On one of the mail lists I participate in the conversation has been intriguing about what technology is the right technology for TV White Space.  WiMAX, WiFi and LTE advocates which can normally find detante' showing different ecosystems.  The opportunity with White Space represents a different kind of opportunity, because it is unlicensed Spectrum.

On Wednesday at the Conference we are running a BOF about the White Space where we look at it not from the technology alone but from the business model.

Does the concept of a service provider matter, or will we get a wider ability to mesh as end users? 

Where and When should we expect solutions in the market place? 

You can join us remotely by clicking here http://www.zipdx.com/event/ws6oct2010.php.

Barlow Keener will moderate. 

Jack Unger
President of Ask-Wi.Com, Inc.

Jack Unger founded the company in 1993 after working for 14 years in the Silicon Valley telecom industry for ROLM, IBM, Siemens and NEC. Ask-Wi.com has been serving the broadband wireless community for the past 17 years. Mr. Unger deployed one of the world's first wireless ISPs (WISPs) in Silicon Valley 1995. He has personally has trained over 3500 wireless personnel and he wrote the first handbook for the WISP industry, "Deploying License-Free Wireless Wide-Area Networks", which was published by Cisco Press in 2003. Mr. Unger is serving his 4^th-term as a Director on the Board of the Wireless ISP Association (WISPA) and is serving his third term as Chair of WISPA's FCC Committee, which guides WISPA's advocacy and lobbying efforts on TV White Space and other FCC issues of importance to the WISP industry.

Fanny Mlinarsky

 

Fanny Mlinarsky is the founder of octoScope. She brings a powerful combination of in-depth technical knowledge and business acumen. With 26 years of experience in progressively influential technology roles with companies including Agilent and Teradyne, she has developed hardware and software, managed R&D teams and founded Azimuth Systems, a successful VC funded wireless test equipment company. Fanny has a BS/EE and BA/CS from Columbia University with some graduate work at MIT. She holds 5 patents. In 2004, Fanny received a Woman to Watch award from Mass High Tech.

Fanny Mlinarsky is the founder of octoScope.

In 2001 she founded Azimuth, the leading provider of Wi-Fi, WiMAX and LTE test equipment, and served as the company's Chief Technology Officer for five years.

Before founding Azimuth, she managed the Agilent Handheld Tester business unit formed through the acquisition of Scope Communications. Prior to that, she was VP of Engineering at Scope, where she led the development of the technology that was acquired by HP/Agilent.

Brough Turner

Barlow Keener

Barlow Keener has been specializing in communications law and its development for over 15 years. Barlow represents competing telecommunications providers (including firms using wired and wireless technologies) in state and federal regulatory matters. He negotiates interconnection agreements and handles issues involving universal service, pricing, tariffs, and other matters, as well as representing various Internet-related entities in regulatory matters and issues relating to rights management, privacy, and internet video. Barlow also handles matters related to inter-carrier compensation, providing advice and analysis regarding compliance with the Carrier Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) and CNPI rules, interpreting court orders, FCC orders, and tariffs to determine precise costs of network configuration, and negotiating interconnection agreements. In addition, Barlow works on matters related to start-up firms in the telecom, wireless, and internet sectors including incorporation and general corporate governance.

 

Barlow was the legal counsel and CEO of a facilities-based voice and data CLEC, General Counsel at CSA, Inc., a video advertising-focused consumer products company, and General Attorney at BellSouth Telecommunications.  He is a member of the Massachusetts, Georgia, and Florida bar associations. 

 

Barlow has spoken at numerous telecommunications conferences on the regulatory and legal issues related to femtocells and Fixed Mobile Convergence (FCM) issues.

 

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.

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.

"It's not a Femtocell!"

Chris Zeigler at engadget took this picture and as asked what is this thing?



If you live alone and you don't have to keep the family entertained.  Why have the Internet Access at the house and not with you.  That seems to be the reasoning behind the this terminal adapter.  That connects your LTE phone to the house and gives you connectivity. 

Given the fact that 60% of CES, was trying to move video from the Internet to the media server in the house, this would probably require some network smarts.  

In my humble opinion this places LG's LTE closer to the dual mode camp, but since they have femtocell strategies, it maybe this was an internal product that had to be different the LG / Nortel Femtocell.

Can we call it MonoMode?

Microsoft made a lot of statements, but when it came to the term tablet, the lexicon changed.  They want to call it a Slate.


,

Google and Apple are vying for your attention today.

If you are a carrier, your bed fellows are not staying the night! Google with the Nexus One announcement that is all about the Android operating system and not a carrier. And strangely enough the Apple iTablet maybe the same thing. The rumors on the iTablet seem to indicate it may be devoid of 3G / 4G wireless interfaces and only support WiFi. While that will be a major plus for ATT who has already worked with Apple on the dual mode functionality of the iPhone, I should point out that Verizon has been the better company at supporting the use of USB 'sticks' (dongels?). It will be interesting to see if a bundle comes from either of the two carriers with the iTablet.

The smartphone marketplace is heating up and its not just because Apple has the iTablet on the way. 

The carriers are working hard to find the right device to catch the growing market, but I am not sure that anyone knows how to catch our attention.

Palm has the Pre being marketed with and without Sprint, but last years CES darling is not exactly looking to build a ground swell of community.  Which is a shame since they still have a lot of loyal palm customers.

Likewise HTC is making an effort to support their customers with commercials.

The reality is that social networks maybe the best way to communicate to the most likely customers. 

The Fan Clubs of the devices on Facebook maybe the best place to reach early adopters. 

Its clear the carriers are anxious to avoid another breakout by rivals.

It may be that ATT is good as it gets with the iPhone.

I have already commented on the fact that Telefonica is not having the same dramatic impact with the iPhone as ATT (Verizon [ NYSE: VZ] announced a 30% drop in earnings and slower growth than ATT ).

In China the Nokia E71 has a good following (I am still an N95 fan) and the  cost of the iPhone is equivalent to a $1,000 US dollars over there.  The discussion of Nokia's efforts to protect patents Apple may have violated seems late, but I suspect it will work itself out like many of these do before the court has to make a decision.  IMHO, It probably has more value in the EU to show market / thought leadership than financial value.

More importantly as China continues to manage the operations of their end users the ability to use WiFi has been disabled.  Like the issues of Skype via TOM in China, a closed iPhone with only the carriers network is not as interesting as an IPhone with WiFi.  However, it allows the state to know what it wants to know.

Of course in China if you capture less than .001 of the market you are still busy, so the iPhone success is pretty much a guarantee.

Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from our latest quarterly report on all things Clearwire, the CLEARWIRE NTK OCTOBER 2009 (need to know) report, available now for the low low price of $4.95. In this excerpt we talk about how Clearwire's on-time, on-target market launches in Atlanta and Las Vegas, as well as a host of smaller cities, have kept the company on target with its ambitious 2009 rollout plans. For the full report, order online here. Report excerpt follows:

Vegas, Atlanta and Silicon Valley - but where is Chicago?

Easily the most positive sign for Clearwire during the hot months was its on-schedule rollout of services in Atlanta and Las Vegas, the two bigger markets Clearwire had said it would launch during the summer -- and did. Perhaps catching many WiMAX watchers by surprise was Clearwire's August/September launch of an additional 10 markets for its new, mobile WiMAX services -- a list that included several small Texas towns like Lubbock and Abilene, as well as Boise, Idaho, and Bellingham, Wash.

The quick addition of the smaller markets was a pretty easy strategy to figure out if (like us) you had studied Clearwire closely. Since Clearwire has said many times that the hardest and longest task of launching any new market is getting its towers sited, approved and constructed, it stands to reason that any market where the company already had a tower position could be converted to the newer mobile WiMAX service pretty simply, with maybe an antenna change and some new networking gear on the back end.



At the end of September 2009 there were already reports surfacing about Clearwire quickly upgrading pre-WiMAX customers in some of its remaining 40 old-school markets, and on Oct. 1 the company "lit" two smaller markets (Milledgeville, Ga., and Salem, Ore.), while also making services available in Philadelphia.

Not as meaningful from a subscriber number but worth its weight in market influence was Clearwire's quick launch of its planned "testbed" network for developers in Silicon Valley, with separate clouds covering the campuses of Google, Cisco and Stanford University. Though some saw the testbed launch (which was announced back in May) as a public-relations stunt, from a business standpoint it seems to make perfect sense to put the service in front of folks who make up what is still arguably the world's foremost center of technological innovation and investment.

According to Clearwire, it will offer select subscriptions in Silicon Valley for free, while allowing any other developers in the area to sign up by joining the company's developer program, and then purchasing approved client gear for $50.

In commercial markets, Sidecut Reports was fortunate enough to be on hand, in person, for the "official" launch of services July 21 in Las Vegas, where we learned the following lessons: 1) Clearwire is going to be intensely local with its promotions going forward, which means that national roaming is not going to be a big selling point; 2) The company seems to be putting value ahead of mobility, which we think is a smart move since without a smartphone device,WiMAX isn't as sexy as, say, an iPhone 3GS or a Palm Pre; and 3) the company is going to enlist as many resellers as possible, from the very big (like Comcast and Sprint) to the very small (single-owner shops and mall kiosks) to help get the word out.

To get a feel for how this will roll out, consider the Clearwire sales footprint in the greater Las Vegas metro area: According to Clearwire, it only plans to operate five "branded" outlets in Vegas, including two storefront operations and three mall-based kiosks. The balance of the company's contracts will be sold by a list of 80-plus authorized resellers, including sales locations inside six Vegas-area Best Buy stores, 24 Radio Shack locations, and the rest independent resellers. The key for Clearwire is that all contracts will be with the parent company, and not resellers -- so no matter who signs a customer up, Clearwire will own the billing relationship.

For all the Clearwire knowledge you NEED TO KNOW for the latest quarter, order our CLEARWIRE NTK OCTOBER 2009 report today for just $4.95 -- that's right, less than five bucks for a lengthy take on Clearwire market launches, device plans, business news and more.

It's game of inches as they say. 

I have been looking at the reporting about Verizon's App Store activity and find the perspective of some pundits troubling.

As I reported when I went to the Verizon Developers Conference, the goal Verizon has is very different than being the equivalent of the iTunes AppStore.

Lets be honest, how many of us have looked at all 65,000 apps, and how many of us really want to.

Verizon announced a partnership with Vodafone, China Mobile and Softbank to deliver applications their way.  Very specfically Verizon was looking to open the interfaces for location, billing and trust (security).  I noted that their strategy was associated with a API that masked alot of the behind the scenes OSS work. 

Carriers and cellphone vendors have procedures for turning on the phone that represent over 100 steps in provisioning and configuration.  Verizon has tried to make the network valuable without having the carrier's internal OSS stifle the developer.  The one requirement is work within a framework. A lot of the companies that are on the iPhone do not like this framework, and it shows in in the blogosphere.

So Vodafone makes its announcement about their efforts to build Vodafone 360 which to me is a another strategy in keeping with the alliance, but is not getting the anger yet.

I think the reason maybe be that Verizon is in the California footprint and the developers are asked all the time "Can I use it on my phone" and since VZW is big in California, the answer frustrating.