Mobile Future Forward
-
come explore the future of mobile.
Sept
8th. Seattle.
Mobile
Future Forward is a gathering of some of the most influential minds
in the mobile industry who are helping shape the industry. The
experts and visionaries from around the globe will discuss the
mobile industry 2-5 years forward, envision what the user
experiences and use case scenarios look like, discuss and debate the
challenges and opportunities in the journey to that vision.
Sponsors: Real Networks,
Millennial Media
CTIA Roundup 2010
CTIA hosted its annual
networking party in Vegas. I can appreciate what Bill Murray must
have felt like in ground hog day for sometimes I can’t tell which
year we are in at CTIA. Of course, things are moving forward with
all the advances and services but the messaging and value props
reappear from the dead. In any case, it is always good to reconnect
with colleagues and wander around on the show floor to get the pulse
of the industry. The highlight of the show was the release of the
HTC Evo 4G device by Sprint to mark the entry of the first WiMax
smartphone. Not to be outdone, Samsung announced SCH-r900 (who comes
up with these names) - the first LTE handset to be launched later
this year on the Metro PCS network. Like at the Mobile World
Congress, it was clear that industry is courting the “developers”
though few have figured out how to help them with a healthy revenue
stream. There was a lot of discussion on 4G, Mobile Advertising,
Mobile Web vs. Apps, Femtocells, Smart Driving Solutions (it had its
own pavilion), HSPA+, A/V Reality, Spectrum, Congestion management,
National Broadband Plan, Taxi lines, and more. This note summarizes
the observations and opinions from the event, discussions, and
briefings.
My trip started early as I
was moderating a panel on Mobile Advertising at the packed
Mobile Web and Apps World forum. I am finding that the pre-shows
generally have better attendance than sessions during the show.
MTV’s Joe Lalley mentioned that the number of RFPs that require
mobile advertising as a component have grown 3-4 times in the last
6-12 months. One of the areas that has been lagging is the “industry
consensus on metrics” as without consistent numbers across all ad
networks and service providers, many in the advertising industry
will stay on the fence or will work with only select players in the
ecosystem. Gary Schwartz, who is on IAB’s Mobile Marketing Committee
updated on the collaboration done between IAB and MMA and we should
be seeing some of the work soon. To some extent the story of mobile
advertising is playing out exactly as we had imagined in our Mobile
Advertising book and once many of the pieces are in place, the use
of mobile in advertising will become so pervasive that we will
wonder what took so long. And
as I mentioned before, Apple could help redefine mobile
advertising.
It is good that CTIA is
thinking of some diversity when designing their keynotes. Iñaki
Urdangarín, René Obersmann, Padmasree Warrior, Michelle
Caruso-Cabrera, James Cameron, and Biz Stone were a welcome change
not that there is anything wrong with other speakers. It is better
to look at the industry from multiple angles. However, the lack of
developers on the stage was acutely felt. The consistent message
across all keynotes was: tremendous growth ahead and we are barely
scratching the surface. That was hardly in doubt, the question is
who benefits from it and who goes home.
T-Mobile announced the
launch of its HSPA+ upgrade along with many smartphones to launched
soon. Per Cole Brodman, CTO, T-Mobile US, this makes T-Mobile the US
operator with the fastest network (did you know T-Mobile has more
cellsites than Verizon?). With WiMAX and LTE smartphones coming in
the next few months, we can expect a good tussle for mindshare.
However, as the FCC quoted in its
National Broadband Plan from our paper “State
of The (Mobile) Broadband Union” - there is a
difference in advertised vs. actual speeds especially on
smartphones. We will be doing some more research on the topic later
this year.
The highlight of the show
was Sprint’s release of the “mother of all smartphones” (from the
spec point of view)- the HTC EVO 4G. Consider this: 1GHz processor,
8/1.3MP camera, 720p HDvideo, HDMI out, Hotspot capability (upto 8
devices), 3-6 Mbps (wimax)/.6-1.4 Mbps(evdo), 1GB ROM, 4.3”
capacitive display, etc.
Full specs here. Of course, the pricing and street performance
will determine its success but clearly a milestone for the industry.
The device came to the market earlier than most expected and will
let the competitive fervor to go up a notch.
A couple of days later,
Samsung announced its SCH-r900 (who comes up with these names) - the
first LTE handset to be launched later this year on the Metro PCS
network. Had it been on Verizon or AT&T, it would have gotten more
attention. In any case, Metro PCS is trying to cement its place for
the bragging rights. We can expect a number of new LTE smartphones
coming into the market early next year. Voice and actual performance
are still an open question.
Congestion management
remains a big issue for the industry. I was glad to hear that the
industry is coming around to the realization that “a holistic
approach” is required to solving the problem, something we first
outlined in our widely referenced paper
“Managing Growth and Profitability in the Yottabyte Era.” Ralph
de la Vega, speaking in his capacity as the Chairman of the CTIA and
executive at AT&T embraced the
principles of a sustainable model - complementary technologies,
application efficiencies, network efficiencies, and available
spectrum. We should add pricing efficiencies into the mix as well.
Chetan Sharma Consulting will be releasing an update to the
Yottabyte paper in the next couple of months, so stay tuned.
There was clearly a lot of
focus on developers and attempts at giving them more voice and
attention. As I alluded to in my talk on the
appstore ecosystem at last CTIA, the various appstores need to
focus on how to make their ecosystems more vibrant and profitable
for the developers, else, we will start seeing them drop like dead
flies in the not so distant future. A week prior to the CTIA, we
released our research on the
appstore economy which was
well received. While a number of developers had booths at CTIA,
there was no useful traffic. Better forums were organized
WIP Connector and
OMS.
With the imminent arrival
of iPad next week, there was plenty of discussion and display of
eReaders/tablets and how it might drive another category. While we
won’t see the iPhonesque like sales numbers, it is clearly an
exciting introduction to couch computing. I will have more to say on
the subject once I get my hands on the device next month. It is also
quite apparent that the category of extending the display beyond the
device is going to take shape this decade. The interactions and
content doesn’t need to be in the confines of the small display. 3D
video also surfaced as something many players are working on.
Video was touted as the
killer app for 4G though I wondered who will be the hunter and the
hunted. I remember the same argument for 3G and mobile video went
from the darling of the show to a pariah that no one wanted to touch
in a matter of two years. Is video over cellular really the best use
of resources? Am sure, the debate will continue for the foreseeable
future.
Activity in the mHealth
segment is picking up. It was mentioned several times in the various
keynotes as well as the number of startups tackling the capture and
processing of medical data is increasing. One of them was
Mobisante which presented on a
VC panel I moderated. They are building a low-cost ultrasound
imaging device that uses smartphones.
Some of the other news
worthy items were:
As expected, the wireless industry lauded
the call for more spectrum in the National Broadband Plan. My
column
“National Broadband Plan - A Work in Progress” was published
by Wireless Week during CTIA.
The role wireless communications can play
in emergencies was highlighted from the rescue efforts and lives
saved in Haiti. John Stanton proclaimed the country to be the
first copper free telecom nation
Androids keep multiplying like gremlins
CTIA released its semi-annual industry
survey results. Highlights: $22B in data revenues (second half),
50M smartphones, 257M datacapable devices, 1.5T Txt messages,
24.2B MMS, 285 subscriptions, daily MOU 6.1B (boy! Do we talk a
lot).
Our 2009 year roundup here.
Ericsson announced that the data traffic
globally grew 280% during each of the last two years and
exceeded global voice traffic in Q4 2009. We announced similar
trends in our 2009 roundup earlier this month
Probably the biggest M&A news - Amdocs
bought MX Telecom for $104M
There was buzz in the M2M segment
Cisco’s Chief Technology Officer Padmasree
Warrior said, there will be 1 trillion devices, 1.5M apps, 5.7M
security threats, and 486 Exabytes of data consumed by 2013
An interesting startup I ran across was
Invensense - motion based device interaction
Ericsson had its
connected tree on display. In case you were wondering how we
get to 1 Trillion devices ..
Femtocells are trying to remerge after a
disappointing year - it’s the pricing _____!
Obermann: US growth is far better than that
of Europe. US T-Mobile is performing much better than the other
properties of Deutsche Telekom so why sell.
The word revolution was used 45 billion
times during the conference.
More CTIA coverage at
Wireless Week,
Moconews,
RCR Wireless,
CNET, etc.
We will be discussing many of the future topics in much more detail
at our upcoming conference “Mobile
Future Forward.” More details to come.
Thanks
Chetan Sharma
Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this note are
our clients.
