Mobile Apps a fad

It has always been a debatable issue as to how big the mobile Apps market is. Right now it is huge and seems to be growing fast.

Dean Bubley of Disruptive wireless on the other hand thinks of Apps as a fad that will die sooner or later. He re-iterated the point he made back in February that:

a) There is no mobile Internet, just the Internet on mobile. The vast bulk of usage of the Internet on mobile devices mirrors the usage on fixed networks and from PCs. In particular, there is a huge amount of mobilisation (with tweaks, yes) of existing social networks (Facebook), email and content downloads (YouTube). With the exception of mapping, most mobile-specific Internet services are niche and useless, eg Foursquare and Gowalla.

b) I'm still expecting that users will get bored of hundreds of applications, and will have a few well-chosen ones - most of which should have been in the core OS when it left the factory anyway. eg on an iPhone - Facebook, RSS and Skype clients. The "long tail" of apps will be of limited interest to most mid-late adopters apart from the occasional game or advertiser-sponsored thing. I'd expect <$2 of spend on apps per month once high-end smartphones get to, say, 30% penetration, perhaps <$1

Mind you, maybe I'm biased. I haven't bought a mobile application for personal use since a Java game in 2005, and don't have any payment mechanism registered with iTunes.

I tend to agree with him but I think that the Apps threshold will be slightly higher like $5 per month which would be stealthily provided by the operators mainly through offers like "free apps allowance" kinda stuff.

This article reminds me of the dilbert joke (below) that other professionals can also make money around the Apps marketplace:

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

Iridium making good progress

It was interesting to see Iridium phones being displayed by Cambridge Consultants in the Cambridge Wireless International Conference. Iridium has gone through some rough times and I remember reading how Satellite communications will change the world but it never came to pass.

Its good to read that the OpenPort terminals are proving effective and can help save lots of money to shipping companies.

Interesting video from Youtube on OpenPort below:

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

Because it was made of chocolate :)

Femtocell Industry Award Winners 2010

Category 1: Residential femtocell access point design and technology innovation

Shortlists:

* Huawei - Huawei Home Media Centre

* Technicolor - TG872 Integrated Femtocell

* Ubiquisys - The G3-mini Femtocell from Ubiquisys/SerComm

Winner:

Huawei - Home Media Centre

“The residential market for femtocells is clearly the driver for attaining mass-market volumes, enabling improved coverage, data offload and new service opportunities. In order to gain traction and consumer acceptance, there need to be persuasive reasons for purchase - and also value-added features to protect against future churn. Huawei's Home Media Center includes a broad set of audiovisual capabilities such as video storage, on top of the femto module, which can help it attain a permanent role in a subscriber's home," agreed the judges.

Category 2: Greater femtocell design and technology innovation

Shortlists:

* SpiderCloud - SpiderCloud wireless enterprise radio access network (E-RAN): solving network operators’ network capacity and in-building coverage problems

* Ubiquisys - Ubiquisys Enterprise Femto Net Solution

* Ubiquisys - Colo-Node HSPA Metro Femtocell

Winner:

Ubiquisys - Colo-Node HSPA Metro Femtocell

“One of the areas of femtocell technology in which there is intense carrier interest is the metrozone, and the potential to make small outdoor cells part of an urban build-out. Ubiquisys has come up with a very early product for this much discussed market, an innovation that brings real world metro femtocells a big step closer to reality,” agreed the judges.

Category 3: Femtocell network element design and technology innovation

Shortlists:

* NEC - Femto-Share

* Nokia Siemens Networks - The most compact and integrated Femto Gateway commercially available

* Tatara - The Tatara Convergence Server Platform

Winner:

NEC - Femto-Share

“No different than in their macro-cell networks, operators are looking for ways to keep the cost of deploying a femtocell in check. While there was no shortage of impressive network innovations submitted for this year’s awards, NEC’s focus on costs combined with standards and scalability – particularly as operators look to launch services across markets – helped its FemtoShare and FemtoCloud offers to stand apart,” agreed the judges.

Category 4: Femtocell application concept

Shortlists:

* Airvana - Airvana’s ‘Femto Family Tablet’

* Argela - Argela's Femtocell Advertising Application

* Tatara - FemtoCloud services enabled by the Tatara Convergence Server Platform

Winner:

Airvana - ‘Femto Family Tablet’

“As the femtocell industry matures and commercial launches multiply, it is increasingly important to develop unique applications to help drive demand for femtocells. The Airvana Femto Family Tablet stands out as a compelling application that could deliver real value to both operators and end-users based on unique femtocell features such as presence," agreed the judges.

Category 5: Progress in commercial deployment

Shortlists:

* NEC - Commercial progress

* picoChip - picoXcell femtocell SoC family

* Ubiquisys - Commercially deployed by SoftBank Mobile and SFR

Winner:

picoChip - picoXcell femtocell SoC family

“picoChip's involvement in such a large portion of the commercial femtocell services today is a clear indication of progress in commercial deployment. The sheer volume of femtocell chips that the vendor has shipped is further evidence of commercial momentum in the market,” agreed the judges.

Category 6: Commercial launch

Shortlists:

* AT&T - AT&T 3G MicroCell National Deployment

* Sprint - Sprint Airave

* Vodafone - Vodafone Sure Signal

Winner:

AT&T - 3G MicroCell National Deployment

“AT&T’s 3G MicroCell deployment with Cisco caught the judges’ eyes for two crucial reasons. First and foremost, it emphasised the importance of the customer at the heart of the femtocell experience, positioning technology very much as an enabler, rather than an end in itself. Secondly, the deployment is on a national scale, which given the US market’s size adds an additional layer of complexity,” agreed the judges.

Category 7: Contribution to femtocell standards

Shortlists:

* Airvana - Airvana Standards Team led by Doug Knisely, VP of technology

* Alcatel Lucent - Martin Warner- A catalyst in driving 3GPP femtocell specifications

* Nokia Siemens Networks - Driver for open standards, in standard setting bodies and realization

Winner:

Airvana - Standards Team led by Doug Knisely, VP of technology

“There have been many outstanding contributions to femtocell standards and selecting one above another proved very difficult for the judges – indeed this was one of the closest categories of all. After much discussion the judges decided that they would prefer the spirit of this award to tend more towards clear individual contributions and on that basis the work of Doug Knisely stood out as being particularly important and demonstrating great dedication over extended periods. The femtocell industry is indeed in his debt,” agreed the judges.

Category 8: Enabling technology

Shortlists:

* Airvana - UMTS Femtocell Beacon

* Continuous Computing & picoChip - The world’s first LTE femtocell reference design

* picoChip - picoXcell™ PC323 - The complete next generation femtocell solution

Winner:

Continuous Computing & picoChip - The world’s first LTE femtocell reference design

“The Continuous Computing and picoChip LTE reference design is a great example of an enabling technology that is necessary to kick start development of LTE femtocells. The timing of this reference design is critical for the introduction of LTE femtocells as operators begin to rollout the first LTE networks. At the same time there is a growing understanding of the importance of multi-tier cellular architectures as we move from 3G to 4G and as networks begin to cope with user demand for capacity. The judges wanted to recognize the role of this crucial component in what is likely to become a necessary part of future 4G networks,” agreed the judges.

Category 9: Judges’ Choice

Shortlists:

* Alcatel Lucent - Wilson Street: Alcatel-Lucent’s wireless technology showcasing smallcells living and working with macrocells for the community of Wilson Street

* Ubiquisys - The World’s First Sub-$100 Femtocell - the G3-mini

* Vodafone - Vodafone Sure Signal

Winner:

Vodafone - Sure Signal

“While we in the industry have known about femtocells for many years, the wider public have been unaware of their existence and benefits. The Vodafone marketing campaign changed all that. In a well-crafted and multi-faceted campaign they showed consumers how they could achieve coverage in their home and changed the role and perception of cellular communications. They have done a great deal to advance the success of femtocells and fully deserve to be recognised for this,” agreed the judges.

Category 10: Individual contribution to Femto Forum activities

Shortlists:

* Joshua Adelson, Airvana

* Gibson Ang, GENBAND

* Gordon Mansfield, AT&T

* Mona Mustapha, Vodafone

* Clare Somerville, picoChip

* Fabio Chiussi, Airvana & Mark Walker, Ubiquisys

Winner:

Gordon Mansfield, AT&T

“The Femto Forum’s work is driven mainly by the efforts of individuals from within our member organisations. From an impressive shortlist, the judging panel selected Gordon Mansfield, Executive Director at AT&T, as the individual who has made the single biggest difference to the progress of the Forum. Gordon has been a major force in developing consensus positions among operators and other stakeholders on a range of femtocell related issues. He has been a regular contributor at Femto Forum plenaries and sponsored conferences, as well as being a tireless promoter of femtocells to the wireless industry as a whole by speaking in support of femtocells at numerous industry events. Besides his own time commitments he has worked to assign the right AT&T individuals to contribute in the working groups and SIGs of the Femto Forum. We are very pleased to be able to recognise his dedication to the worldwide acceptance of femtocell technology through this award,” said Simon Saunders, Chairman of the Femto Forum.

Category 11: Chairman’s award

Winner:

Karim Sharf, TraC

"Most of the Femto Forum’s work is driven by the efforts of individuals from within our member organisations and a huge number have contributed their time and skills to the Forum in the past year and all deserve my considerable thanks. However, one of our key goals we had in the last year was to make tangible progress towards our vision of an open, interoperable ecosystem for femtocells. To that end, in March we ran the first plugfest for UMTS femtocells, which was widely supported by over 20 vendors. Karim Sharf was instrumental in supporting and coordinating that process and his level of contribution to the Forum's aims has been outstanding,” said Simon Saunders, Chairman of the Femto Forum.

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

Mobile Internet - Better than fixed?

View more presentations from Zahid Ghadialy.

VoLGA and VoLTE Architecture difference

Self explanatory slide from NTT DoCoMo presentation in the LTE World Summit.

Round up of the Femtocells World Summit 2010

David Chambers of Think Femtocell has provided an excellent summary of the Femtocell World Summit 2010 that concluded today. Please follow the links below to read more:

Day 1 Roundup

Day 2 Roundup

Day 3 Roundup

If interested, you can check the complete programme here.

NTT DoCoMo for LTE Femtocells next year

Its been nearly couple of years since I blogged about starting LTE with femtocells initially and then moving onto Macro network. It had initial momentum but didnt take off for one reason or another. In the ongoing Femtocells World Summit, Yoshiyuki Yasuda, NTT DoCoMo's managing director said that they plan to roll out LTE Femtocells next year mainly to fill the coverage gaps in the LTE Network they will be rolling out later this year.

Those who read this blog regularly would have noticed my recent post about NTT DoCOMo's LTE initiatives here. I have also been promoting LTE femtocells idea as can be seen in my blogs here, here and here. My belief is that femtocells could be very valuable to iron out the problems present in devices, networks or the technology. Also they provide seamless coverage and offer better data security.

Light Reading has interesting analysis on this topic:

Which vendors can serve up the LTE femtos in time? NEC Corp., which is already one of DoCoMo's LTE vendors, has revealed plans for an LTE home base station that will be available for friendly user trials at the end of 2011, and a commercial product is expected in 2012.

Other vendors that are involved in DoCoMo's LTE rollout that could have a shot at meeting the carrier's next-gen femto demands are Fujitsu Ltd., Ericsson AB, and Nokia Siemens Networks, and Stoke Inc. , which supplies an LTE base station aggregation gateway to the Japanese operator.

DoCoMo's current femto vendor is Mitsubishi, which supplies little 3G home base stations to DoCoMo for its MyArea service that launched in November 2009.

DoCoMo's Yasuda said that when the carrier wants to deploy LTE femtos in the 2011-2012 timeframe, it will have deployed 1,500 LTE macrocell base stations during 2010 and 2011. By 2013, it plans to cover 30 percent of the population with LTE. By 2014, DoCoMo plans to cover 70 percent of the population with 15,000 LTE base stations.

'Internet Kill' switch and IPv9

Slightly off topic today as I was going through the pile of information and I caught attention of this news article that for some reason has not been reported by major newspapers. The article says that the president of USA will have the 'Kill' switch to kill off internet (temporarily i guess) in case of a major emergency like war, etc. Joseph Liberman who proposed this idea has since then backed away saying that he meant that parts of Internet can be disconnected like they do in China.

This brought into attention the other article I was going through about IPv9. Yes thats correct, I did write IPv9. I first heard about IPv9 back in 2004-5 but then it was dismissed as nothing serious. Apparently Chinese government backed Ministry of Information Industry (MII) has been promoting this IPv9. According to an old TelecomAsia.net article:

Back in July 2004, reports of a Chinese IPv9 prompted a bewildered reaction from internet godfather Vint Cerf. 'What could this possibly be about‾ As far as I know, IANA [Internet Assigned Numbers Authority] has not allocated the IPv9 designation to anyone. IPv9 is not an Internet standard. Could you please explain what is intended here‾" he wrote in an email to China's internet leaders.

The idea was dismissed as a "rogue" project with no official backing. But it is back on the table led, now as then by Xie Jianping, the head of the Shanghai Universal Institute of Chemical Technology and more recently in charge of the decimal network standards team in the MII's science and technology department.

The project returned to prominence at a press conference at the unusual location of the Party Central School in Beijing two weeks ago, where Xie announced that the networking technology had been successfully tested by China Netcom and the Ministry of Commerce.

He asserted that the project is all about China wresting control of its own IP networks away from US dominance for which, he claimed, China was paying 500 billion yuan a year.

The system reportedly uses numerical addressing to make China "the only country able to unify domain names, IP addresses and MAC addresses" into a single, metric system, according to Xinhua. Without any explanation, Xinhua said it also made China the only country outside the US "to have root servers and IP address hardware connectivity servers and its own domain name, IP address and MAC address resources".

In an interview with a skeptical Sina reporter, Xie and denied the project was another Hanxin - a reference to a fraudulent state-backed chip project.

"Our IPv9 has gone through testing and assessment," he said adding that he could not give any more detail but would "make public some material at the necessary time."

But the system, or what little is known of it, has plenty of doubters at home. Sina said critics of the system complain that turning domain names and brand names into numerals is a "backwards step" for the net.

The fact that the decimal network appears to asset control over root servers is bound to alarm internet governance bodies around the world.

And whatever else might be said about it, the project is clearly backed by the MII. "IPv9" raises more questions than answers.

So it looks like the Chinese government may have been expecting some 'Kill Switch' in the future by the US government and is probably creating a backup based on a new approach so that the users within China remain connected to their Internet.

Any thoughts and opinions are more than welcome...