All Things Wireless

App Planet - 'tis app'ning at Barcelona !

2010-02-14T20:00:00.001+05:30

Image by blogpocket via Flickr

Mobile World Congress is here this year with more participants than ever. Now what is the b..( ah can't use buzz like before anymore let Google make it gbuzz ) big themes this time ? You guessed it right. It is the "apps" - the small applets that gained fame as finger food for iPhone users. Every platform now has it and service providers are starting to have their own app aggregation too. Mobile World Congress acknowledges the trend by having an App Planet program as a focused developer event. Spread over four days, App Planet has two platforms covered on each day, starting from Vodafone and Motorola and then on to RIM, Sony Ericsson and Google Android. For the first time Nokia does not have a presence at the Mobile World Congress in a business decision that apparently reflects Apple's approach which too does not make use of the Mobile World Congress to launch products. Apple does its own events which are designed to suit its interests perfectly and Nokia is also expected to do the same.

Google is building the second momentum after the Android push with plans for a super-fast fiber network to half a million homes across America. This should send alarm bells ringing for the traditional telcos. Google has also slowly but inevitably started to focus on hardware with its Nexus One phone. There is a lot of talk as to which entity would be able to pose a counter to Google's hurtling advances. Its not difficult to imagine Google taking a big chunk of the market by showing a will to controlling customers data. Now's the time for a player to like Nokia to consolidate non-American market by making (pretty) big investments on OS, platform and an ecosystem to take advantage of the latent period when the strong American players ( Google, Apple) fight it out among themselves.

What about RIM, the makers of the well accepted Blackberry smartphones? RIM had wriggled out of very tricky situations in the past and has gained strength in the enterprise segment significantly and is still the leader in the smartphone segment in the US market, which is a big thing seen along with the growth of iphone. During the course of last year some businesses had indeed switched over to iphones for their workforce. However this trend has not appreciably picked up and I think the Android moment had a side effect of delaying large scale enterprise shift from Blackberry centric policies. RIM is certainly a strong player with notable innovation strengths and is bound to play a dominant role in the near future.

The other news that has made a splash is that of Motorola splitting itself into two companies. Now the mobile phone business would be an attractive proposition for potential suitors. It has been a theme with Motorola to spin off the mobile phone business at an appropriate time and Motorola had driven cost measures aggressively and has got a measure of success. My hunch is that the mobile phone business would be lapped up by some PE group or the other option - being taken over by a big player - Google comes to mind... let us wait and see.

wirlez.com : Nokia and Microsoft shake hands when all's not well

2009-08-13T23:25:00.069+05:30

Today the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft on putting Microsoft Office products on Nokia's smartphones was officially announced and it amounted to an acceptance of the primacy of their competitors in the smartphone market. For Microsoft, its Windows Mobile platform doing a rapid catch up could not bring the desired results on its own. Microsoft had to make use of its new datacenters and cloud infrastructure.

Microsoft's crown jewel is the Office franchise and in my view is far more valuable than the OS itself ( If Office was available on say Linux, people would not mind switching to it ). Microsoft's immediate challenge is to beat back efforts from Google to cut into the office productivity market with its cloud offerings - the Google Apps notwithstanding the fact that Google is nowhere near challenging the Office products. However Microsoft would have been rattled by the slow and steady adoption of Google apps by an ever increasing number of enterprises wanting to reduce costs. This deal coming close on the heels of the search partnership with Yahoo takes the fight straight to Google. This move is a straight hit aimed at Google more than RIM. For Microsoft this will also make a first entry for its products into a open source platform which is what Nokia's phones would be built on be it Symbian or Maemo.

RIM is also losing market by the adoption of iPhone by some enterprises as the smartphone of choice. It has to be seen as to how an innovation leader like RIM would move when faced with such odds. As to Google, it has now seen the moves by Microsoft and Nokia and the company can now plan out its not-much-marketed wireless foray with very known targets. What will hamper the focus Google would want to give its wireless strategy is how far Bing and the new-fangled Yahoo partnership will light a fire under Google for Microsoft.

Nokia on its part was losing market share steadily against RIM and Apple and along with the enterprise segment which was already lost, even the non-enterprise smartphone share was shrinking. Once leading the mobile phone landscape ( and even now with substantial momentum ), Nokia had not done enough to revamp its OS efforts and it shows in the jaded user interface Nokia phones sport model after model. Nokia would expect to buy some time with this deal with Microsoft before it takes a hard look at its OS offerings. Nokia would like to think that having Microsoft Office on its phones is a first major step that would make its OS a favorite with the enterprise customers.

Nokia's stock performance after today's announcement

View the full NOK chart at Wikinvest

and how Microsoft fared.

View the full MSFT chart at Wikinvest

Google's performance

View the full GOOG chart at Wikinvest

RIMM's performance

View the full RIMM chart at Wikinvest

wirlez.com: Nokia - switch to Maemo, "not" ditch Symbian (rumor)

2009-08-13T00:42:00.000+05:30

Image via Wikipedia

Now Financial Times, Germany speculates about Nokia finally giving up on Symbian as a smartphone platform in favor for Maemo . Maemo, the community developed Linux platform for mobile devices is Nokia's choice for its internet tablets.

FTD goes on the write citing sources close to Nokia about Symbian becoming too complicated a piece of code ( 20 million lines ) and Nokia having to do some contortions to add touch to its N97 flagship model. If this were true Symbian would be confined to low-end phones which Maemo would not fit. The fact about this might out by October, when the N900 smartphone based on Maemo is expected to be released.

Nokia has been steadily losing market share to niche players - RIM, HTC , Android - not to mention Apple. Its North American strategy has also not clicked as it should have. Symbian is great but I thought it would be very easy to customize it until I could not see much of a change in the UI in phone after phone. When all handset makers were really struggling to differentiate the UI and menus, Nokia with its momentum and distribution channels could afford to not do much about it till the iPhone came along. Apple had not only a great UI but also an ecosystem that delivered pure numbers.

Nokia might change the game a little, with Maemo smartphones since it is rather an unknown quantity which will keep the competitors busy to figure out Nokia's strategy. Nokia also has to do spec up the hardware a little like how RIM did with the Blackberry Bold and recently Toshiba with the TG01. If this news turns out to be true, it is good as Nokia can concentrate on a more recently platform and still use Symbian for the large segment of low-end phones.

wirlez.com : Great options on CDMA handsets

2009-08-07T17:52:00.001+05:30

In traditionally GSM markets like India phone users are reluctant to take up CDMA service since it meant that they are restricted to their career in terms of handset choice. CDMA providers. CDMA Development Group (CDG) has taken an initiative over the past year actively to change this scenario with the Open Market Handset. In short, this initiative is to allow buyers of CDMA phones buy the handsets without worrying about which carrier to choose. You can buy any CDMA phone from the retailers and use it with any carrier of your choice. You do not have to stick with the limited choice that used to be the case if you have to choose your carrier first. CDG has chosen the Indian market to pilot this initiative and has done well in the choice.

If the Open Market Handset initiate gets going in India, it could well be a success anywhere since India is a market where GSM is well-entrenched. India has reached a milestone of 100 million CDMA subscribers and it is just as well that these subscribers finally get the choice they deserve. Handset vendors will also be greatly relieved from having to factor in the carriers at quite an early stage in their development.

Technically, the gizmo which enables this is called the R-UIM, which is the analog of GSM's SIM. When I first encountered the SIM-less handsets of CDMA, initially I was struck by the unimaginative idea of the whole thing, and later on probing came to understand that the vested interest of the carriers was blocking a simple function for the users. Now with mobile number portability (MNP) on the anvil and GSM bloc trying to run away with 3G, CDG has done well to provide the original choice of GSM subscribers to the CDMA lot. All's well that sells well is the golden rule by which this CDG plan of putting more choice in the hands of users will be measured.

wirlez.com : How to get the best toll free numbers

2009-07-20T22:04:00.003+05:30

Businesses require a very easy way to communicate with their customers. Toll free phone numbers are an essential tool that are used to get new business as well as provide service to existing customers in an effective manner. I would like to highlight here about the options available for setting up a toll-free number for your businesses and merits of these options.

The first option is to get your toll free number from a toll-free number provider with instant signup and activation. Some of the toll-free providers do have a nice bouquet of services including vanity numbers and a wide choice of numbers to choose from. Combined with hassle-free billing, pay as you go packages and minimal contracts, it has become very easy for even small businesses to provide their service using toll-free numbers. The toll-free numbers provided by these providers are universal in the 1-800-nnn format. I will elaborate what this means when I explain the second option. Very often we find that these toll-free providers also provide virtual PBX services which can also be availed to drive better efficiencies in backoffice work.

The second option is available in some countries like India, where you can sign up for a toll-free number with telephony providers. The hitch in this plan is that you can call the toll-free number from a phone on the same network. You will have to provide alternate numbers for other networks which is not what you want. The numbers available might also not be in the universal 1-800 format. Since your customers are universal, it will be a better option to provide 800 toll free numbers which have greater acceptance. There is a trend to adopt the services provided by specialized PBX operators, as companies endeavour to provide a unified cost-effective interface to their customers.

wirlez.com : Submit your ideas to change the face of broadband

2009-07-20T18:55:00.001+05:30

Have an idea for how to expand high-speed Internet access across the United States? Here's your chance to have your voice heard.

Under the terms of the recent economic stimulus package, the Federal Communications Commission must deliver to Congress a National Broadband Plan by February 2010. Several weeks ago, we laid out Google's vision for how to make broadband Internet available and affordable for every American — and hundreds of others have already submitted comments of their own.

The FCC has called for "maximum civic engagement" in developing a broadband strategy, and we're hoping to help them to achieve just that.

We've teamed up with the New America Foundation to launch a Google Moderator page where you can submit and vote on ideas for what you think the Commission should include in its National Broadband Plan. Two weeks from now we'll take the most popular and most innovative ideas and submit them to the official record at the FCC on your behalf.

Google and the New America Foundation agree that public participation in this process is critical. Expanding access to broadband has the potential to transform communities across the country, spark economic growth, and restore American competitiveness. Now that the Commission has officially opened this proceeding, and with a new Chairman at the helm, we think it's time to give people the opportunity to learn about the issue and to weigh in with their thoughts. And as the process continues to unfold at the FCC, we'll keep you informed of additional ways to share your views and voice your ideas to the agency.

So do you have any good ideas? Submit them today on Google Moderator — and you just might help change the face of broadband in the United States.

Official Google Blog: Submit your ideas to change the face of broadband

wirlez.com : Is Nokia losing way or holding sway?

2009-07-18T15:38:00.000+05:30

They say that all good things have an ending sometime. Its in the collective corporate deja vu of seeing the big behemoths slowly give way to different powerful pretenders who change the market dynamics in their favor and changing once iconic brands with absolute recall to just one other struggling brand. Any number of instances can be given from Kodak to Sony, Yahoo, Motorola and now may be Nokia.

From the indication of things, Nokia is slowly losing the status as the top phone maker to strong contenders like Apple and Samsung. Nokia's business model of simple phones and high-end consumer phones which was successful for a long time got challenged with smart phones from Blackberry first and then the iconic iPhone from Apple. Nokia was for long not doing well in the North American market and that they could not break into eventually let Apple to sweep the market with iPhone. With iPhone's success, other non-traditional powerful players like Google got into the picture now making it even more tougher for Nokia to make a mark.

Nokia is being increasingly driven to consolidate its China and India markets, which will be very crucial for the Finnish giant in the coming quarters. The major threat for Nokia in these markets is that 3G will soon be available and high ARPU customers would be going in for new handsets with more innovative features like social apps and games. Nokia has to mainstream a lot of good things that it is known for like its beta lab apps in its phones and build a nice revenue model which shares attractively with content providers. Apple has done it more than once before and the results were only good. In the emerging markets it is still Nokia's sway and it will take a lot of effort to build distribution channels for the Apples and Blackberrys. Once they start trying ( Blackberry has started earnestly for the consumer pocket ), it will be even tougher for Nokia to maintain its hold. Nokia has to rediscover its nimbleness of old, and not get weighed down by its bigness.

wirlez.com : Surge from Nokia a social tool

2009-07-14T08:24:00.000+05:30

Nokia has announced its new phone for the U.S. market with the launch of Surge. Surge is built for users who stay online longer and do a lot of texting in social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. The phone has got flash support built in as most modern phones do enabling watching of embedded YouTube videos.

You can take pictures using its 2.0 MP camera with 4x digital zoom and share it easily in Facebook, Twitter and a lot of social networking sites with the JuiceCaster application coming along with the Surge.

The form factor which is boxy with smooth rounded corners is in line with those of the IPhone and G1.

Nokia announces Surge on AT&T

The Surge will be available through the AT&T network and has the first ever video share facility using which users can share a live video while inside a call. Nokia expects to cash in on the summer season for its Surge.

Traditionally weak in the U.S. market, this is Nokia's strong statement to address the gap.

Browse the world with Layar : Augmented reality through your phone

2009-07-13T19:36:00.000+05:30

Layar has introduced an application in Europe which provides a unique service called augmented reality. When you see through the camera, you can see the image of whatever objects like houses, restaurants and shops are there and on top of these images useful information like the distance, availability and price information is overlaid

Layar lets you browse through different layers of information and filters can be set to drill down to your specific requirements.

Layar is a free download for users and the businesses have to pay Layar to get their information on the application. Currently Layar is available on the phones running Android.

wirlez.com : Pretty useful everywhere

2009-07-09T03:46:00.004+05:30

It could be the first experience of internet in Uganda. SMS search is a very useful tool in everyday situations, everywhere. In India, I have been using Google's SMS search which was launched sometime back, for such things as train availability, ticket (PNR) status and the like and found it to be so handy.

I have tested it even with finding a physician and it was spot on.

Having a simple app and great content makes a great solution. Where I am using it, the Google SMS service needs us to send a text message with the query to a non-premium phone number ( without the shortcodes used to commercial services which charge more per SMS sent ) . Long search results are split into multiple messages that can be requested one after the other by sending a simple message as reply ("Next") .

Very handy as it is in the limited medium of SMS, the speed and ubiquity are what makes the Google SMS service a Swiss Army knife in most situations. Taking it to Uganda is a challenge in terms of getting quality content and this story (link below) is worth a read for it.

Official Google Blog: Designing useful mobile services for Africa

wirlez.com's take : Android vs. Chrome OS

2009-07-08T23:17:00.000+05:30

Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS
This is a bit of surprise to see Android overlooked as a netbook OS. There was very little time to speculate with Android what with some netbook vendors already readying it as a netbook platform and here comes Chrome OS from Google directly and I'm just left thinking if Chrome was so big to be greater than a browser. Well, the two letters OS might make it an entirely different thing from the browser.

Chrome "OS" is a pun on open source which is what its going to be with Google's announcement to that effect. Android too is open source with some nice touches to the licensing like the device makers not mandated to share their tweaks of the OS. It suits the device vendors to enable easy adoption of the OS which has been a success with the rapidly increasing use of Android on phones. How will Chrome OS be in terms of its licensing? It does not make a difference however, but imagine a scenario where a lot of vendors make a lot of different flavors of Chrome OS to give themselves the edge. It would give a respite from having to choose one interface and one set of "apps". We know its the way it works on phones and cradle our Nokias, Samsungs. Motorolas and SonyEricssons. There are a lot of things going against this way of things in case of PCs. In case of phones there is a lot of difference in the hardware that goes in and the phone vendors do break a sweat in configuring the best hardware set for a given cost. On PCs we expect the same set of features from the netbook to the workstation that gives less chances of innovation than a phone. By design a PC is a lot less personal than a phone, but still we don't how the netbook story is gonna go from now. In the meanwhile somebody think of better ways to enter text and point in netbooks -for my big fingers!

Motorola's iDEN phone - clutch it

2009-05-10T22:40:00.001+05:30

Motorola has launched the Clutch i465 recently. This phone seems to be a serious communication device. The Clutch uses a new PTT technology called iDEN which gives a PTT performance not found in any other phone in the market. PTT is gradually getting to be mainstream and this phone would make it more attractive.

The Clutch sports a full QWERTY keypad enabling double-thumbed fast messaging making heavy texters feel at home. The messaging application supports IM-style threaded messaging which is becoming common nowadays. With a nice form factor, light weight (96 g) and long talk time, the Clutch is a statement from Motorola - text or talk, this is the direction. The Clutch is a ruggedized phone. It is designed to work in some tough conditions like a typical road warrior would use it.

On the negative side, the camera is VGA which is passe in the media-centric market. A higher resolution camera would have given the Clutch a more rounded out character.

Scaled-down PCs and scaled up smartphones

2009-03-30T05:42:00.000+05:30

Netbooks have started to appear in almost all of the PC makers' lines. Removing optical drives and shrinking the form factor has and using new UMPC chipsets have developed a market which was just waiting to mature. These mini-notebooks, priced on par with mid-range smartphones make a good product for selling first PCs to those who don't require a "big" notebook. The PC vendors realize this only too well as one can see from the Linux option available on most netbook lines. The idea is to make it as affordable as it can get for a lot of buyers who don't want to buy a new PC. I was searching a few months ago to see what options there are for getting a Linux laptop from the major PC vendors and the options were too few. The situation has changed a little now with the netbooks. The recent trend in netbooks is to have as closer a spec to normal laptops in terms of computing power and storage.

Now, why are netbooks important? A lot of people are going to have high speed connectivity soon and these are people who did not have it before. There is a need for simple reliable machines which enable people to be connected at work, at play and on the move. Since connectivity on the move makes the machine most phone-like we are beginning to hear stories of netbooks which are more smartphones than PCs. Google which is keen on getting the mobile broadband going to expand its advertising base may well try to leverage the Android platform for netbooks. Microsoft will be bolstered by its own offerings, may well launch a netbook flavor of Windows to make it attractive for the affordable PC set.

I think it makes a good case for telcos to give away netbooks as part of their mobile broadband contract. Since netbooks are costing in the range of smartphones broadband packages can be marketed in two flavors - one with the usual phone connection and the other with the netbook option.

I want to make a post on the features I would like to see evolve on a netbook at a later time.

Image from: eptiger.blogspot.com

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2009-03-19T02:00:00.000+05:30

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US cos awarded India MNP contract

2009-03-11T16:24:00.011+05:30

US companies - Syniverse Technologies and Telcordia Technologies were recently awarded the contract to provide mobile number portability (MNP) solutions for the Indian mobile phone users by the telecom ministry. I would say the telecom ministry has a lot of difficult decisions to make in these tough times and it is good that they have not postponed the decisions like they did for the 3G auctions.

Now that the general elections are around the corner, the decision on 3G would be taken by a new government at the center and it can be safely said that 3G would take a long time from now in India. While I was looking at this topic I came to know that India was one of the first countries to start the 3G spectrum allocation process by holding a beauty pageant more than 10 years ago. So its a record of sorts that it has taken more than 10 years to still not get the 3G stuff rolling. 3G has been launched by state corporations - BSNL and MTNL in select cities - the number growing rapidly. This has been enabled by the government as the state corporations have their spectrum ready without the need to bid in auctions. Users who want a taste of 3G can switch to BSNL service once it is available in their city. It looks like the service in its current state would cost Rs.2500 ( about USD 50 ) per month for their first taste of 3G. The rate can be expected to climb down once the other players too can roll out their services. However, with the high sums the government is expecting to make from the 3G auctions, it is going to be difficult to offer users cheaper rates.

Many phones, one cool phone and some phones

2009-01-22T21:50:00.002+05:30

Today we know how many Nokia phones were sold and how many Apple iPhones were sold for the last quarter and it talks a lot about the way their marketing has gone.

Nokia shipped 15 million phones in the 3rd quarter down from 18 million in Q3 2007 and marginally lower than the previous quarter. Nokia did better on E-Series compared to N-Series.

In the same quarter, Apple's iPhone sold 4.4 millions devices which was significantly higher than last year but also significantly lower than the last quarter.

Nokia goes to market with enviably large lineup of consumer phones - N-Series and business phones - E-Series with basically the same underlying software S60 and is available on most markets and traditionally been strong in Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific markets.

Apple is available in its iconic iPhone model *only* so far but has scooped the North American market. As it is getting available in other world markets, iPhone killer pretenders have started started to appear in these markets too denting Apple's ability to create the same impact as the North American market.

That Apple could garner the sales it has has shown that the market is always prime for neatly packaged and marketed product which is backed by *design* selling points. It has to be noted that iPod was a pointer in this direction. Apple replicated not only the design selling points of iPhone but also the revenue engine strategy - App Store much line the iTunes service. Inevitable successes as they are they highlighted a sustaining business model which other players including Nokia could'nt figure out earlier. But it was anyway there to the see - the iPod model was there. Apple may well do the iPod redux for the iPhone - Nano and themes built around the same icon.

Nokia's Tube, its earnest challenger to iPhone comes with free music and seems to take the fight to the iPhone camp. However, the story is that the E-Series might hold the key for Nokia whose business phones are making compelling alternatives in the enterprise segment.

What about the other contenders? Samsung and LG are doing well in their own right but lose out on the content platform in the long run. HTC has emerged as a good contender with its own avatars of smartpones and then there is the Android factor. One area of mobile usage that is the mobile marketing will be tapped by Android phones when they are widely available.

Android has had a lot of negative press with long delays but has compensated with a winner in G1. With lot of takers for openhandsetalliance, Android is presenting a great means for many of the handset vendors to stay in the race. Many - the Samsungs, LGs, Motorolas, HTC may well gravitate towards Android for lack of compelling content and future could be a tug for equilibrium between Nokia, iPhone and the Android in most markets.

P.S.: I would like to post on some brave new phones sometime :)

Image : xataka.com

Broadband plans to beat recession

2009-01-18T20:58:00.006+05:30

Broadband has lot of expectations loaded on it. During the talks of the slowing down of the economy in many of the worlds's nations, one theme is persistent - spending on infrastructure to create advance broadband networks to beat the downturn.

In the U.S., it it well known what Barack Obama thinks about broadband. Wireless broadband has consistently found a place of primacy in Obama's plans to revive the nation's fortunes. The idea is good to make wireless broadband as free and available as tap water and Obama's is keen to spend upwards of $6 billion to achieve this target. Broadband would be consistent theme running through Obama's presidency and I guess he will be one President who is going to be celebrated because of his technological vision.

In the UK there is talk that worldclass broadband is required for the economy to find its feet and get running again. Internet is seen to be the more important business tool around which a lot of disposable income will flow. The nation's plan machines are working feverishly to push for better broadband infrastructure to make it good enough for a lot of business transactions.

Now, what does this mean to India as one of the hubs of knowledge economy? Better broadband would translate to better offshoring and cheaper infrastructure costs and in turn better reach of services. India has to realize that the grand broadband plans laid out by countries is to be prepared for the revival of the economy. Free or cheap broadband can do wonders for India in education, rural markets, relief activities and development at a grassroot level and also boost the retail segment at the topline. I remember reports about a national plan to provide free or cheap broadband on a very ambitious scale ( ET Link ) by *2009* - that day has come now and it would be better if the start is made even now to make good the promise of connectivity. Amid an earning streak by the telecom industry, there is no better time than now to get go on the grand plans for broadband.

Image Courtesy: www.nityin.com

RIM bullish on India market

2009-01-16T00:31:00.005+05:30

RIM has announced plans for selling *unlocked* BlackBerrys in India [ET ]. Redington has been drafted to play the local distribution support to work in tandem with telcos to push the niche smartphones to the *consumer* market. In the last post I highlighted the trend of smartphone sales picking up in India. BlackBerry has drafted a strategy specifically targeting the Indian market involving development of localized consumer-centric mobile applications and even considers launching an India-specific smartphone targeted at the consumer market. BlackBerry has had a good market in India in the enterprise segment with virtually every company rolling rolling out their push-email services on BlackBerry.

Around the same time comes the news of Motorola closing down its sales office in India [ET ]. Notwithstanding Motorola's recent troubles, this tells a tale of the changing market. The lower end of the market entices with volume, but the burgeoning vendors in this segment make it very unattractive in terms of margins. After a lull, the grey market is flourishing with lot of cheap handsets from China and elsewhere and they are taking the game out of the major vendors. Now the space in the higher end smartphone market is getting expanded and vendors should take cues from the policy makers and market to reap the dividends from momentous things such as 3G rollout.

2009-01-15T08:17:00.007+05:30

New trends [ET ] in mobile phone usage points to a marked increase in the sales of smartphones in India as compared to other mobile phones. This is a significant statistic because of two reasons. One, there are vendors who focus on non-smartphones for the Indian market and they can take some pointers from this trend. Two, the smartphones are priced at a very high premium by some vendors who can now think of volumes and make their offerings more affordable.

The mobile phone has become the most integrated gadget to people after the watch and its going to stay that way. And like watches people would start to want their smartphones to be the smartest of the lot. Simple swiss army knife-kind of smartphones with a list of features and having elegant form like those of Swiss watches would soon dominate the market. This has been exemplified the success of smartphones like BlackBerry which has really taken of well in India.

Smartphones' rise into the public imagination is great exemplified by Barack Obama's images of using his gadget. Obama's choice of smartphone also tells a lot about the trend. Have a look...

Image Courtesy : SlipperyBrick.com

Make it more - the 3G pie

2009-01-11T12:01:00.007+05:30

Image Courtesy : gadgets.fosfor.se

The new directions coming from the government is the idea of making the 3G license bidding regions called circles from existing 5 to 8. This is in line with the governments intention of making the most of revenue out of the 3G spectrum auction. A larger number of circles would make the amount for each region cheaper but would increase the total kitty. This would also allow smaller players to bid where it was difficult for them to foot the amount for a larger circle earlier. This move will be seen as a small bit done by the government for local players. As we can see the large players would like to have a bigger subscriber base in a bigger circle and would be ready to pay for it.

It has to be seen if the technical persons can give a go ahead about the new circle plan after looking at the feasibility of allocating spectrum in 8 new circles. There might be other objections for the new scheme from other stakeholders like telcos, other ministries, regulators and other policy bodies before a decision is visible. Auction might be possible in the near term only in Feb 09. In the meanwhile the telcos can strategize and restrategize for their best deals. 3G spectrum auction is moving at a slow and steady pace and we will have to see if all the players - the government, the telcos, the vendors and the content providers can cook up an exciting fare in time for the party.

3G rollout India - so near yet so far

2009-01-04T16:41:00.000+05:30

Last year saw many false starts on the 3G spectrum auction in India. Of all the frenzied activity witnessed on the 3G front MTNL's rollout of services in the NCR region was the only news to show off and larger subscriber population is yet to see any so much as a date on when 3G services will be available. The government wants to make sure that it wants the spectrum auctions to fetch the highest possible price ( called market price ) in the circumstances of economic situation worldwide. However with every successive delay of the auctions the bidders are getting wary and at best show lukewarm interest as in case of the response to the pre-bid meeting.

Related consequences to the delay in the 3G spectrum auctions are the delay in WiMax auctions and even the MNP developments. The latter also involves an auction process and right now all the delays are being attributed to the policy changes initiated by various stake holders within the cabinet. The government does not have any problem in the delays as the large delays would give time for the mobile subscriber base to build which in the Indian case has been happening at a rapid clip. As time goes, the government will have a better fruit to offer in terms of a larger subscriber base and can expect a higher price. As said before, the bidders are also not very keen at this point of time to hurry up.

All said, the date for the 3G spectrum auction is still 30th January 2009. If something happens by then the auction process goes through, it will be a big surprise as the news that is available points to more delays.

China - 3G approved '09

2008-12-31T22:09:00.002+05:30

China goes into 2009 with approval of 3G licences [link ]. China's homegrown 3G platform called TD-SCDMA will be used and advanced in a quest to give primacy and advantage to home industries. Vendors craving for the huge market of the middle kingdom would put in place plans to ramp up on this technology. This is called changing the rules of the game. With growing clout in terms of technological ability and economical prowess, China is positioning itself to reap maximum benefits out of all major opportunities. Telecom is one area where China has focussed its energies to ramp up and it is not surprising that Chinese companies have become credible competitors to the telecom biggies like Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent et al.

Wishing all a very happy new year 2009 !!

Hot Mobiles, Hotter apps

2008-12-07T19:05:00.006+05:30

This post come after a self-imposed gap for the busy things that happen. One of the momentous thing that happened during this time was the approval given to white space spectrum by FCC. There is bound to be lot more arguments before any thing comes out of white space spectrum debate, like lot of cheap bandwidth. FCC has taken a go-forward decision to let technology find solution to the debate.

Meanwhile an application like Skyfire points to a future where the mobile needs more power for a seamless experience of PC-like browsing. Mobile browsers have vied with each other to show how better they can reformat the page to suit the mobile's screen. Skyfire takes the approach of replicating the experience found in PCs on the mobile. Rich applications like the flash player only available of PCs are now extended to mobiles thanks to Skyfire's technology.

On browsing using Skyfire on my N95 (with the latest firmware having demand paging support), it takes quite an amount of the CPU for getting to display the Skyfire's capabilities, however I can actually watch embedded video relatively easily. With a bit more power, the page refreshes can be faster. The newer phones might do well using Skyfire than my (g)old N95 and that is where the direction is for future mobiles. Hotter, faster processors for mobiles...new cooling technologies....advances in battery life most notably energy density, also advances in battery temperature control...

As far as the applications on the mobile itself go, the trend is towards more immersive browsing experience, more video options, innovative interfaces ( touch of iPhone, trackball of Blackberry ...come to mind) . A workable speech interface might also come, haptics for sensory feedback, projection of screen, improved TV interface may follow and may be some nice apps for mobile webserver...and one more - live streaming (Qik, Qik, Qik... ) I hear somebody also say about editing documents, push email, the office works... Everybody needs more computing power in their hands in a literal sense.

My best wishes for mobile computing...Cheers!

In the news: Bharti Airtel to setup telecom innovation fund

2008-09-13T14:25:00.001+05:30

Bharti Airtel, India's leading telco has announced of the setting up of a telecom innovation fund worth Rs.200 crores to seed telecom startups. This is a smart move by the telco viewed with the new telecom developments - 3G rollout, coming of MVNOs and entry of foreign telcos. Bharti Airtel can leverage its licenses, infrastructure assets and pan-India coverage to provide a good platform for telecom startups in turn augmenting its own revenues both organically and inorganically. This first ever telecom innovation fund would be watched closely and its success can spawn other such funds too.

What are the factors that has given this positive spin to telecom entrepreneurship? Here are at least two. Apple with its 3G iphone has left some interesting functinality out and its Appmart platform has encouraged a new industry around it. Nokia's takeover of Symbian has made the OS opensource in effect driving lots of app contenders to develop software and content for its platform. Google though late with its Android platform would not be far behind with its release and would also interest independent software developers to develop for the platform. Telecom startups can make use of such information to target their share of user's wallet

Indian 3G spectrum auction process begins Monday

2008-09-08T12:41:00.012+05:30

Image Courtesy : bioteams.com

The process of allocating 3G spectrum to telcos is to kickstart on Monday with the pre-bid conference to select the overseer of the e-auctions for the 3G spectrum for both GSM and CDMA services. 3G spectrum winners will be known by early October. The auctions are expected to raise U.S.$ 10 billion or more of revenue for the government which would make the telecom department one the the biggest profit centers for the government.

Now what is to be seen keenly is how the telcos - both domestic and foreign take to the e-auction. There have been misgivings about competing in the 2G space from foreign bidders. The DOT had changed the rules so that foreign telcos could merge or buy stake in local players on entering the Indian market and this ought to assuage their feelings.

One more aspect to be watched is the final cost of the 3G spectrum and its effect on the 3G rollout. A high floor price would push the final prices so high that bidders would use up their revenue on the licenses and would have to wait for deploying the network infrastructure - the next step for telcos. This has happened in EU markets most notably in UK. In spite of the delay in launch of 3G services, 3G penetration had picked up fairly well. In the Indian scenario such a thing though wished by telcos might not be so easy. This would need very competitive end-user tariffs and very impressive differentiated services. This would call for huge spends upfront before a good monetization trend sets in. Setting an optimum floor price would hence be the challenge for the telecom ministry.

The challenge for TRAI would be to oversee proper timely rollout of 3G services in all circles with undue delays by the telcos. TRAI would also have to keenly look at how and what kind of recommendations are to made on the MVNO policy. This would also be critical as many foreign players might prefer to enter the market as MVNOs in order to avoid high license fees. TRAI's recommendations would some day tell on the rate of penetration of 3G services in India.

The challenge for the telcos would be about offereing high quality differentiated services and make enough money to reinvest in their new new 3G networks. In this respect the telcos would also need to fix attractive tariffs that would work for them too. Another aspect telcos would be focussing on is MVP - mobile number portability - which might necessitate a rethink of telcos' strategies about retaining and growing subscriber bases.

The challenge for the user is to embrace 3G technology without falling for hype and demand high quality services from the telcos by rewarding the best offering and not to look at price alone.