Jim Machi : Industry Insight
Jim Machi

March 2010

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The Little Graph That Could

March 30, 2010

   On March 9th, Dialogic sponsored a TMC webinar titled, "The Year of HD." If you missed it, you can listen to the archive by going in and registering. During the webinar, the following question was asked: "What Statement about HD Voice do you agree with most?" While everyone on the call didn't vote, more than enough people voted to make this graph valid.

You can see the results in the graph above. I was surprised to see that 22% of voters said that HD Voice was "A feature that I would be willing to pay more for."   I think the service providers would be interested in talking anyone who responded with this answer! As readers of my blog know, at some point during each day, I talk utilizing an HD Voice codec and the sound quality is noticeably better. But I still take the position that carriers that are not number 1 or 2 in their markets will take advantage of a feature like HD Voice to put pressure on the incumbents by offering it at the same plan rate as non-HD Voice. It will help these service providers drive subscribers up. So in that way, yes, it's "just another way for service providers to increase revenue" since they'll have more subscribers.
  I also agree with the 60% statement saying, "a feature that should be standard by 2011." Maybe not everywhere in the world, but I expect that HD Voice will be deployed in various networks and that it will be a standard RFP reply in that timeframe. Dialogic certainly expects to be selling HD Voice enabled media servers and gateways in 2011.

As a follow-up to this webinar, Dialogic will also be hosting a 2nd HD Voice themed webinar on April 14th. While the first webinar was more of an overview, this upcoming webinar brings video into the HD Voice picture so as to paint a more interesting interactive communications experience. If you are interested, please register for this webinar.






Jim Machi blogged about The Old OS Pangs, Only with Mobile Devices Now on Corporate Blog .

March 25, 2010

Jim Machi blogged about The Old OS Pangs, Only with Mobile Devices Now on Corporate Blog.

The Old OS Pangs, Only with Mobile Devices Now

March 25, 2010

In yesterday's blog about CTIA, I mentioned that the iPhone hysteria has disappeared. And that got me to thinking about the developers out there. With different Smartphone Operating Systems, what's a Smartphone developer to do? I remember back in my UNIX days when I'd talk to application vendors about porting to UNIX. They'd talk about whether to port to SCO Unix, AT&T Unix, or Solaris and since I was visiting, I'd state the case to port to the UNIX system that I was working for. Then one year I went in and they'd say only one UNIX, and then Windows NT. And then it was soon only Windows NT and maybe Linux. There were too many choices to make, and the developers needed to ride a horse. They saw the power of a standardized OS. That's when I knew it was time to leave and hence started my career at Dialogic. 
  But it gets me thinking about today. There are many choices today with Apple, Microsoft, Palm, Linux, Symbian and Blackberry. It seems to me that that's similar to what I described above, and some kind of consolidation will be occurring within 2 years. I don't predict what will happen, only that it seems to need to happen. I'll revisit this as some point in the future.

March CTIA Madness and a Mobile Concierge

March 24, 2010

I find myself in the middle of NCAA Basketball March Madness in, of all places, Las Vegas. It turns out I'm leaving before the Sweet Sixteen starts and that's good. If not, I'm sure I'd find myself sitting in one of the betting rooms here, watching the games on TV.
  I hear people talk about CTIA as if it's the America's version of Mobile World Congress. It sort of is, but it's not nearly as big in size. The whole ecosystem is here, from app developers to handset accessories to air conditioning for the Cos.  One thing that is a bit different, beyond the size, is there is more talk about WiMax here. At Mobile World Congress, I didn't see too much about WiMax - it was as if LTE eclipsed it. But because of Sprint and Clearwire's support, WiMax (4G) has a bigger presence here. In fact, they announced additional market plans here at CTIA.
  In between meetings, I had some time to walk the floor a bit. The DoCoMo booth was interesting to me - I saw some very high-def phones, "eye-ball controlled" phone earpieces, and some auto-GPS technology that allows what they call a mobile concierge to let you know what is going on and what you can do - all because of location-based services.
  And clearly the iPhone hysteria is gone.  A lot has happened in a year. Is the iPhone really unique anymore?  Is AT&T the only one offering Smartphone services? No. There are other players such as Android out there now.  And you can feel and see that as you walk around here.




Taming the Mobile Wild Boar

March 18, 2010

A couple days ago, I wrote about data problems on the mobile network and LTE helping to resolve it. One thing to remember about LTE riding to the rescue is that given the increased bandwidth, and given the increased marketing activities likely to occur once these LTE networks start to be deployed, the marketing hype might actually contribute towards getting more data onto the networks, so perhaps will ultimately not help anything you are experiencing today (say if you are on an iPhone in New York City living amongst many mobile feral hogs in such a close vicinity to each other). Given this thought, what can be done?

Since LTE is faster, and given there will undoubtedly be more and more data on the mobile networks, is simply deploying an LTE network the answer? As per my blog on Tuesday, while it's part of the answer, no, it isn't the entire answer.

Creating Mobile Feral Hogs!

March 16, 2010

All of these network and network infrastructure improvements, as well as likely tiered pricing options in the future, will help get us to improved mobile network service. The mobile internet marches on, and there will be increasingly more and more usage of it, and technology will solve the problem ultimately. Just don't expect the ride to be so smooth.
  I've read a few articles recently about domesticated pigs who get loose, and in the wild very soon turn into wild boars, eating everything in their path. I know they are a big problem in Texas and Arkansas and many other states, and have started to become a problem in southern New Jersey. I actually saw one of these beasts a long time ago in Hawaii when I was hiking. The thing was huge. 
Kind of like some of us who are going hog wild on our mobile networks?   We were all nice and pink like a domesticated pig and used our mobile phones according to the known statistical analysis, but now there are some people using mobile networks all the time, such as streaming Pandora all day onto their smartphones. And the mobile wild hog is born!
One response I've seen about the mobile network issues has been more and more PR from the operators in the form of articles and data coming out about the small percent of users who "hog" the networks by taking full advantage of their flat monthly data fee.   These people, they say, are the mobile feral hogs and these people are causing YOUR mobile network access to be in jeopardy. And in some respects they are right. But in other respects, some people are just utilizing their pay plans to the fullest, right?
So what can be done about this?   When I wrote my blog about attending Mobile World Congress a couple of weeks ago, two themes I mentioned were LTE and Femtocells. LTE is all-IP network, and depending on uplink/downlink measurements, is between 8 and 20 times faster than 3G HSPA. So it will help to reign in these feral hogs living on the mobile broadband network. And given the increased simplicity in its network architecture (being more flat), LTE should be lower CAPEX/OPEX for the operators. So it should all be good, right? Well, sure, but LTE is not exactly right around the next corner.



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