Twitter telecom musings

My thoughts and ideas on networking/telecom are now posted here http://twitter.com/tajinders

3G - shot in the arm for MNOs? - haha

A year ago I blogged '3G the new/amazing shot in the arm'. Apparently not so in the US. The most used 3G phone or atleast the most talked about iPhone has had a horrible 3G stint so far. Just before I was about to return my iphone simply because it stopped ringing in certain conferences-rooms at work, dropped calls invariably while driving, and sometimes didn't ring for the entire day!! I googled and found that I am not alone - there are millions suffering. The solution repeatedly posted is quite simple - just turn off the 3G function. At first I hesitated since I use a lot of data heavy apps - google maps, safari etc...interestingly I don't see a whole lot of difference between 3G and Edge!
Talking to a mobile buddy I realize it may not be 3G but AT&Ts network planning - either too many users on each BS or too much data squeezing out voice. Oh well! I have had the 3G off for more than two weeks now - and quite happy about it!

Simcard in your car, microwave and in your dog's collar!

In less than a decade from now, as we had visualized a decade ago, controlling home microwave while driving back from work will be a practical reality. This could have been possible with the existing internet infrastructure viz. high speed cable/dsl and wifi. But what makes it more real now is the low cost of wireless endpoints aka cellphones; and the network infrastructure ready to support such proliferation. Imagine a sim card in each of the devices like home-sprinklers (environment control), cars (LBS) , or even in dog collars (gps location) feeding back information and acting on basic or complex commands. The business models are galore stemming essentially from 'logged-in' communities. Communities represented by mobile service providers like AT&T or Boingo, or social communities like facebook or linkedin or application communities like skype or ebay. What makes it more real this time around is sustainability; revenue generation for the 'service' provider.

Out of the box thinking needed!

P2P and content sharing has been quite a phenomenon starting with music and now moving to social networks. How can the telcos benefit from the wave? The gratuitous nature of p2p model isn't encouraging. However, thinking out of the box and beyond may help. A key future trend is how P2P will manifest itself many years from now. Perhaps, loan-banks will be obsolete. Individuals may be able to loan and repay each other. Why not apply this to telcos? Imagine AT&T being a part Service Provider and part bank part broker! One could use SMS to remit monthly instalments at a rate advertized on my AT&T online profile. ATT keeps a percentage of each transaction. Mobile companies don't have to create a social network ground up, it already exists since most of the users log once a month to check their bill online.

3G - New lease of life for Telcos

3G may provide a shot in the arm for Telcos with services that people really pay for unlike the ones we have seen in the recent past. Skype and Youtube subscribe to free service philosophy; a model that makes generating revenue quite challenging. Even for voice services like Vonage and SunRocket with lower margins and ever increasing acquisition costs it's simply not worth it. Super growth has been seen in the simplest service: SMS. 3G of course captalizes on that formula, simple useful services that people will really pay for. MMS is the 3G version for SMS.
There are some lessons to be learnt from 3G deployments in Japan. Although Japan is not an ideal global trendsetter, at a macro level it is the next-hot-technology barometer. Japanese (and Korean) are indeed harnessing power of 3G with their cell phones replacing wallets and going as far as replacing car/home keys! E-commerce and wireless marriage is already conjuring wonders here creating billions of dollars of market. Other markets, including the archaic US's must follow by adopting models that work more locally whether it is simple service like music download or complex services like location based services.

SunRocket's 'O' Ring?

Some thought provoking blog - reasons for SunRockets demise. Althought nearly convincing, are the likes of SunRocket's at risk or is this portent of a larger problem. Are primary line owners aka incumbents the sole monoplizers of this market - or are they at risk too? Wireless companies are an exception and immune to this risk since they are part of insulated, nascent and ever growing market. But not so for the primary line phone companies. The play with bundles on triple play cannot hide for long the diminishing ARPUs and ever increasing acquisition costs. The looming question: Whether the larger phone companies can absorb this for long?
http://greatfallsventures.wordpress.com/2007/07/19/sunrocket-did-not-crash-due-to-a-management-failure-it-was-way-more-fundamental-than-that/

Video - traffic boom for telcos ?

Video is still not a reality for regular telecom markets in terms of traffic and revenue generation. With the ascent of Utube and many of its avatars at least the glut of telecom bubble pipes is getting filled up quite rapidly. What is remarkable about Utube effect is that for the first time video traffic is being looked at seriously. Very soon the video mobile traffic will be a norm. Broadcasters like MobiTV/new entrants like Sonopia are the first ones to cash. What does it have in store for traditional telcos, the isps, the retailers/wholesalers? Should the local providers offer video-phones at home to kick start this video traffic. PC camera usage is widely prevalent so either video phones or just the videophones based on local provider's softclients can provide a start. To further increment the volume of video traffic, video services like local weather, on-demand video/broadcast, social networking videos - the idea are quite many. The key is how all of these migrate away from pure internet/peer-to-peer (aka low quality) to a high quality monitored video service provided by telco service providers?
For telco vendors, Video will provide a new lease of life for product. Products addressing areas such as QoS assurance, bandwidth management, video monitoring, video transcoding will be hot when Video traffic flow via telco's pipe grows abundtantly. And we are almost there.

Free Businesses

Skype, Youtube, Google are the forerunners of new genre of businesses that were essentially started on a free service model. These businesses have also been tagged with most hefty price tags for acquisitions. Their revenue model is none to start of yet these enterprises are quite attractive businesses since they draw humongous global traffic e.g. Youtube is the site with maximum hits today. Such traffic translates eventually to enormous ad revenue.
Is the 'free service' a magic formula? Yes since these three subscribed to it and so are a few upcoming ideas web or nonweb related. But rememeber since it is magic it is difficult to achieve. Ironically these ideas share another common quality: simplicity which is quite often overlooked and mostly avoided. Every one talked about Video hype but Youtube made it real. Freely available ubiquitous VoIP was made real by simple Skype. Google of course pioneered the simple web interface. What about the only text based site craigslist.
The gratuitous model is very hard to sell to investors but it is perhaps the new way of doing business.

Indian Telecom Bubble: Quite Savory

If you are not investing in Indian Telecom corporations you are missing out on the gold rush!
The consumers are paying pennies to connect across the vast country. The competition is rampant for a billion consumers. The rate of growth is staggering 2 million lines a month (almost representing many a countries cellphone volume!). Today it is 75 million and by end of 2007 it will be 250 million!
Yet the ARPU is lowest ($7). The carriers are making money and the vendors are being squeezed. The vendors are stoic! So what if the product is given free (yes 0$!!), the point is to get your foot in the door so that one day you get a contract for 20 million lines (sigh)
Interestingly, the market is vastly different from the ROW in the sense that concepts that failed elsewhere like fixed wireless has been a quite success in India. IPTV, a seemingly virtual concept elsewhere is gaining real momentum in India.

IMS a buzzing reality

IMS: mostly a theoretical concept that might have the far reaching consequences of bringing disaparate networks together. But how soon and when is the key question? Convergence doesn't happen just like that. Look what is happening to seamless calls between wifi and mobile networks. Mobile carriers can't loose business. However good the 'seamless-transfer' concept is, it is in state of technology stalemate today - can't become real anytime soon.
Conceptual IMS is gaining the markitecture momentum.
-You have be IMS compliant aka IMS mapped.
-You ought to have SIP
-If not in mobile space throw in a few terms HSS, GGNS and you are all set!
This leads us to a whole new fantastical world of terms, standards bodies meetings, conferences, discussions; it satiates a concept thirsty industry of a buzz word with maximum hits on search engines

VON second day!! hate standing there with a smile for hours at a stretch!