Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com - 4G Archives

CableWiFi: Cablecos Offer Free Roaming on 50k+ WiFi Hotspots

2012-05-21T21:15:38Z

If you happen to be a customer of Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox Communications or Time Warner Cable, there is some really good news in the form of an official sharing agreement of WiFi spectrum allowing customers of any of these cable companies to gain access to the WiFi networks of any of the companies.

In Norwalk, Connecticut or Cablevision country, you could drive a few dozen miles in one direction and run into a Cox Cable jurisdiction and a few dozen miles in another direction gets you into Time Warner territory. Of course your situation may vary but it is great to know that as you travel around the US you will have access to lots of access points which were once off limits.

In April, 2010 some of these providers stuck a similar deal but to date I have never been able to successfully use WiFi belonging to the other providers - just Optimum WiFi provided by Cablevision.

Perhaps I will have better luck with the new network which has the SSID of CableWiFi. In a perfect world - you log onto this network and use it as you roam this vast country we call the U S of A.

The best news is as 4G providers start to become more restrictive on their bandwidth use, WiFi networks provided by the cablecos will come to the rescue meaning consumers will have to think long and hard before switching from cable to telco-based service home broadband.

Could Verizon and AT&T counter this offer with their own "bundle" of wireless and landline service? Yes, absolutely. It remains to be seen if they care enough about their landline businesses to worry about this new or at least more unified threat.

Hat Tip: PC World

See other related posts written by me:

Intel Finally Gets Mobile?

2012-05-17T15:08:44Z

Intel is selling its computers quite nicely into PCs and servers and although we are in a so called "post-PC era" people keep buying computers by the tens of millions. The long-term challenge is in-part ARM, the instruction-set architecture which is being turned into highly efficient chips used in most mobile devices.

The challenge of course for Intel is the typical one of disruption from below. An example is how RAID allowed inexpensive and less reliable hard drives to replace larger disks in the market.

Likewise, the ARMv8 64-bit architecture application profile was defined two months ago and at some point soon we will see these chips in the field. Moreover, expect them to rapidly go multicore if not initially. From a price/performance standpoint as well as in the power consumption arena we can surmise this processor to be something Intel should worry about. After all, companies like HP are known to be experimenting with ARM chips in their HPC initiatives.

The good news is Intel says they finally understand operators. More specifically, Herbert Weber, EMEA marketing director for mobile and communications at Intel, told Telecoms.com that they finally see the differences between mobile and the PC market.

Moreover he says Intel will begin to integrate a variety of connectivity technologies into its mobile chipsets such as WiFi, GSM, GPS, LTE.

But it isn't like companies like Broadcom haven't been doing the same thing for many years, allowing them to grow more quickly as mobile supplier. Moreover, Intel started to integrate GPUs and WiFi onto CPU chips and motherboards many years ago - certainly this isn't a new concept.

It is obvious the main problem Intel has keeping it from becoming a dominant mobile supplier has been and will continue to be size and power consumption and to that end Weber had this to say:

We have made significant improvements into our design and architecture and now we don’t need to hide behind anyone in terms of battery lifetime of our phones and power consumption. We are now on par with where the market is today and we intend with our next devices – the Maryville chipset going to 22nm and the next wave of chips coming in the 14nm platform – to be better than the rest of the market in terms of power and battery lifetime.

Although Intel has given up much of the mobile market its efforts in the Ultrabook space have been fantastic and in my opinion severely under-reported by the media in general. Intel finally seems to get the concept that if they don't make more efficient chips their days will at some point be numbered. And based on my usage of a Asus UX31 Zenbook Ultrabook, I can tell you that Intel has come a long way.

In fact this powerful yet featherweight computer lets me work for about 9 hours without wireless turned on and with the screen pretty dim.

But they better keep going as Apple is likely looking for ways to switch entirely to ARM to lower its costs as it makes its own processors already for the iPhone and iPad.

There is no way to know Apple's future plans for sure but Intel is keenly aware that the loss of the fastest market-share gaining computer platform won't be good for its company or share price. And once we start to see these chip roll outs being released as planned, we can believe that Intel finally does really get mobile.

Why Samsung Must Have a Successful Media Player

2012-05-02T14:52:32Z

If Samsung is the anti-Apple and with their success in the smartphone space you have to consider them a strong alternative, then they have to have a strategy which allows them to emulate Apple in order to be as successful. By this I mean, Apple has the amazing ability to sell a range of products which are highly similar and yet each is in its own category.

You want an inexpensive music player for the kids? The Apple answer, an iPod Touch. They become teenagers and need a phone? The Apple answer is the iPhone. They need a gaming device on the go and something to help them read books for school, etc? The Apple answer is an iPad.

The efficiencies here are truly awe-inspiring… They use similar processors and other components – especially the iPod the iPhone.

Samsung, in order to compete on the top and especially bottom line needs to do the same. They need to sell millions of music players – entry level devices which are considered iPod Touch alternatives.

Although the company has tried before, their recently announced Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6 and 4.2 are supposed to be the devices which cut into Apple’s growing marketshare.

As Walt Mossberg points out however at 480x320 the 3.6 has inferior graphics to the iPod Touch but the flipside is it comes with a charger, earbuds with a microphone, expandable memory and the flexibility of Android (assuming you see this as an advantage.) All this and you save $50 over the similar Apple device. Mossberg further opines the Samsung feels more flimsy than the iPod Touch but Samsung counters that the 4.2 will be a better competitor – priced at $199.

I haven’t followed Samsung’s media players and moreover they haven’t received much press. So already there is a troubling lack of momentum in this product line. So the challenge for the Korean company is they need to make a device far cheaper and better for them to receive mass adoption. Moreover, at this point many people have gone down the iOS ecosystem road with iCloud, iTunes and myriad chargers and accessories. You have to do something dramatic to win them over.

One Direction singing What Makes You Beautiful

A celebrity endorsement perhaps? Would the cast of Jersey Shore be good ambassadors for the product? I am semi-serious here but I do think pop sensation One Direction could be one strong candidate to consider as they give you the youth market as well as the general pop space and they are new enough that an endorsement probably wouldn't be as expensive as a more established band. Not that Samsung hasn't shown a propensity to spend as much money as needed and more on marketing.

Moreover, if Samsung, Google and the rest of the Android community doesn’t act quickly – it may be too late to compete in the media player and tablet space.

On the flipside, Samsung is able to leverage its truly breathtaking display technology developed for TVs across its entire line of consumer products. This is one of the reasons the Galaxy S II smartphone is so impressive - it uses Super AMOLED technology which is gorgeous.

See a video interview between myself and Tom Chun Director and head of Wireless Terminal Strategy at Samsung discussing the ability to leverage TV technology across consumer electronics products

But with Apple rumored to be coming into the TV business, now is the time for Samsung to look to diversify with more serious and competitive offerings so they can match Apple product for product.

Blackberry 10 like Siri uses Productivity to Differentiate

2012-05-01T19:24:58Z

Apple's iPhone 4S is perhaps most known for Siri the built-in personal assistant which has had mixed reviews. Still, in-part because of this feature, the company has sold iPhones by the boatload.

RIM, who is fighting to regain market share has come at the productivity game from a different angle - the predictive text technology in its soon to be released Blackberry 10 OS is much-improved and has the potential to drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to communicate on a smartphone or tablet.

For information workers - it seems the more you work, the more there is to do. Especially when you consider the huge time suck associated with social networking, watching online video and gaming and book-reading on the go using the latest crop of tablets.

Although it is soon to say that RIM has nailed it with its new OS, it does look better than previous operating systems from the company. Now the question is how long before the functionality is copied by others and the patent war over this feature begins?

See analysis from the AP, a hands-on review from CNet and comments fom USA Today.

Is Skype Microsoft's Only Chance for Mobile Success?

2012-04-26T17:33:59Z

If you are looking for increased competition in the mobile space, Apple’s recent and seemingly constant record earnings are bad news. Worse yet for the competition, Apple has transcended its original position of a computer and electronics maker to become a major force in the publicly traded markets and even the US economy. Its phones are status symbols the world over and its tablet is so far ahead of the rest of the market the company can charge hundreds more and consumers will pay for these products with a smile.

So news of Microsoft losing share to in the mobile space should hardly be considered news. In fact even if the company purchased Nokia and RIM the challenge of integration would far outweigh the benefits. Sadly this would be true if both companies were given to Redmond at no charge. How bad is the situation? Well between December 2006 and December 2011 the Microsoft went from having 34% of the US market for smartphones to a paltry 5%! And all this while the smartphone market in the US has been exploding with growth.

Microsoft knows how bad things are. Sadly, they were way ahead in mobile – I used to rely on the HTC/UT Starcom Verizon XV6700 and called it the near-perfect device in March of 2006. It deserved this designation because it was truly a mobile office in your pocket.

I complained at the time that different carriers selling the same device were calling it something else and moreover there was really no branding for the device at all.

I think this phone may have been the last opportunity Microsoft needed to exploit to stay a mobile leader.

Sure, they have the relationship with Nokia but it will be a really tough sell to unseat Apple and Android at this point – unless something dramatic and unforeseen (by others) happens like Android or iOS exhibiting a massive security flaw driving users into the hands of the competition.

But Microsoft still has Skype as its last hope to attain some relevance in the smartphone space. If the software company is serious about the market and we all know they have to be, there will have to be serious handset subsidization. Even then, it is unclear it will be significant player in the market.

But a simple way to subsidize is by bundling Skype credits with phones – there is a huge arbitrage play here between what carriers charge for their voice minute bundles compared to what Skype charges.

To offset some of the cost, Microsoft will have to show ads which could be powered by Bing.

The challenge of course is voice calls are becoming less important each year as consumers use social and text as their preferred method of communications.

But the window is still open for Skype phone which is subsidized heavily – one which consumers would have to consider because the price is so low. Of course the challenge here is carriers like Verizon provide a number of phones for free with a contract such as the LG Enlighten and the Samsung Illusion. So Microsoft would have to potentially give you a free phone as well as unlimited calling or some number of minutes per month, etc. Also this strategy assumes carriers won’t mind Skype becoming the keeper of the carrier relationship. Sure, many wireless providers have partnered with Skype in the past but it is unclear if they are still happy to do so.

In short, Skype may be the last chance for Microsoft to become successful in mobile – and in the US, the subsidized approach to providing phones and service may make it very difficult to find success. Skype integration may be a better option in other countries where devices are generally purchased on their own.

I don’t want to come off as optimistic mind you – this strategy will be expensive and basically bribes consumers to take a product they don’t want. It’s worth pointing out a similar strategy in the past used by Bing to gain share from Google was a failure. But mobile is so important, the company may be forced to give the idea a shot – and if so they better start soon.

Skype may not be the only hope as Microsoft also owns a significant portion of Facebook - tight integration with this social network may be another option for Redmond to attack mobile. But it is unclear that Facebook would be willing to work exclusively or even semi-exclusively with a platform which has limited appeal - unless the price is really right.

Determining if There is a Spectrum Shortage

2012-04-19T16:33:37Z

Those of us who have been in the wireless space for years take for granted that there is a spectrum shortage but the New York Times had a compelling story discussing how spectrum sharing and smart antennas will help alleviate the problem. They even have a quote from David P. Reed saying that radio frequencies are not finite.

TMC's Peter Bernstein disagrees with this last point and has some interesting thoughts on the matter worth reading.

To me the debate is fascinating and is similar to arguing if we have run out of space on the island of Manhattan. On the one hand it has been built up to capacity except perhaps a few parks and other areas. But on the other hand, we can continue to purchase, knock down and build taller buildings to add more capacity.

But if New York land was spectrum, whenever a taller building is constructed, some of the units would be forced to go to competing landlords. This is the spectrum sharing argument playing out for tenants.

So in other words we don't have a spectrum shortage but we don't have a system in place which uses the spectrum we have most efficiently.

Moreover, the incentives aren't there for us to get there any time soon.

Interestingly there could be free market solutions to this problem - carriers could allow users to roam on their networks easily if they chose to do so but what reason does Verizon have to share its resources when it has such a great network. Or AT&T for that matter? Especially when Sprint and T-Mobile USA are currently lagging in share.

In a more competitive market where market share was more equal I wonder if there would be more willingness to share. Probably so.

Is the Post-PC Era a Myth?

2012-04-16T14:26:59Z

The way one should interpret the term "Post-PC" is "after PC" - implying that the world has changed from era to the next. Sarah Perez at TechCrunch does an admirable job of laying the case for what she calls the Post-PC era or alternatively - "PCs Everywhere" which I agree isn't quite as catchy.

In her article she discusses how Apple sold 37M iPhones in Q4, 15% of the official PC market is made up of tablets (mostly iPads) and Apple is now the leading "PC" vendor. Moreover smartphone shipments last year hit 487.7M while PC shipments hit 414.6M and the smartphone growth rate is 63% versus 15% for PCs.

So one would imagine once again that the phrase "Post-PC" means that there aren't going to be more PCs sold.

Gary Kim writes on IP Carrier that while global tablet sales are growing at 98% YoY for 2012, the PC market is expected to increase 4.4% and will increase to 10% in 2013.

The catch is - and there is always a catch, that most of these sales will be in emerging markets and will be for more portable computers - laptops, ultrabooks, etc. Kim makes the argument however that tablets may be 42% of total PC sales by 2016 - a staggering percentage.

The trend is clear however that portability and style trump virtually everything else when it comes to the tech space. And moreover although the PC space is growing - it is in-part because tablets are being factored in.

So really the proper explanation for what is happening is we are entering a post - bland, nontransportable PC market phase. Let's just call is "Post-PC" for short.

US Database of Stolen Cellphones to be Established

2012-04-10T02:48:45Z

Today is a bad day for thieves, very bad. You see, electronics are the number one item stolen – even more so than cash and finally the US will be implementing a system to ensure stolen cell phones no longer work on US cellular networks. In December of 2009 I wrote about how eBay has become the world’s largest pawn shop of stolen goods and in fact gave an example to a person in the UK who tracked down $10,000 worth of stolen goods, taken from him on eBay – and was able to recover them.

As a result, in the post titled Tech Lubricates Theft, Can it do so For Law Enforcement? I proposed a central database where devices get unique identification numbers and are subsequently linked to consumers. The idea being that if a gadget is stolen, it no longer operates. I outlined the following benefits of such a database and system:

Less crime
Less police needed
Less violence
Lower security costs which means savings get passed on
More secure neighborhoods
Higher standard of living

I went on to say the following:

Thankfully we are at a point where GPS and RFID devices can be easily and inexpensively integrated into lots of products making them very difficult to steal and resell.

Perhaps a company or group of them will come out with a new set of standards which will allow us to track our belongings more accurately.

I would imagine a couple of the ones who should be involved include Amazon as they sell just about everything. eBay too as they really sell just about everything and Google who will obviously want us to use their search engine to track and find all of our products.

So for now, Web lubrication is really working to the advantage of the thieves. Hopefully soon we can turn the tables and put the power of technology in the hands of retailers, consumers and law enforcement and send more thieves to jail.

In another post from September, 2010 I said:

But really, if we want to improve global productivity and reduce the amount of police reports filed why would we not implement such a simple system? eBay in fact should be championing the idea as it is a publicly traded company and at some point you have to assume the bad press from them being the world's largest pawn shop will catch up with them.

The good news is US carriers have come together with the FCC to develop a database of stolen phones – details haven’t been worked out but they will be over time. Moreover, the goal is to connect US carriers with others overseas - U.K., Germany, France and Australia have similar systems in place already.

Of course a few challenges to the system are that many countries have yet to implement a similar system. So a thief could still sell goods in those places. Moreover, what about other electronics? You may remember me railing against TomTom for not having a policy in place to ensure they don’t profit from stolen GPS devices by continuing to allow them to operate on their network.

I applaud the FCC and Chairman Julius Genachowski for spearheading this initiative – I believe this is one of those initiatives which will drastically improve the quality of life for the average US citizen. And it is a first step – we have to ensure privacy is kept intact, other devices are added to databases and that global cooperation takes place.

There also needs to be a global system of arbitration – to minimize disputes. What happens for example when a couple separates ad one person is upset the other took the GPS unit with them when they left the house? If they report the device as stolen, is it? Someone has to deal with these issues – perhaps the local police can handle it. Time will tell.

So again, I applaud the FCC and US wireless carriers – this is a historic day in my opinion and I hope global quality of life improves as a result.

A Contrarian View on The Apple/Foxconn Labor Situation

2012-04-05T18:49:17Z

A few weeks back when the New York Times wrote a story regarding workers making iPhones and other devices in China who aren’t being treated very well, I wondered, this is a story? In other words, is there a person on the planet who doesn’t know that working conditions in China are far worse than they are in the US?

And I absolutely respect the right of the New York Times to run such a story – I just think it shows a broader agenda of being anti-capitalist, and anti-business. After all, we in the US have been buying Chinese products made by people in poor working conditions for decades. Why write this story now? Let’s stop for a moment and consider that if conditions in China are so poor for workers, then why are they working? In other words, they must be worse off – likely far worse off if they don’t have their Foxconn jobs.

The end result of this piece however is that wages across the manufacturing sector – starting with Apple will increase.

The problem is if you are truly worried about Chinese workers you should be concerned to see this happen because as costs for workers rise, the cost of automating gets a better return on investment. In other words if it may have taken seven years to pay back a robotics investment just a few months ago, now it may take just four years.

And guess what… When robotics becomes more prevalent, there will be less jobs meaning many of these workers will have to go back to living in conditions they escaped by working at Foxconnin the first place.

It is worth pointing out that in the US , minimum wage laws have made the ROI on self-scanning equipment at supermarkets better so guess what… There are less people working. The same sort of thing will happen in China.

Of course the situation is not so cut and dry as more and more manufacturing is moving to China meaning workers will likely have steady work for some years.

It’s worth pointing out that what will happen as a result of higher wages in China is Mexico and other countries will become a more logical place to manufacture. As I pointed out last year call center jobs in the US have been increasing because wages in India are rising – but in that case it is the free market working.

Seeking Alpha has an article out today which describes how Apple has made a brilliant move by increasing the wages of its workers because its margins are the highest in the industry. In fact their net margin is 24% while the next highest computer makers are HP and Dell at 5.6% followed by Nokia at around 4.4% and Amazon at 1.3%.

The point they make is the rest of the industry will be squeezed by this move.

The challenge with this line of thinking is if the cost of an Apple product is about twice that of a non-Apple product (of course this isn’t always the case) then these other companies can raise prices and still be far cheaper than Apple.

So while we can applaud the fact that workers in China will be faring better, lets keep in mind that abruptly changing things like inputs costs in the manufacturing sector could have far-reaching implications like inflation for the markets where Chinese good are shipped as well as the potential for more robotics to be used to eliminate the workers altogether.

To get a sense of what I mean, see how Kiva Systems robots operate - Amazon just purchased the company.

Goodbye Android, we hardly Knew You

2012-04-02T20:23:37Z

New research is showing that Android has some real problems. Obviously Google knows this and it’s part of the reason they purchased Motorola and as Henry Blodget points out are opening an online tablet store. David Beckemeyer too weighs in with a chart showing just how dominant Apple is becoming.

But before we get into that I was at my accountant last week and while he was crunching numbers I decided to tell my wife it was time to get my oldest daughter a refurbished laptop because her netbook takes longer to boot than the time it takes for us to assemble all the documents for the IRS. Without skipping a beat the accountant looked up and said, “Why don’t you get her a Macbook?”

Now mind you, I like my accountant and all but I didn’t ask him for his advice and/or perspective. Worse yet, I think I may actually be getting billed for a discussion I didn’t go there to have.

But putting that aside (I really hope he doesn’t read my blog) it shows just how loyal people are to Apple. Again, unsolicited testimonials and suggestions on what to purchase are pretty much the realm of only Apple these days. Eight years ago you would hear similar things about the Blackberry keyboard and fantastic email capabilities but can you imagine anyone telling you to go out and get a Windows laptop? It is just counter to everything we know about consumers and the PC relationship; in fact most relationships with consumers and computer companies are devoid of the passion Apple seems to exude.

Part of the challenge has to do with the ease of use factor – many women I know and men above a certain age seem to hate Android while techies love it. I guarantee that science fiction aficionados (also known affectionately as geeks) strongly gravitate towards Android.

Back to Beckemeyer whose above chart detailing how people access the web shows that for all the talk of Android dominance, in the future we will live increasingly in an Apple-dominated world.

Part of the reason has to do with the fact that iPhones and iPads are still easier to use. I know many people who purchased an Android device because it was all Verizon offered and can’t wait to get an Apple. Moreover, the words of Roger McNamee below seem to be ringing truer by the day:

What if Apple doesn't get 10-15% market-share in tablets but instead 60-70%? Then Apple will be the largest hardware company out there by a mile.

If this trend continues and I am not sure what can stop it, it will be an about-face for how the tech market has traditionally worked. Remember, that with computers and laptops, the PC won the war because the price/performance curve favored open ecosystems where hardware vendors were forced to compete on an open, level playing field. The Macs too in the eighties and much of the nineties weren’t so special from a design perspective so everyone competed to provide the most computing power for the least dollars.

But Apple has turned the computing market into fashion– meaning iPhones are more like personal statements of character than merely consumer electronics. You wonder why Apple doesn’t event show up at the CES show? Well maybe because they consider their products to be fashion statements which just happen to need a power cord.

And even their flaws somehow turn into selling points. Witness Siri, which doesn’t work that well and people love it. Jim Cramer rants about it on CNBC – so much so that I believe they must have optimized it for his voice.

As I have said in the past, Samsung and perhaps Sony are in the best position to put up a fight against Apple in terms of making gadgets which look great. But let’s face it, the clock is ticking and at a certain point, Android will take a back seat to iOS when it comes to competing for developer time and attention. And once that happens it will be very tough for Android to once again gain share.

So yes, the new Google tablet store and coming out with Google branded tablets which are likely to be given away at a loss are the only ways to blunt the iOS onslaught. So it may be a bit premature to declare Android dead but it is clear that Google seems to be panicking.

Disclosure: I own Apple shares.

Comcast Lets You Text Message from your Home Phone

2012-03-28T23:01:09Z

It took about eight years but it seems like SMS has finally come to home phone service

In 2004 in a piece about VoIP 2.0 I wondered why home phone service hadn’t progressed and suggested that they allow instant messaging/SMS. It’s obvious the market would love such a solution and Comcast will be one of the first to bring it to market. In fact, now included with its ‘Xfinity Voice Unlimited Nationwide’ plan, customers get access to free text messaging from the Xfinity Mobile app for iOS and Android devices. In addition these devices the apps allow the ability to receive transcribed voicemail messages that can be read instantly. Both features also can be accessed online via the Xfinity Connect web portal.

Here is what I said eight years ago:

I am not talking about MP3 over IP. I am suggesting the development or rebranding of a device to lure customers into buying a service. When I look at my home wireless phone and compare it to my mobile phone I can’t believe they were both sold in the same century. Home phones do basically nothing, while today’s mobile phones can record calls, download and play music, boast speakerphone functionality, have built in SMS, IM and e-mail clients, can take and e-mail photos, videos, and voice messages, can operate in a walkie-talkie fashion, can support bluetooth, can be a PDA, can store thousands of contact records, can have memory expansion slots, can store appointments, a to-do list, and more. Surprisingly the prices for typical cordless phones and mobile phones aren’t that different.

I believe that teenagers would give up their Xboxes this Christmas if they could buy a killer WiFi VoIP phone that let them talk for an unlimited amount of time, conference, IM, speakerphone, bluetooth, etc. I am just waiting for the brilliant service provider who brings it to market first.

You may also recall at MWC Neustar discussed the fact they power such solutions – they said we can expect to see many more announcements like this. I know all land line carriers will feel the pressure to follow suit and soon, VoIP service and SMS will likely be as closely bundled as wireless and SMS.

Samsung Galaxy Note Shipping at a Million a Month

2012-03-28T18:57:20Z

Samsung did something unusual recently when it launched its Galaxy Note line of tablets starting at 5.3" and growing from there to a 10.1" edition which was unveiled at MWC 2012 in Barcelona. What was perhaps most unusual was the hybrid nature of the smaller device, allowing it to be not quite smartphone and not quite tablet. The challenge with such a design is that you have potentially created a Jack of All Trades and Master of None or basically a tablet too big to be used with one hand and too small to be used effectively with two hands.

To some degree I see the smaller 5.3" model appealing more to men because well men don' generally carry handbags. Point being you can fit the smartphone which could have been conceived by Lane Bryant in your pocket and have ample surface area to work on.

Then there is the smart pen or S-Pen which allows special functions to be evoked like screen copy and more - expect new apps to take advantage of the S-Pen capabilities according to the company.

So think about it - with the Galaxy Note line, Samsung designed not only a new form factor in hardware but also brought back the stylus - the exact same pointing instrument which Steve Jobs and Apple thought wasn't necessary.

Now it is way early to proclaim these devices a massive and lasting success in the market because the marketing push the company has been making is extraordinary. Witness the banner at CES and the pop-up booth in the middle of Barcelona at the time of MWC 2012.

Point being that such a massive marketing blitz could pump sales for a while but after a few million units the device will have to be really a "must have" to get to 10 and eventually 100 million in sales. Assuming this latter figure is even attainable.

For years I have asked, can anyone else other than Apple can innovate and recently, Samsung has shown it can. I should give credit to Asus as well - their Zenbook UltraBooks have raised the bar in laptop design as well.

But for much of the the rest of the tech space, design innovation is lagging - except perhaps at Sony. If Samsung can continue to take share in the market with the Note and other devices with non-Apple-like form factors, it will hopefully give confidence to the rest of the field that innovation and design are essential factors in being a successful tech company.

Disclosure: I own Apple shares

Consumers Tell Mobile Carriers how to Save Millions

2012-03-22T17:42:15Z

Wireless carriers spend millions on contact center calls related to device questions from their subscribers and to lean more Amdocs recently commissioned a survey which shows that while 83% of the 2,900 consumers surveyed are aware of self-service options, only 37% of consumers use them. Why? You may think because they don't have access to a PC or perhaps they have an Apple iDevice and are afraid the answer will be in Adobe Flash and all they will see is a series of question marks.

Well, if this is what you thought, you'd be wrong on both counts. The reality is that they expect the answers to be wrong or inaccurate.

So perhaps you are thinking, social media is the solution. Nope, 75% of users did not find a satisfactory answer there.

91% of respondents requested a single repository of information which would keep them from having to rely on Google, Bing and/or another search provider.

TMCnet's Peter Bernstein goes into considerable depth, analyzing the study and making important recommendations about how to reduce call center call volume and the associated cost. Wireless service providers should really read the piece.

Aito Technologies Helps Carriers Leverage Sentiment Analysis

2012-03-20T20:04:19Z

In the US, some of the most challenging times for carrier sentiment had to be when comedians and shows like SNL poked fun at the iPhone for not working properly on the AT&T network. And in such situations where the carrier’s network was slammed with traffic and the company was not able to come up with a solution quickly, there probably want much the company could do to change public sentiment.

But in many cases a reactive carrier can reduce churn due to customer dissatisfaction. And this is one of the goals of Aito Technologies a company in the customer experience analytics (CEA) space. In a meeting with CEO Anssi Tauriainen I learned the company combines business and technology allowing operators to see a comprehensive picture of customers which include devices, faults and revenue. Moreover they deliver results quickly with integration times in weeks not months.

The company touts its products as being able to help carriers increase revenue. For example, by actively targeting customer groups, a customer has seen 30% better response rates. Moreover, data mining requests have dropped as much as 95% at some carriers and churn has dropped by 1% in another example.

Recently the company added Device Insight, which includes a database of 2,200 devices with their capabilities; for example OS, screen resolution, memory and connectivity. Moreover there is also Dynamic Segmentation allowing a carrier to quickly determine top data customers facing a degraded experience or VIP customers who frequently use data.

Another new addition is social network analysis allowing carriers to see changing sentiment on major social networks. This data in turn can be linked to customer acquisition and churn to determine correlations.

Additionally there is an increased focus on profitability and revenue allowing you to see gross margin by customer and lifetime customer value. This information in turn can be compared to acquisition cost which is about 150 euros in Europe. There is also the ability to link with Google maps allowing carriers to see user behavior by geographic region.

As I wrote about in my recent Acme Packet University post, communications is becoming more complicated whether we like it or not. And this complication manifests itself as myriad and ever-expanding log files which eventually turn into databases. Aito Technology can help mine these databases for treasure.

Monetizing the Mobile Data Explosion with Tektronix Communications

2012-03-20T19:26:10Z

Remember when you were in the engineering lab and you relied on a Tektronix oscilloscope to analyze signals? I do and I deeply craved one of my own but could never afford one. But the company once part of Tektronix, Tektronix Communications does its best to ensure that not being able to afford their products is not a reason to keep you from buying. The company provides solutions for carriers which help with pre-deployment, network operations, customer care, network and RF engineering solutions as well as business performance. You see they want to ensure the solutions you buy, pay for themselves so carriers are more likely to purchase their products than a college kid eyeing a high-quality scope.

In a recent meeting with Laurence Alexander and Samir Marwaha they shared with me the news that the company has been awarded more than 50% of the LTE monitoring opportunities worldwide partnering with more than 15 tier one carriers around the globe. The company helps its customers across multiple “technology domains” such as EUTRAN, EPC, IMS and VoLTE.

Moreover the company is assisting carriers maximize revenue per subscriber as well as ensuring commercial readiness of LTE networks. They also assist with OTT partnerships between carriers and companies who can utilize such QoS enhanced pipes like perhaps in the video space. According to Laurence this is a win/win because carriers can charge for it and consumers get a better quality service.

Moreover deep packet classification enables service providers to get a better sense of what users are doing on the network. Moreover the company’s solutions allow operators to determine network quality from a user perspective – and at this point they can even alert customer care that a problem is taking place. Quality issues are just one cause of churn but certainly a very large portion of the churn pie. This sort of solution is designed to help carriers be proactive and retain customers – even ones which just had a negative experience.

Certainly one of the reasons carriers to choose Tektronics Communications has to do with the breadth of product line starting with a product like K2Air/NSA for advanced RAN and RF performance analysis to OptiMon for deep drive RAN troubleshooting. Then there is the Iris series – traffic analyzers, session analyzers and performance intelligence solutions – all the way up to touchpoint CEM for customer experience management.

And as the growth of LTE and VoLTE accelerates so should the opportunities for the company to assist carriers in providing better quality of service to customers. In addition, the company aims to help them find new ways to generate revenue by providing differentiated, higher quality services.

Disclosure: I am a shareholder in Tektronix Communications parent Danaher. Pictured is the graphic of Danaher's holdings in the tech, telecom and related spaces.