Posts in Telcos
Musings on my next personal phone & contract
Although I've usually got a couple of spare devices around, and occasionally play with new ones to get a feel for things, I don't tend to chop & change, and I don't review handsets. Up until two years ago, I had separate voice/SMS/camera and email/data-centric devices, but I've switched to a single-device approach since then. More...
Steve Jobs: where were you when you heard?
The untimely death of Steve Jobs was announced while half our team were in New York at the M-Commerce 2.0 brainstorm. It seemed strangely fitting that those of us there learned the news via an iPad2 belonging to one of our speaker's wives. Later, we took this picture of the ticker tape in Times Square using an iPhone 4.
None of us knew Steve Jobs personally yet he has had a profound impact on our world, and we're grateful for the colour and interest that this remarkable man added to our personal and professional lives. He is the first of the tech superstars to die, and perhaps the emotions surrounding his loss will confer even more strength to Apple's already extraordinary brand. More...
Forget incentives to incumbents and eliminate hurdles to all others!
In a speech yesterday, EU commissioner for information society Neelie Kroes announced some new proposals to boost investment in Next-Generation Networks. The plan in a nutshell stands in three bullet points:
- force a reduction in copper wholesale prices to diminish the profitability of copper vs. fiber
- reward copper to fiber switchover by granting higher copper wholesale prices to incumbents who do switchover
- inject €6.4bn of public funds
What the plan tries to do really is to reduce what the commission perceives as an excessive gap in short-term profitability between copper and fiber. More...
Cloud RAN, Radio-over-Fiber: Cloud paradigm for Wireless Networks
Apple turns Bear, Google MVNO, and Facebook F8 - Telco 2.0 News Review
- Smartphones: Apple to cut parts orders 25%: double-dip here we come
- Google: Spanish Googlers get their own MVNO!
- Social Networks: Facebook F8 - the reactions
- Cloud Computing 2.0: Why Facebook developers love AWS
- Voice & Messaging 2.0: WhatsApp: how they did it
- Broadband Connectivity: Much more broadband and video news
It's also iPhone crystal ball time. More...
Telecom Clouds and Internet of Things
More thoughts and observations on WiFi Neutrality
Over the past few weeks, I've been speaking to a variety of operators and vendors in more depth about this issue. I'm seeing something of a polarisation:
- There are some who understand that the WiFi genie is well and truly out of the bottle, and that (perhaps grudgingly) users need to be given tools to set their own preferences and policies, and that the operator's / network's role is in helping make the telco-preferred WiFi easier and safer to use, when that's appropriate.
Deciphering the Orange Sosh proposition
I'm a bit confused by the press release though - it's not obvious that the 2-hour, 5-hour or 24/7 product names refer to telephony minutes, or data time allowed online. There is a reference to "All of the Sosh offers are commitment-free, and they give users access to all of their content and digital services, including social networks, videos, e-mail, internet and VoIP." ... but I'm not sure how that squares with 2/5 hours. More...
Baidu-droid; Samsung 'no to WebOS'; Amazon Kindle tablet; Apple iCloud design - Telco 2.0 News Review
- Mobile Platforms: Baidu forks Android, Samsung says no to WebOS
- Devices: Amazon Kindle tablet is here - not very much like a Kindle though
- Online Video: Apple iCloud - it's download not streaming
- Customer Data 2.0: Telefonica sold 190 million subs' data to Santander
- Cloud Computing: Google App Engine shock pricing row storm
[Ed. Welcome back if this is your first week in the office after the summer holidays - here are the top two Key Telco 2.0 items to note. 1. This week is your last chance to input to our Apple, Google, Facebook, Skype and Amazon research. We'll send you the survey results and a special deal on the report when it's out if you do. More...
The First Mile
I recently came upon a problem with wanting to define The First Mile. The problem is going to arise more over the next few months since broadband projects seek funding beyond BDUK. Some of these (like ERDF and probably DEFRA) want to fund the community networks, but not sink even more money into backhaul that never gets to benefit end users.
The definition that had been suggested was "from customer to cabinet". More...
