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As usual the counter argument is that enforcement would be sufficient. The International Air Transport Association [IATA] is one player in the mix.  However, most of the airlines are looking at how to transport Lithium batteries more effective.

Lithium batteries are a $9B yearly business with 70% represented by the Rechargeable Battery Association.

The questions that I am going to pursue with representatives are two fold.  Of the 24 incidents of Lithium batteries being in the flames,  How many batteries were in proximity of each other. Are there concerns about even a single battery?

This is a real concern and people should pay attention.  It is not a popcorn hoax like the one below.

Bottom line,  be aware that the phone call may not be the reason to turn you phone on the plane.

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Batelco the Bahrain telephone company is buyer and you can see the difference in perspective.

Here is Tony Rice, CEO of CWC quote;

"The disposal of the Monaco & Islands portfolio is consistent with our objective of building a growth-driven, Pan-America focused business. The Monaco & Islands portfolio is a premium telecoms business and we are pleased to have agreed a deal that achieves an attractive value for our shareholders. We believe that Batelco will be an excellent owner and operator, bringing deep telecoms capability and international experience, and will continue the development of the businesses. The disposal will substantially reduce the geographic spread of our Group as well as increasing our financial flexibility. We will continue to operate the Monaco Telecom business, with the option to crystallise the second stage of the transaction if necessary consents are obtained."

In other words, they transacted the bird in the hand.

On the other hand you have Sheikh Mohamed bin Isa Al Khalifa, Batelco Group Chief Executive with his view.

"We are pleased to announce this acquisition which will increase the scale and diversification of our operations. Batelco Group will have the opportunity to operate, in collaboration with its new business partners, communications businesses across 17 markets. This acquisition supports our strategy by adding new cash generative business clusters to our existing operations across the Middle Eastern region. We look forward to working closely with all the shareholders and management teams in the companies to ensure we continue to deliver value and innovation to customers and be recognized as market leaders."

Bottom line, diversification for Batelco is bringing them into some interesting new markets where further acquisitions can be made.

On CWC's side they look more like a target and as the assets consolidate the suitor may become clear.

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The reality is that WebRTC has some growing to do, but we are looking at implementations with real code. Many of the participants are true netizens and deserve honorable mention just because they contributed back to the open source community.

One place I was particularly impressed were the implementations that would match well into carrier implementations.

Thrupoint and Acme Packet demonstrations made me aware that the enterprise to carrier SIP Trunking implementations were going to be impacted by WebRTC.

Crocodile, like Acme, pointed to IMS, but showed a mobile implementation that connected to Rich Communication Services and could be part of a carrier's Joyn implementation.

Bottom line is WebRTC is coming out of the gate not just as an over the top solution, but as part of carrier implementations in the near future.

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1) Though Samsung dominates. It is losing marketshare based on price.

2) Apple's prestige has lead it into a pricing problem that indicates it will be able accelerate growth.

3) Entry, or more specifically reentry into the market requires a comprehensive OS strategy.

I have congratulated Microsoft in rethinking the OS to be mobile, but so far the comprehensive view has not been reflected in the product line or its adoption.

Clearly its is going to need a great deal of partnership and product strategies to compete.

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• Amazon,
• Apple,
• Google,
• Microsoft. 

We can argue the value of networks;

• ATT,
• Sprint,
• T-Mobile,
• Verizon.

In the end they are not the where what we see.

What we see is look and feel.  We are going through a revolution on the web that is not about speeds and feeds but about user experiences.

Microsoft has understood that there job is not to compete with the iPhone or the Powerbook, but to rethink how we compute with them.

And our hats are off to them on figuring out how to make Windows8 a connector between all their devices.

They are going to get a lot of grief for being a major change from previous MS Windows.  In fact this has been as significant a change for them as when they became a windows company and hid DOS in the weeds.

They deserve our appreciation for the attempt.  Like Windows 3.1 we may watch them have to go through a great deal of user feedback to get it right.  But they have made the move.

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As you will recall from discussions with Bill Volk that later were reported in Gigaom,  the difference in the world of Android and Apple has a lot to do with the charging for an app vs. the commercials around an app.

In the recent Google Earnings" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444868204578067101716321238.html?mod=googlenews_wsj" target="_blank">WSJ article the statement is made "About half of all U.S. mobile ad spending goes toward search ads, more than the roughly 47% of total digital spending in Web search, according to eMarketer Inc. And Google takes a 95% share of mobile-search revenue in the U.S., estimates eMarketer".

The article cites "Barclay analyst Anthony DiClemente estimates about $6.5 billion of the $8 billion Google is making on mobile devices comes specifically from advertising—or a 160% increase over the number reported last year."

Crossfire Consulting did a composite analysis and points out that this is the year that mobile doubled the amount of devices compared to desktops and laptops. This trend is well understood by the likes of Microsoft who has turned Windows8 into a mobile OS more than a PC OS.

Bottom line is that Mobile has disrupted the advertising model (yet again) and Google should be seen as maintaining its advantage not loosing its grip.

I am sure this will be part of the discussion at our Mobile Commerce Zone event November 28 & 29 in South San Francisco

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But at the end of the day, what is the driver for these things.

It's one thing to build something for facebook which is how AirTime expects people to connect, but its another to think of video as part of every day communication.

Personally, I think video has a different friend set than audio calls and in a conference mode it get even tighter restrictions.

Back in the pulver.com days, Rob Fulop one did a flirting presentation.  In tracing the history of flirting he showed that becoming initimate was a process where it took several iterations to reveal the "real" you.

Now I am not a big avatar fan.  I have issues when people are on IM with animal pictures during a business conference.  However, I do see Rob's point and I think its gets over looked by a lot of companies that want to treat video as the next telephone.

I think rich media will have a scale in the long run and video will have markets that look like the full spectrum but in reality will have a new aspect to contextual communication.

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Most friends are still waiting for the iPhone5 and while I have been anticipating the new mini iPad, the iPhone maniacs are all around me.

It's hard not to believe that iPhone5 sales are going to make the 4Q stock price a problem for many who are playing with shorts right now.

I also imagine that the iPhone5 form factor will be a subject of discussions when the new iPad arrives.

It's clear for the Applemmings they can do no wrong.

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So for many there is some skepticism on the new Developer Console, but it does solve a few problems that are familiar to the small app developer.

What’s new in the Developer Console preview:
Updated look and feel
New publishing experience, ability to compare new and old APK versions
Create store listings in more languages
Statistics on user ratings and reviews
Updating your app in the new site makes automated store listing translations available to users on the web

The following features are not yet supported in the new Developer Console. If you need to use these features, you can click “switch back” at any time to use the old Developer Console.

While at the code level, the APK Expansion Files, Multiple APK support
Announcements and IE9 support are somewhat useful.

The real value maybe in the expansion of the support with the Partner channel.  As many companies question the Motorola Mobility acquisition the expansion of partner support makes it easier for developers to feel that they are not hitting a dead end.

It's unclear yet, if we get to the point where updates get us past the google symbian look alike contest and that is probably the biggest issue I have as my Galaxy Note stays firmly in Android 2.3.n

I am building some apps now for Android, I will let you know how I make out.

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There are people suggesting that Sprint would come in to acquire MetroPCS out from under DT, but I have to think that Sprint has too much on its plate already.

So what are the assets that MetroPCS has that makes them a target for anyone.  The big answer is that their LTE roll out has made them a great marketing story and while ATT and VZ keep looking for a pricing model that caps the throughput, MetroPCS has been a flat rate no promises strategy.

That does fit nicely with T-Mobile and with Sprint.

However,  T-Mobile has a very motivated parent that wants to cash out.  In someways this resembles the making of Clearwire by Sprint.

In the structure of the deal is a way to IPO T-Mobile that gives the existing MetroPCS share holders a good stake and also sets a price for the value of T-Mobile in a way that gets past a lot of today's IPO jitters.

Now the Altar has been problematic in the wireless space for a while now with LEAP looking to be acquired by MetroPCS for as long as I can remember.

LEAP is the "Cricket" parent that made alot of noise a few years back but now seems to be suffering from the silence in the light of day that makes acquisition hard.

If T-Mobile does acquire MetroPCS, my guess is we will have a rush on MetroPCS contracts with the hope of grand fathering them into the mix, otherwise the aging of Americans, over 40 seems likely as the pricing model.

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For example, In Mobility Tech we are going to be talking about the data explosion, because the network planners are the people we are looking to support.  So we are talking about how to manage, coverage, speeds and feeds (backhaul).  We are also looking at the relation to of apps to the carriers (although most of apps content is in the HTML5 Summit).

Having said all that the problem is often this overlaps with the great content at ITEXPO which services many of the same segments.

This is particularly true on Wednesday at 9:30 when we get the benefit of Michael J. Riegel speaking on behalf of IBM about Mobile and Websphere.

While I will be in the session about Ruckus and the way that Towerstream has manage to blend 3G/4G requirements with Wi-Fi services using Ruckus technology.

IBM will be giving us all the benefit of a their Mobile strategy.  IBM has managed the migration to the Mobile Internet unbelievably well. They have, expanded their Java mobile strategies, supported their Enterprise customers with Websphere and of course acquired some support service solutions including a PhoneGap player.

They are without a doubt a good partner for the Enterprise company looking to make the migration to the BYOD world we are facing.

Rather than split yourself I recommend bringing a second person with you to hear both discussions.

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Then it was disappointing to find it was light faster cheaper but not....

Revolutionary, Remarkable, Redefining, Rejuvenating, etc.

The 5 is an improvement on the 4.

So many people were gung ho for the iPhone5 I can't imagine that it will  not sell 20M by end of year.

But wait.  What about the rumors?

Where is the 7 inch iPad?

If the most compelling aspect of the iPhone5 is that it hits the web faster with LTE shouldn't we see a real web device as well?

It seems to me that the iPhone5 was a stepping stone for the next iPad, and I say that because much of the guts inside can be applied to the next device.  Voice is becoming less dominant as a component of the service plans and the slightly taller iPhone is also only marginally different.

If you wanted revolution from Apple I would caution you to consider that an iPad 4 may very well be the device you dreamed the iPhone5 would be.

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