Carl Ford : 4G Wireless Evolution
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February 2010

You are browsing the archive for February 2010.

Web envy Google vs. Vodafone

February 17, 2010

At Mobile World Congress Vittiorio Colao the CEO of Vodafone made mention of the fact that regardless of what smart phone your were using over 80% of the time was using Google.

This pointed to the latest love hate the carriers have with Google, but they have a history of not liking any of the computing partners.  Apple got to watch the wholesale app announcement with about half of the 24 carriers being their partners pledging to work with LG, Samsung and Sony to build an app market.

Likewise Microsoft has a long history of trying to bring smarts at a time when the network had little capacity for computing.

However, in these times when wireless broadband is an imperative to the carriers the strategies of come one come all, have proven less than successful.

Its clear that mobile markets are going be more like computing the in years past and the company's success will be based on finding ways to partner without losing brand to the consumer, or without using the brand in the application (as in M2M).

One thing that has not risen to the surface in MWC this week is e-readers.  The group is strangely silent, either because they are retooling after the iPad or because the deals are not that valuable to the carriers. 

Whatever the reason, the computing devices are coming more and more often and it will take more than an app store to catch the consumer's attention.











Skype & Verizon Wireless Discover Metcalfe's LAW

February 16, 2010

Good News!  Verizon Wireless expanded their "on network" to include Skype users.  The solution does a number of things.

1) It highlights the blackberry abilities to keep the application resident.

2) It lets Verizon Wireless customers to connect to their Skype buddies

3) It lets Skype users on their Verizon phone to see presence status in their address book.

4) It lets Skype Out to be used to dial international calls.

This means settlements will be bypassed.

Just in Time For Mobile World Congress

February 9, 2010

Supercomm was cancelled for 2010.  While it would interesting to talk about this from the conference side, I will make the assumption that other people will take that opportunity and try to talk about it from a different perspective.

CES was hoping and the buzz was around various forms of wireless use.  Ford with Sync, Microsoft with KIA, Wireless devices and devices using wireless were all around most of them Internet enabled. 

Mobile World Congress is going on in Barcelona and it's expected to do well next week. 

I want to point out that these events are following the money which is no longer about the network its about the consumers freedom of choice.

As congress and the FCC contend with the legacy of the PSTN the new network is flourishing and its not about wireless its about customer choice.  The wireless world may still have the same issues facing it that their fixed line brothers faced.  Brough Turner points out that over 90% of the packets on any network head for the Internet.

If I were at the FCC I would be ready to advocate that its time to treat all networks as if they were accessing the Internet.  Looking at competition not based on the technology but on the services and the primary services.  Voice, video and data are probably going to converge at some point as well with the over the top (internet) model

Legacy service providers are looking for protection, but government should praise itself for enabling the competitive landscape we are heading for rather than embedding old rules into the new environment.

In these days of government bail outs its hard to see what is the economic downturn versus technological progress.

If the goal of net neutrality is to support the progress, I would contend it's to dynamic a market to codify.  If its to protect the applications from abuses by the legacy networks, I am not sure its needed.  

 































Brough Stops the Show

February 8, 2010

We have been buzzing around the discussion of WiFi that Brough Turner shared with us at the 4GWE. 

Wi-Fi Opportunities In A 4G WorldView more presentations from Brough Turner.

Suzanne Bowen's
interview is a good commentary to go with the slides. And of course, you can read the man himself
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