this could even evolve to cell-by-cell "traffic reports" allowing video to be delivered differentially to those in the best/worst radio or backhaul congestion conditions.
Depending on the laws in each country, well-behaving video traffic (however that is measured and defined) could be prioritised in some circumstances.
One issue that is likely to crop up is how to deal with PC-based video traffic transiting mobile broadband networks via 3G dongles. This is a little more problematic than smartphone video, as it is usually marketed as being a direct alternative to ADSL or cable broadband. Nevertheless, some form of in-application smarts could still allow optimisation - it's been pretty common for years to have a choice of different broadband speeds / types before starting a video "Are you watching on: ADSL, LAN, 3G, WiFi etc" might put the user back in their normal state of control. There's also a very strong argument to prefer outright offload for PC-Internet traffic to WiFi (or femto) and avoid the core network and compression argument altogether.
Overall, I definitely think that the question of how to deal with mobile video is still at very early stages. Although various solutions are emerging, it seems probable that the initial knee-jerk attempts to reduce network load will have some fairly nasty unintended consequences in terms of user experience, device battery life, radio performance and content-mangling - and hence generate support calls and dissatisfaction. The idea that the network can somehow magically reduce the impact of video traffic, without any input from video publishers or aggregators / platforms, seems misguided.
There is a total lack of agreement on where the emphasis should be. Everyone has a solution - and it's far from obvious that they are not pulling in opposite directions. Dump most traffic to WiFi, and it becomes much harder to justify restrictive policies when the phone is "on net". Offer "premium" or "platinum" connectivity - and get let down by poor coverage. Put femtocells in place - and then try to distinguish femto vs. macro traffic in the policy engine, because throttling someone's 3G access *on their own cell & broadband* is a recipe for disaster.
And all this is before we get to the fun-and-games which will ensue in a world with widespread connection-sharing.
The starkest choices seem to be around "what to do about mobile video". Endless copies of Cisco's Visual Networking Index charts were trotted out (or other large vendors' inhouse equivalents) showing terrifying increases in forecast mobile video traffic, swamping all other types. Even leaving aside that other new apps might be even more traffic-generative (maybe augmented reality, for example), there are still huge issues about how to treat video.
First off, let's be clear - there is no single application called "video". There's a mix of downloads and streaming, one-way and two-way, embedded and standalone, numerous codec and frame rate options and so on.
In the eyes of a user, clicking "I like" for a YouTube clip shared on Facebook by a friend, is a very different application to watching the same thing on YouTube.com in a separate window. Context is very difficult manage in a policy engine, especially if it's a web mash-up.
One theme that I heard repeated a few times was the idea that some sort of server or gateway would intercept inbound video traffic on an MNO's main Internet connection, spot who/what was requesting it, and (let's be polite here) "mess about with it" in order to reduce the impact on the network.
It's a very similar idea to the various Web messing-about-with engines ("transcoders" or "content adaptation") we've seen before from the likes of Novarra, ByteMobile and Flash Networks. Yes, they sometimes reduce load, but when first introduced they mangled content and advertising, caused problems with mobile commerce and did some horrible things to sites that were *already* mobile-optimised by the original website owner. Over time, the worst effects of these seem to have been ameliorated, with some sort of grudging consensus now almost attained.
The same set companies, as well as a group of new ones like Acision and Ericsson, are now talking up the idea of compressing video traffic on the fly to protect the network. One comment made was that the network could choose to buffer video traffic itself, rather than let the phone/PC buffer fill up quickly, over the air. YouTube was cited as being "aggressive" in encouraging users to download whole videos upfront, when sometimes they closed the video window and "wasted" a lot of bandwidth, because they hadn't watched the whole thing.
To punish this sort of profligate downloading behaviour, it's envisaged that the network could either compress the video traffic, or "drip feed" the buffer.
Cue consternation from other people they haven't yet spoken to.
First up are the radio guys, who, paradoxically, would much *rather* whole videos downloaded fast rather than being drip-fed. It's more efficient for base stations to blast as much traffic as possible at a user, in a short space of time, if it's not actually congested. And it's also much better for the user's battery to download a big gulp of data in one go, and then switch the radio off. Keeping the connection up for longer may also increase the signalling load even if the actual traffic is reduced.
There is also an interesting regulatory angle here - if mobile broadband speeds have to be advertised on the basis of average actual speeds, rather than theoretical peaks, then the drip-feed approach could have serious marketing consequences.
The compression side of the equation is also likely to be extremely controversial. There's an interesting set of issues of liability if you've paid for HD video (or an advertiser has), and the network arbitrarily steps in and mangles it for you during delivery. There's another interesting set of questions of whether the network can work out exactly what video stream to compress, if it's sent via a CDN like Akamai, which might peer at various points in the network.
But all of these are minor compared to the likely outrage from various video content and aggregation companies that have their content "messed about with".
Put simply, any attempts to "optimise" video in the core of the network are likely to be very ham-fisted, especially if they attempt to compress or transcode. The core is unlikely to be able to know how best to compress a video as it will vary immensely on a genre-by-genre or even scene-by-scene basis.
Content can be delivery-optimised in various ways: frame rate, frame size, key frame rate, audio rate, etc. all can affect bandwidth, however the best encoding recipe may be influenced by the type of content: sport, talking heads, music video, being genres of content that could be argued to have opposing views as to what's the best encoding recipe. Think of an interviewer static in a chair with a fixed background, versus a live-streamed F1 race. Applying a single policy to both videos is likely to be very crude, and result in a very poor user experience.
Some policies are already causing consternation - for example, by blocking overhead-light delivery protocols such as RTSP/RTP over UDP, forcing publishers to more inefficient alternatives.
Other side-effects of network-centralised video policy management may be to push a greater processing burden down onto the handsets (and hence their batteries) - for example, re-coding video in formats like H.264. As well as requiring a lot of network-side processing power to do this in real time, we could end up with the interesting situation of power consumption differing on a per-network basis. That could make for some interesting marketing angles for operators "Get your XYZ handset on the network that gives you 3 hours longer between recharges!"
(Hat-tip here to input from my friend David Springall, CTO of Yospace, which provides platforms to mobile video content publishers).
One answer seems to be to optimise mobile video through a balanced combination of editorial control and network technology. If operators (or their network partners) provide adequate guidelines on making mobile-friendly video, it may be that providers all the way back through the value chain can help - for example, content can be editorially controlled to be more compressable, such as by avoiding unnecessarily moving cameras during production. This is similar to attempts by operators and device vendors to encourage their app developers to follow "network friendly" approaches like fewer server pings.
It seems unlikely that video publishers will pay operators "cold hard cash" for QoS (or even an SLA) on mobile broadband, despite the rhetoric around DPI / policy management boxes. It's simply too difficult to control end-to-end quality as far as the device UI - and *prove* it to the content provider. But publishers would likely respond to doing what they can with their video content to make it 'work better' on mobile networks. Although they don't have the technical ability to do this, they are using third-party platform providers to deliver their video and it is these third parties that can implement whatever is considered best practice by the networks.
Operators could publish clear guidelines to help third parties optimise video on their networks; platform providers should work to these guidelines in the interests of delivering a better user experience (assuming some measure of consistency across operators, of course - it's unlikely that they would wish to see 800 different sets of rules across the world - or, worse, 2400 if they vary for 2G, 3G and pseudo-4G networks). It would also help video content publishers if MNOs provided APIs that provided more information about the network quality in realtime, allowing platform providers to be more sympathetic to the network. While this may also be feasible via handset-side APIs, the network may enable a more consolidated view to be provided. Over time, this could even evolve to cell-by-cell "traffic reports" allowing video to be delivered differentially to those in the best/worst radio or backhaul congestion conditions.
Depending on the laws in each country, well-behaving video traffic (however that is measured and defined) could be prioritised in some circumstances.
One issue that is likely to crop up is how to deal with PC-based video traffic transiting mobile broadband networks via 3G dongles. This is a little more problematic than smartphone video, as it is usually marketed as being a direct alternative to ADSL or cable broadband. Nevertheless, some form of in-application smarts could still allow optimisation - it's been pretty common for years to have a choice of different broadband speeds / types before starting a video "Are you watching on: ADSL, LAN, 3G, WiFi etc" might put the user back in their normal state of control. There's also a very strong argument to prefer outright offload for PC-Internet traffic to WiFi (or femto) and avoid the core network and compression argument altogether.
Overall, I definitely think that the question of how to deal with mobile video is still at very early stages. Although various solutions are emerging, it seems probable that the initial knee-jerk attempts to reduce network load will have some fairly nasty unintended consequences in terms of user experience, device battery life, radio performance and content-mangling - and hence generate support calls and dissatisfaction. The idea that the network can somehow magically reduce the impact of video traffic, without any input from video publishers or aggregators / platforms, seems misguided.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Mobile apps - will the fickle hand of fashion swing against them?
Wandering around Barcelona last week, I started feeling a deep unease at the current level of hysteria around mobile apps. It is was compounded this week by seeing a T-Mobile advert on the London Underground which didn't show a phone, but just said "Would you like a free phone with apps for just £20 a month?" [meaning "We'll sell you a cheap Android instead of an iPhone, but don't dare mention it or show it"]. Apple is bombarding the world with "apps, apps, apps" advertising as well.
I'm a great believer in the Tyranny of Consensus. When everyone agrees - it usually means that they're all wrong.
I'm wondering if the great drive towards mobile applications on smartphones, catalysed by Apple although obviously around for years before, has the longevity that many people seem to be assuming. Operators, device vendors, OS providers, 3rd parties - everyone wants a piece of the supposed action.
But maybe it's just a fashion? After all, do you *really* want any form of ongoing "relationship" with a handset manufacturer? Will the mass market really want to keep adding new stuff to their device?
The first 100-200m owners of PCs bought and installed lots of applications. The most recent 100-200m have probably just got Office, a browser, Norton or some other security package, Skype and their favourite IM client. Apart from gamers, most people don't continually look for and download PC apps - although they're there occasionally if need strikes.
Maybe the mobile will go the same way - you'll get a phone with a pretty good set of pre-installed capabilities, perhaps through some sort of pre-sale configurator. "Skype - tick. Spotify - tick" and so on. You'll get another set of applications when you set it up for the first time or over the first week of ownership. And then on an ongoing basis you'll get occasional updates of these, but it will only be once in a blue moon that you'll actually download anything new.
(One slight difference is the current perceived trust in AppStore downloads - there's not the same worry getting some random .exe )
Most "cool new stuff" will be in the browser, just as it is with the PC. And maybe, just maybe after you've got used to it, you'll bother to find out if there's a 20%-better application. Once there are easy metaphors for multiple browser windows and tabs on mobile, and more ubiquitous support for multi-tasking, the idea of a "widget" becomes obsolete. They're just contrivances to get around small screen size, I think.
Yes, there is an alternative future, where we're all browsing app stores on a daily basis. Perhaps it could come true. I have to be careful here, because when I'm wearing my "personal" hat, I have an in-built bias as I'm utterly disinterested in mobile applications, bar a very, very small handful that I'd prefer were pre-loaded on a device in the first place (Google Maps, Skype, Facebook, maybe Spotify).
Obviously my "professional" hat as an analyst means I have to be both interested in, and familiar with the broader ecosystems, but my job doesn't need to extend to my private life. I'm a bit of a purist, in other words - also reflected by the fact I drive a car with absolutely no modifications, and indeed no weight-adding fripperies like ABS or airbags either.
Cars hold another useful metaphor though. It's generally considered to be absolutely fine to "customise" a vehicle when it's ordered new - the colour, trim, special options like better brakes or sportier suspension. But that changes - for most people other than special groups of enthusiasts - in terms of aftermarket customisation. Suddenly, add-ons become gauche and geeky. Sure, it's more socially acceptable for a rickshaw driver in India or a bus driver in Guatemala, but in normal circumstances loading a ton of extra tat onto your car makes you look like an idiot. (Caveat here: yes, I know some countries have a more permissive attitutde to modifying cars, but then some also have a lax attitude to wearing phones in holsters on your belt).
The bottom line is that I'm wondering if the massed billions of phone users will really care about iPhone-style junk applications. Personalisation is all very well - but it's best done upfront, not on an ongoing basis. The hand of fashion could also start to dictate that people customise something else rather than phones.
A vision of 4 billion "modified" smartphones represents a dystopia of geekiness.
I'm a great believer in the Tyranny of Consensus. When everyone agrees - it usually means that they're all wrong.
I'm wondering if the great drive towards mobile applications on smartphones, catalysed by Apple although obviously around for years before, has the longevity that many people seem to be assuming. Operators, device vendors, OS providers, 3rd parties - everyone wants a piece of the supposed action.
But maybe it's just a fashion? After all, do you *really* want any form of ongoing "relationship" with a handset manufacturer? Will the mass market really want to keep adding new stuff to their device?
The first 100-200m owners of PCs bought and installed lots of applications. The most recent 100-200m have probably just got Office, a browser, Norton or some other security package, Skype and their favourite IM client. Apart from gamers, most people don't continually look for and download PC apps - although they're there occasionally if need strikes.
Maybe the mobile will go the same way - you'll get a phone with a pretty good set of pre-installed capabilities, perhaps through some sort of pre-sale configurator. "Skype - tick. Spotify - tick" and so on. You'll get another set of applications when you set it up for the first time or over the first week of ownership. And then on an ongoing basis you'll get occasional updates of these, but it will only be once in a blue moon that you'll actually download anything new.
(One slight difference is the current perceived trust in AppStore downloads - there's not the same worry getting some random .exe )
Most "cool new stuff" will be in the browser, just as it is with the PC. And maybe, just maybe after you've got used to it, you'll bother to find out if there's a 20%-better application. Once there are easy metaphors for multiple browser windows and tabs on mobile, and more ubiquitous support for multi-tasking, the idea of a "widget" becomes obsolete. They're just contrivances to get around small screen size, I think.
Yes, there is an alternative future, where we're all browsing app stores on a daily basis. Perhaps it could come true. I have to be careful here, because when I'm wearing my "personal" hat, I have an in-built bias as I'm utterly disinterested in mobile applications, bar a very, very small handful that I'd prefer were pre-loaded on a device in the first place (Google Maps, Skype, Facebook, maybe Spotify).
Obviously my "professional" hat as an analyst means I have to be both interested in, and familiar with the broader ecosystems, but my job doesn't need to extend to my private life. I'm a bit of a purist, in other words - also reflected by the fact I drive a car with absolutely no modifications, and indeed no weight-adding fripperies like ABS or airbags either.
Cars hold another useful metaphor though. It's generally considered to be absolutely fine to "customise" a vehicle when it's ordered new - the colour, trim, special options like better brakes or sportier suspension. But that changes - for most people other than special groups of enthusiasts - in terms of aftermarket customisation. Suddenly, add-ons become gauche and geeky. Sure, it's more socially acceptable for a rickshaw driver in India or a bus driver in Guatemala, but in normal circumstances loading a ton of extra tat onto your car makes you look like an idiot. (Caveat here: yes, I know some countries have a more permissive attitutde to modifying cars, but then some also have a lax attitude to wearing phones in holsters on your belt).
The bottom line is that I'm wondering if the massed billions of phone users will really care about iPhone-style junk applications. Personalisation is all very well - but it's best done upfront, not on an ongoing basis. The hand of fashion could also start to dictate that people customise something else rather than phones.
A vision of 4 billion "modified" smartphones represents a dystopia of geekiness.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Smartphones are adjuncts to PCs, not replacements
I've long been deeply skeptical about the notion that phones would displace PCs (I'm including Macs here) as the principal platform for computing and Internet access. In particular, I always try to bust the myth that "the next billion Internet users will first see the net on a handset" - a catchy assertion, but one backed up by zero evidence or clear rationale. I've been similarly unconvinced by Nokia's rhetoric about its smartphones being "mobile computers".
Yes, an increasing number of quick computing/Internet tasks are done on smartphones - checking email or Facebook, using a navigation app, jotting down your expenses, writing short blog posts and so on. But almost all of these are transactional updates of processes *anchored* by traditional PCs. Nobody sets up their Facebook account and configures all the settings on a phone.
I also disagree that the gulf between laptops and smartphones is narrowing. Netbooks are small laptops - the fact that a handful are sold through carrier channels with embedded connectivity is not changing the overall paradigm. Phones are "service" devices which are mostly useless without a linked subscription of some sort, while PCs are computing "products" owned and controlled by the user or IT department.
The interesting thing is that only Apple (and Microsoft to a lesser degree) seem to *really* understand the full importance and longevity of the PC - and the extra options it enables in terms of the business model for handsets/smartphones. Generations of mobile users have struggled with awful PC-phone connectivity software from almost all vendors, which have viewed the desktop as an afterthought.
Many people seem to make the mistake of assuming that Apple is targetting the 1-billion unit annual mobile handset market with the iPhone (and 4-5bn mobile users), usually citing its market share as tiny and insignificant, with a disproportionate amount of media and developer attention being focused on it. Apple itself seems happy to shrug off such criticisms.
I think this because it defines its market differently. I suspect that the real "addressable market" it's after is the installed base of PC owners/users - probably about 1.3bn/2.0bn repectively. By no great coincidence, pretty much all PC users also have a mobile phone.
Unlike purveyors of "mobile computers", "smartbooks" and the like, Apple doesn't want to substitute the iPhone against a desktop or a laptop. It appears disinterested in the iPhone being a new user's *only* source of Internet access. It wants the phone to be an adjunct - and also hopefully encourage a long-term switch to a Mac desktop or laptop.
Accessories often have some of the highest profit margins. And if they can drive the sale of premium-priced "core" products then so much the better.
But the real kicker here is iTunes. Physically connecting an iPhone to a PC means it can be totally and reliably updated and upgraded - not just in terms of the apps and OS, but also right down to the radio firmware and low-level internals. This is a lot less clunky than the over-the-air approach to device management elsewhere. The reach it gives into the installed base is hugely more than most other operator/device approaches.
I think there's more here to this. I think the notion that smartphones are somehow cheaper than PCs and will appeal to first-time users in developing countries is wrong. A second-hand $50 Pentium 3 can get a whole family online, show movies and be used for a broad set of applications. It will also last for years. (I know, that's exactly what a Sri Lankan cab driver told me in January when I asked him if he used the Internet on his phone).
In that scenario, the "cost of ownership" for a basic PC is less than $5 per person per year [excluding the connectivity, obviously]. Even a $50 secondhand unlocked Symbian device would be more expensive on that basis, given its expected working life and difficulty in sharing. There is no way that a $100-150 device would "get a whole family online" and provide anything like the functionality or useability of a PC.
Bottom line: The addressable market for smartphones is (to 80/20 accuracy) the base of people who already have a PC. The most interesting and relevant market share statistic would be the break-down of PC users who are also *active* smartphone users, with a data plan.
Yes, an increasing number of quick computing/Internet tasks are done on smartphones - checking email or Facebook, using a navigation app, jotting down your expenses, writing short blog posts and so on. But almost all of these are transactional updates of processes *anchored* by traditional PCs. Nobody sets up their Facebook account and configures all the settings on a phone.
I also disagree that the gulf between laptops and smartphones is narrowing. Netbooks are small laptops - the fact that a handful are sold through carrier channels with embedded connectivity is not changing the overall paradigm. Phones are "service" devices which are mostly useless without a linked subscription of some sort, while PCs are computing "products" owned and controlled by the user or IT department.
The interesting thing is that only Apple (and Microsoft to a lesser degree) seem to *really* understand the full importance and longevity of the PC - and the extra options it enables in terms of the business model for handsets/smartphones. Generations of mobile users have struggled with awful PC-phone connectivity software from almost all vendors, which have viewed the desktop as an afterthought.
Many people seem to make the mistake of assuming that Apple is targetting the 1-billion unit annual mobile handset market with the iPhone (and 4-5bn mobile users), usually citing its market share as tiny and insignificant, with a disproportionate amount of media and developer attention being focused on it. Apple itself seems happy to shrug off such criticisms.
I think this because it defines its market differently. I suspect that the real "addressable market" it's after is the installed base of PC owners/users - probably about 1.3bn/2.0bn repectively. By no great coincidence, pretty much all PC users also have a mobile phone.
Unlike purveyors of "mobile computers", "smartbooks" and the like, Apple doesn't want to substitute the iPhone against a desktop or a laptop. It appears disinterested in the iPhone being a new user's *only* source of Internet access. It wants the phone to be an adjunct - and also hopefully encourage a long-term switch to a Mac desktop or laptop.
Accessories often have some of the highest profit margins. And if they can drive the sale of premium-priced "core" products then so much the better.
But the real kicker here is iTunes. Physically connecting an iPhone to a PC means it can be totally and reliably updated and upgraded - not just in terms of the apps and OS, but also right down to the radio firmware and low-level internals. This is a lot less clunky than the over-the-air approach to device management elsewhere. The reach it gives into the installed base is hugely more than most other operator/device approaches.
I think there's more here to this. I think the notion that smartphones are somehow cheaper than PCs and will appeal to first-time users in developing countries is wrong. A second-hand $50 Pentium 3 can get a whole family online, show movies and be used for a broad set of applications. It will also last for years. (I know, that's exactly what a Sri Lankan cab driver told me in January when I asked him if he used the Internet on his phone).
In that scenario, the "cost of ownership" for a basic PC is less than $5 per person per year [excluding the connectivity, obviously]. Even a $50 secondhand unlocked Symbian device would be more expensive on that basis, given its expected working life and difficulty in sharing. There is no way that a $100-150 device would "get a whole family online" and provide anything like the functionality or useability of a PC.
Bottom line: The addressable market for smartphones is (to 80/20 accuracy) the base of people who already have a PC. The most interesting and relevant market share statistic would be the break-down of PC users who are also *active* smartphone users, with a data plan.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
MWC Day 1 ... thoughts on offload, mobile data traffic, LTE and IMS
Quick post on some thoughts from Day 1 here in Barcelona:
As predicted, offload and data traffic management are top-of mind. Too much cheap traffic transiting expensive networks. Yes, people are paying for mobile broadband on laptops & smartphones, but shoehorning gigabytes of Internet-destined data across a network designed for in-house, data-sipping operator-controlled apps is clearly a recipe for disaster. What's striking, though, is that the "offload industry" hasn't yet mapped the various solutions onto a matrix of use cases and deployment scenarios. I think there needs to be a lot more thought here - how do you selectively offload certain applications, but route others through the core?
In particular, a lot of the network vendors don't quite understand what "applications" are on the network. Many will tell you that "video" is an application. It's not, especially from the user's perspective, which is where any policy or tariff changes will bite. There's a huge *perceptual* difference between watching a YouTube video in large-screen mode in a browser, versus watching the same YouTube clip embedded in your Facebook page, where it's been shared with you by a friend. Yet the network is unlikely to be able to spot the difference. One is "media consumption", the other is "social networking and recommendation", and I think that in users' eyes, they are very different. How you capture this behavioural component (layer 9?) is going to be a difficult challenge.
NSN had an interesting pitch yesterday - creating a smartphone-optimised network. This is pretty much a first, as normally the network vendors ignore the role and usage modes of devices in the real world, and vice-versa. I spend a lot of time pointing out to network vendors that innovations in infrastructure technology always have device-side implications (hence my work on IMS-capable handsets, femto-optimised devices and so on). NSN observed that although laptops create most of the data traffic on 3G networks, it is smartphones that are much more aggressive when it comes to signalling traffic, and that in some cases this is to blame in clogging the network. They're working on a 3GPP mechanism for reducing the signalling overload, called Paging. I'll delve more deeply into it on my return, but it sounds interesting.
One notable theme here seems to be that LTE is being viewed with more reality - it's conspicuous that both NSN and Ericsson are touting go-faster HSPA+ quite loudly, as it's becoming clear that many operators are going that route, especially in Europe. I have my suspicions that many might skip "beta" LTE (aka 3GPP Releases 8 & 9) and wait for the bug fixes to appear in LTE Advanced (Release 10). After all, the first versions of WCDMA were pretty useless until HSDPA arrived.
Add in the issues concerning LTE spectrum availability, devices, indoor coverage, voice & SMS, roaming, handover, power consumption and the lack of a new business case, and I think that we're looking at 2014-2015 for any real mass uptake. Apparently there's a few early handsets on the horizon, but I suspect they'll be provided with a free oven glove as an accessory.
During today I'm going to brave the dangers and gauge the state of the mobile IMS zombie. Yes, it's dead but still moving - but is it like the shambling creatures from Dawn of the Dead, or one of the scary, fast-moving vermin from 28 Days Later or I am Legend? The big question has to be whether it's already bitten LTE so hard it won't let go, and infected it. Anyway, I'm seeing the GSMA, the NGMN and various vendors with IMS-based products, so I'll try to avoid getting my brain washed (or, indeed, eaten).
As predicted, offload and data traffic management are top-of mind. Too much cheap traffic transiting expensive networks. Yes, people are paying for mobile broadband on laptops & smartphones, but shoehorning gigabytes of Internet-destined data across a network designed for in-house, data-sipping operator-controlled apps is clearly a recipe for disaster. What's striking, though, is that the "offload industry" hasn't yet mapped the various solutions onto a matrix of use cases and deployment scenarios. I think there needs to be a lot more thought here - how do you selectively offload certain applications, but route others through the core?
In particular, a lot of the network vendors don't quite understand what "applications" are on the network. Many will tell you that "video" is an application. It's not, especially from the user's perspective, which is where any policy or tariff changes will bite. There's a huge *perceptual* difference between watching a YouTube video in large-screen mode in a browser, versus watching the same YouTube clip embedded in your Facebook page, where it's been shared with you by a friend. Yet the network is unlikely to be able to spot the difference. One is "media consumption", the other is "social networking and recommendation", and I think that in users' eyes, they are very different. How you capture this behavioural component (layer 9?) is going to be a difficult challenge.
NSN had an interesting pitch yesterday - creating a smartphone-optimised network. This is pretty much a first, as normally the network vendors ignore the role and usage modes of devices in the real world, and vice-versa. I spend a lot of time pointing out to network vendors that innovations in infrastructure technology always have device-side implications (hence my work on IMS-capable handsets, femto-optimised devices and so on). NSN observed that although laptops create most of the data traffic on 3G networks, it is smartphones that are much more aggressive when it comes to signalling traffic, and that in some cases this is to blame in clogging the network. They're working on a 3GPP mechanism for reducing the signalling overload, called Paging. I'll delve more deeply into it on my return, but it sounds interesting.
One notable theme here seems to be that LTE is being viewed with more reality - it's conspicuous that both NSN and Ericsson are touting go-faster HSPA+ quite loudly, as it's becoming clear that many operators are going that route, especially in Europe. I have my suspicions that many might skip "beta" LTE (aka 3GPP Releases 8 & 9) and wait for the bug fixes to appear in LTE Advanced (Release 10). After all, the first versions of WCDMA were pretty useless until HSDPA arrived.
Add in the issues concerning LTE spectrum availability, devices, indoor coverage, voice & SMS, roaming, handover, power consumption and the lack of a new business case, and I think that we're looking at 2014-2015 for any real mass uptake. Apparently there's a few early handsets on the horizon, but I suspect they'll be provided with a free oven glove as an accessory.
During today I'm going to brave the dangers and gauge the state of the mobile IMS zombie. Yes, it's dead but still moving - but is it like the shambling creatures from Dawn of the Dead, or one of the scary, fast-moving vermin from 28 Days Later or I am Legend? The big question has to be whether it's already bitten LTE so hard it won't let go, and infected it. Anyway, I'm seeing the GSMA, the NGMN and various vendors with IMS-based products, so I'll try to avoid getting my brain washed (or, indeed, eaten).
Monday, February 15, 2010
MWC / 3GSM - start of the week
I've got a pretty hectic schedule in Barcelona, but I'll try and put a few posts up as I go along.
First thing to notice is that the mobile-related advertising around the airport and city is still nowhere near the levels of a few years ago - the recession is obviously still hitting corporate marketing budgets quite hard. This is also reflected by the absence of some "big names" in terms of stands, notably Nokia, which has instead set up shop (more cheaply) around the corner in the ONCE building for meetings and demos.
OK, one churlish comment: while I'm grateful to the GSMA for finally sorting out analyst registration as well as press, they *still* have the ridiculous photo-ID policy on *every* entrance and exit to the Fira grounds. Yes, I know security is an issue, but so is privacy. Some sort of PIN code or other authentication is much preferable to having to carry my passport around & show it on demand. I guess that given the GSMA's reputation for trying to centrally-plan the mobile economy, it seems fitting that they have their Stalinist henchmen (and henchwomen) demanding to see your papers all the time.
One other amusement is that the Media Centre at the world's largest mobile conference has around 300 fixed LAN connections and PCs. There's WiFi as well, but they're obviously worried it'll be as flaky as usual at the Fira, while insane data roaming charges will prohibit the use of mobile broadband for most attendees. (Footnote: Barcelona is one of those cities where it's usually cheaper to use a taxi to navigate to your destination, rather than using Google Maps over roaming).
There's going to be a zillion press releases and other announcements over the next few days, I'll cherry-pick the ones that made me curious, or made me wince to comment on.
First up in the firing line is Critical Path, yet another purveyor of "social address books" and various other attempts to force social-networking into the phone without the use of a proper Facebook app. Amusingly, their survey (release not yet up on their web page) claims that "94% of consumers in emerging markets would like to be able to automatically update all of their contacts with new contact information" while also claiming that "Operators are ideally positioned to help ease these frustrations".
The disconnect here seems to be that new contact information is usually associated with churning - especially in the prepay-centric markets the survey focuses on. People buy whichever new SIM card offers the best package and then tell all their friends their new number when they can't/don't port it. I can't really see how that can easily be an operator play or enhance loyalty - unless you separate the service from the access.
Edit: I'm chasing a few themes here in Barcelona, notably femtocells, broadband offload & traffic management (about which this post seems to have had quite a lot of attention), connection management, mobile VoIP and HSPA+/LTE/WiMAX competition.
I'm also hoping to have another shot at my perennial punchbag, IMS RCS. The initiative has 96 hours to show committment from big names like Apple, Google, RIM and Skype, or else I'll have to find time to write a full obituary.
First thing to notice is that the mobile-related advertising around the airport and city is still nowhere near the levels of a few years ago - the recession is obviously still hitting corporate marketing budgets quite hard. This is also reflected by the absence of some "big names" in terms of stands, notably Nokia, which has instead set up shop (more cheaply) around the corner in the ONCE building for meetings and demos.
OK, one churlish comment: while I'm grateful to the GSMA for finally sorting out analyst registration as well as press, they *still* have the ridiculous photo-ID policy on *every* entrance and exit to the Fira grounds. Yes, I know security is an issue, but so is privacy. Some sort of PIN code or other authentication is much preferable to having to carry my passport around & show it on demand. I guess that given the GSMA's reputation for trying to centrally-plan the mobile economy, it seems fitting that they have their Stalinist henchmen (and henchwomen) demanding to see your papers all the time.
One other amusement is that the Media Centre at the world's largest mobile conference has around 300 fixed LAN connections and PCs. There's WiFi as well, but they're obviously worried it'll be as flaky as usual at the Fira, while insane data roaming charges will prohibit the use of mobile broadband for most attendees. (Footnote: Barcelona is one of those cities where it's usually cheaper to use a taxi to navigate to your destination, rather than using Google Maps over roaming).
There's going to be a zillion press releases and other announcements over the next few days, I'll cherry-pick the ones that made me curious, or made me wince to comment on.
First up in the firing line is Critical Path, yet another purveyor of "social address books" and various other attempts to force social-networking into the phone without the use of a proper Facebook app. Amusingly, their survey (release not yet up on their web page) claims that "94% of consumers in emerging markets would like to be able to automatically update all of their contacts with new contact information" while also claiming that "Operators are ideally positioned to help ease these frustrations".
The disconnect here seems to be that new contact information is usually associated with churning - especially in the prepay-centric markets the survey focuses on. People buy whichever new SIM card offers the best package and then tell all their friends their new number when they can't/don't port it. I can't really see how that can easily be an operator play or enhance loyalty - unless you separate the service from the access.
Edit: I'm chasing a few themes here in Barcelona, notably femtocells, broadband offload & traffic management (about which this post seems to have had quite a lot of attention), connection management, mobile VoIP and HSPA+/LTE/WiMAX competition.
I'm also hoping to have another shot at my perennial punchbag, IMS RCS. The initiative has 96 hours to show committment from big names like Apple, Google, RIM and Skype, or else I'll have to find time to write a full obituary.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
VoIPo3G forecasts... I hate to say "I told you so", but....
I *did* tell you:
"The number of VoIPo3G users could grow from virtually zero in 2007 to over 250m by the end of 2012"
"It will be the operators themselves which will be mainly responsible for the push towards VoIP being carried over cellular networks"
"About 60m will be using independent or Internet-based solutions – many actually operated in partnership with carriers or retailers"
OK, yes, I missed a few things. At the time I wrote those comments (published in Nov 2007 and researched for the previous 6-9 months), I was still expecting CDMA to go beyond EV-DO and head towards UMB, rather than be usurped by LTE. And I also expected that the industry would have sorted out some form of standardised VoIP for LTE by now, rather than the current mess of CSFB, VoLGA, IMS VoIP, OneVoice and assorted others.
But given the imminent announcement of a Skype / Verizon Wireless deal (which seems to be rumoured as being VoIPo3G rather than call-through like 3's), plus the inexorable rise of VoIP and video like Skype on 3G-connected PCs, it looks like my general pitch is coming true. AT&T is allowing 3G VoIP on the iPhone, and most other operators seem to view it as an inevitability.
And, quite frankly, allowing customers to use VoIP on their mobile broadband means they'll spend less time downloading video and clogging up the network.
So, to various of the skeptics who suggested my prediction of 250m VoIPo3G users by end-2012 was unrealistic.... let's see what the next 3 years bring. I'm not anticipating most of those connections being what I'd call "primary telephony", but I can certainly imagine that a decent proportion of PC, smartphone and "connected device" users by end-2012 will be running voice at least occasionally.
"The number of VoIPo3G users could grow from virtually zero in 2007 to over 250m by the end of 2012"
"It will be the operators themselves which will be mainly responsible for the push towards VoIP being carried over cellular networks"
"About 60m will be using independent or Internet-based solutions – many actually operated in partnership with carriers or retailers"
OK, yes, I missed a few things. At the time I wrote those comments (published in Nov 2007 and researched for the previous 6-9 months), I was still expecting CDMA to go beyond EV-DO and head towards UMB, rather than be usurped by LTE. And I also expected that the industry would have sorted out some form of standardised VoIP for LTE by now, rather than the current mess of CSFB, VoLGA, IMS VoIP, OneVoice and assorted others.
But given the imminent announcement of a Skype / Verizon Wireless deal (which seems to be rumoured as being VoIPo3G rather than call-through like 3's), plus the inexorable rise of VoIP and video like Skype on 3G-connected PCs, it looks like my general pitch is coming true. AT&T is allowing 3G VoIP on the iPhone, and most other operators seem to view it as an inevitability.
And, quite frankly, allowing customers to use VoIP on their mobile broadband means they'll spend less time downloading video and clogging up the network.
So, to various of the skeptics who suggested my prediction of 250m VoIPo3G users by end-2012 was unrealistic.... let's see what the next 3 years bring. I'm not anticipating most of those connections being what I'd call "primary telephony", but I can certainly imagine that a decent proportion of PC, smartphone and "connected device" users by end-2012 will be running voice at least occasionally.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Telefonica is playing with fire....
Interesting time for Telefonica to try and stick the boot into Google about net neutrality, a few days before Eric Schmidt gives a keynote at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona.
Apparently, Telefonica is "considering charging" Google for the bandwidth it apparently uses "for free".
I'd pay very good money to be a fly on the wall during a meeting of the two companies. I wonder how much Google should charge Telefonica to permit its subscribers to access its search & other servers "for free"?
Alierta is playing with fire on this - its customers are more likely to churn ADSL provider than churn from Google Search or YouTube.
If I was Google, I'd start threatening to give free adverts to competing Spanish broadband providers, for customers with Telefonica IP addresses.... in fact, I wonder if the big G could even negotiate a finders fee for directing switchers.....
Apparently, Telefonica is "considering charging" Google for the bandwidth it apparently uses "for free".
I'd pay very good money to be a fly on the wall during a meeting of the two companies. I wonder how much Google should charge Telefonica to permit its subscribers to access its search & other servers "for free"?
Alierta is playing with fire on this - its customers are more likely to churn ADSL provider than churn from Google Search or YouTube.
If I was Google, I'd start threatening to give free adverts to competing Spanish broadband providers, for customers with Telefonica IP addresses.... in fact, I wonder if the big G could even negotiate a finders fee for directing switchers.....
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Traffic management and offload - diverging solutions
One of the major trends I'm seeing at the moment is that of mobile network offload - typically "dumping" traffic onto WiFi or other networks to avoid congestion from mobile broadband.
I'm expecting it to be a huge feature of this year's MWC / 3GSM in Barcelona.
But at first sight the offload trend seems to be a confusing mish-mash of technologies and techniques, all designed to reduce the impact of bulk traffic on cellular networks, but applied in very different ways. I'm trying to start to categorise these various areas, and also work out how they are being prioritised.
One important fact to note is that "congestion" is itself quite complex. It can be congested radio (RAN) networks in terms of downlink capacity, uplink capacity or signalling. It might be congestion in the backhaul from a cell-site to an aggregation point or the core network. It could be various elements of the core itself - SGSNs, GGSN and so forth. It could be a supporting IT system that handles IP networking (eg the DNS), or the billing/rating engine.
And then we have the various classes of solution. I'm still thinking about a full taxonomy (and terminology), but an initial starting point might be:
- Macro offload onto femtocells (in homes, offices, hotspots or outdoors)
- Macro offload onto WiFi (in homes, offices, hotspots or outdoors)
- Local IP breakout for WiFi & femtos (in the premise or at the broadband DSLAM / cable head-end)
- Managed offload (eg where the fixed or cable access provider, used for the WiFi or femto connection, actively assists in the offload process)
- Macro backhaul offload (eg direct connection to a cache or CDN for "bulk" Internet video)
- Core network offload / bypass
- Content compression (eg video format transcoding)
- Traffic-shaping (eg selectively degrading / capping specific flows or traffic types - sometimes misnamed as "applications")
- Policy control (prioritising specific users / subscribers, or administering specific profiles to some)
- Optimisation of capacity utilisation at the IP level, by changing the TCP protocol or packet scheduling, or by introducing "scavenger class" traffic
EDIT - MAY 21st - New research paper published - see below.
I'm sure there are others - while these segments can undoubtedly be fine-grained more as well. The bottom line revolves around a reduction or delay in the need for capex to enhance network capacity, and as a corollary an improvement in the more nebulous quality of "user experience" - at least for the bandwidth non-hogs.
What's not clear to me is which of these techniques is the most effective or important overall. I suspect it probably varies by operator, maybe even by cell or time. From a top-level ROI perspective, which of them enables spending on network upgrades to be minimised? Or perhaps introduces new revenue streams.
My gut feel is that for networks dominated by *PC-based* mobile broadband, the best option is some form of radio offload. All notebooks have WiFi, and they also tend to have the most complex applications and mashups, as well as being able to spot any degradation of quality or operator "interference" most readily. Having a PC user say "hang on - why's this video performing better over my ADSL line than over my HSDPA, what's going on?" is likely to lead to damaging PR, if you're trying to present your mobile broadband as a direct replacement for fixed connectivity.
I reckon it's simpler and safer just to dump PC traffic to a standard Internet connection as close to the device as possible. For iPhones and some smartphones, the same may be true. But for other devices, it may make more sense to route the traffic via the operator core and play around with subscriber policies, or adapt traffic at the application layer. But I'm sure there are exceptions in both cases - for example, where a PC is actually an operator-controlled netbook.
I'm going to try and resolve the picture more clearly over coming months.
EDIT - MAY 21st - New research paper published - see below.
I'm expecting it to be a huge feature of this year's MWC / 3GSM in Barcelona.
But at first sight the offload trend seems to be a confusing mish-mash of technologies and techniques, all designed to reduce the impact of bulk traffic on cellular networks, but applied in very different ways. I'm trying to start to categorise these various areas, and also work out how they are being prioritised.
One important fact to note is that "congestion" is itself quite complex. It can be congested radio (RAN) networks in terms of downlink capacity, uplink capacity or signalling. It might be congestion in the backhaul from a cell-site to an aggregation point or the core network. It could be various elements of the core itself - SGSNs, GGSN and so forth. It could be a supporting IT system that handles IP networking (eg the DNS), or the billing/rating engine.
And then we have the various classes of solution. I'm still thinking about a full taxonomy (and terminology), but an initial starting point might be:
- Macro offload onto femtocells (in homes, offices, hotspots or outdoors)
- Macro offload onto WiFi (in homes, offices, hotspots or outdoors)
- Local IP breakout for WiFi & femtos (in the premise or at the broadband DSLAM / cable head-end)
- Managed offload (eg where the fixed or cable access provider, used for the WiFi or femto connection, actively assists in the offload process)
- Macro backhaul offload (eg direct connection to a cache or CDN for "bulk" Internet video)
- Core network offload / bypass
- Content compression (eg video format transcoding)
- Traffic-shaping (eg selectively degrading / capping specific flows or traffic types - sometimes misnamed as "applications")
- Policy control (prioritising specific users / subscribers, or administering specific profiles to some)
- Optimisation of capacity utilisation at the IP level, by changing the TCP protocol or packet scheduling, or by introducing "scavenger class" traffic
EDIT - MAY 21st - New research paper published - see below.
I'm sure there are others - while these segments can undoubtedly be fine-grained more as well. The bottom line revolves around a reduction or delay in the need for capex to enhance network capacity, and as a corollary an improvement in the more nebulous quality of "user experience" - at least for the bandwidth non-hogs.
What's not clear to me is which of these techniques is the most effective or important overall. I suspect it probably varies by operator, maybe even by cell or time. From a top-level ROI perspective, which of them enables spending on network upgrades to be minimised? Or perhaps introduces new revenue streams.
My gut feel is that for networks dominated by *PC-based* mobile broadband, the best option is some form of radio offload. All notebooks have WiFi, and they also tend to have the most complex applications and mashups, as well as being able to spot any degradation of quality or operator "interference" most readily. Having a PC user say "hang on - why's this video performing better over my ADSL line than over my HSDPA, what's going on?" is likely to lead to damaging PR, if you're trying to present your mobile broadband as a direct replacement for fixed connectivity.
I reckon it's simpler and safer just to dump PC traffic to a standard Internet connection as close to the device as possible. For iPhones and some smartphones, the same may be true. But for other devices, it may make more sense to route the traffic via the operator core and play around with subscriber policies, or adapt traffic at the application layer. But I'm sure there are exceptions in both cases - for example, where a PC is actually an operator-controlled netbook.
I'm going to try and resolve the picture more clearly over coming months.
EDIT - MAY 21st - New research paper published - see below.
NEW Mobile Broadband Traffic Management Paper
Monday, February 01, 2010
Debating the use of the term "4G"
I'm noticing an increasing use of the term 4G to describe either WiMAX or LTE networks.
It makes me wince, (although I've probably fallen into the "convenience trap" myself a couple of times).
Yes, they're both different to current versions of 3G, and use techniques like OFDMA - but so what? That doesn't make them 4G any more than it made EDGE (part of GSM) into 3G.
From a purist point of view, 4G doesn't yet exist. 3G refers to the families of technologies covered by the ITU's definition of "IMT 2000". 4G is expected to be the term used for the forthcoming "IMT Advanced" specifications currently being thrashed out by ITU, for which there are two prospective main candidates - LTE Advanced and WiMAX variant 802.16m.
Any use of the term 4G at present is therefore pure marketing fluff. A lot of WiMAX and LTE operators and device/network suppliers are fluffing, in an effort to come up with a brand that conveys evolution and new-ness.
The irony that the WiMAX community a huge amount of time and effort to convince ITU that their technology was in fact 3G (and therefore allowed to use IMT-2000 spectrum bands) seems to be ignored.
My instinctive reaction is to "deduct some credibility points" from the offenders when I see their announcements, or talk to their executives. If they are that sloppy that they mis-describe their technology, then surely it's reasonable to assume they're also sloppy about other aspects of their business?
Yet after a while, the practice may become so entrenched that even the more sensible participants have to wince, take a deep breath and mis-use the term 4G as well, so as not to lose out in the marketplace. If you can't beat them, you have to join them.
So, some solutions:
1) Any operator launching HSPA+ should also describe it as 4G. Well, if it's got MIMO, then it's *also* different from existing 3G. If the OFDMA guys are going to pick arbitrary definitions, then they can hardly complain when you do the same.
2) An operator with a brave PR department (and possibly a good legal team) should publicly take rivals to task for using 4G, using terms like "misleading", "lying", "sloppy" or "false advertising". Potentially, some of the current providers are on thin ice with regard to consumer protection law - although as the ITU hasn't yet called IMT-Advanced "4G" the response is probably that there's no strict definition in place.
3) Lobby the ITU to hurry up and call IMT-Advanced "4G" while it still has the ability to do so, before it gets lost in the marketing waffle.
As for me - well, I'm going to rely on the body language and non-verbal communications of people I speak to. If someone says 4G when describing their new LTE or WiMAX gizmo, but slightly winces, or rolls their eyes, or grits their teeth... then I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. But if they brazenly, unashamedly and unequivocally claim the 4G label for their 3G goods, I'll definitely be looking closely to find what else they've glossed over.
It makes me wince, (although I've probably fallen into the "convenience trap" myself a couple of times).
Yes, they're both different to current versions of 3G, and use techniques like OFDMA - but so what? That doesn't make them 4G any more than it made EDGE (part of GSM) into 3G.
From a purist point of view, 4G doesn't yet exist. 3G refers to the families of technologies covered by the ITU's definition of "IMT 2000". 4G is expected to be the term used for the forthcoming "IMT Advanced" specifications currently being thrashed out by ITU, for which there are two prospective main candidates - LTE Advanced and WiMAX variant 802.16m.
Any use of the term 4G at present is therefore pure marketing fluff. A lot of WiMAX and LTE operators and device/network suppliers are fluffing, in an effort to come up with a brand that conveys evolution and new-ness.
The irony that the WiMAX community a huge amount of time and effort to convince ITU that their technology was in fact 3G (and therefore allowed to use IMT-2000 spectrum bands) seems to be ignored.
My instinctive reaction is to "deduct some credibility points" from the offenders when I see their announcements, or talk to their executives. If they are that sloppy that they mis-describe their technology, then surely it's reasonable to assume they're also sloppy about other aspects of their business?
Yet after a while, the practice may become so entrenched that even the more sensible participants have to wince, take a deep breath and mis-use the term 4G as well, so as not to lose out in the marketplace. If you can't beat them, you have to join them.
So, some solutions:
1) Any operator launching HSPA+ should also describe it as 4G. Well, if it's got MIMO, then it's *also* different from existing 3G. If the OFDMA guys are going to pick arbitrary definitions, then they can hardly complain when you do the same.
2) An operator with a brave PR department (and possibly a good legal team) should publicly take rivals to task for using 4G, using terms like "misleading", "lying", "sloppy" or "false advertising". Potentially, some of the current providers are on thin ice with regard to consumer protection law - although as the ITU hasn't yet called IMT-Advanced "4G" the response is probably that there's no strict definition in place.
3) Lobby the ITU to hurry up and call IMT-Advanced "4G" while it still has the ability to do so, before it gets lost in the marketing waffle.
As for me - well, I'm going to rely on the body language and non-verbal communications of people I speak to. If someone says 4G when describing their new LTE or WiMAX gizmo, but slightly winces, or rolls their eyes, or grits their teeth... then I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. But if they brazenly, unashamedly and unequivocally claim the 4G label for their 3G goods, I'll definitely be looking closely to find what else they've glossed over.
Friday, January 29, 2010
No mention of MicroSIMs at the next big SIM conference
Apple's choice of a new format of SIM card for the iPad is one of its most cynical moves in a while.
While it is a standard (and apparently T-Mobile has mentioned it previously and it's indeed been around as a concept since 2003) it's conspicuous by its absence as a topic for discussion at the next big SIM conference in April.
It seems like it's being done to give Apple - and its operator partners - yet another control point. The easiest way to ensure an iPad-specific data tariff (and whatever deal has been done behind the scenes) is to have an iPad-specific SIM card. In theory the device might be "unlocked", but if you can only get microSIMs from specific operators on a handful of tariffs, you're still constrained.
I'm willing to wager that Apple and/or AT&T has made an interesting deal with microSIM suppliers - it wouldn't surprise me if they've bought up a sizeable fraction of the total manufacturing capacity for the next year or so. If it's been around since 2003 with no uptake, there's probably just a couple of dusty production machines sitting in the corner of a factory somewhere. Sure, I'm sure lots of companies will now be revamping their SIM portfolio and forecasts, but it should enable the early iPad operators to keep data pricing under strict control (and more importantly, sell new connections rather than let people re-cycle existing data SIMs) for 6-12 months I'd say.
Contempt for the customer, in my view.
While it is a standard (and apparently T-Mobile has mentioned it previously and it's indeed been around as a concept since 2003) it's conspicuous by its absence as a topic for discussion at the next big SIM conference in April.
It seems like it's being done to give Apple - and its operator partners - yet another control point. The easiest way to ensure an iPad-specific data tariff (and whatever deal has been done behind the scenes) is to have an iPad-specific SIM card. In theory the device might be "unlocked", but if you can only get microSIMs from specific operators on a handful of tariffs, you're still constrained.
I'm willing to wager that Apple and/or AT&T has made an interesting deal with microSIM suppliers - it wouldn't surprise me if they've bought up a sizeable fraction of the total manufacturing capacity for the next year or so. If it's been around since 2003 with no uptake, there's probably just a couple of dusty production machines sitting in the corner of a factory somewhere. Sure, I'm sure lots of companies will now be revamping their SIM portfolio and forecasts, but it should enable the early iPad operators to keep data pricing under strict control (and more importantly, sell new connections rather than let people re-cycle existing data SIMs) for 6-12 months I'd say.
Contempt for the customer, in my view.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
iYawn
So is that it? A touchscreen tablet?
And $130 extra for a version with an embedded 3G module. So much for predictions that HSPA modems will be "as cheap as WiFi" within a couple of years.... And unless I've missed something, there isn't even a normal USB socket so you can use a regular cheap 3G dongle. I guess it would work OK with a MiFi-type modem though.
And what was Jobs thinking with a non-standard "microSIM" format? It's not like it's a small form-factor device that can't take a normal SIM card. So now you can forget about going on holiday and buying a cheap local SIM with data access in most countries in the world - I really can't see the thousands of small stores in India or Portugal or Mozambique or wherever stocking multiple SIM formats.
Sorry Apple, I'm unconvinced. It's vaguely useful & cute, but it doesn't seem to be a new product category to me, and the connectivity options look severely flawed.
(Oh, and before the rabid Apple fanboy contingent jumps on me for criticising their sacred purveyor of gizmos, I should mention that I would have finally got around to getting a 3GS iPhone today, had O2/Carphone not had such a ridiculous requirement to *mail in* for a number port. More on that saga another time. The iPhone makes sense to me, the iPad doesn't).
And $130 extra for a version with an embedded 3G module. So much for predictions that HSPA modems will be "as cheap as WiFi" within a couple of years.... And unless I've missed something, there isn't even a normal USB socket so you can use a regular cheap 3G dongle. I guess it would work OK with a MiFi-type modem though.
And what was Jobs thinking with a non-standard "microSIM" format? It's not like it's a small form-factor device that can't take a normal SIM card. So now you can forget about going on holiday and buying a cheap local SIM with data access in most countries in the world - I really can't see the thousands of small stores in India or Portugal or Mozambique or wherever stocking multiple SIM formats.
Sorry Apple, I'm unconvinced. It's vaguely useful & cute, but it doesn't seem to be a new product category to me, and the connectivity options look severely flawed.
(Oh, and before the rabid Apple fanboy contingent jumps on me for criticising their sacred purveyor of gizmos, I should mention that I would have finally got around to getting a 3GS iPhone today, had O2/Carphone not had such a ridiculous requirement to *mail in* for a number port. More on that saga another time. The iPhone makes sense to me, the iPad doesn't).
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Customer loyalty, tolerance and contempt
It continually amazes me how much self-delusion I hear from operators and their vendors on the topic of "customer loyalty". Many seem to confuse inertia (ie people being too lazy to switch) with loyalty. Or they confuse services which they describe as "sticky" (ie which have inherent user lock-in) as having the potential for creating loyalty.
They should have a look in a dictionary: "A feeling or attitude of devoted attachment and affection"
This fits rather uneasily with the reality of customers being treated with contempt over things like ludicrous data roaming fees, or (if the hype is to be believed) future attempts at extortion by non-portable network-resident address books.
Roaming fees are a particularly good example: do you really, really expect your customers to respect you and "be loyal" ("feel affection") when they are so clearly and evidently ripped off, often by factors of 100 or 1000 over reasonable prices? The two concepts - contempt and loyalty - are mutually-incompatible, and yet somehow marketing and pricing executives seem happy to overlook the link between the two.
I know very few customers who are truly "loyal" - in the sense that the extol the virtues of a given operator to friends, much less who would self-describe as "devoted" in the same fashion as a footbal fan or an Apple acolyte. Most are, at best, "tolerant" of their provider.
They should have a look in a dictionary: "A feeling or attitude of devoted attachment and affection"
This fits rather uneasily with the reality of customers being treated with contempt over things like ludicrous data roaming fees, or (if the hype is to be believed) future attempts at extortion by non-portable network-resident address books.
Roaming fees are a particularly good example: do you really, really expect your customers to respect you and "be loyal" ("feel affection") when they are so clearly and evidently ripped off, often by factors of 100 or 1000 over reasonable prices? The two concepts - contempt and loyalty - are mutually-incompatible, and yet somehow marketing and pricing executives seem happy to overlook the link between the two.
I know very few customers who are truly "loyal" - in the sense that the extol the virtues of a given operator to friends, much less who would self-describe as "devoted" in the same fashion as a footbal fan or an Apple acolyte. Most are, at best, "tolerant" of their provider.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Cross-platform apps are the only way forward
I've been writing about operator cross-network aps for a while, decoupling access from service. We need to see Vodafone 360 on AT&T handsets, and O2/Jajah VoIP on Hutchison 3 phones. It's the only way to build scale against the real Internet application players.
But thinking further, and especially in the light of yesterday's announcement by Nokia about free turn-by-turn navigation, there also needs to be cross-phone applications.
Google has a head start here, with its portfolio of apps available on most devices, not just Android. To compete, Nokia has to follow suit - if it's serious about apps, it cannot just confine them to its own hardware platforms, it needs to port them to Android, iPhone, RIM and so on. Maybe, ultimately even Apple's iron will should crumble, and it should export aspects of its flagship UI to other OS platforms (although I'm not betting on it).
Some of the Nokia apps are really good - the SMS client, for example. Some of the SonyEricsson and Samsung ones too. But if I don't want a Nokia or an S-E phone for any reason, why can't I still have that experience, as long as the hardware supports it?
But thinking further, and especially in the light of yesterday's announcement by Nokia about free turn-by-turn navigation, there also needs to be cross-phone applications.
Google has a head start here, with its portfolio of apps available on most devices, not just Android. To compete, Nokia has to follow suit - if it's serious about apps, it cannot just confine them to its own hardware platforms, it needs to port them to Android, iPhone, RIM and so on. Maybe, ultimately even Apple's iron will should crumble, and it should export aspects of its flagship UI to other OS platforms (although I'm not betting on it).
Some of the Nokia apps are really good - the SMS client, for example. Some of the SonyEricsson and Samsung ones too. But if I don't want a Nokia or an S-E phone for any reason, why can't I still have that experience, as long as the hardware supports it?
Pre-MWC notes for analyst relations staff
OK, it's the time of the year when I get bombarded by emails and phone calls from a million people inviting me to briefings and similar events in Barcelona for 3GSM (I still hate the term MWC).
In order to maximise the value of both my time and yours, I thought I'd give some pointers:
- Priority goes to meetings with mobile operator execs, strategists and the like, particularly to talk about mobile broadband, new business models and device portfolio
- Next priority areas for me are with vendors of femtocells, smartphones & OS's, connection managers, mobile broadband devices & modems, LTE and HSPA+ radio gear, infrastructure enabling "offload", handset chipsets / platforms
- Of significant interest are handset apps providers that are doing "hard" stuff like VoIP, backhaul vendors, OSS/BSS suppliers, integration services & consultancies, although I'll probably be waiting until nearer the time to see what gaps in my schedule I have available
- I'm not interested at all in mobile TV, content, advertising, and a million small apps companies trying to jump on the social networking bandwagon because they access Facebook's API.
- If company is based in London, or regularly has execs passing through, it seems fairly pointless to go all the way to Barcelona for a meeting
- Generally I find that joint press & analyst events are not valuable
- If you pitch me with "story ideas" I won't be interested
- If your company/client refers to either LTE or WiMAX as "4G" I'm unlikely to take it seriously
- I almost certainly won't be attending anything that's more than 5 mins walk from the Fira, unless it finishes before 8.30am or starts after 6pm. So the Fira Palace Hotel is OK, but anything which needs a mission on the metro isn't.
- Invitations to interesting parties and dinners are always gratefully received...
Lastly, I have a couple of presentation or moderating gigs already scheduled in, on various topics. If you're interested in having a well-known analyst participate at your customer or press event, let me know and we can discuss suitable arrangements. Similar, if anyone is interested in meeting me to discuss Disruptive Analysis' consulting and advisory offerings, please get in touch.
(information AT disruptive-analysis DOT COM)
In order to maximise the value of both my time and yours, I thought I'd give some pointers:
- Priority goes to meetings with mobile operator execs, strategists and the like, particularly to talk about mobile broadband, new business models and device portfolio
- Next priority areas for me are with vendors of femtocells, smartphones & OS's, connection managers, mobile broadband devices & modems, LTE and HSPA+ radio gear, infrastructure enabling "offload", handset chipsets / platforms
- Of significant interest are handset apps providers that are doing "hard" stuff like VoIP, backhaul vendors, OSS/BSS suppliers, integration services & consultancies, although I'll probably be waiting until nearer the time to see what gaps in my schedule I have available
- I'm not interested at all in mobile TV, content, advertising, and a million small apps companies trying to jump on the social networking bandwagon because they access Facebook's API.
- If company is based in London, or regularly has execs passing through, it seems fairly pointless to go all the way to Barcelona for a meeting
- Generally I find that joint press & analyst events are not valuable
- If you pitch me with "story ideas" I won't be interested
- If your company/client refers to either LTE or WiMAX as "4G" I'm unlikely to take it seriously
- I almost certainly won't be attending anything that's more than 5 mins walk from the Fira, unless it finishes before 8.30am or starts after 6pm. So the Fira Palace Hotel is OK, but anything which needs a mission on the metro isn't.
- Invitations to interesting parties and dinners are always gratefully received...
Lastly, I have a couple of presentation or moderating gigs already scheduled in, on various topics. If you're interested in having a well-known analyst participate at your customer or press event, let me know and we can discuss suitable arrangements. Similar, if anyone is interested in meeting me to discuss Disruptive Analysis' consulting and advisory offerings, please get in touch.
(information AT disruptive-analysis DOT COM)
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
So what are the capacity hogs? And where are the solutions?
I've been having a pretty forthright debate over on the Forum Oxford discussion site, which ties in with a piece of analysis that Morgan Stanley did on mobile network capacity and broadband usage.
I haven't had a chance to go through the whole MS report with a fine-toothed comb, although I've had a glance at the section on mobile data growth.
My initial observation is that MS seems to be under-estimating short-term growth in mobile data consumption, and over-estimating network capacity. I'm also not convinced that the problem is always necessarily backhaul - the radio network is also creaking.
One thread of the ForOx debate was about "what's causing the congestion?" with lots of theories about video of different types, web browsing, downloads, uploads etc. Also asking about whether it's the uplink or downlink or signalling that's the problem.
I'm actually doing an awful lot of research into mechanisms for mitigating the impact of traffic growth on mobile networks. What are the solutions, and more interestingly, what are the business models around them. I've written a Use Case for the guys at Telco 2.0 on "Managed Offload", and there are various other things I'm pursuing here as well (contact me privately if you are interested in advisory work in this field).
But observation I'd make about this question of "what's soaking up our precious mobile capacity?" is that in many instances it's not apps that are causing the problems. It's concrete and brickwork. Moray Rumney from Agilent gave a great presentation last year which points out where the real mobile capacity increments will come from - WiFi and femtocells, primarily.
I'd also add in extra cost-savings from offload in the transport and core networks. I'm less convinced that traffic-management at the application layer, or things like compression of images/video have such important roles to play, although there will be exceptions.
I haven't had a chance to go through the whole MS report with a fine-toothed comb, although I've had a glance at the section on mobile data growth.
My initial observation is that MS seems to be under-estimating short-term growth in mobile data consumption, and over-estimating network capacity. I'm also not convinced that the problem is always necessarily backhaul - the radio network is also creaking.
One thread of the ForOx debate was about "what's causing the congestion?" with lots of theories about video of different types, web browsing, downloads, uploads etc. Also asking about whether it's the uplink or downlink or signalling that's the problem.
I'm actually doing an awful lot of research into mechanisms for mitigating the impact of traffic growth on mobile networks. What are the solutions, and more interestingly, what are the business models around them. I've written a Use Case for the guys at Telco 2.0 on "Managed Offload", and there are various other things I'm pursuing here as well (contact me privately if you are interested in advisory work in this field).
But observation I'd make about this question of "what's soaking up our precious mobile capacity?" is that in many instances it's not apps that are causing the problems. It's concrete and brickwork. Moray Rumney from Agilent gave a great presentation last year which points out where the real mobile capacity increments will come from - WiFi and femtocells, primarily.
I'd also add in extra cost-savings from offload in the transport and core networks. I'm less convinced that traffic-management at the application layer, or things like compression of images/video have such important roles to play, although there will be exceptions.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Jajah + Telefonica
- Most 3GPP / UMTS operators will need to wait until at least 2011-12 before starting broad migration of circuit telephony to standardised VoIP. In the interim they will have to compete or partner with pre-standard VoIP players.
- Operators expecting to deploy LTE networks need to consider gaining prior experience of mobile VoIP. Simultaneously rolling out a new radio technology and a new voice architecture is a huge risk.
- There is scope for partnership between VoIPo3G innovators and incumbent operators (and other parties), especially on HSPA networks. Initial reticence will be countered by awareness of the threats of outright competition.
Those three bullet points came from the first-page summary of a report on VoIPo3G that Disruptive Analysis published in November 2007.
There has been considerable discussion on the web and various private forums about exactly why Telefonica (specifically its European arm, O2) acquired VoIP provider Jajah for $207m, a couple of weeks ago while I was on holiday. GigaOM has a good article on it here, and I've seen a few others as well.
The most obvious parallel I see is with BT's acquisition of Ribbit. In that case, BT wanted an entry-point to the developer community, and especially enterprise CEBP (communications-enabled business process) marketplace. This area is epitomised by companies like Salesforce.com, as well as a plethora of other firms helping firms manage customer and employee interactions via voice - essentially an evolution of CRM.
Telefonica/02, however, appears to be more focused on the consumer space, especially the possibility of hooking up its existing telephony user base (mostly mobile in Europe, but not exclusively) to web-based and apps-based social networks or other online applications. Jajah provides the voice back-end for Yahoo's IM-integrated VoIP service, and more generally has a presence in mashups and "white labelled" voice for various Internet players.
I can see various synergies here - some immediate, some longer term. But the bottom line has to be that O2 wants to learn more about voice without the "heavy lifting". The value of much of the new telephony concept isn't about "big iron" like IMS or even QoS. It's certainly not about vague 1980s-style waffle about operator-centralised "multimedia", as per the defunct MMtel standard. It's about the social value inherent in having voice as a platform or a web component.
Jajah helps Telefonica start to break away from the stifling "it will all be IMS some day" mantra, or at least leave it to the traditionalists slaving away in the infrastructure dungeon, trying to rescucitate the 3GPP zombie's corpse. That's not to say I expect O2 to just abandon that approach over-night (it's too ingrained into the telco DNA), but taking a first step is a wise move - it allows the company to see what else is out there.
More pragmatically, it also helps with a number of other opportunities:
- Early deployment VoIPo3G, perhaps starting with laptops connected via mobile broadband, or selected smartphones. This will probably run as a "second line" on phones, in addition to traditional circuit - a bit like having Skype or Truphone (or Jajah) on a device today, but controlled by the operator. I've been expecting operator VoIP to appear for some time in this guise.
- An easy off-the-shelf way of testing and playing around with VoIP on LTE for upcoming trials. If Jajah works sufficiently well on best-efforts or "groomed" data connections, it could save Telefonica a large amount of cash paying for unnecessary QoS over-engineering in future.
- Various options for Spanish language communities such as travellers and ex-pats moving between Latin America and Spain
- A way for Telefonica to move into new markets outside its current geographic footprint. In particular, this means that it's yet another operator doing the "unmentionable" and owning web-based services accessible from other operators' devices and access subscriptions. Along with Voda 360 and Orange ON, Jajah is now another example of under-the-floor providers playing over-the-top
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
What's the story with the Phonejack 'femtocell"?
I'm now trying to catch up with events and analysis over the past few weeks, as I've been on vacation.
One of the more bewildering things I'm trying to get to the bottom of is the supposed Magic Jack "femtocell" as written about in numerous places such as here, here and here.
In theory, it hooks up a GSM phone to a VoIP client embedded in a USB stick. Details on how it works are remarkably thin on the ground, although allegedly it uses the IMEI number as part of its authentication mechanism.
As yet, the whole thing seems to be based on press releases rather than demonstrations or any hard detail on the underlying architecture. If it works as billed, I can see numerous pitfalls or open questions:
- what frequency band(s) does it work with?
- does it need a separate SIM in the phone, and does Magic Jack supply these? Do you need to switch SIMs when you leave the house? Or is the company hoping to sign some sort of roaming deal with operators?
- how does it deal with SIM-locked GSM phones? Does it "spoof" particular operators' network characteristics, or have its own network ID?
- what are the legalities around its use of licenced spectrum, even if the power is supposedly low enough to avoid interference?
- how many end users can work out how to use the "manual network select" function on their phones... or can be bothered to switch back and forth when they're at home.
- how does it deal with phones that are configured to look for 3G first, then fall back to 2G?
- what's the control, authentication and security mechanism? Does it emulate an MSC and HLR somehow?
- it looks like the PC it's attached to is a fundamental part of the device. What happens when it's in standby or hibernate mode?
The Engadget article linked above has a comment from someone who claims to be the device's inventor. He says "As far as licensed spectrum is involved,who gave somebody the right to sell spectrum in my house?You own your own cellphone,you own your own magicjack device and you own the air in your house.The licensed carriers owns the right not to be interfered with.Our device does not interfere."
While that's pretty contentious, it fits with some of the rhetoric I hear about "open spectrum". It's also worth pointing out that the various iPod-connected FM transmitters were initially thought of as illegal in some places, yet regulators such as Ofcom allowed them if they operated at sufficiently low power.
Other posts try to work out what's going on - one suggests that it looks to the phone like a network it's roamed into, but it "pretends" that it's authenticated with your "home" network and just replies "OK" to the handset.
That said, I'm extremely doubtful that this will fly, technically, legally, commercially or in terms of user experience.
EDIT: I see that Andy Tiller of ip.access has a detailed take on it - and actually got a chance to try the device at CES.
Actually, now I think more about it, one possible killer app for this is in markets with deregulated or light-licenced guard bands. In particular, if others follow the Netherlands' lead and try to have licence-exempt bits of GSM spectrum, all sorts of things become possible. Especially if you can do some clever things with connection management apps on smartphones - perhaps running 2G voice (via the Magic Jack) in parallel with 3G or WiFi data.
One of the more bewildering things I'm trying to get to the bottom of is the supposed Magic Jack "femtocell" as written about in numerous places such as here, here and here.
In theory, it hooks up a GSM phone to a VoIP client embedded in a USB stick. Details on how it works are remarkably thin on the ground, although allegedly it uses the IMEI number as part of its authentication mechanism.
As yet, the whole thing seems to be based on press releases rather than demonstrations or any hard detail on the underlying architecture. If it works as billed, I can see numerous pitfalls or open questions:
- what frequency band(s) does it work with?
- does it need a separate SIM in the phone, and does Magic Jack supply these? Do you need to switch SIMs when you leave the house? Or is the company hoping to sign some sort of roaming deal with operators?
- how does it deal with SIM-locked GSM phones? Does it "spoof" particular operators' network characteristics, or have its own network ID?
- what are the legalities around its use of licenced spectrum, even if the power is supposedly low enough to avoid interference?
- how many end users can work out how to use the "manual network select" function on their phones... or can be bothered to switch back and forth when they're at home.
- how does it deal with phones that are configured to look for 3G first, then fall back to 2G?
- what's the control, authentication and security mechanism? Does it emulate an MSC and HLR somehow?
- it looks like the PC it's attached to is a fundamental part of the device. What happens when it's in standby or hibernate mode?
The Engadget article linked above has a comment from someone who claims to be the device's inventor. He says "As far as licensed spectrum is involved,who gave somebody the right to sell spectrum in my house?You own your own cellphone,you own your own magicjack device and you own the air in your house.The licensed carriers owns the right not to be interfered with.Our device does not interfere."
While that's pretty contentious, it fits with some of the rhetoric I hear about "open spectrum". It's also worth pointing out that the various iPod-connected FM transmitters were initially thought of as illegal in some places, yet regulators such as Ofcom allowed them if they operated at sufficiently low power.
Other posts try to work out what's going on - one suggests that it looks to the phone like a network it's roamed into, but it "pretends" that it's authenticated with your "home" network and just replies "OK" to the handset.
That said, I'm extremely doubtful that this will fly, technically, legally, commercially or in terms of user experience.
EDIT: I see that Andy Tiller of ip.access has a detailed take on it - and actually got a chance to try the device at CES.
Actually, now I think more about it, one possible killer app for this is in markets with deregulated or light-licenced guard bands. In particular, if others follow the Netherlands' lead and try to have licence-exempt bits of GSM spectrum, all sorts of things become possible. Especially if you can do some clever things with connection management apps on smartphones - perhaps running 2G voice (via the Magic Jack) in parallel with 3G or WiFi data.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Back from vacation - thoughts on mobile in Sri Lanka & the Gulf states
I got back from my extended break this morning - looking through my news emails, there's clearly been quite a lot going on while I've been away, so it'll take a while for me to process my thoughts on CES, Nexus One and so on.
Before I get back to "the business in hand", though, I want to jot down a few thoughts and observations on things mobile I've seen while on holiday. I was primarily in Sri Lanka, plus a couple of days each in Oman, Kuwait and Dubai on the way there and back.
Now, I generally like to separate work and down-time, to the extent I've had my voicemail saying that I'm not picking up messages, for the past three weeks. So I certainly haven't been doing report-grade research while I've been away. But at the same time, I've certainly been observing people, adverts, shops - so I have a few anecdotes about mobile and wireless that might be of interest to a wider audience. I should point out that I tend to travel around a lot, so I usually see a lot more than just a capital city and its high-end malls, or a plush beach hotel. In a lot of developing, you see a very different side to "mobile" on a local bus between two small towns, versus the lobby bar of the local Hilton.
First - Sri Lanka. I spent most of my time outside the capital Colombo, mostly in a variety of beach and hill towns. The most obvious thing I noticed was the differences between Sri Lanka and its neighbour India, across which I drove last April. There is much less conspicuous mobile advertising - few of the house walls painted in corporate colours so common in India. Where there was display advertising, or point-of-sale material outside various shops, it was 95% dominated by simple brand advertising for the various local mobile operators' prepay SIMs tariffs. As is common in many countries, you can buy credit for prepay anywhere from a florists' shop to a market stall, to one of the numerous dedicated communications/Internet facilities.
I bought a local SIM on the Dialog 3G network plus some credit to use a smartphone as a web browser. While coverage is OK and purchase was easy, getting online was definitely not. I needed to use a PC first to go online to get the settings for the right access point for my phone, and then find a number to SMS to a short code to purchase blocks of Internet time (1 hour etc). In fact, I asked two or three phone shops about which SIM was based to access the web on my phone, and got blank stares. The provisioning / access-control system seemed pretty clunky too - sometimes I got my allotted access time, sometimes I got "unlimited" access, sometimes it seemed to charge me adhoc amounts. It was cheap, whatever, though - nominally about £0.10 (20 rupees) for an hour's access, cheaper than the £0.01p per minute in the many Internet cafes.
That said, handset-based web access definitely seems an unusual exercise in most of the country, although I saw a fair number of shops selling Huawei HSPA dongles for mobile broadband, as well as (a few) outdoor adverts. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some of the upper echelons of the business community in Colombo have BlackBerries, but it's definitely wrong to assume a wide use of "the Mobile Web" among the general population.
A very telling anecdote came from a driver I hired for a day-trip. He laughed and shook his head when I asked if people were "accessing the Internet on a mobile phone". He has a $20 Nokia handset, but bought a $50 PC (an old Pentium 3) for web access. He pointed out that 'normal' people (well, men anyway, it's quite a segregated society) use Internet cafes, and some schools have PCs, but was completely unconvinced by the notion of massmarket mobile web usage. He said that it might appeal to the Colombo business folk - although amusingly he suggested that anyone who cared about mobile Internet use would probably be affluent enough to have a personal driver, so they could sit in the back seat with a laptop rather than struggle with a smartphone. Also, home access to the Internet has high levels of parental supervision, which would be difficult to apply to anonymous prepaid mobile access.
I saw absolutely no advertising that suggested that handset-based web access was seen as important, nor much point of sale material in a couple of stores I peeked into. I saw nobody on the buses, trains, streets, or local markets or restaurants doing anything identifiable as Internet access, although obviously SMS usage was rampant. Everywhere, however, were shops selling low-cost second-hand and refurbished PCs - Colombo even has a dedicated shopping mall just for PC and software/accessory shops.
I've spoken before about the oft-repeated myth of "the next billion" Internet users supposedly accessing the web on their handsets first, rather than PCs. I've often wondered where they might be hiding, outside of Japan and a couple of bits of India. Well, they're not living in Sri Lanka, that much seems probable. (Of course, if you live there and have more concrete observations, please let me know).
One thing that was interesting, though was the pervasiveness of WiFi. Many of the hotels and guest-houses I stayed in had free wireless attached to ADSL (mostly low-ish speeds of 1 or 2Mbit/s) , as did many of the other more tourist-oriented locations like restaurants. Coupled with the Internet cafes, the growing prevalence of tourists with netbooks may well be having a drip-feed effect on the local awareness that "The Internet" is primarily a PC-based phenomenon.
One last comment that springs to mind - looking in some of the phone shops in Colombo (handsets are normally bought unlocked and used with any SIM), I was conscious of continued Nokia dominance... but also a growing number of clones and outright fakes. The very-unsubtle "Nokla" brand with an L rather than an I seemed quite common, as did fake E71's branded "TV Mobile" which were clearly GSM sheep in 3G wolves' clothing.
The much-wealthier Gulf countries were different, although except in Dubai I still didn't get the impression that smartphone or mobile web usage was that common. Adverts for 3G dongles were pretty common though, as were PC-based broadband users in numerous cafes, with the Kuwaiti operators loudly trumpeting 21Mbit/s HSPA+ speeds. Oman had a high density of Internet cafes, especially in smaller cities outside Muscat, where I suspect that levels of affluence and home-broadband ownership are much lower. It was also notable that many Internet cafes combined games rooms with billiards/snooker tables - essentially becoming (again, mostly male) social hubs in a country where there's obviously no "bar" scene.
Ironically, like Sri Lanka, Dubai also had some less-usual handset brands. Stockists of the flashy/vulgar Vertu and Porsche phones were everywhere....
(And a note for the mobile broadband commentators - notthat many embedded-3G notebooks in the swish Dubai mall electronics shops, either).
Note: I'll probably remember some other anecdotes over coming days. I'll add them to this post as edits. And once again, this is just some observations made while on holiday - I'm sure there's a lot more rigorous and detailed research out there, but I always like to notice a few things that stand out.
Before I get back to "the business in hand", though, I want to jot down a few thoughts and observations on things mobile I've seen while on holiday. I was primarily in Sri Lanka, plus a couple of days each in Oman, Kuwait and Dubai on the way there and back.
Now, I generally like to separate work and down-time, to the extent I've had my voicemail saying that I'm not picking up messages, for the past three weeks. So I certainly haven't been doing report-grade research while I've been away. But at the same time, I've certainly been observing people, adverts, shops - so I have a few anecdotes about mobile and wireless that might be of interest to a wider audience. I should point out that I tend to travel around a lot, so I usually see a lot more than just a capital city and its high-end malls, or a plush beach hotel. In a lot of developing, you see a very different side to "mobile" on a local bus between two small towns, versus the lobby bar of the local Hilton.
First - Sri Lanka. I spent most of my time outside the capital Colombo, mostly in a variety of beach and hill towns. The most obvious thing I noticed was the differences between Sri Lanka and its neighbour India, across which I drove last April. There is much less conspicuous mobile advertising - few of the house walls painted in corporate colours so common in India. Where there was display advertising, or point-of-sale material outside various shops, it was 95% dominated by simple brand advertising for the various local mobile operators' prepay SIMs tariffs. As is common in many countries, you can buy credit for prepay anywhere from a florists' shop to a market stall, to one of the numerous dedicated communications/Internet facilities.
I bought a local SIM on the Dialog 3G network plus some credit to use a smartphone as a web browser. While coverage is OK and purchase was easy, getting online was definitely not. I needed to use a PC first to go online to get the settings for the right access point for my phone, and then find a number to SMS to a short code to purchase blocks of Internet time (1 hour etc). In fact, I asked two or three phone shops about which SIM was based to access the web on my phone, and got blank stares. The provisioning / access-control system seemed pretty clunky too - sometimes I got my allotted access time, sometimes I got "unlimited" access, sometimes it seemed to charge me adhoc amounts. It was cheap, whatever, though - nominally about £0.10 (20 rupees) for an hour's access, cheaper than the £0.01p per minute in the many Internet cafes.
That said, handset-based web access definitely seems an unusual exercise in most of the country, although I saw a fair number of shops selling Huawei HSPA dongles for mobile broadband, as well as (a few) outdoor adverts. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some of the upper echelons of the business community in Colombo have BlackBerries, but it's definitely wrong to assume a wide use of "the Mobile Web" among the general population.
A very telling anecdote came from a driver I hired for a day-trip. He laughed and shook his head when I asked if people were "accessing the Internet on a mobile phone". He has a $20 Nokia handset, but bought a $50 PC (an old Pentium 3) for web access. He pointed out that 'normal' people (well, men anyway, it's quite a segregated society) use Internet cafes, and some schools have PCs, but was completely unconvinced by the notion of massmarket mobile web usage. He said that it might appeal to the Colombo business folk - although amusingly he suggested that anyone who cared about mobile Internet use would probably be affluent enough to have a personal driver, so they could sit in the back seat with a laptop rather than struggle with a smartphone. Also, home access to the Internet has high levels of parental supervision, which would be difficult to apply to anonymous prepaid mobile access.
I saw absolutely no advertising that suggested that handset-based web access was seen as important, nor much point of sale material in a couple of stores I peeked into. I saw nobody on the buses, trains, streets, or local markets or restaurants doing anything identifiable as Internet access, although obviously SMS usage was rampant. Everywhere, however, were shops selling low-cost second-hand and refurbished PCs - Colombo even has a dedicated shopping mall just for PC and software/accessory shops.
I've spoken before about the oft-repeated myth of "the next billion" Internet users supposedly accessing the web on their handsets first, rather than PCs. I've often wondered where they might be hiding, outside of Japan and a couple of bits of India. Well, they're not living in Sri Lanka, that much seems probable. (Of course, if you live there and have more concrete observations, please let me know).
One thing that was interesting, though was the pervasiveness of WiFi. Many of the hotels and guest-houses I stayed in had free wireless attached to ADSL (mostly low-ish speeds of 1 or 2Mbit/s) , as did many of the other more tourist-oriented locations like restaurants. Coupled with the Internet cafes, the growing prevalence of tourists with netbooks may well be having a drip-feed effect on the local awareness that "The Internet" is primarily a PC-based phenomenon.
One last comment that springs to mind - looking in some of the phone shops in Colombo (handsets are normally bought unlocked and used with any SIM), I was conscious of continued Nokia dominance... but also a growing number of clones and outright fakes. The very-unsubtle "Nokla" brand with an L rather than an I seemed quite common, as did fake E71's branded "TV Mobile" which were clearly GSM sheep in 3G wolves' clothing.
The much-wealthier Gulf countries were different, although except in Dubai I still didn't get the impression that smartphone or mobile web usage was that common. Adverts for 3G dongles were pretty common though, as were PC-based broadband users in numerous cafes, with the Kuwaiti operators loudly trumpeting 21Mbit/s HSPA+ speeds. Oman had a high density of Internet cafes, especially in smaller cities outside Muscat, where I suspect that levels of affluence and home-broadband ownership are much lower. It was also notable that many Internet cafes combined games rooms with billiards/snooker tables - essentially becoming (again, mostly male) social hubs in a country where there's obviously no "bar" scene.
Ironically, like Sri Lanka, Dubai also had some less-usual handset brands. Stockists of the flashy/vulgar Vertu and Porsche phones were everywhere....
(And a note for the mobile broadband commentators - notthat many embedded-3G notebooks in the swish Dubai mall electronics shops, either).
Note: I'll probably remember some other anecdotes over coming days. I'll add them to this post as edits. And once again, this is just some observations made while on holiday - I'm sure there's a lot more rigorous and detailed research out there, but I always like to notice a few things that stand out.
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