Apple Tablet - Flip or Flop?

The Financial Times yesterday reported on the upcoming release of the Apple tablet, essentially a 10-inch iPod touch, which would coincide perfectly with Apple’s annual September iPod announcements. The Times cited media partners, namely major record labels, with which Apple has held recent talks to seal content deals to be released in time for a Christmas launch of the new device. In light of that news, let’s spend a few minutes imagining a world where the Apple tablet is a reality. While the perfect storm of gossip is beginning to at least look plausible, it’s prudent to note that nothing in the world of forthcoming Apple gadgetry is for sure until the first consumer has one in hand. Meanwhile, let’s say an Apple tablet launch is slated for sometime in the next couple of months. And for the sake of gratuitous sensationalism and scandal, let’s say that Verizon Wireless is the chosen one (which many an analyst has already proclaimed), sweetening the pot with a sizable subsidy on the coveted device. Yesterday, Verizon reported second-quarter earnings, which were off a tad from the same quarter last year but still beat iPhone-wielding AT&T on nearly every crucial metric. Verizon's data ARPU came in at $14.96, which beat the $14.57 reported by AT&T. Now imagine adding a million 10-inch Apple tablets to Verizon’s network. Combined with the carrier’s broad portfolio of smartphones, subsidized netbooks and MiFi devices, Verizon looks to bury AT&T on data ARPU. Gene Munster, analyst for Piper Jaffray and longtime Apple follower, speculates the device will carry a $500-$700 price tag. Nearly everyone figures in a subsidy but few know what kind of deal Apple might solicit from a carrier. Regardless, initial sales, especially if there’s a subsidy, will break records. What happens after that is anyone’s guess. While analysts are still bickering about use case and business model for the tablet, Apple fans dream of waiting in a mile-long line for the fabled device. One of my biggest misgivings about such a device is that it won’t provide an adequate text-entry solution. I can’t imagine carrying around a tablet without being able to modify a document or comfortably (I said “comfortably”) compose an e-mail. I recently took a ruler to my desktop keyboard, and from my measurements, it looks like an ample qwerty could easily fit on a 10-inch touchscreen. Granted, the author of long fiction may not compose her next novel on a tablet, but sending off an e-mail from the airport won’t give you sore thumbs, either. Obviously, a device like the tablet wouldn’t be limited to text-based applications, and in fact one of its biggest strengths could be its ability to facilitate the consumption of nearly all types of digital media. A tablet would be the perfect form factor for an eReader, if a bit heavy. It’s also the ideal size for comfortably watching movies on an airplane. Games? Absolutely. Music, obviously. That said, one of the things I find most intriguing, though obviously not its core use case, is the potential to devastate sales of devoted eReaders. While Amazon and Barnes & Noble pitch black-and-white devices that hover around $300, with most analysts saying that’s bottom-line pricing, why wouldn’t consumers spend a couple hundred more to get what could potentially be seen as the Ferrari of mobile computing? While there are still a lot of unknowns surrounding the Apple tablet, it may represent an interesting endgame for the MID, netbook, smartbook quandary. In much the same way the iPhone has set the standard for smartphone expectations, could Apple possibly do the same by simply enlarging that form factor and calling it done? Stranger things have happened. No doubt, everyone from Qualcomm to Nokia and Intel are watching Apple closely on this one. Perhaps the one thing worth mentioning is the effect a device like the tablet might have on a network. We all know the challenges AT&T has dealt with since taking on the iPhone. While ARPU undoubtedly goes up, 3G network quality and dependability almost invariably goes down. Could Verizon’s network withstand millions of super-powered iPod touches gobbling up multimedia by the gigabyte? Or perhaps a tablet would be relegated to Wi-Fi for the health of the network? Whether you’re doing flips over an Apple tablet, or think it’s bound to be a flop, you’re about to witness yet another change in the way we think about mobile computing. Buckle your seatbelts. The wireless industry could be going for the ride of a lifetime.

Source : wirelessweek.com

News Of the week

Barnes & Noble, announced an agreement with AT&T that will provide complimentary in-store Wi-Fi to any customer that visits a Barnes & Noble bookstore nationwide. All customers shopping in Barnes & Noble stores can now freely download and preview any of the more than 700,000 eBook titles with hundreds of thousands of public domain titles available from Google. The company says its number of eBook titles is expanding every day and expects to hit the 1 million mark soon. • In-Stat released a report that concludes LTE will be the only route to 4G wireless service in China. TD-LTE, one of the two flavors of LTE, will receive much more support than LTE-FDD in China. In 2010, China Mobile will use TD-LTE to construct a pre-commercial LTE network. “China Mobile will be the first operator to launch commercial LTE operation,” says Anty Zheng, In-Stat analyst. “This will happen in limited areas in 2011. China Telecom and China Unicom will, we believe, follow China Mobile’s lead.” • Siano Mobile Silicon, a global mobile TV chip maker, announced the launch of the newest product in its CMMB TV receiver chip family - the SMS1186. Following in the footsteps of the SMS1180, which was launched last year before the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the new SMS1186 boasts affordability and higher quality, the company says. • Gigaset Communications, producer of cordless phones under the Siemens Gigaset brand, launched the Gigaset One, a home plus mobile convergence technology solution.The new Gigaset One offers an all-in-one solution for consumers to merge home and mobile Bluetooth phone systems into one. Gigaset One allows users to connect up to three Bluetooth mobile phones, each with a unique ring tone. • FusionOne, provider of mobile phone content portability services, launched the Application Programming Interface (API) for its Network Address Book (NAB) solution. The NAB API provides a tool for developers to access centralized contact lists across a wide range of communications services and is a critical component to helping members of the FusionOne Developer Program expand their suite of services.

Source : wirelessweek.com

Verizon Steps into M2M with Qualcomm JV

SAN DIEGO—Verizon Wireless is extending its tendrils into the machine-to-machine (M2M) space with a freshly-inked deal with Qualcomm. The as-yet-unnamed company will target the expanding M2M market in several vertical industries, including healthcare, utilities and consumer electronics. Although the firms have not yet prioritized which segment will be their primary focus, wireless healthcare products and President Obama’s smart grid initiative offer fertile ground for new services. Calling the joint venture the “ultimate partnership for M2M,” Verizon’s Tony Lewis said at Qualcomm’s Smart Services conference here that the deal “bodes well for all the verticals that are in the M2M space.” Breaking into the M2M space in healthcare and utilities presents some challenges, however. Security and privacy requirements are paramount in the healthcare space, and utilities require an exceptional level of security and reliability from the wireless networks they use to manage the electric grid. Many utilities currently manage their own networks instead of outsourcing their M2M efforts to carriers and have been historically reticent to send out critical tasks to outside providers. However, Lewis says that may change as they seek to deploy their next-generation networks. The joint venture will have the backing of Verizon’s network expertise and Qualcomm’s billions of dollars worth of research and development. Lewis believes that together, these capabilities will convince utilities of the joint venture’s competency. They’ll see that “we’re there, we’re ubiquitous and [the network] is already in place,” he says. Though the companies declined to provide financial information about the deal, Qualcomm and Verizon will have an equal stake in the stand-alone venture. Qualcomm’s Steve Pazol will lead the effort; he previously served as vice president of Global Smart Services at Qualcomm. Though exact details of the deal were limited, one feature of the joint venture will be the use of cloud computing to track assets and automate device provisioning on wireless networks.

Source : wirelessweek.com

WiMAX-Backer Alvarion’s Losses to Widen in 2Q

Alvarion is far from technology agnostic. Instead, it has firmly planted itself in the WiMAX space, recently inking a deal with Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) to further its stake in the technology. When the company reports second-quarter results tomorrow, it will be interesting to see what the 4G technology is doing for Alvarion’s finances. Alvarion’s loss is expected to widen to 5 cents per share in its second quarter as sales slump $58.23 million, from $67.9 million last quarter. The outlook for the rest of 2009 is a bit more optimistic, as the company is expected to break even and eventually turn a profit as its sales of WiMAX gear grows. The company is heavily dependent on the success of WiMAX: of first-quarter sales, $50.9 million was attributable to WiMAX. The company recently scored a series of high-profile contracts in the WiMAX space. Aside from its reselling deal with NSN, Alvarion has inked a $100 million contract with Open Range Communications to build out wireless broadband in rural America. It also was recently chosen to build a nationwide mobile WiMAX network in Italy, a deal valued at about $20 million. Though the company expects the bulk of its growth to come from Africa, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region, it may be able to benefit from President Barack Obama’s broadband initiative. Given the flat outlook for the company, however, it looks like that benefit is some ways away.

Source : wirelessweek.com

Steady Stream of Devices Coming

What’s on Verizon Wireless’ official device roadmap? A refreshed BlackBerry Storm later this year, Android and Motorola devices, plus a Palm Pre early next year, according to Verizon Communications President and CEO Denny Strigl in a conference call with analysts yesterday. The carrier continues its “excellent” relationships with LG and Samsung as well, he said during the call to discuss second-quarter financial results. “You can expect to see a steady stream of attractive devices coming,” he said. His comments mostly confirmed earlier reports, although the timing of the Palm Pre hasn’t always been clear. The “early next year” part about the Pre would indicate Sprint’s exclusivity on the device won’t last long. Sprint launched the device in June. As for the iPhone, Strigl said it has been successful in expanding the overall smartphone market, and the carrier did notice an impact in the last couple weeks of June, when the $99 iPhone and $199 iPhone 3GS went on sale. Asked about the current aggressive pricing environment, CFO John Killian said Verizon isn’t losing business to competitors; its churn has more to do with the economy and people losing their jobs. The carrier also offered a bit more clarity on its LTE plans. The current game plan calls for conducting LTE trials in Seattle and Boston later this year, with a commercial launch in up to 30 markets next year. No specific bubble in capex is expected this year due to LTE, but next year, “we will be spending on LTE,” Strigl said. “We haven’t made public that amount, but I will tell you that it’s no significant addition on top of our planned capital budget for the wireless group.” The plan is to continue expansion in 2011 and 2012, with the ultimate goal to cover all its POPs with LTE by the end of 2013.

Source : wirelessweek.com

EarthLink sales, earnings, subscribers drop

EarthLink reported on Tuesday lower sales and profits for the second quarter, though its earnings per share passed analysts' expectations. For the quarter ended June 30, the Internet service provider earned $31.5 million, or 29 cents a share, compared with $50.6 million, or 45 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter. Sales fell 24 percent to $185.6 million from $245.6 million in the year-ago quarter. Analysts polled by First Call had forecast earnings of 26 cents a share on revenue of $186.5 million.

At quarter's end, EarthLink had 2.45 million subscribers, compared with 3.3 million at the end of the second quarter last year. That's a 26 percent drop. EarthLink, however, was upbeat over customer retention. The company said that the number of subscribers lost in the second quarter dropped to 149,000 from 282,000 lost in the second quarter of 2008. Subscriber churn, which measures the number of people who exit the service over a given period, fell to 3.6 percent in the second quarter vs. 4.3 percent in the year-ago quarter. Cost cuts aided EarthLink's bottom line, with total expenses for the second quarter declining to $54.9 million, down 34 percent from 2008's second quarter. The company has been trying to rein in costs since 2007. Based on the quarter's results, EarthLink upped its financial forecast for 2009. It's looking at adjusted earnings of $235 million to $245 million for the year. That's up from its previous forecast of $220 million to $230 million. Additionally, EarthLink declared the launch of a quarterly cash dividend of 14 cents a share on its common stock. "The consistency of our operating performance over the past eight quarters and our confidence that the company's core business will continue to generate solid cash flow enables us to commence a quarterly dividend program that will return a meaningful amount of cash to shareholders," EarthLink CEO Rolla Huff said in a statement. EarthLink also announced that Bradley Ferguson will become its chief financial officier, starting Saturday. Ferguson has been the company's controller and previously its vice president of commercial finance. Ferguson has been an EarthLink officer since its merger with MindSpring Enterprises in 2000 and was a MindSpring officer before that. Current CFO Kevin Dotts will leave the company in mid-September.

Source : news.cnet.com

WiMax subscribers to hit 50 million by 2014

The number of people grabbing their Internet access through WiMax is expected to jump to 50 million by 2014, says Juniper Research. A report released Tuesday by the British research firm describes the growth in WiMax stemming from areas unreachable or unserved by broadband cable or DSL.

WiMax is a wireless technology that delivers broadband speeds over the last mile, ideal for locations where cabling is not available or feasible. Faster than current wireless 3G technology, WiMax can also serve large metropolitan areas as it covers a wider area than conventional Wi-Fi. Referenced in the report, the most advanced WiMax standard, WiMAX 802.16e, delivers greater throughput than other WiMax standards. Though large-scale WiMax deployments have been delayed, many providers have so far been successful in countries ranging from Pakistan to the U.S., says Juniper. The new 4G Clearwire wireless networks used by Sprint, Comcast, and other providers, runs over WiMax. But WiMax faces an uphill climb against the competing wireless broadband standard Long Term Evolution, or LTE. A recent study by research firm In-Stat, predicted that WiMax may ultimately lose the battle against LTE, which is already backed by major telcos AT&T and Verizon. Juniper Research, however, believes that the global deployment of WiMax will drive its growth. The larger number of WiMax subscribers will be in the Far East and China region, says the report, due to that area's early adoption of the technology. WiMax gains in Western Europe and, to a lesser degree North America, will occur in areas underserved by DSL. Growth in Africa and the Middle East is likely to surpass that of Western Europe, says Juniper, gaining 15 percent of the overall WiMax subscriber base by 2014. "WiMAX 16e will have opportunities not just in developing countries, but also areas of developed countries where the DSL coverage is weak or nonexistent," said Howard Wilcox, the author of the report. "The key for the industry ecosystem now is to overcome the challenges and ensure trials evolve into commercial services quickly."

Source : news.cnet.com

iPhone manufacturer to pay family of dead worker

Foxconn, the company that manufactures Apple's iPhone and iPods, has agreed to compensate the family of a Chinese worker who apparently committed suicide over a missing prototype. A Foxconn official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Tuesday the company will give Sun Danyong's parents a one-time payment of 360,000 yuan ($52,600), according to an Associated Press report. The company also agreed to pay an additional 30,000 yuan ($4,385) for each year either of the parents is alive, the AP said. That figure is higher than that reported Monday by The New York Times, which stated that the family was receiving 300,000 Chinese renminbi, or about $44,000, and that his girlfriend was getting an Apple laptop. Sun, who was 25, apparently jumped to his death on July 16 after allegedly losing a fourth-generation iPhone prototype that he was responsible for. Apple expressed regret over Sun's death and said last week that it was "awaiting results of the investigations into his death." Foxconn apparently suspended a security official after Sun's death, and the case was turned over to Chinese authorities to investigate. The security officer denied beating Sun but did acknowledge that he became "a little angry," according to The New York Times. Foxconn General Manager James Lee said this wasn't the first time products given to Sun had gone missing, the New York Times reported. "Several times he had some products missing, then he got them back," Lee said. "We don't know who took the product, but it was at his stop."

Source : news.cnet.com

Sprint Nextel bets big on prepaid wireless

Sprint Nextel is doubling down on the growing prepaid cell phone market in an effort to better compete with rivals, AT&T, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless. On Tuesday morning, Sprint, the No. 3 nationwide U.S. wireless operator, announced plans to buy Virgin Mobile USA in a deal that is valued at around $483 million. At first it might seem strange for Sprint, which went into a tailspin after its last big acquisition of wireless competitor Nextel in 2005, to buy another wireless operator. But with a strong cash position and a management team determined to turn the company around, it looks like Sprint sees a big enough opportunity in the prepaid market to risk the pains of consuming another operator. The strategy shift comes at a time when Sprint is still losing high value "postpaid" customers, who typically sign lengthy contracts and pay for service on a monthly basis. During the first quarter of 2009, Sprint lost nearly 1.25 million of these postpaid subscribers. Sprint reports its second quarter earnings on Wednesday, which should provide a clearer picture on where the company currently stands in terms of subscriber gains or losses. But given recent second quarter earnings reports from AT&T and Verizon Wireless, the two largest operators in the U.S., it's likely that Sprint lost a substantial number of postpaid subscribers yet again. AT&T said it added 1.4 million new subscribers and Verizon Wireless said it added 1.1 million new subscribers during the second quarter. The fact that AT&T and Verizon Wireless are still adding new wireless subscribers in a market that is more than 80 percent penetrated likely means they are stealing subscribers from other providers, such as Sprint and T-Mobile USA, which also hasn't reported second quarter earnings yet. With this in mind, it makes sense for Sprint to go after the prepaid market, since that is where much of the subscriber growth is. For years, the postpaid business model has dominated the U.S. cell phone market. Meanwhile, the prepaid market in the U.S. has been largely left to consumers who are young, price-sensitive, or considered credit risks. "Prepaid is growing at an unprecedented rate with consumers keenly focused on value." --Sprint CEO Dan Hesse Now, it looks like the tide is turning. Early financial results this year indicate that consumers have been flocking to new all-you-can-eat prepaid plans instead of the contract-bound postpaid plans. Craig Moffett, an equities analyst with Bernstein Research, said after the first quarter that new subscriber growth for postpaid customers across all major carriers had fallen 58 percent from the first quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009. During this time, prepaid customers were on the rise with about 80 percent of new cell phone subscribers signing up to prepaid service instead of a traditional postpaid plan. A year ago this figure was about 50 percent. Sprint Nextel was one of the operators that benefited from this shift. It reported during the first quarter that it had added about 674,000 new prepaid subscriptions in the first quarter, according to Moffett's estimates. Meanwhile, it lost about 1.25 million postpaid subscribers. Prepaid gets a BoostThe growth in Sprint's prepaid base was largely due to a new promotion from its Boost Mobile brand, which in January started offering a $50-a-month unlimited voice and data plan. The unlimited plan was quickly copied by other prepaid brands including Virgin Mobile, which launched its $50 unlimited service in April this year. The Boost Mobile service is available anywhere Sprint's iDEN network is available. And the service is largely geared to a young, urban demographic. Virgin Mobile uses Sprint's nationwide CDMA cell phone network, and its service appeals to a slightly different demographic. These are price-sensitive consumers looking for a good deal and no monthly contract. Combining the Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile brands means that Sprint will be able to reach more customers. And it also will make Sprint the second largest prepaid wireless provider in the market, with a combined subscriber base of 9.5 million. Another mobile virtual network operator, Tracfone, which uses other carriers' networks to provide its service, is the largest prepaid operator with 12.5 million customers, according to reported second quarter results. T-Mobile USA holds the No. 2 position with 6.2 million prepaid customers at the end of the first quarter of 2009. And regional operator MetroPCS is in third place with 6.1 million customers at the end of first quarter. Separately, Virgin Mobile USA and Sprint's Boost service trailed behind these operators and also trailed AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which individually had just over 5 million prepaid, in the second quarter, according to Bernstein's Moffett. "The acquisition of Virgin Mobile USA positions Sprint for even greater success in the prepaid wireless segment," Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said in a statement. "Prepaid is growing at an unprecedented rate with consumers keenly focused on value. Virgin Mobile is an iconic brand in the marketplace that will complement our Boost Mobile brand." But focusing so much attention on the prepaid market has its risks. While the prepaid market may be growing faster than the postpaid market, these customers typically spend far less than customers who have monthly contracts. For example, AT&T reported last week that the average revenue each of its postpaid subscribers generated during the second quarter was $59.21. This was the fifth consecutive quarter that AT&T managed to increase the average amount its users spend each month on its service. The increase in spending, even with an ailing U.S. economy, is largely attributed to more customers buying smartphones, such as the Apple iPhone, which require a $30 a month data plan. Meanwhile, Virgin Mobile USA reported in May that the average revenue per user for the first quarter of 2009 was $20.08, slightly lower than the $20.14 the operator recorded in the first quarter of 2008. Virgin Mobile's management team said at the time that the company expected to increase the average revenue spend as its new $50 a month unlimited plan attracted more customers. Customer-base of bargain shoppersThe problem for prepaid providers is that most consumers looking for this kind of plan are looking for a low-cost deal. And most are not yet using phones that require hefty data plans. For example, Virgin Mobile's data ARPU for the first quarter was $4.42 per month, up 33 percent year over year. But the bulk of this was in messaging services and not Web surfing or application downloads. Virgin Mobile CEO Dan Schulman acknowledged how difficult it is to make money from selling low-cost prepaid services when the company last year bought another MVNO called Helio, which offered a high-end postpaid service. He told the Dow Jones News Service when the acquisition was announced that it would take 700,000 typical Virgin Mobile customers to equal the 170,000 Helio subscribers the company got through its acquisition, because Helio customers spend more per month. Other executives from prepaid wireless operators have also said that it's difficult to make money in this market. In a recent interview with CNET News Leap Wireless CEO Doug Hutcheson said that generating profits in prepaid is all about servicing high-volumes of customers while keeping costs as low as possible. "We sell twice the number of voice minutes and two to three times the number of text messages as the large national carriers, which have ARPUs that are $10 to $15 higher than ours," he said during the interview. "And our profit margins fall in the high 30 percent range. In some older markets we are closer to 40 percent...So this means that these providers can't expect to drop prices and lower ARPU and expect to make these same margins. You have to seriously increase volume and control costs." In the postpaid market, the key to revenue growth and profitability is getting consumers to upgrade to smartphones, which are essentially mini-computers that provide a much richer Internet experience than traditional cell phones. The smartphone market is the fastest growing segment within the mobile handset market. Verizon Wireless said more than 40 percent of the devices it sells today are smartphones. Just a few years ago, smartphones and PDAs only made up about 15 percent of the total number of devices Verizon Wireless sold. Sprint, which has a high performing 3G wireless network, has been trying to compete in the smartphone postpaid market, as well. The company spent a great deal of money and marketing power on the June launch of the Palm Pre, which is currently offered only on Sprint's network. And it has also been pushing the new BlackBerry Tour, Research in Motion's latest BlackBerry. It's not known yet what kind of effect the Pre has had on Sprint's sales so far. But when the device launched, analysts estimated the company only sold somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 devices the first weekend it was available. More accurate sales figures should emerge Wednesday when Sprint reports second quarter earnings. But it's unlikely that the Palm Pre or the BlackBerry Tour will provide the kind of boost to Sprint that the Apple iPhone has given to AT&T. For one, neither of these phones are considered as "hot" as the iPhone. Apple's CEO said that the company sold over a million iPhone 3GS's around the world the first weekend it was available. Secondly, it looks like Sprint's exclusive on the Palm Pre will end in January 2010 when Verizon Wireless says it will begin offering the device on its network. Meanwhile, the BlackBerry Tour is already available on both Verizon's and Sprint's networks. Bernstein Research analyst Moffett said in a note to investors that he believes the Virgin Mobile acquisition is a slight positive for Sprint. The acquisition won't necessarily increase Sprint's aggregate customer base, but it will shift Virgin Mobile's 5.2 million subscribers that were counted as wholesale customers as prepaid customers. There won't likely be big operational savings, since Virgin Mobile already uses Sprint's network. But Sprint notes there could be synergies in consolidating corporate functions and management. Still, Moffett warns that Sprint should not take its eye off the postpaid market entirely. "The acquisition nudges Sprint further along in its metamorphosis into a prepaid and wholesale operator," he said in a research note. "However, this deal and the strategy shift in general does nothing to address the key issue that Sprint faces, namely the continuing meltdown of its much higher value postpaid business. Closing the deal and integrating Virgin may consume management's time and distract them from what should be their primary focus."

Source : news.cnet.com

Verizon challenges Apple with Vcast app store

Verizon Wireless is jumping on the application store bandwagon and taking on Apple and its App Store with its own Vcast application store, which it announced at its first ever developer conference in San Jose, Calif., Tuesday. The new Vcast application store will launch in the fourth quarter of 2009. Lowell McAdam, CEO of Verizon Wireless, said it will offer application developers a quick and simple way to distribute and monetize their applications while providing wireless subscribers with an easier way to discover and buy new applications for their smartphones.

Executives from Verizon Wireless--which has been criticized in the past for restricting devices, disabling features and blocking applications from its phones--say they recognize the industry is changing. And the new application store is one way the company can maintain its relevancy in the wireless market while also fostering innovation in the developer community. "It's a new day (in wireless)," McAdam said in the opening address of the developer conference which was also Webcast. "And our future success is no longer in the walled-garden. Our success is tied to you (developers)." Unlike device makers such as RIM and Nokia, or operating system software companies like Microsoft and Google (Android), which are all developing their own application stores, Verizon offers something they can't: valuable access to cell phone subscribers and their personal data. For this reason, Verizon may stand a slightly better chance of creating a successful application storefront than these other companies. But the big question is whether the Verizon Vcast store can match the success of Apple's iTunes-based App Store. Apple, which launched the App Store just over a year ago, is the hands-down leader in the smartphone application market. It's unclear exactly how much money the company makes from the App Store. But there is no question that the virtual storefront has been a success. In its first year, developers have added more than 50,000 applications and users have downloaded over a billion applications onto iPhones and iPod Touch devices. And because the service leverages Apple's existing e-commerce platform, iTunes, whatever money Apple generates from selling applications is more than it costs the company to run the service. Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett says there are many parallels between how Apple's App Store is affecting the wireless industry and how iTunes has affected the music industry. "Apple essentially sucked the intellectual property value out of the music business and turned it into a loss leader for selling iPods," he said in a phone interview. "And they're doing it again in wireless. That's a pretty neat trick. And it's a pretty hard trick to pull off, too." From BREW to new app store Verizon is no stranger to running and operating an application store. The company has been offering its traditional cell phone subscribers mobile applications from the Qualcomm BREW platform for years. This business alone generates over a billion dollars a year for Verizon Wireless. John Stratton, vice president of marketing for Verizon, said that new Vcast application store will extend this kind of service to smartphone users. Since news of the Verizon application store started trickling out a few weeks ago, bloggers and others following the industry have speculated on whether the new store would compete with efforts that some of Verizon's partners, such as Research In Motion and Microsoft, have mounted. These companies along with others including Google's Android community and Nokia are developing their own smartphone application stores. But John Stratton, vice president of marketing for Verizon, emphasized that the Vcast application store is not meant to compete with these other stores. Rather, it's meant to complement them by offering resources and tools to make it easier for wireless users to access the applications. The ultimate goal he said is to make it as easy as possible for developers to get their applications in the hands of consumers and to create more channels for accessing this content. This means that applications that have already been approved for RIM's App World store will move through the process as quickly as possible and be ported directly to the Vcast store. The goal is to have most applications approved and on the network within 14 days. The Vcast store is also meant to make it easier for consumers to discover and pay for the applications they want to buy. For example, the company will leverage its existing Verizon Web portal, which is one of the top 26 most visited sites on the Web. It will allow the current 60 million registered users and new users a place where they can search for, rate, and download applications for their smartphones. The carrier is also creating open APIs to allow developers to hook into Verizon's billing system so that users can purchase applications with one simple click and pay for the device as part of their wireless bill. It will also provide hooks into other subscriber platforms, such as location-based services, presence, and messaging. "These are great tools that can help open the audience more widely for application developers," Stratton said. "And it will allow subscribers to easily discover, purchase, and manage their applications." Indeed, today's billing process for many of the new storefronts that are hitting the market require users to register a credit card or use PayPal to purchase applications. "That is the single highest barrier to consumption of mobile apps," he said. "By hooking into our billing system, it creates a one-click process to buy an app." A shifting marketplace Verizon also sees an opportunity to make money and protect its dominance in the wireless market with its application store. The company has also acknowledged that the market is shifting. Smartphones, which now account for over 40 percent of the new handsets the carrier sells, have changed the game and are a very important factor in which carrier customers choose. "Consumers are thinking more about what they want to do with their devices," Stratton said. "Our concern as we move from the monolithic BREW platform for features phones to one that is pretty wide open for smartphones, is that there is a greater risk of fragmentation. We don't think that Verizon will solve all the challenges of fragmentation, but we do believe we can help." The Vcast application store also offers a way for Verizon to maintain some control over which applications make it onto its network. And also provides the company some share of revenue. By contrast, Verizon's rival AT&T has given up a lot of control in its deal with Apple to be the exclusive U.S. carrier for the iPhone. While Apple gets 30 percent of all revenue generated from the sale of applications on the Apple App Store, AT&T gets zero. AT&T claims it benefits from all the App Store activity because it drives sales of the iPhone, which in turn drives sales of its $30 a month data service. But the reality is that the more popular the iPhone applications become and the more bandwidth each application requires, the more AT&T must spend on upgrading its network to ensure the network can handle the traffic load. Meanwhile, Apple sells more iPhones. Verizon Wireless doesn't want the same thing to happen to it. It is following Apple's lead and is allowing Vcast application store developers to keep 70 percent of the revenue generated from their applications, while it keeps the remaining 30 percent. Device makers, such as RIM, which is partnering with Verizon on the Vcast store, won't get a cut of the revenue. But Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of RIM, who was at the developer conference, doesn't seem to mind. "We want to make it as easy as possible for our application developers to create and monetize applications for the BlackBerry," he said. "We will support our own application store worldwide and the Vcast store on Verizon, so that we provide more channels for our developers. It's real simple; for this revenue stream to carry on and thrive, the applications need to be adopted so we can drive more BlackBerry sales. And this makes the carrier a strategic partner." As for competing directly against Apple and the App Store, RIM's Balsillie said that it's not the volume of applications that matter so much as how valuable those applications are to the consumer. "About 10 years ago there was a well-known PDA company with 40,000 apps and 100,000 developers," he said. "We had just one application, which turned out to be a very good application. And you see what happened." Balsillie's story alluded to the rise of RIM and the BlackBerry, whose killer app is pushed e-mail, versus the PDA maker Palm, which relied on session pull e-mail. During the discussion at the developer conference, Balsillie predicted that Verizon's efforts and the trend in the market toward more applications in general will benefit Verizon and companies that work to create useful applications. "Titillation is phase one of the application market," he said, speaking of the thousands of seemingly useless applications in Apple's App Store. "The next phase will be about enabling richer applications. Instead of downloading 30 or 40 applications, the benchmark for success will be the stickiness of the applications."

Source : news.cnet.com

Wireless finds a niche in healthcare

Wireless technology isn’t just a consumer-centric feature any longer – it’s become an integral part of the U.S. healthcare industry, and will only continue to grow within this segment. This according to CTIA keynote speaker Dr. Eric J. Topol, M.D., Director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute and Chief Academic Officer of Scripps Health, who on Wednesday morning talked about current and future wireless applications in medical practice. Dr. Topol also announced the opening of a health center dedicated to developing digital wireless medical devices.

Calling it “a sea change in the way health can be practiced in the years ahead,” Topol discussed the advent of monitoring applications – such as a fitness tracking chart for the iPhone – offered for the latest generation of smartphones, and ideas that are being developed that will make such apps an even more powerful component of medical care. In future healthcare, “pill phones” – inexpensive cell phones currently in use which allow patients to track and report their medication schedule – may be replaced by “smart pills” or “ingestible event markers”: pills with a tiny embedded RFID chip that reports when the pill is taken (currently being tested under the name "Proteus"). Or even pills (like the “iPill”) that don’t break down in the body until they are wirelessly activated. Devices that track “lifestyle” – such as fitness or diet trackers – will become much more advanced, he said. Remote or home-based monitoring advances would allow the elderly to stay in their homes longer, rather than being moved into an assisted-living facility, Topol said. And heart patients can be monitored constantly from the time EMTs arrive on scene, through the patients’ hospital care and during cardiac rehabilitation – much of which the patient may be able to do from home. The upshot of all this technological growth? According to Topol, big savings on healthcare costs. He projected that wireless monitoring of, for example, congestive heart failure patients would save $10 billion in costs, while providing better care due to the nonstop data received from patients’ monitoring systems. Topol also featured the new West Wireless Health Institute, a San Diego-based medical research center launched on March 30. Funded by philanthropists Gary and Mary West and built with the assistance of Scripps Health and Qualcomm, the institute is the first wireless healthcare research institute in the United States.

Source : telecommagazine.com

EU frees new spectrum for new and faster mobile services

Europe took an important step towards a new generation of mobile services today. The Council of Ministers followed the European Parliament in approving a proposal from the European Commission to modernise European legislation – the so-called GSM Directive – on the use of the radio spectrum needed for mobile services. The GSM Directive of 1987 reserves the use of part of the 900MHz spectrum band to GSM (Global System for Mobile or originally Groupe Spécial Mobile) access technologies such as mobile phones. The updated Directive now allows the 900 MHz frequency band to be used to provide faster, pan-European services such as mobile internet while ensuring the continuation of GSM services. This new flexibility will foster stronger competition on Europe’s telecoms market and contribute to a more rapid and more widespread roll-out of wireless broadband services, one of the drivers of economic recovery. Industry savings of up to € 1.6 billion are expected from the reform of the GSM Directive. The renewed Directive will enter into force this October. The Commission had proposed the reform of the GSM Directive in parallel to the reform of the EU Telecoms Rules. The reformed GSM Directive is the first of several important Directives in the telecoms sector being negotiated where the agreement of Parliament and Council now paves the way for a stronger wireless economy. “The GSM standard has been a success story for Europe, where it was born. By updating the GSM Directive, the EU has paved the way for a new generation of services and technologies where Europe can be a world leader,” said EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding. “I would like to thank the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers for making this possible by swiftly agreeing to the reform of this very important piece of telecoms legislation. This reform will remove constraints on operators so that they can deploy new technologies in the GSM bands to develop high-speed mobile broadband services. This should give a welcome boost to Europe’s wireless economy and help trigger the take-off of a Digital Europe.”

Source : .telconews.com

BT named most gay friendly corporation in the world

The International Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (IGLCC) is pleased to unveil the results of the first edition of the International Business Equality Index. The Index is a measurement of the performance of multinational corporations in relation to Diversity and Inclusion issues specifically focusing on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) communities in the countries where they operate. The leading corporations are BT Group, followed by IBM and The Dow Chemical Company. The announcement was made at a press conference during the closing of the IGLCC Second Annual Congress in Copenhagen. The corporations participating in this year’s Index are: AMR (the parent company of American Airlines, Inc. and American Eagle), BT Group, Cisco Systems, The Dow Chemical Company, IBM, ING, Intel, KPMG, Kraft Food, Merck, Novartis, Philips, SAP, TNT and UBS. They represent 1.7 million employees in 227 countries and sales of USD 800 Billion a year. “On behalf of BT, I am absolutely delighted with this recognition” said Ian Livingston, BT’s CEO.” As one of the largest communication companies in the world, we provide service to customers in more than 170 countries and employ well in excess of 100,000 people across the globe. Diversity must be, and is, at the heart of our business and having the policies and the practices in place to support the LGBT community is essential to our success.” Anne Heal, BT’s Senior Champion for Sexual Orientation added, “BT has been providing same-sex partner benefits to employees since the early 1980s and will continue to look at ways in which we can ensure that our people can be ‘who they are’ at work without fear of discrimination or prejudice. The IGLCC award recognises the efforts of out HR community and our LGBT network, Kaleidoscope, in their determination to ensure that equality of opportunity is reality in our business. I am also delighted.” “The findings of the survey on which the Index is based are somewhat mixed, but definitively encouraging,” said IGLCC Secretary General, Pascal Lépine. “The vast majority of respondent corporations have Diversity and Inclusion programs and most explicitly include LGBT issues. We see from this survey that most of these companies take sexual orientation and gender identity matters very seriously. However, full equality is still years or decades away.” While corporations scoring high on the index are powerful examples of how diversity and inclusion programs can be very successful, the 2009 Index findings also point to a darker side: nearly 50% of global corporations participating in the survey do not have any LGBT Diversity & Inclusion managers; openly gay men or lesbians are hard to find among the ranks of management (fewer than one out of ten include gay men or lesbians in more than one of every sixteen countries they have a presence in); and, without regard to the level of internal focus on LGBT inclusion, these multinational companies are not proudly trumpeting their diversity programmes to the general public or the local LGBT communities through advertising or PR. In fact, only a handful of companies support local LGBT communities either through financial or in-kind support. Despite these negatives, Mr. Lépine is optimistic. “To have such confidence shown towards our community makes me believe that there are still many good chapters to be written in the history of the international LGBT business community. It is especially important in these difficult economic and political times to salute all the participating corporations for their courage and example”, he said in today’s presentation. “But,” he continued, “we must be realistic and say that, even if today we see promise, there is much more work to be done. Far too often we see and hear of gay and lesbian professionals throughout the world that do not have access to basic employee rights and benefits just because of their sexual orientation”, added Mr. Lépine. The Index is the product of an international committee that includes gays, lesbians and transgender professionals living and working in eight different countries from Europe and North America. The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) and its European Region (ILGA-Europe) have played an instrumental role in the development of the program. “It is obvious that with the impact of globalization the LGBT community has its eyes on what corporations are doing at the international level, not just in one single country”, said David Pollard, Chairman of the Index Committee. “BT Group’s outstanding commitment, policies and investment in LGBT diversity merits them the title of the most LGBT friendly corporation in the world. We challenge all multinationals to follow the example and leadership shown by those who saw a chance to be ahead of the curve. The IGLCC is proud of this historic moment and extends the invitation to all international corporations to participate in next year’s Index”, concluded Mr. Lépine. To download a copy of the Index report, go to: www.iglcc.org/index2009 About the IGLCC The International Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (IGLCC) was founded in 2006 in Hamburg, Germany and is based in Montréal, Canada. IGLCC is the world’s leading international LGBT business network, operating in 15 countries through 17 chambers of commerce and business organizations. IGLCC represents the interests of over 55 million Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) employees, business owners and consumers worldwide.

Source : telconews.com

Asia-Pacific cellular telcos will adopt all-IP backhaul by 2012

Asian telcos will be tapping next generation networks (NGN) for their wireless backhaul by 2012 to satisfy surging demand from bandwidth hungry services and devices, according to international research and analyst firm IDC. IDC predicts there will be more than 3 million base stations and over 1.8 million cell sites in the Asia Pacific by 2012, representing a growth of 24.3 percent and 10.7 percent, respectively, from 2008. It expects half of these sites will be connected to fiber through carrier Ethernet. Urban 3G high-speed packet access (HSPA) will be linked to fiber by 2011 in most markets in the region. IDC also foresees that almost all urban WiMAX and Long Term Evolution (LTE) base stations will be connected using fiber by 2012. Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) microwave and fixed WiMAX will be used to provide up to 300 Mbps backhaul in areas where fiber is not available. Scalable, high bandwidth backhaul "A number of leading mobile carriers in Asia/Pacific, in countries such as Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines and Singapore, are already starting to connect parts of their metropolitan 3G/HSPA backhauls with carrier Ethernet over fiber," said Bill Rojas, research director for IDC’s Asia/Pacific Telecommunications Research. "The main driver of this transformation is the need for mobile operators to provide scalable, high-bandwidth, Web 2.0 video and audio content, and Internet access services for both mobile and fixed users in incremental capex outlays." The report adds that mobile operators face challenges in addressing the need to provide more bandwidth to end-user devices at the downlink and uplink ends. Among others, it highlights the current market development where mobile operators have to look at increasing data average return per unit (ARPU) to offset the decline in voice ARPU. IDC also points out that telcos should be aware their introduction of higher data speed services will potentially result in exponential increases in data traffic but it will not necessarily be translated into higher data ARPU. Business model safeguarding telcos, yet satisfying customers The solution, it adds, is for operators to offer scalable bandwidth but at tariff schedules that resembles a combination of flat-rate plateau with specific usage caps. Scalable bandwidth in the backhaul will be important to balance opex and capex, otherwise the operators may find themselves in the noncompetitive situation of not being able to offer new multimedia-rich wireless services because of incremental bandwidth constraints, the report said. “Without such a transformation of the wireless backhaul, the promise of 3.5G and 4G systems such as LTE will not be feasible. The emergence of bandwidth hungry devices such as Apple's 3G iPhone and Google’s Android-operating system based devices means that mobile operators need to begin the transformation to NGN in the backhaul urgently in order to avoid being branded as obsolete,” Rojas added. Next generation backhaul is the way to go IDC believes that in order to support high-speed wireless services, operators will need to build scalable all-IP backhaul which combines carrier Ethernet and fiber distribution in the urban centers, as well as microwave backhaul and long-haul dense wavelength division multiplexing (LH DWDM). Green IT will put additional pressure on radio access network (RAN) and backhaul designs to become more energy efficient. The multitude of radio standards is also putting pressure on vendors to implement reconfigurable software solutions in the base station, IDC stresses. If operators delay the revamp of their mobile core networks to an all-IP platform, they will be left behind. Raising a red flag, the report adds that unlike existing 2G, 2.5G and 3G networks, the users of converged mobile devices — 3.5G HSDPA and Wi-Fi, dual-mode support and upcoming 802.16e mobile WiMAX devices — will expect 1 Mbps speed all the time, anywhere and everywhere. With LTE just around the corner, which could see peak capacity of over 100-150 Mbps per cell site, operators deploying such technology in dense urban areas could be facing huge bandwidth requirements, invariably putting enormous stress on the existing backhaul and transport infrastructure, IDC warns.

Source : telecommagazine.com

NOVONOUS Releases the "Future of Value Added Services (VAS) market in India

(1888PressRelease) July 26, 2009 - NOVONOUS announces the release of its new report titled “Future of Value Added Services (VAS) market in India, 2009-2013”. Ambarish Verma, CEO of NOVONOUS says, “The mobile VAS market has grown by around 60% year on year and is estimated to touch INR 251 billion in year “2009-10”. This growth is proof of the resilience of this industry to global economic slowdown. “Ambarish further says that, “This trend is expected to increase in future, as VAS services will become a major revenue source for telecom operators in India, who are facing challenges like decreasing Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) despite increase in consumer base.”In India, SMS, Ringtone, Caller Ring Back Tone (CRBT) and Games constitute the bulk of the VAS. VAS delivery has been mainly based upon SMS, IVR, GPRS and WAP platforms.Mobile value-added services (VAS) are the services that are offered, by differentiation from the normal services, and the ability for mobile operators to charge a premium price for the services rendered. Mobile VAS include non-voice advanced messaging services such as SMS, MMS and wireless data services based on wireless data bearer technologies such as WLAN, GPRS, WAP with VAS applications including mobile gaming. This report forecasts VAS Market size over the period of 2009-13. This report also maps VAS under various categories. The report identifies the growth drivers, barriers for VAS market in India and has a comprehensive list of well known players in this segment.

Source : 1888pressrelease.com

Is WiMAX out of 4G race ?

I found the recent reports on HSPA and WiMAX users data very interesting. Does the reports indicate that the WiMAX is out of 4G race ? Pl go thru - As per the GSM Association reports - The number of live HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) connections will pass 150 million globally this summer, while according to a report published by Marvedis this week WiMAX has just 3.5 million users. This puts HSPA firmly ahead of other mobile broadband technologies.As per Wireless Intelligence reports , EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) have 49.5 million HSPA users currently and almost 60 million predicted by the end of the summer. Asia-Pacific is a close second at 47.7 million subscribers and by the end of September will have over 56 million. The U.S. trails significantly, with about 32 million HSPA connections growing to perhaps 37 million by September, while the rest of the Americas will hit just over four million subscribers in the same time frame.Why HSPA may be a prefered choice to operators - HSPA is an attractive option for mobile operators as the technology allows operators to upgrade their existing 3G networks, often by simply upgrading the software. This gives HSPA a leg up over WiMAX, which requires new network infrastructure. Further, its performance rates are attractive, as well. HSPA download rates range from 3.6 Mbps to 14.4 Mbps, and a handful of operators are beginning to roll out 21 Mbps using HSPA+.The GSMA reports that there are more than 300 upgraded networks across 127 countries. More than 1500 HSPA-enabled devices are on the market. Its rapid adoption — faster even than SMS — has led the organization to embrace HSPA as the dominant mobile broadband technology.The report expects growth to continue at a rapid pace, predicting 200 million connections by the first quarter of 2010.

Source :Telecom Sector