cellular

Sign of the Times

March 31, 2009

When Sprint chose Dan Hesse to be CEO in 2007, I was against it. He was a Bell-head who had huge opportunity at Embarq that he wasted. What do I mean? Sprint announced its intention to spin-off its wireline business into a separate company at the end of 2005.

Posted in cellular, economy, telco

The Future for COMPTEL

March 5, 2009

The CLEC show, COMPTEL, is in Dallas this week. Stupidly, COMPTEL had their show overlap the Channel Partners Expo. Hello! Same exhibitors and people can't be in 2 places at once. But it's this exact kind of planning that has led to the troubles that the CLEC's are experiencing.

Has COMPTEL ever won a major battle at the FCC? Nope.

Yet COMPTEL is a lobbying organization.

Posted in cellular, expo, organizations, telecommunications, unified communications, voip, wireless, wireline

Where's the Beef in Mobile VoIP

January 26, 2009

There are so many applications that you can add to cell phones to allow for some form of calling. For the life of me, I can't figure out how these would be mainstream - and how there could be a demand for hundreds of them.

Are people now trading in all of their calling cards for an app? All the penny pinchers that were using calling cards have a data plan on their phone that allows them to make VoIP calls?

I get that landline usage is way down as folks move to not only cellular only, but pre-paid cellular.

Posted in cellular, telecommunications, voip

Subsidized 3G Netbooks

January 12, 2009

AT&T and Dell and ASUS have brought you the subsidized 3G networks. According to DSLReports.com, Dell is offering the Inspiron Mini 9 for $99 With 2 Year Ma Bell Contract.

"Acer is offering an Aspire One for $99 (normally $500) to users willing to sign a two year contract for any AT&T data plan of $60/month or higher. Now, rather unsurprisingly, Dell is also offering their new Inspiron Mini 9 netbook for $99 (after $350 mail in rebate) if you sign up for the same AT&T plan

Will mini PC's replace Smart phones? Why didn't PC makers add a 3G chipset to laptops so a similar subsidy? Why isn't Sprint all over this?

Posted in Marketing, cellular

What's With Apple?

December 18, 2008

FreedomVoice is still awaiting approval from Apple on their Newber app for the iPhone, a location based there's a counter on MyNewber.com. DS Media is also still waiting for its approval. (I noticed that DS Media's front web page changed to Coming Soon. DS Media was a sponsor of BarCampTampaBay).

What's up with Apple any way? Like the company deciding they will not be attending MacWorld (or any other big conferences) starting in 2009.

Posted in apps, cellular

FCC Voted Today too

November 4, 2008

The FCC voted today too. They took the Inter-Carrier Compensation and USF off the agenda, much to Martin's dismay.

"Federal regulators have approved a plan to open up unused, unlicensed portions of the television airwaves known as "white spaces" to deliver wireless broadband service." [Y! news] [fcc.gov]

FCC approved, with conditions, the mergers of Sprint-Nextel/Clearwire and Alltel-Verizon. [fcc.gov]

FCC opened an investigation into the pricing policies of major cable operators and Verizon. "The agency wants to ensure the companies' customers are getting treated fairly, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in an interview with The Associated Press." [Y! news]

Posted in FCC, broadband, cableco, cellular, mergers, telco, wireless

The Rotten Apple in the Channel

November 4, 2008

In its latest financial filing AT&T claims that they sold 6.9M iPhones and added 1M new cellular customers in the quarter due to the iPhone 3G. (Apple says that 39% of quarterly revenues were due to pushing out 200M iPhones so far.) Here's the funny part: Agents can't sell the iPhone. Agents can sell Blackberries and other phones but not the iPhone.

Once again AT&T spends money to create a "Solution Provider" Alliance Channel that demonstrates preferences to AT&T sales employees over its Channel agents. On its Alliance website, AT&T writes "Targeted customer sets to minimize channel conflicts" That's some messaging there.

Speaking to the Channel Champions, more than one is worried about what the new year will bring.

Posted in agents, bellsouth agent, cellular, channel, telecommunications

Sprint is at risk of default

October 27, 2008

According to Businessweek, telecom could get squeezed by the credit crunch - and Sprint could get hurt the most.

"To start with, rising capital costs are likely to take a bite out of earnings. In addition, the softening economy will probably crimp demand for such telecom services as land lines, cell phones, and Internet connections."

AT&T sounded the first warning signal in late September, when CEO Randall Stephenson said the telecom giant was unable to sell commercial paper for terms longer than overnight. AT"T is the industry's biggest user of commercial paper, with about $8.5 billion in paper outstanding at the end of June.

Although Verizon is not a big player in the commercial paper market, it does have $7 billion of debt coming up for renewal in 2009. The company also needs to borrow another $22 billion to pay for its acquisition of wireless carrier Alltel Wireless....

Sprint is the most leveraged carrier.

Posted in cellular, telco

Cellular Numbers

October 7, 2008

Broadband Reports discusses NPD Group data about iPhone conversion. "Nearly half of new AT&T iPhone customers switched from Verizon Wireless, another 24 percent switched from T-Mobile, and 19 percent switched from Sprint. iPhone smartphone share jumped from 11% to 17% of the market with the 3G's launch."

T-Mobile can probably keep some folks from switching with their sold out Android G-phone, but what has Sprint got? Actually, they have the Blackbeery Bold, Curve and Palm Centro - the other best selling phones in the summer according to NPD Group.

Other cellular news comes from Gary Kim on his IP Business blog:

More than one fourth of wireless phone customers have replaced their traditional landline connections at home and are now using wireless service exclusively to communicate on a daily basis, according to J.D.

Posted in cellular

Where's the growth?

September 28, 2008

"Global Wireless Penetration to Hit 80% in 2013, Says Portio Research" [via teleclick] If all the growth will be in Africa, China, and India, what does that mean for European and US carriers? Cellular penetration is now more than 50%.

Looking at the ARPU stat: "Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) declines to $15.80 in 2013, down from $23.20 in 2005." With debt piling up from building out 3G and now 4G networks, how do you pay it back with declining ARPU? As more folks use the network (and use more of it), upgrades are needed to meet capacity demand, including in tower backhaul. Not to mention that the cellular folks have to pay inter-carrier comp for dropping traffic on the ILEC networks.

Posted in cellular, telco, telecommunications

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