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Predictions, predictions. This time of year, people love to make predictions. Today’s example comes from Strategy Analytics, in the form of some wireless enterprise strategy projections for 2008. The firm’s year-end market outlook predicts that unlicensed mobile access (UMA) and Call Redirect will dominate the business fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) market next year.
 
The firm also thinks that mobile device management (MDM) solutions will experience strong growth during 2008, with sales of dual-mode smartphones reaching 66 million.
 
“2008 will see significant traction on MDM as smartphones surge and GPS handsets become more closely aligned with Enterprise LBS solutions and begin to resonate with enterprise customers,” predicted Strategy Analytics analyst Andrew Brown, in a Tuesday report. “Embedded modules will gain a foothold in business as a result of flat rate data plans while USB modems will continue to grow dramatically.”
 
Brown also predicted that prosumer e-mail will be the new battleground during 2008, yet secure e-mail will continue to offer higher revenue potential.
 
“Microsoft will raise its profile and credibility as an end to end mobile solutions vendor with SCMDM (System Centre Mobile Device Manager) as applications become more closely aligned to core business processes,” Brown added.
 
Another analyst at the firm, David Kerr, concurred, saying that enterprise mobility will be a “critical” profit center next year.
 
“In 2008, mobile email and line of business applications will post strong growth as the ranks of mobile workers continue to surge and businesses seek enhanced security and access controls to their critical human and capital assets,” Kerr said.
 
In its report, Strategy Analytics also predicted that mobile enterprise apps will become better aligned with core business processes (thanks to adoption of SOA and SaaS), USB modems will be in strong demand (for both professionals and prosumers), and that IT departments will start to soften their attitudes toward laptop computer WAN connectivity.
 
What do you think—is Strategy Analytics on the money or missing the mark? We won’t know for sure until this time next year.
Internet service provider EarthLink announced Tuesday a restructuring plan to cut costs. The plan includes cutting 900 jobs, and closing the company’s offices in Orlando, Florida; Knoxville, TN; Harrisburg, PA and San Francisco, CA. Further, the offices in Pasadena, CA and Atlanta, GA will be reduced in size.
 
So what does this have to do with wireless? In addition to its other operations, EarthLink has been involved in quite a few high-visibility municipal WiFi projects the past few years, including Philadelphia. The restructuring naturally raises the question: will EarthLink continue signing on to new muni WiFi projects?
 
In April, the company hinted that muni WiFi may not be a part of its future plans. At that time, EarthLink officials said they were evaluating muni WiFi projects it already was involved in (Philadelphia, New Orleans, two in California) to determine the profitability of such deals.
 
EarthLink’s CFO in April stressed that the company would see through the projects it had already sign on with, including the network in Houston, Texas. At the time the company was facing losses of $29.96 million for the first quarter of 2007. Since then second quarter 2007 results have been posted, showing net losses of $16.3 million.
 
I received an e-mail this morning from Craig Settles, a muni WiFi advocate and author of several books including Fighting the Good Fight for Municipal Wireless. Settles said EarthLink is slated to make another announcement today, and he won’t be surprised if it has to do with the company’s municipal WiFi business.
 
Settles said that, if EarthLink does bow out of the muni WiFi market, it will be in large part because most of these wireless networks have been built for consumer use—a potentially losing proposition since consumers are expensive to land as customer, and even more expensive to retain.
 
In his e-mail, Settles suggested that EarthLink could salvage its piece of the muni WiFi pie by repacking its wireless offering to target governments and businesses rather than consumers. This could help the company get a government, for example, to sign on as an anchor tenant, helping to guarantee the long-term financial viability of the network.
 
“Likewise they should develop an aggressive business-focused marketing campaign that capitalizes on a continually growing interest among small and medium sized businesses for mobile workforce applications,” Settles said in his e-mail.
 
Keep your eyes peeled today for more news from EarthLink—it just could be that the muni WiFi project in your city could hang in the balance.
INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO West 2007 is less than a month away. (The event this year is being held at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California, Sept. 10-12, 2007.) If you haven’t registered yet, here’s a plug: this show is not just about IP communications. It’s about wireless, too.
 
Here are a few of the wireless-related companies that will be at the show.
 
a la Mobile – makes Linux-based platforms for mobile handsets. Chief Technology Officer David Rivas will be speaking. (Session info here.)
 
Airwide Solutions – makes mobile messaging infrastructure products and applications. Chief Technology Officer Vincent Kadar will be speaking. (Session info here.)
 
EarthLink Wi-Fi Phone – a service that includes a Wi-Fi-enabled handset and connectivity. Director David Elgas will be speaking. (Session info here.)
 
Kineto Wireless – developer of unlicensed mobile access (UMA) technology for fixed-mobile convergence. Associate Vice President of Marketing Steve Shaw will be speaking. (Session info here.)
 
MobiTV – develops technology that lets users watch live TV on their cell phones, anywhere. Chief Technology Officer Kay Johansson will be speaking. (Session info here.)
 
MOBIVOX – provides cheap international calls from mobile phones, with or without Skype. CEO Stephane Marceau will be speaking. (Session info here.)
 
That whetted your appetite? Register for ITEXPO here. Then, while you're waiting for the show to start, check out this list of recommended sessions to attend.
Two terms that are tossed around very frequently in the telecommunications industry are “dual-mode” and “fixed-mobile convergence.” Both refer to the idea that, someday, there may be phone services and handsets available that let users seamlessly switch between different types of networks. Most often, the idea is that those will be cellular and WiFi networks.
 
Dual-mode services promise to improve the end-user experience when using next-generation telephony—saving money on minutes and getting access to better bandwidth when within range of WiFi network, but retaining connectivity via cellular in virtually all locations.
 
A new report out this week from Ovum, though, says that the industry of late has been much too focused on the development of dual-mode phones. All this hype, the research firm claims, is creating unrealistic expectations surrounding the viability of dual-mode telephony anytime in the foreseeable future.
 
“We predict that by the end of 2010, only just over 2 percent of mobile subscribers, or less than five and a half million people, will have purchased dual-mode services, almost ten years after vendors first began talking up the potential of the technology,” Ovum analyst Jan Dawson said in a statement.
 
In fact, Ovum questions whether dual-mode services will ever take off as hoped.
 
“Equipment vendors have been fixated on dual-mode phones as the key form of fixed-mobile convergence, but the people responsible for implementing this at the carriers are really skeptical that the devices and solutions are ever going to be ready for prime time,” Dawson says.
 
Dawson goes on to point out that “fixed-mobile convergence” can and should encompass much more than just dual-mode phones and services. One element that should be included is “identity convergence”—the ability of consumers to use the same phone number, e-mail address, username and password on both their wired and wireless devices.
 
Identity convergence offers obvious benefits to users, but Dawson says that it is online portals like Yahoo!, Google and MSN that are taking the lead in this area, rather than carriers—to the detriment of the carriers.
 
Another area that’s not getting enough play, Dawson says, is remote access and control.
 
“Remote access and control is nascent today but there's a big opportunity here for the carriers to invest in technology and capture this opportunity as it arises,” Dawson says in the report. Consumers likely would be very excited about—and willing to pay for—services such as ability to remotely program their DVRs or check home monitoring systems.
 
On the business end, the Ovum report advises that carriers looking to invest in FMC should consider mobile extension and enterprises gateway services that provide intelligent call routing and control for enterprises looking for ways to reduce mobile spending.
 
“These solutions are going to deliver many of the benefits people associate with dual-mode solutions without the costs and hassle of deploying a WiFi infrastructure for voice, or the limitations of dual-mode devices,” says Dawson.
 
The Ovum report, if its predictions and analysis are correct, should serve as a wake-up call to the telecommunications industry. Dual-mode services may not fly, but other FMC services have great potential.
 
“Recent merger and acquisition activity has left us with three major players with a significant opportunity to combine wireline and wireless offerings, but we've yet to see any real moves in this direction,” Dawson notes. :Now is the time to act.”
 
What do you think—is Ovum on the money or does this report miss the mark?

In a recent Sage/CMB Market Pulse newsletter, Chadwick Martin Bailey (a marketing and analytics company) reported that fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) technology is not yet mainstream in corporate America—and offered some reasons why that is.

Among those reasons:

  • Demand for FMC won’t really pick up until enterprises integrate mobile devices into their corporate telephony systems; most have not yet done this.
  • It may be true that business use of mobile phones is prolific, but most of those devices are not connected in any way to the corporate PBX.
  • FMC won’t become mainstream in corporate America until it becomes clear that adopting the technology offers clear return on investment (ROI).
  • Full-blown FMC (as opposed to cellular-only) requires comprehensive WiFI coverage and IP-PBX deployments, which aren’t available everywhere and may present prohibitive costs.

These points make it clear that much work lies ahead before the promise of FMC is realized. We’ll probably get there eventually, but not for a while.

What do you think—is FMC years away? Decades? Why?

 

Listen up, readers in India: ASUSTeK Computer, Inc. (ASUS), a provider of digital home solutions, on Monday launched what it calls “the world’s first wireless music Skype phone,” in the Indian market.

 

The AiGuru S1 provides free international calls via Skype, WiFi connectivity, wireless music player functions, and remote controller features.

 

“The goal of digital home technologies is to share computer resource with other electronic devices around the house and provide greater convenience,” said Joe Hsieh, director of ASUS’ digital home business, in a statement. “The AiGuru S1 packed several practical features for easy and wireless access of PC functions. Skype, listen to music or even manage music library with this new product.”

 

ASUS in its announcement highlighted the following key advantages of AiGuru S1: 

  • Wireless Skype

  • Wireless music player

  • Basic and advanced phone functions

In appearance, ASUS’ new phone, with its upright cradle and white color, looks a lot like any cordless home phone. The company has set a retail price of approximately Rs 7750 (roughly $174).

It’s not too late to add another item to your Christmas wish list, is it? If you’re a power laptop user, an announcement yesterday from HP and Cingular may have you dropping some last-minute hints to Santa. The two companies announced availability of the first laptop in the U.S. market with built-in mobile broadband capability.

Cingular Wireless contributed the UMTS/HSDPA technology that’s built into HP’s Compaq nc6400 Notebook PC, which “allows business professionals to connect in more areas at broadband speeds to corporate networks, email and the Internet without being tied to a wireless hotspot.”

To take advantage of the feature, you’ll need a service subscription, of course—to Cingular’s Wireless BroadbandConnect or high-speed EDGE offerings. That’s in the U.S.; the laptop also can be used abroad “in more than 115 countries in which there are UMTS or GPRS/EDGE networks available.”

The companies noted in their announcement that Cingular’s UMTS/HSDPA network is currently available in 145 major metro areas in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. The broadband network offers download speeds of 400-700 kilobits per second.

Compaq nc6400 uses a tri-band UMTS modem that supports transfer rates of up to 3.6 megabits per second. Dual antennas are integrated into the laptop, and it comes with Cingular Communications Manager software for establishing connections to Cingular’s 3G network.

Some of the other notable features of the Compaq nc6400 include:

  • Wireless LAN and Bluetooth connectivity

  • 14.1-inch diagonal widescreen display

  • Optional HP Privacy Filter

  • Intel Core 2 Duo processors

  • Support of 3D graphicsMicrosoft Windows Vista capable

Perhaps best of all, considering all its souped-up features, the Compaq nc6400 is decently priced at $1,599. Unlimited Cingular BroadbandConnection service is available for $59.99 per month. International plans are more pricey; you’d need to shell out $109 per month for unlimited usage in Canada and Mexico, and a global plan runs in the $139 range.

So, is the Compaq nc6400 on your wish list this year? Why or why not?

In a recent blog entry, I wrote about T-Mobile’s dual-mode (WiFi/Cellular) service being rolled out in Seattle. In the entry, I posed the question: “are consumers actually interested in dual-mode services?”

A definite “yes” answer came from a reader who asked to be identified as Levi from Nairobi, Kenya, who is attending graduate school in the U.S. and wants a cheaper way to communicate with friends and family back home.

“My interest is to have, create, start, or whatever it would take, an easier wireless/wi-fi communication from USA to Africa and vice-versa,” Levi wrote.

Levi said that, while most African cell phones use SIM cards, they are quite expensive compared to those in the U.S. When he flies back home, his Sprint cell phone doesn’t work. T-Mobile, he noted, does provide a mobile phone that works in Africa—and he is planning to switch to T-Mobile for that reason—but it requires a Kenyan SIM card.

“Calling from Kenya to the USA, you have to go to phone bureau or booth that might not charge a lot due to the exchange rate (US dollar to Kenya Shilling) but sometimes, calls are not clear,” Levi wrote. He noted that he can use phone cards to call Kenya, but it is a hassle having to dial all the extra numbers. Also, while calling card rates may be relatively inexpensive, the minutes do add up if you call abroad often.

Clearly, if a dual-mode service offered cheaper rates, reduced hassle, and better voice quality when calling abroad, via WiFi, Levi is one person who would be interested.

I must admit I haven’t attempted to use a cell phone for international calls; when my husband spent six months in India a couple years ago, we mostly communicated via instant messenger (which was slow because he was on a dial-up connection) or occasionally phone using a calling card. Even with the card, phone calls were expensive enough that we saved them for very high priority communications, and stuck with IM for the day-to-day stuff.

It seems to me that two things are needed: better or different communications infrastructure (in the case of India, broadband—whether cable or wireless—would have been helpful) and appropriate services to go along with it.

That could be a challenge, since in some places even basic electrical and phone services are lacking. But, I have heard that WiFi is pretty cheap to deploy compared to some other ways of delivering broadband (and voice).

What do you think—will we all someday make phone calls using WiFi? Will that make it easier and cheaper to make international calls?

Symbol Technologies, a company that specializes in enterprise mobility solutions, announced today what it says is the first ever radio frequency (RF) wireless switch (RFS7000) capable of bridging all RF technologies—including RFID, 802.11n, mesh, voice over wireless LAN (VoWLAN) and WiMAX.

In its announcement about RFS7000, Symbol said the switch “is designed to support and consolidate Wi-Fi and emerging RF technologies,” enabling businesses to “efficiently and cost-effectively deploy and centrally manage wireless voice, data and infrastructure devices throughout the RF spectrum.”

In an article today, Laptop Magazine reporter Jeffrey Wilson noted that the RFS7000 supports up to two-hundred and fifty-six 802.11a/b/g access port, and enables Layer 3 roaming, “which allows mobile users to maintain a connection to high-bandwidth applications as they roam.”

Here is an image of the unassuming-looking RFS7000, courtesy of newscom.com.


Wilson’s conclusion is that, because the switch runs on Linux OS, it has definite promise to let “users to abandon piecemeal RF technology installations and allow them to leverage their investment on an ongoing basis rather than ripping and replacing hardware when it becomes obsolete.”

Symbol’s VP and General Manager of the company’s Wireless Infrastructure and RFID divisions, Anthony Bartolo, said in a statement that, “Business needs are driving the convergence of voice, video and data, effectively pushing the new mobile edge from the wired to the wireless touch point, and requiring the network to adapt to the changing needs of new mobile devices and applications.”

Bartolo continued: “The industry's first RF switch will provide the platform to integrate and manage current and future mobile devices and wireless technologies.”

Here are some of the key features Symbol is using to market its new product:

  • Robust, scalable support for enterprise mobility

  • Use of modular Wi-NG-based architecture

  • 802.11n-ready

  • Supports optional add-on modules for dual-mode (cellular/WiFi) handheld devices

  • Integration with Symbol’s RF Management software

Symbol said the RFS7000 switch will be available starting in the first quarter of 2007, in select regions directly from the company and through its partners.

The big wireless news so far this week is T-Mobile’s launch of its dual-mode WiFi/Cellular service in Seattle.

TMCnet Associate Editor Patrick Barnard reported yesterday that the new service “lets T-Mobile’s subscribers make free phone calls using their at-home WiFi network or from any number of public WiFi hot spots which have been set up throughout the city. For now, only subscribers using the Nokia 6136 and the Samsung T709 dual mode phones can place free calls over WiFi.”

The new service uses Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) technology, which was developed by Kineto Wireless and is now part of 3rd Generation Partnership Project’s (3GPP) standards. (T-Mobile also is using femtocell technology to enhance wireless network coverage, according to TMCnet Executive Editor Robert Liu.)

Liu, who reported last month on T-Mobile’s service ahead of its official deployment in Seattle, corresponded today by e-mail with Kineto Director of Marketing Steve Shaw, to get some additional details about how the service functions.

In an e-mail correspondence, Shaw told Liu that UMA enables true seamless handover between WiFi and cellular networks, “without any noticeable (sub 50 msec) service interruption.”

UMA enables this functionality, Shaw explained, because it works in the same way as a base station  controller in a cellular network.

“When you drive across town, your GSM call is seamlessly handed between BSCs and radio antennas as you drive,” Shaw said. “UMA uses the exact same technology to accomplish call handovers.”

For subscribers, the benefits are pretty obvious: the ability to conserve cell phone minutes and make calls from any location. Using the service in a WiFi hotspot (T-Mobile says it plans to increase the number of hotspots it already maintains) gives subscribers access to transfer speeds faster than even 3G cellular—making it possible to download content such as music, videos, and games.

T-Mobile wins first prize when it comes to rolling out national, U.S. dual-mode service—but lags somewhat behind in the global race. British Telecom was first to market globally, with the roll-out of its Fusion a year ago June. TeliaSonera’s dual-mode service, Home Free, followed suit earlier this fall, and Orange’s unik was fast on its heels. Telecom Italia also launched a dual-mode service last month.

In his article, Barnard raises some questions about how T-Mobile will handle billing of the service—specifically, whether or not it will be difficult for subscribers to keep track of how many cellular minutes they’ve used. I won’t be a spoiler, though—check out the article yourself to see some of the questions T-Mobile hasn’t yet answered about its new service.

The biggest question I still have is: are consumers actually interested in dual-mode services? I suspect the answer will lie in how easy the new services are to use, and to what extent they help people save money on their phone bills. 

What do you think?

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This page is a archive of recent entries in the fixed-mobile convergence category.

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