4G to 5G Buzzword Compliant Passage

This report in The Guardian reports how NIC of UK is distressed about lack of 4G reach in UK.

It will be interesting to see how follow up is done and depth is improved.

Perhaps something country like India can observe and emulate.

The most amusing part of the Guardian report is the use of the phrase, "buzzword compliant".

Any new technology comes with its own set of buzzwords and adjectives and their combinations.

Signs of change...Internet change TV habits

Check this article - while this is known to quite a few of us, the article tells how it is changing people's lives.

A parallel universe to TV and Film

In an extreme scenario, this will make TV irrelevant. But not so soon....TV has a penetration that is far unsurpassed by any other communication device yet produced on this planet. And transmission has reached a huge number of people which gets news, information and entertainment to a majority of people. Internet is still far off.

But soon enough communication world will merge these devices. And check this, naturally TV is bound become one of the devices on which the new communication technology will bring its magic miracles on it.

Telecom update and challenges thrown by internet

Check this article on GSMA MBB on developing world's nos. in terms of telecom lines.

Of about 6 billion people, 2 billion are yet to be connected. And overall 40% growth is still waiting to happen.
No wonder these countries are seeing phenomenal investments.

And now to something funny and scary at the same time. The power of free speech and the power that internet gives to thus emancipated speakers.

NY Times article on how internet is influencing tourists. Though for individuals it may be distressing, unmoderated comments on incidents that are best classified as "outliers" can wreak havoc on businesses.

How to control and manage? No argument here, businesses have to find way out and ensure correct image is portrayed. It is an additional load on their PR and corporate communications managers.

Telecom / ICT News / Interesting Articles

Indian 3G Auction Details: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=192180&

India Telecom Story : Post on WSJ

HBR's 2 articles on Ethics

Something different - Theft worth Euro 500Mn!

From Do-Not-Call to Do-Call

Moving from Do-Not-Call to Do-Call will suddenly create tectonic shift in this important market.

What it does is it empowers the phone users to prevent the marketing companies from calling them. Interestingly, the do-not-call was supposed to help the mobile users but it has been read that it is not as effective as it was hoped to be.

Would be interesting to learn if the do-call registry model has been used in any country other than India.

Telecom dynamics - Misc Links

Lightreading speaks about European market.

In the meanwhile, India starts its walk towards 4G.

Shyam Ponappa's thoughts on Alternative Scenarios in Indian telecom

The very interesting "Missed Call"

This article in WSJ shows the power of technology through this innovative use of mobiles by the fishermen  in Tamil Nadu. This article points finger to the miserable weather forecasts of traditional agencies that makes fishermen feel the need of above SMSes. In developed countries the forecast is quite accurate and there is no need for such services.

But then, India is a market full of innovative uses, especially in the mobile space. The earliest innovation being the missed call. For readers from outside India, a Missed Call is where a caller calls and disconnects before the call is picked up. With mobile users, the caller's number is displayed on the mobile of the called party. It is quite widely used in India.

Now what is the use of a missed call? I will list few scenarios, but I am sure there are many more depending on the inter personal communication protocol (IPCP). I will come to IPCP a little later.

Scenarios:

1. Caller does not have money to spend on a call and wants the other person to call. He/she makes a missed call. The other person calls and speaks. This is probably the most basic of the uses.

2. Both parties have agreed to meet at some place. Whoever reaches first will give the other person a missed call.

3. A missed call is made to economically convey nice emotions like, "I miss you" or "I love you".  The thoughts reach the destination without costing anything to the entrenched parties.

So what is IPCP - Consider scenario 2 above. Now the 2 people have decided that a missed call means "I have reached". IPCP is established and will expire with the missed call.

Similarly, say A and B are going to a wedding. They are reaching the venue directly and they need to buy a gift on the way. Whoever buys a gift first gives a missed call. Similar to above, yet different.

One can think of hundreds of such examples. The idea of IPCP is the users decide the meaning of the missed call. And who framed the concept of IPCP....well that would be none other than yours truly :)

And, IPCP also leads to some really amusing and sometimes embarassing situations. More on that in some other post.

How 2009 Went By? Part 1

As is the ritual, year endings are mandated with the lists of 10 somethings...top news, best, worst....

So here are the 2 telecom updates:
1) MBB on top 10 telecom news. 
2) Telecom M&A details from Unstrung - Check the AdMobile story in there. Interesting.

As I gather more such lists, I will either update this post or post next part.

Also posting these / some of these individually on twitter under #How2009Went. If you got any interesting ones, post in comments here or tweet them.

Telecom Market Evolution & Part 3 of Nortel's Story

Nortel has sold its GSM business. This article from LightReading summarizes the sales so far and the expected asset sales.

Telecom Market Discussion

Now check this article from Economist on forecasted mobile subscriber base. 2 things of note:

1. Check the forecast by 2011 when the mobile broadband subscriber base passes fixed broadband subscribers.

2.  The costing of the netbooks and other low cost computing devices meant to improve internet penetration.

Another point is that as 3G is made available across the world, the mobile eliminates the need of a separate computing device. This matters a lot to 2 types of subscribers - convenience oriented and cost oriented. The convenience oriented market has been more or less addressed.

The cost oriented ones are the ones that are forming a very large part of the mobile broadband forecast in the Economist article.

Finally, fixed broadband has a role to play in rural and other emerging areas. That is described in the intern-kiosk model that is there in Economist. And of course the folks who are already onto it in established markets.

Mobile banking for shareholders

Here is a very interesting application of m-banking. This article in Business Line reports mobile share transfer: Transfer your shares through mobile phone

Such VAS services are forming important part of the ever expanding telecom offerings. Offerings that go much beyond voice and SMS. For example, check this earlier post where I spoke about location based services being used to encourage use of public transport in the Bay Area.

Security is very important in these cases. At the least, the interface should take multiple confirmation since the network should be sure that the subscriber is indeed requesting this service.

Check one of my earlier articles if you want to read more on that:
Mobile Money Transfers - Opportunities and Issues

3G in India...more discussion

Here is an article that discusses the role of rural market for 3G providers.

http://www.mobilebusinessbriefing.com/article/rural-areas-to-drive-indian-3g-growth

Interesting forecasts there.

As I had mentioned earlier, the recent cut in prices is probably a beginning towards the rates that will arise once 3G markets open. Since the rural areas still have potential, they need to be tapped. It is obvious that service providers would want to generate as much demand there as possible.

Going green - Smart power using wireless tech

Smart Grids are the talk of the town. The per capita consumption of power in developed nations is higher than that of developing / under-developed nations. The developed nations have been working with the idea of Smart Grids for some time now.

The idea here is to have smart devices and smart tariffing that encourage consumers to adjust consumption as per the overall demand of the city/area. For example, the price is high during peak hours. Something like airlines, most of whom demand more money when you book for weekend. You book a red-eye flight, you get lower fare...sometimes even a bump up to business class :)

And it is not only about tariffs. It is about intelligent management of power. For example, schools and offices close after 5pm....then the substations and other devices used by them exculusively can be regulated or switched off as and when the grid "detects" a drop below a certain level.

Some cities like Austin have been experimenting with this idea for sometime. Check this link which describes how operational expenses and other savings were effected through smart grid.

For example, reading meters wirelessly, communicating consumer needs are some of the examples of this case of use of smart grid.

The case of India

Indian power sector is reeling in crisis. Outages, T&D losses and theft are some of the perpetual pain points for India. At the moment the T&D losses are somewhere around 35% of the overall generation. The associated loss to output is also a definite worry.

Smart grids can address some of these issues. Use of wireless devices connected to central management systems can revolutionize this sector.

For example to reduce theft it can point to problem areas, generate alarms and flags when the consumption goes beyond set patterns etc. Also, an increase in regular consumption can also flag off the need of new equipment and tariff plans.

Check this NYT news piece and this interesting paper from WiFi alliance which NYT refers to.

The cost may be very high for countries like India but it should be considered in terms of direct losses mentioned above plus the opportunity cost in terms of lost business due to the above problems.

Nortel values its Patent portfolio

Nortel is paying about 350K for about 3500 patents it is planning to sell. It has hired Global IP for the valuation.

I had discussed the valuation approach in terms of market potential and the possibility of options in this part sometime ago. The news does not speak of option but it does say of market potential and value maximizing using scenario analyses.

Check this URL for details -
http://www.allaboutnortel.com/2009/10/31/nortels-patent-analysis-deal-with-global-ip-2/

Interesting telecom blogs

Some very interesting telecom blogs

http://3g4g.blogspot.com/

http://developing-telecoms.blogspot.com/

http://comworldseries.blogspot.com/

http://www.mobilefuture.org/blog/

Telecom Market Dynamics - Part 2

I had written an earlier article on telecom industry and the recent market reaction.

This ET article is similar to what I had written earlier. Although, the difference is a slightly conservative conclusion. Only time will tell how things unfold.

Valuing Nortel's LTE Patents - Part 3

Nortel has come out with ~3400 patents. All About Nortel reports that these will be assessed for its value and the strategy for sale will be decided after their consultant provides inputs on the portfolio's potential.

As I had discussed in my earlier blogs, there are 2-3 methods to assess the value of the patents. Most probably it will be a mix of direct market potential and value of real option.

The older posts - Patent related post 1 and Patent related post 2.

Mobile Charging - Case for alternative energy

Hmmm. Interesting. This report from GSM World says that emerging markets that can provide for alternative means of power off grid for mobile charging may lead to an eventual increase of revenues by about 10% or so for the mobile industry.

I remember when I was a kid, some of my cousins from US used to have Solar powered calculators. They used to work fine. Rarely did I see these devices need battery replacement. That was 20 years ago and I am sure that technology has evolved over the years.

So why exactly are solar powered mobile phones still seen as a thing of future? Really, I understand the limitation for equipments like A/Cs or heaters which consume more power. But small mobile phones can come with solar power charging at least.

Consider this case, from this report, 485 M cellphones use chargers of about 1-2 W rating ...so 485MW. If 1/5th of that is charged through solar (or other alternative means), then the net saving is about 100MW, imagine how many houses can be added to the grid. (OK, this calculation is way too simplistic and you can see 2445 logical problems in that...but I hope I made my point.)

While some handset manufacturers are bringing out such devices, it helps to have an agreement on such things. There can be a coordinated effort so that there is some level-playing field in terms of effort and cost. The output in terms of technology should lead to modifications that may be mandatory.

In general, network connectivity and electrical connectivity have a lot to do with improvement in standard of living. The sooner the divide is bridged, the better it is for all of us. The greener the way to bridge the divide, the better it is for our next generation.

Telecom stocks hammered - Why the haste?

Indian telecom stocks have been heavily hammered in the last few days. I was surprised.

Further to the pay-per-call, there was the 50 paise call and the discussion about possibility of mandate for per-call pulse that caused almost panic selling in the markets. It seems a hasty conclusion that all telecom is going to lose overall...

Following points need to be thought of in the context of Indian telecom scenario:
1. The ARPUs are falling but they still seem to be a function of the demand-supply equilibrium. Consider this, which markets are still untapped in India? Rural markets. The teledensity of rural ndia is far behind the urban. So the rural market is probably stimulated at a lower price and the industry is probably responding to that.

2. Commoditization is natural but this rural market would still allow the business to be a good business because of the volumes.

3. Now, in the recent times, operators have adopted several measures that are cutting costs like Infrastructure sharing, outsourcing their network operations etc.

If the operators are willing to pass this cost savings to customers, then that is actually good news for customers. Perhaps the demand generated by this will more than compensate the reduction in revenues.

4. The 3G scenario has still not even started. I am sure every operator definitely would have a strategy for 3G. They will find new ways to generate interest in 3G apps in the urban market. Particularly, business customers and the youth segment.

5. Operators are also trying to unlock value by spinning off businesses like tower business etc.

Considering this, I thought it was a little premature to assume that telecom story is over. I would rather wait and watch.

New Tech - Wirelessly Charging Mobile Phones

Wireless power charging is being worked on. Just read on Techtree and Ubergizmo websites that Nokia has joined the consortium that is bringing together work in this direction.

What this promises is that you no longer have to plug the charger wire in the phone.

I was wondering if this means higher power needs, since the charging will be in wireless mode. The following analysis on the Wireless Power Consortium says that the efficiency is comparable. Efficiency of wireless power.

I suspect the handsets with this technology will remain expensive till the time the technology is new and the demand low. Although, in cases of such technology the adoption is pretty quick. Especially if people think that this is really useful.

The good part is that the above consortium is already trying to ensure interoperability.

I had blogged some time ago about standardization of the normal (wired) chargers Good News for Mobile Customers. I think most of us, at least once, have been through the experience of forgetting the charger and then trying to find from people around if their charger can charge our mobile.

Then there are the technology questions -
1. Is this safe?
2. How long will it take to charge a phone?
3. Is this used in some other field / technology?

Another thing to see is the business promise of the technology. I agree that this will be adopted. But the current costs and its comparison to wired chargers will be useful to assess how soon and to what extent.

Valuing LTE Patents of Nortel - An approach - Part 2

I received a few comments on part 1 of this article. Thanks to Paddy and Fehrzard for their comments. This article is an attempt to make the first one more complete.

1. First, the disclaimer - Black Scholes assumes efficient markets as well as liquidity of the asset. Both may be challenged and rightly so.

2. Now, one very interesting thought on how to view patent is how to define it? It may be as a product or a service that can be developed as a result of the patent - this was the primary assumption in the earlier article.

However, the patent is also something that gives exclusivity to the innovation, not the innovation itself. Hence more pertinent is the value of 'exclusivity', or even the benefit from suing the competitor who infringes the patent.

3. The time to expiry is minimum of patent expiry or time for technology obsolescence.

4. A big assumption in my first article is the knowledge of investments needed in developing marketable products from the patents. Obviously, this is a difficult thing to predict. One can go by historical stats but that too is no guarantee to future. Only thing we can do is scenario analysis.

5. Finally, the opportunity cost of delaying the project also needs to be adjusted in the calculations.

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Tailpiece - Nortel has now put on block the Carrier Division - Software minus the patents. More info on All About Nortel.