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Even in a down economy, consumers are unwilling to let go of telecom services
Ofcom, the UK regulator, released a study of national telecommunications use bringing some interesting facts up for discussion. Telecom services play a greater role in our lives and when it comes to prioritizing spending in difficult economic times, users are more keen to view their mobile phones, broadband Internet connections, and digital TV subscriptions as necessities rather than luxuries.
When it comes to prioritizing spending:
Consumers were more likely to cut back on dining out (47%) and holidays (41%), over cutting back on mobile phone use (19%), TV subscriptions (16%) or broadband services (10%).
The obvious answer is no, but it is amazing how many fail to consider the relationship between the two. From recent comments he made, its clear that this fact is something Bill Gates understands very well. On a trip to India, Bill Gates spoke at length on many different occasions about various topics concerning India’s economic development and the role technology and innovation would play in lifting the country out of poverty.
In particular, his comments on the need for India to develop more home-grown research capability and increase the number of PhD’s granted every year, indicated that he is someone who ‘gets it’. In the past, business leaders have heaped platitudes on India’s wealth of science and engineering talent, few have pointed out that this talent is mostly utilized overseas, far from where it can make an impact on innovation in India.
If you read about functional separation on this website, then you have a very solid understanding on one of the most important regulatory tools for enabling competition in telecommunications. The UK and New Zealand have successfully implemented functional separation on their incumbent operators. Australia is very close on their heels.
From a CommsDay report, we learn:
In Australia, the Department of Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy has hired a BT director to provide a $60,000 consultancy on functional separation.
There will be 250 million mobile Internet subscribers by the end of 2009. A post on GigaOm goes into great depth about the state of wireless broadband. By September of this year EMEA (Europe, M. East, Africa) will have 60 million subscribers, North America 37 million, and Asia-Pacific will have 56 million mobile broadband users. All indicative of the reality that mobile broadband will be a key gateway for users to get onto the Internet.
These are all signs that the emerging wireless broadband network — regardless of the networking protocol is good for innovators and innovation. More entrepreneurs should be thinking about leveraging this wireless broadband platform in a more meaningful fashion. In developing and emerging markets, this could see technology helping people overcome everyday struggles and generate whole new sectors to economies.
The graphic below helps put the emergence of mobile broadband in context:
Click to view in High-Resolution
emergence of the netbook brings word of a new OS
Some stories emerge and snowball so quickly, that trying to piece them all together in a coherent manner takes a keen ability to make sense of all the developments. There has been a quite a bit about netbooks, low-cost PC notebook computers, in the news recently. Netbooks are experiencing a tremendous growth in sales world-wide. A previous post had detailed how telcoms in India have started bundling these PC’s with long-term mobile data contracts. In North America, Verizon now offers a sub-$200 netbook for it’s mobile data subscribers.
From GigaOm, news of a new entrant to the market and the dramatic rise in netbook sales:
extending the life of older PC's and providing a building block for a better-educated society
Open-source education software developed for the “$100 laptop” can now be loaded onto a $5 USB stick to extend the life of aging PCs and Macs. Run from the USB stick, the software can grant new life to the millions of decrepit PCs that would otherwise end up in trash heaps in developing countries.
Equipping PCs with a new interface and custom educational software, the USB stick project is a spinoff of the One Laptop per Child project. The software consists of the following:
The Sugar interface was custom-designed for children. The new Sugar on a Stick download features 40 software programs, including core applications called Read, Write, Paint, and Etoys. Many other applications are available for download, most of which emphasize creative collaboration among children. The USB software can boot up an aging computer, or a netbook, and save data from any of the programs.
This is a promising development because the developing world is already a dumping ground for ageing PC’s. Anything that could extend the lives of these PCs so they could serve a function educating the youth is promising news.
Regulators more willing to put telcos under the lens
Presently attempting to work through a large backlog of articles. The article that is the basis of this post continues to keep the spotlight on the regulatory changes being proposed for Telstra. Australia’s incumbent operator is squarely in the sights of Australian regulators:
Australia’s competition watchdog said imposing a tough structural separation regime on Telstra Corp. (TLS.AU) is the only way to guarantee an equal playing field during the transition to a planned multibillion dollar national broadband network but the company argues there’s no need for such a move.
This calls for looking at regulatory issues comes while Australia attempts to roll out the $43 billion NBN:
With cell phone connections outnumbering PCs connected to broadband by a ratio of 65 to 1 and the gap growing wider, all sorts of efforts are underway to utilize the technology to deliver all sorts of services. From a New York Times article, here are two examples currently being worked on in India:
In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, citizens who file a right-to-information request can now check its status via text message. Anyone who has been to an Indian government office, begging men in safari suits to do their job, will welcome this service.
A number of civic groups, meanwhile, have devised cellphone-based ways of informing voters about candidates for Parliament. If you text your postal code to the Association for Democratic Reforms, it will reply with candidate profiles like this:
DEORA MILIND MURLI (INC) Crim. Cases – No, Assets 175373142, Liab 0, Edu graduate_professional
MOHMAD ALI ABUBAKAR SHAIKH (BSP) Crim. Cases – Yes (1), Assets 445015617, Liab 2489959, Edu illiterate
A new international broadband cable landed on Sydney’s north shore. Stretching 4787km to Guam, the Pipe Networks project, dubbed PPC-1, offers Australian broadband users the promise of significantly lower Internet costs.
In developed countries with high rates of broadband Internet usage in homes, mobile Internet will be seen as a separate category from fixed broadband offerings. In the UK, incumbent operator BT is adding mobile broadband to its consumer packages, positioning the technology as a complement to fixed broadband:
BT Total Broadband customers can now get up to 8Mbps cellular broadband including 1GB of monthly data usage. The lowest option costs £15.65 per month over 18 months for both fixed and mobile broadband, with BT claiming HSDPA download speeds of 7.2Mbps.
In developing/majority world countries, where broadband Internet usage rates are low, consumers are less likely to see the services as complementary. As speeds on next-generation wireless networks catch up to what is typically expected of wired connections like cable, there will be less of a distinction between the two types of service. Already there are devices on the market that blur the distinction between fixed and mobile Internet service and hint at the exciting possibilities convergence will offer down the road.
- Novatel’s MiFi 2200, a 3G Wi-Fi router.
The New York Times recently covered the Novatel MiFi 2200, a device that will be made available from Verizon in North America in mid-May. It is a new take on existing cellular-modems as the device uses a cellular 3g signal from a mobile network to create a portable Wi-Fi hotspot anywhere you take the device. The Wi-Fi signal covers about a 30ft. radius and can be shared with up to 5 users.
What is incredible about this device is that Verizon even suggests that the MiFi device could be used as a primary family Internet service at home. Just two short years ago, sharing a cellular-modem account was discouraged by the same provider–a real sign of the maturation of the ability of 3g networks to carry greater traffic.
Mobile Internet offerings from operators like Vodafone and Digicel are to be expected and do not come as a surprise for anyone. Leadership at TFL should take notice of the BT case. Combining mobile Internet, fixed Internet, voice, and IPTV in a consumer package could make TFL Fiji’s first triple-play or quad-play threat.
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