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This evening, the TIE Wireless SIG hosted a meeting on Mobile Voice to Mobile Web, and this attracted so many people from the Valley. The room was at standing room capacity and the audience were actively asking questions even after the session ended. (photos of the session and the panel names are listed at www.bayareajournal.blogspot.com)

Rather than try to summarise the varied discussion, I will merely highlight those that intrigued me.

1) Statistics? All three speakers spoke about how their companies as vendors and service providers, were involved in the wireless space given the market potential. Some mentioned statistics such as number of handsets versus PC sold, growth of mobile subscribers, etc. Yet when probed by the San Jose Mercury news reporter for actual and projected statistics of the Mobile web space and high end phones, all 3 were reluctant to share numbers other than saying that it was hard to predict and they have not done the math.

2) Complexity of usage of data apps? I found it interesting that the speaker from Texas Instruments indicated that data usage of phones will remain low for now, one of the reasons being the complexity of usage (he alluded to an example of how he needed IT engineers to help him use his 3G phone). Whilst I agree with this statement if we speak of many 3G phones (not mine though), if we include SMS on GSM phones in this equation of simple as opposed to complex data services, Asia has shown that even illiterate men, women and children, of all professions even farmers, are using data services very comfortably, so I don’t quite buy this argument. In fact, youth are more apt to use and create on new appliances and services than adults, so do the math. Pricing of services and CPEs rather play a greater role, because I have seen how if there is a way to meet their needs, people will use it.

Meanwhile, as they say necessity is the mother of invention, so it is also not surprising to see the many innovative handsets and apps are really coming out of Asia, which is the largest mobile market space(even smartphones made in Asia e.g. Dopod or HTC- very user friendly with one click button interfaces and very robust “mine survived tumbling down a full flight of stairs without its protective cover on).

3) Tariff plans play a key role. The TI rep mentioned about his surprise that although most phones have GPRS capabilities, yet few used it—well I say that is because of tariffs and no straightforward plans. The Google rep was spot on when he said that this phase mobile data/web should be considered an investment phase. It will be the value added usefulness of services and tariffing models that can enable new applications to succeed. Tariffing plans will be key. Whether you pay $20 per photo you forward or 20cents will determine if you send photos over your phone. He forwarned service providers not to try to milk the cow too soon, before it has a chance to mature. Meanwhile, an audience member added that carriers in the US are stifling the market.

Could not agree more with both of them. Coming from Asia myself, I was very surprised to see how “closed” and backward the US mobile market wise and usage. Especially in terms of mobile carriers who “locked” SIM cards (I need unlocked phones and cards as I travel a lot and need prepaid SIM cards that I can put in my phone rather than pay for expensive roaming services). Here they also charge exorbitantly for services separately. To get data services here in the US, I would have to pay $40 over my basic voice minutes package, and then another $5 to $9 for SMS, another $5 to $9 for GPRS, etc etc. This makes it very painful, and so I stick to my basic voice plan and find other though inconvenient ways to get my data. E.g. I would get my data over free Wi-Fi at hotspots using my Wi-fi enabled phone (I was very horrified to hear someone mention how a handset with Wi-Fi was being sold by a carrier in the US with the Wi-fi disabled!- I would have expected that of a developing nation but not here in the US.). In Asia, at least a basic data plan for SMS is already included free with my voice minutes which is already cheap, and so I am off doing data without worrying about being charged an arm and a leg for it and I have every incentive to use it for convenience to get that continuum of use service.

Meanwhile, thank goodness for countries such as Singapore are also making wireless broadband free for the next 2 years so I can further take advantage of the Wi-fi feature on my phone at hot spots. So not surprisingly, there are many more innovative phones in Asia and interesting application service and content providers in Asia.

4) Competition stiffles Innovation? As a followup to point 3, there was a brief discussion about how the lack of standardization and interoperability is stifling the market. The TI rep pointed out that the US was too comfortable with the success of AMPS, and only later started introducing TDMA when the rest of the world was taking off with GSM, and then later fighting over TDMA versus CDMA and GSM. This has put the US a little further behind than the rest of the world. One of the panelist even went as far as to say that uniformity and simplicity of standards would have helped innovation in the US.

They discussed how somehow Korea and Japan who have a greater consumer culture and usage of mobile applications succeeded with dominant players who dictated standards, enabled for innovative role out of applications and handsets, etc. They also found that governments subsidizing and pushing rollouts (mention was made of Singapore which is forcing all telcos to offer Wi-fi enabled services nationwide), makes it easier and cheaper for consumers to use services and thus enable innovation to thrive. Application vendors then no longer need to figure out interoperability issues and can focus instead on meeting mass market needs as opposed to remaining niche market vendors. The Google rep not necessarily agreeing to the point on uniform standards, added the data point of how expensive it was to cater to a multiple standard environment. Even Google finds that each new mobile app they launch involves huge investments to crack the code to interoperate and then usually have only 100 to 300 users uptake the new app not immediately justifying returns on the investment, etc and so acknowledged how much more difficult it would be for smaller players. (Someone in the audience who apparently chaired the US debates on standards, was quick to comment that he disagreed and feels that competition in standards is better than innovation. He did not agree that “domination” or “Uniformity” is good for innovation.If not for this he felt, people would have been satisfied with GSM and innovated no further.)

Unfortunately time ran out, and the session had to close. Just to end, the Google rep mentioned a great point about how it is not so much about the next killer ap but about offering a continuum of experience to users whether they are used to the PC environment, phone etc and also ensuring value added services are localized to meet user needs (this will vary country to country)- this will be the key to success

(you may also be interested to see my notes on a similar www.getit.org/?p=18 a TIE SIG held in Sept. (click on link)

Harmful Interference

Thanksgiving is a big holiday here in the United States so I have been offline for a time catching up and traveling. Whilst I was at my in-laws place, where my husband fixed a new WLAN solution, we found access to be sporadic and unstable. After some trouble shooting, we found that the cordless phone system used in the house was affecting the base station. At my home, when I use the microwave oven it interferes with my cordless phone system. So this led me to think about unlicensed spectrum, and whether not monitoring quality of service and harmful interference is indeed a good thing.

Proponents of regulation call for licensing for these reasons and to ensure protection over the investments in the network, but the test in the pudding. Proponents of “let the market decide” would say that many users are willing to put up with this inconvenience and what they are willing to pay for. Much to be said about both arguments and it will be interesting to see how the debate pans out. Meanwhile, many more countries are joining the unlicensed spectrum bandwagon, which also has its points to encourage non-monopoly players to get into the game and offer access where non exists- i.e. bridging the digital divide; however, it is still hard for players to stay away from the Elo Duo Boosting services, so most of the time they won’t change their games that easily . “Flexible” regulation is a term being used to ensure “old” regulations are not used inflexibly for newer ones..Will regulators only look at harmful interference from unlicensed providers to licensed providers, or within unlicensed providers?
In February 2001, the FCC did ask a national wireless ISP to shut down its service for causing harmful interference with a licensed operator of an amateur TV station.

The main problem with that approach will be more to do with enforcement as would my mother in law using a high power WLAN equipment, now be considered an operator or service provider in the unlicensed band. Given she uses it at home and turns it on and off as she uses it, how would a regulator track down these devices. What about campus networks and professors who turn on base stations for work purposes. Will they not be able to take advantage of this new technologies. Today, users even expect hotels to be service providers as access to Wi-fi is commodotised. The FCC has had the foresight to predict this potential conflict and has designated 5Ghz band for public and community use. But as can be seen in this Malaysian government document, that alone does not eliminate the problem, especially as devices get more powerful.

(footnote: No. S1.166 of the Radio Regulations provides the following definition of the term “interference”:
“Interference: The effect of unwanted energy due to one or a combination of emissions, radiations, or inductions upon reception in a radiocommunication system, manifested by any performance degradation, misinterpretation, or loss of information which could be extracted in the absence of such unwanted energy.”

Among the measures foreseen by the ITU Constitution in the execution of the instruments of the Union No. 37 (Article 6) provides that:
“The Member States are bound to abide by the provisions of this Constitution, the Convention and the Administrative Regulations in all telecommunication offices and stations established or operated by them which engage in international services or which are capable of causing harmful interference to the radio services of other countries, except in regard to services exempt”)

The issue of having a regional regulatory body was raised again by Viviane Redding, Information Society Commissioner at the EU. Having 25 national authorities going back and forth with the EU as not made it easy for many operators to do business in Europe. She said that such a body could cut the red tape for EU. Read more

Interestingly, back in 1998, I was also involved in a project with the South Pacific Forum to look into the creation of a regional regulatory body. I conducted this project together with a Samoan consultancy. From what I understand, many of the proposals are still under consideration. For the Pacific Islands, one of the main issues is lack of resources. Many of the countries are too small a market to afford a national regulatory body and there are just too many international meetings for regulators to keep up with.

Googe CEO Eric Schmidt says consumers would free cell phones – provided they accept targeted advertising.

Interesting comment by Google. If mobile ads will lead to free phones, why has successful advertising models not led to free PCs or TV sets. Strange extrapolition if you ask me.

Yes, phone are getting cheaper yet the more you need on your phone (f you go for Smartphone or for pocketPC phones the more expensive it gets). The CEO of Orange was in the Valley recently and he commented that they found consumers don;t want cheap phones even in developing countries. The cheap $20 phones being promised are not as successful as expected.

Secondly, I would say as phone become the 3rd screen and personal, I really don;t see how people will like to be bombarded by ads in exchange for free phones or free calls.

As it is, I live also in Asia where phones are subsidised by the phone companies (often I pay $0 or $50 for a good phone) and many users had complain to their regulators about being spammed even by their own phone companies through SMS.

Sure it will be interesting to see if and when mobile advertising will play a role e.g. reducing costs of calls, help increase ARPU for mobile operators or enable adding on free or cheap Wi-fi over mobile phones in addition to GSM, 3G etc..but that again is a different story.