The shape-shifting future of the mobile phone

A normal day in 2014

Against the Limited "Unlimited" data plans

Once upon a time the Mobile Operators had loads of bandwidth and not enough data users. So they decided to lure the poor users into buying the 'unlimited' data plans. They were sure that the devices are quite rubbish and no one can use enough data. Just for the precaution some clever operators added a small print where unlimited meant 1 or 2GB. The operators thought that the users will never reach this amount.

Then came the iPhone and changed the whole world. People actually started using the data on their devices. The operators started panicking. Android just compunded this problem. So the operators now have started advocating against these unlimited plans.



The CEO of Vodafone , Vittorio Colao , has told attendees at this year's Nokia World 2010 event that he welcomes the end of "unlimited" Mobile Broadband data plans. Colao also warned consumers that "data pricing has to adjust", thus signalling a greater focus on tiered pricing models.

He added: "The principle here must be that, a bit like motorways or hotels, every class of service needs to have its own price and customers must be able to pay for the level of service [they want]. Pricing should be adjusted to reflect the usage and load. We are approaching the end of the free era."

The cowboy salesmen are still fooling the average Joe when it comes to unlimited plans. People sue the operators but dont succeed.

We are begging to see the return of those bad old days when WiFi was the only option in conferences, etc and they were really expensive. Now instead of WiFi we have got our dongles that may not work well anyway inside the conferences or hotels due to the structure or location but when they do, you again have to think about the costs.

In Korea, KT Telecom had to introduce unlimited plans because the other rival introduced one. This is probably because they still have spare bandwith available. Once that gets used up then they will either be running for caps or advocating against the unlimited plans.

I have been against the unlimited plans from the beginning but I advocate that the operators become a bit wise in the way they charge us, the end users.

If I have 4 devices I dont want limited data on all devices because I dont want to keep track of which devices use how much data or have an allowance. Maybe what I need is a data bundle that I can use across devices and maybe share with my family members. Wallmart has recently come up with something similar in US. Wallmart is a MVNO using T-Mobile network. Though their data plans are expensive compared to T-Mobiles plans just because they allow data sharing and rollover, people may go for them.

Rollovers are available on Pay as you go plans but not on Pay monthly which makes the pay monthly (generally on contract) people seem stupid. Operators should encourage this, maybe keep a maximum that can be rolled over.

Finally, there is this net neutrality and QoS discussions are going on. Eventually some kind of QoS or destination based speeds, etc will come but for the end user they will go where they will get what they want. The operators should remember this.

Cell Phone and Driving Funny and Seriously...

Cell Phone and Driving Funny and Seriously

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Ericsson Presentation: Cognitive radio in Europe

Cognitive radio in Europe [John Holland]

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The Indian entrepreneur spirit

In India you can fix and recycle anything and everything. The last time I visited India, I took an old Nokia phone whose screen and buttons were not working. The charger socket was damaged. There was no battery. The cover was damaged and there was nothing right in that. It did have sentimental value for someone who wanted it fixed if possible.

I gave it to someone to get it fixed and then when I saw it again after a week it was all nice and new. I has to pay 1400 Rupees (approx. £20/$30) but it was invaluable for the person who wanted it fixed.

I read a very interesting Blog article by Shekhar Kapur yesterday and I decided to share it with you. Shekhar Kapur is well known actor/director of movies and his well known international movies as director include Elizabeth and Bandit Queen.

You can read the complete blog article here.

Back in UK, I do nowadays see mobile repair shops springing up in different places but I still think they are far behind these Indian repair shops which dont have much equipment and components but can still fix your item miraculously.

I also found another Interesting blog that has some interesting articles on the theme of 'Indian Entrepreneur Spirit'. See here.

Shunning mobiles in favour of Landlines

I guess its time to clean the cobwebs off the landlines. I was reading David Chambers analysis on Homezone tarrifs and it reminded me of the time when I would get big bundle of voice minutes to call using my mobile from home. In those days the voice quality seemed better, signal strength indicator was high and there were hardly any dropped calls.

Nowadays, the signal strength seems to have gone worse whether I am in the office or at home, the voice on the calls keeps breaking, there are too many dropped calls.

To give you an idea of what's going wrong; My phone kept stationary at the table has 4 bars strength of 3G/HSPA, it suddenly becomes 1 bar after 2-3 minutes then hands me over to what the phone says GPRS then the phone says EDGE. If the phone says EDGE then my calls drop within 2 minutes. If my phone says GPRS then I am worried that if it hands over to 3G then my call will drop. If the phone says 3G then unless there are 3 bars, the voice breaks.

Last week I used my landline phone after maybe a year or so and that reminded me how good the voice quality is. In theory the voice quality using mobile phone should be as good as the landline but in practice that may not be true. Of course the wideband AMR can offer much better HD voice but I need reliable voice more than HD voice.

So for the time being, I am going to be sticking with the landlines as far as possible due to reliable and clear communications and wait for the mobiles/networks to catch up.

Mobile TV in China not as successful as initially thought

A wise consultant once told me that when the analysts were asking people if they would be interested in Mobile TV, nearly everyone said yes. What they didnt ask is what those people understood by Mobile TV. From a lot of users perspective, Mobile TV meant Youtube which is not what mobile community understands it to be.

Not long back we talked about Mobile and IP TV becoming popular in China. According to recent news in InformationWeek, it falling much short of expectations:

Commercial development of China's mobile TV service is falling far short of expectations. Of the 1.5 million users of China multimedia mobile broadcasting (CMMB), less than 3% are actually paying for the service, creating something of an embarrassment for China Mobile, the main backer of the standard.
CMMB was developed by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) based on Satellite and Terrestrial Interactive Multiservice Infrastructure (STiMi) developed by TiMiTech, a company belonging to the Chinese Academy of Broadcasting Science. The standard was announced in October 2006 and is similar to Europe's Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld (DVB-H) broadcasting standard. Since then CMMB has been rigorously promoted by China Mobile and is bundled with its 3G network.
Sources say that by the end of the second quarter, 2010 domestic sales of CMMB handsets were around 1.5 million, approximately 30% of total 3G mobile phone sales at China Mobile, and much lower than the 50% target set by the operators. The service has been operational for more than a year but formal fees have only recently been introduced, which range from $1 to $3 per month. The small take-up of the service since fees were introduced does not bode well for the future of mobile television in China.
China Mobile was hoping to attract more paying customers with its World Cup offering, but this may have been wishful thinking. Analysts believe that the company's broadcasting and mobile communications divisions are lacking in unified policy and have no clear development path.
With widespread proliferation of cheaper "shanzhai" -- or copycat -- handsets, it is difficult to reach all potential customers. The CMMB technology is expensive and can only be found in specific dedicated smartphones.

Furthermore, there are more attractive and diverse streaming packages available from third parties. A clear advantage needs to be provided in order to entice users to use CMMB. China Mobile insiders say that they need to be following the advertising model used by mobile broadcasters in other countries because people are unlikely to pay for content, especially if they can find that content for free from a regular TV or desktop computer.

Interesting Pic: Blackberry Evolution

The first blackberry was released around 1999 and the Blackberry bold (the last one in the pic above) was 2009. You can see that how the phones have changed radically in the last 10 years.

Image Source: Presentation by Robert Crow in The Future of Wireless International Conference 2010

Just ate a Blackberry...and it was yummy!

Because it was made of chocolate :)

Prof. Mike Walker: Mobile Internet - Better than fixed?

Mobile Internet - Better than fixed?

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Samsung v/s Apple Display War

In launching the new iPhone at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco last week, the Apple front man claimed the screen's IPS LCD technology, developed by LG and Hitachi, also offered superior colour resolution and was “quite a bit better” than Super AMOLED overall.

“You can‘t make an OLED display with this type of resolution right now,” Jobs said on stage. “Retina Display is going to set the standard for displays for the next several years. We don’t think anybody’s going to come close.”

But Samsung disagrees, claiming that the difference in the total number of pixels over Super AMOLED's 800 x 480-pixel resolution is all but negligible to the naked eye, and pointed instead to Super AMOLED's emissive lighting and its ability to deliver far better colour and contrast than more traditional backlit screens like the Retina Display.

"The visibility difference is only 3 to 5 per cent. But raising resolution to that level increases battery consumption by 30 percent,” a Samsung spokesperson told the Korean Herald. “Structurally, IPS LCD technology cannot catch up with AMOLED display technology,” .

One of Super AMOLED's chief attractions is the reduced strain on the battery thanks to that lack of backlighting, with Samsung's new Wave smartphone offering double the battery life of the iPhone. In addition, the Samsung screen offers a contrast ratio thought to be around 1,000,000:1, dwarfing the iPhone's figure of just 800:1.

According to Jobs, the iPhone's screen's 326 pixels per inch meant it had a higher resolution than the human eye “The display is your window into the internet, into your apps, into your media, into your software,” he said. “Retina Display is the best window on the planet.”

Its good to see the Mobile Display evolving but not sure if everyone cares about it. There is a good comparison of AMOLED v/s LCD with lots of pictures here, which will give you a good idea. More details here as well.

The 'Cost per Bit' issue...

Cost per bit has always been an issue from operator point of view. The other day an operator tried to show a comparison of data transfer with SMS. Though this may make some of us feel guilty that we are ripping these poor operators off ;) in reality most of us agree that it is the other way round.

A slightly older report from Ericsson suggested that from operator point of view, 1GB data transfer can cost as low as 1 euro.

So if we now plug in the above information into the slide below, presented by Moray Rumney of Agilent in the LTE World Summit, we can see that the operators have been earning massive profits on our behalf.



With Mobile broadband becoming more common and cheaper, users may not be willing to pay any more than they are now. At the same time, they may expect the speeds to keep increasing at regular intervals. The operators will soon be forced (if not already doing so) to offer QoS based packages which can help them boost their revenue and provide better QoE to the higher paying users.

I will cover this issue of QoS, QoE and DPI in the upcoming posts.

If you are wondering along the lines of how to reduce this cost per bit then I would recommend you to go back and have a look at this discussion on Martin Sauter's blog.

If you are thinking along the lines of increasing ARPU with LTE, then please see my presentation here.

50 Billion Connected Devices by 2020 (2025?)

Back in April, Hans Vestberg, CEO and the President of Ericsson declared that there will be 50 Billion connected devices by 2020.

In the recently concluded LTE World Summit, this statement seemed to have gained lots of attention. Everyone quoted this left, right and center. The interesting thing was that some said that this would happen by 2025 and some also said 2030.

While we can make a generic statement that there will be some 50 Billion connected devices sometime between 2020 and 2030, not everyone was sure how they would be connected.

My understanding is that a device is connected if it has a valid IP (IPv6) address. That means that the PC's at home are included and anything connected over WiFi are included as well.

So by this definition, it wont surprise me if we probably have 100 Billion connected devices by 2030.

Mobile Phone Developments May 2010

HTC's 4G [sic] Phone is al ready to be rolled out. It is supposed to allow to transfer data averaging speeds of 3 to 6 megabits per second, and bursts hitting 10 Mbps. Ok, I can visualise some suspicious smiles but that's marketing. Its the data speeds of a normal HSPA network but it sells.

Inside the Evo is a 1 gigahertz Snapdragon processor, 512MB of ram, and 1 gig of built in memory. On top of those screaming specs are a 480×800 display, as well as two (count em!) cameras, the better of which packs 8 megapixels. Running it all is the newest version of Android (2.1), as well as HTC’s Sense UI for a little extra eye-candy. All told, this looks like an amazing phone to finally make use of Sprint’s fancy new network, and it may just be their best bet for reversing their falling fortunes.

The Evo 4G will allow for simultaneous voice and data and will be the first smartphone to ship with a YouTube HQ player and a video chat app from Qik to be used with the front-facing camera. Though Sprint's onstage Qik demo didn't work, we were impressed with the Evo 4G's speed (Sprint brought in a 4G tower for the event) as well the handset's 3D gaming capabilities and HDMI output.

As we learned at CTIA 2010, other goodies include an 8-megapixel camera on back, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, Android 2.1, and an extra-large 4.3-inch capacitive touch screen.

Tired of losing your cell phone? Maybe you need a Zomm.

The new gadget is billed as a wireless leash for mobile phones reminding you when you've left your cell phone behind. Here's how it works:

You just pair the nugget sized Zomm with your phone over Bluetooth. Then you clip the Zomm onto you or attach it to your keychain. When your cell phones gets more than 30 feet away from Zomm, the Zomm unit starts to vibrate, flash lights and then eventually lets out a wail.

You can also use the Zomm as a Bluetooth speaker so you can answer calls through it, instead of talking straight into your phone.

The leash idea can work in reverse too. If you're the type who loses their keys more than their phone, you can just attach Zomm to your keys and then whenever you lose your keys, you can call Zomm and set off its alarm.

There's also a panic button. In case of emergency you can just press it and get help immediately, without dialing on your cell phone.

Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has named ZOMM as ‘One to Watch’, because of its innovative use of Bluetooth technology and universal appeal.

“Through the use of Bluetooth wireless technology, ZOMM provides an array of convenient applications for users,” said Michael Foley, Ph.D., executive director of the Bluetooth SIG.

“Its simple application of Bluetooth technology appeals to the masses – nobody wants to lose their mobile phone.”

Verizon Wireless and LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A., Inc. announced the LG Ally™ will be available in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores beginning May 20. The first Android device from LG, the Ally is the perfect assembly of futuristic, stylish design and 3G Android power for customers looking to tackle life's most challenging feats and everyday ventures. Verizon Wireless customers can pre-order the phone at www.verizonwireless.com beginning May 13.

Until now, mobile users have been faced with a choice -- either type on a tiny keyboard or use a touchscreen keypad.

Neither is perfect but, so far, tiny but real keyboards have been winning out for many people. One of the many reasons cited by some BlackBerry users for not switching to an iPhone or similar device is that sensitive touchscreen keypad.

Some manufacturers have tried to give users the best of both worlds, a touchscreen and a pull-out keyboard, but search giant Google has another idea: make all mobile-phone keyboards obsolete.

With the recent release of its own phone, the Nexus One, users are beginning to experiment with what Google hopes is the future of mobile search: voice-and picture-based searching.

"Voice, we think, is just a natural way to solve a problem that exists on all phones, which is that typing is quite difficult, especially in certain languages like Japanese," said Alex Nicolaou from Google's office in Waterloo, Ont..

"Input methods are relatively onerous, whereas saying a brief phrase . . . is extremely fast . . . and there are just times when a picture really is worth 1,000 words.

"If you're standing outside a landmark and you want to know about it, it's obviously going to be much, much simpler to take a photo of that landmark and have the system tell you what it is, than it would be to figure out what name to type in, especially in a foreign country."

Google admits both are still in relatively early development stages and are not very reliable.

For voice searches, short strings of words work best. Even in noisy cafes, most four-or five-word searches worked well during testing. Nicolaou said one misheard word won't necessarily throw off your search results.

Google has hinted at some future features incorporating voice and image recognition. Engineers are working to improve the ability to photograph a printed page so it can be accurately scanned into text and quickly translated into another language. In a video posted online, a Google employee scans a menu from a German restaurant and uses his phone to translate it into English.

Google also hopes that, eventually, travellers will be able to speak a phrase into their phone, have it translated into another language and played back through their phone's speaker.

This season, big handset makers including Nokia, Microsoft and Motorola are betting you’ll want to flaunt cute, palm-shaped devices that look more like compact powder cases than brick-shaped mini-tablets.

Motorola is likely to introduce a new phone next month called Flipout that will have a 2.8-inch display, a 3.1-megapixel camera and a twist-out keyboard. We haven’t tested it yet, but on looks alone, it’s fabulous, darling.

Motorola’s square-shaped phone follows the release of Microsoft’s fresh-looking Kin One earlier this month. The Kin One has a 2.6-inch display, a slide-out keyboard, and looks like a rounded square when closed. In September, Nokia introduced the Twist on Verizon, a squarish phone with a 2.5-inch display. Even LG has a square-shaped phone called the Lotus, which has been available on Sprint for more than a year, and though it’s not exactly been a big seller, its looks are hot, hot, hot.

Microsoft released the final version of the desktop Office 2010, along with which it made available a flavor aimed at mobile phones, namely Office Mobile 2010. The owners of a device powered by Windows Mobile 6.5 can now take advantage of the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint editing capabilities of the application while on the go.

Among the features that Office Mobile 2010 comes around with, we can count SharePoint integration (users can easily access and edit documents stored on a Microsoft SharePoint 2010 site), Bluetooth controller mode for PowerPoint presentations, access to SharePoint Workspace Mobile, the possibility to easily take notes on the phone and to insert voice clips or pictures in them, and others more.

“Effective today, Office Mobile 2010 will be available for free via Windows Phone Marketplace for all Windows Mobile 6.5 phones with a previous version of Office Mobile. People using Office Mobile 2010 can perform lightweight editing of Office documents and take notes on the go.

As if mobile phone cameras weren't complex enough, Sharp has just announced a tiny 720p 3D camera for its mobile devices.

The 3D Camera Module has been made to fit inside either a compact point and shoot or a smartphone. The camera is crammed full of the latest technology, all of which enable it to capture both moving and still high resolution 3D images.

Things like colour synchronising processing, as well as 'fast readout' technology, help the tiny little camera to produce its images.

Sharp has made use of complicated high-density mounting technology in order to pack so many features in to this tiny device.

The company insists that the cameras will go into mass production by the end of the year.

LTE Devices and Platforms: April 2010

Click on the image to see larger size image

Interesting summary of devices and platforms for LTE in development and trial which I took from GSA Information paper here.

Interesting to see multiple platforms from Samsung, LG and Qualcomm while Huawei seems to have a single all in one device.

Pervasive connectivity means that we are working far more

Picture source: dmb

From the IET Magazine:

All of which led to it being no surprise that research from Nectar Business is headlined 'Workaholic Brits just can't switch off', according to the release. Far from saving us time and bringing quality back to our lives, Nectar - the loyalty card people - have found that we're working on average an extra 10 days a year.

Some of the headline results are alarming for managers wanting to keep a workforce motivated and fresh. They include:

• a fifth of people keep work phones on over weekends;
• 79 per cent of workers haven't met half the people with whom they do business;
• one-third of men turn their work phones off when they leave the office;
• one in 20 people get over 100 emails a day;
• twenty-four per cent of people feel stressed by this constant state of being on call;
• 42 per cent of people say they meet colleagues less regularly due to email dependence;
• 60 per cent - get this - now say they prefer to communicate by mail than face to face.

That's a lot of figures. However, some of the findings were positive - 71 per cent of people found email the best way to keep colleagues informed and 28 per cent thought it a useful tool for delegating. But that still leaves a quarter of respondents stressed.

Complete article here.

Pomegranate concept mobile: With video projector, live voice translator, harmonica, coffee maker, shaving razor, etc

The Pomegranate NS08 is a concept (fictional - though some people refer to it as a hoax) phone that promised amazing stuff until you dig deep and realise that its just an idea to market Communication Nova Scotia's Come to Life program. Check out the Youtube clip for the complete advertisement:

The following is from Wikipedia:

The Pomegranate phone is the latest campaign from Communications Nova Scotia's Come to Life initiative, the place-branding program of the Government of Nova Scotia. Communications Nova Scotia has been criticized by some for spending $300,000 on the ad campaign, though the website received more than 1,100,000 visits from 201 countries/territories since its launch on September 30, 2008, and they are considering it to be very successful.

Via: Techflight

The size of Mobile Market (Amazing Pic)

Click on the photograph to view the larger version. I assume, its self explanatory.

Via: Mr. Mobile Blog

Mobile Apps market to grow to '$17.5bn by 2012'

A study done for Getjar, the world's second biggest app store, said the market will grow to $17.5bn (£12bn) in the next two years.

The study claimed downloads would climb from 7bn last year to 50bn by 2012 - a 92% year-on-year increase.

It found there had been a gold rush with the number of app stores rising from four before 2008 to 48 today.

The study also suggests Apple's domination of the market could be challenged.

The report titled, 'Sizing up the Global Mobile Apps Market' by Chetan Sharma is available to download here.

Some more interesting stats from the report as follows:

• The overall mobile apps downloads are expected to increase from over 7 billion in 2009 to almost 50 billion by 2012 growing at the rate of 92% CAGR
• The revenue from mobile apps which includes both paid downloads and revenue from advertising and virtual goods is expected to increase from $4.1 billion in 2009 to $17.5 billion by 2012 at the rate of 62% CAGR.
• The overall global subscriptions base is expected to exceed 5 billion by the end of 2010 with over 27% of them being data subscribers
• Non-carrier appstores jumped from a mere 8 to 38 last year
• In 2009, advertising contributed almost 12% to the overall apps revenue.
• The price range of applications in various stores can vary from $0.99 to $999.