The Special G Diet Plan

Mercury News reported that Google paused the roll out of its Google Fiber network across the Silicon Valley, and considered wireless (mmWave) instead of fixed (FTTP) for building connections. Big G purchased last June* Webpass, an ISP operating in 5 markets including the Bay area, and proposing both fiber and point-to-point wireless broadband solutions.

 
Google can use unlicensed spectrum and get a significant base to test broadband services, particularly for companies. These small, captive cells could become interesting entry points for 5G, without waiting for WAN technos to emerge. 

Will Google Fiber have to rebrand itself? Well you always need some for the backbone. And since Alphabet is also into medical fields, they already know that one fibers can't be digested, and two fibers can facilitate digestion.

Webpass won't be the last one to be wolfed down.

mot-bile 2016


* " Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass" (Webpass - June 22nd, 2016)

Google Smokescreen Computing : May The Dark Fiber Be With You

Google has made some progress since its previous experience as an innovative ISP (see "Google TiSP - US Open at Flushing Windows). Big G issued a nice video (see below*), but here are a few keywords :

Crowdsourcing - "Today we're putting out a request for information (RFI) to help identify interested communities".

Interested in what ?

1 Gbps FTTH - "We'll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people."

A lightweight on the market ?

Lobbying - "We've urged the FCC". We'll soon be urged by the EU but that's not the issue of the day...

Not in a hurry when it comes to digging your own grave ?

Digging - "We'll test new ways to build fiber networks". Like we don't actually build but find partners, or bail out people lost in the dark fiber, or invent smokescreen computing.

Smokescreen computing ?

The highest stage of cloud computing.

mot-bile 2010

*

"Think big with a gig: Our experimental fiber network" (20100210 - Official Google Blog)

Femtosat, but not seamless yet

Covering France has always been a headache for operators : unlike in the UK, population is very much dispersed, and 75 million visitors roam the country every year with a special fondness for bullet trains, mountain hiking, or kayaking down remote valleys.

Curing the great "digital divide" between broadband France and forsaken France became a national cause, local administrations pushing their own agendas to prevent businesses from leaving their regions, and national authorities forcing operators to pool resources in non-telecomly-strategic areas... As of today, total unbundling is available only in 30% of France Telecom POPs, and even Paris is struggling : rolling out FTTH remains a painstaking process from one old building to another.

As far as 3G is concerned, SFR is supposed to cover 90% of the population and 98% by 2012, but remains closer to 80%. Orange is not respecting its own obligations either. Bouygues Telecom ? even further downhill... Many wonder how potential newcomer Iliad Free could roll out a brand new nationwide 3G network...

But for the public, all 3 incumbents are seen as Scrooges : either of the Scrooge McDuck kind, sitting on a mountain of money and refusing to spend it, or of the Ebenezer Scrooge kind, bitterly sitting in the dark while everybody else expects Santa Claus Free Mobile for Christmas.

SFR obviously refused the role and announced two innovations for this week (for the moment, same brand but different worlds) :

=> a Satellite Internet Pack with Eutelsat (from EUR 29.90 / month for a not so broad band - max 3.6 Mbps and 4.7 GB -, but unlimited browsing between 11 pm and 7 am)

=> a femtocell quad play booster, Home 3G (via SHD, a.k.a. Société du Haut Débit, a SFR / Neuf Cegetel unit). Theoretically, Home 3G's EUR199 adaptor can be plugged on any ADSL box, but not all equipments will be compatible :



4 SFR 3G subscribers will be able to communicate at the same time on the same femtocell, but if they fully enjoy the service from day one, they may adapt their usage after receiving the first bill... and reconsider the virtues of the ADSL box they had in the first place.

Nevertheless, the best defense is a good offense, and being the first to strike at the macro and micro level necessarily paves the way for the next steps.

mot-bile 2009

License IV

France went for a hybrid or double-stage solution to their 3G dilemma : since no 4th operator could enter the market without a ticket discount for all players (see "3G license part III - France's fourth wedding or a funeral ?"), the Government and NRA ARCEP decided to split the remaining spectrum.

The potential new entrant will get 5 MHz of 2.1 GHz + 5 MHz of 900 MHz (call for tender expected by EOY 2009), and lawmakers will discuss about what to do of the last 10 MHz of 2.1 GHz, probably putting back incumbents in the loop (friendly auction ?), and about how much this license will cost. I guess a little bit more than the EUR 10,000 a year needed for a Licence IV, which allows bars to sell alcohol without dishes (I mean dishes for food, not for satellite access).

The almost concomitant consultation about 4G allows incumbents to fry some fish or remain one step ahead. Analogic TV spectrum (the 2.6 GHz and 790-862 MHz bands favored by LTE) will be freed in November 2011.

An ambitious new entrant should position itself on both 3G and 4G, as well as on the fixed broadband last mile, where ARCEP is carefully monitoring the development of FTTH / FTTO : trials are under way (until March 31st), and a precise regulatory framework will be published before this summer.

Without a claim by Iliad/Free, the Regulator wouldn't have reserved 3M numbers starting with 06 for the new entrant, who would then have mostly to rely on 07 numbers, soon to be devoted to the same purpose.

Strong of more than 4M subscribers and on the way to 5M by EOY 2011, Iliad-Free remains the front runner and main lobbyist for the 4th license. The company already brought major disruptions to the French market, starting with their ISP business model as none Networks, and most dramatically by introducing the successful home "box" concept, now implemented by all incumbents (Orange Livebox, SFR Box, Bouygues Bbox). In an agressive lobbying campaign, Free announced 1,000 euros savings per year per household with 3 mobile subscriptions. With brand new pipes to fill, unlimited offers seem likely.

But it may take a new and wealthy partner (not a commodity nowadays) to build the said pipes : optic fibers were already a major challenge on the fixed access with a EUR 1bn CAPEX planned by 2012, but covering a country as geographically challenging as France with a 3G network is quite another.

That, or another disruptive "none Networks" model... not to mention "other networks" : Free already holds the only national WiMAX license*.

Or "another player", or course. Foreign (ie Orascom and the usual suspect...), national (some day, Carlyle will have to monetize Numericable's 4M subs), or more probably a combo of the two. But the deepest pockets could hesitate between player #4 and player #3, should Martin Bouygues seize the opportunity of this reshuffle to sell its mobile arm.

Yet another scenario ? No one goes for the network. Incumbents won't accept too cheap a price tag nor too loose coverage obligations for the new entrant... even if Bouygues Telecom was not precisely crushed for being behind schedule.

---
addendum 20090205

The price tag is eventually EUR 206M per 5MHz, similar to the 619M paid by each incumbent for their 15MHz load. Free may only take 5MHz, but the Government reminded the audience the existence of coverage obligations, insisting on a contribution for rural areas...

The WiBro Affair

A negative word about WiBro from SK Telecom's CEO ignited a PR frenzy in favor of Korea's "Mobile WIMAX" technology.

Recently endorsed as ITU-R IMT-2000, this member of the 802.16 family is alive and kicking in Seoul. While SKT focuses on HSPA and rolls out WiBro reluctantly, KT insists with the benediction of Korea Inc : the Government, the ETRI, and of course Posco, the mother company of POSDATA, a major promoter of WiBro who's seeking new markets and opening offices in Kuala Lumpur

KT claims 100,000 subs EOY 2007 with the ambition to reach 400,000 EOY 2008, and downloads to be 3 times faster than with HSPA (3 Mbps vs 1). It's WiBro service sounds almost cheap : a little bit under 20,000 wons, that's halfway between ADSL and FTTH.

But Korea Telecom will need to widen the range of devices available - up to now : 10 modems, 5 laptops and 3 handsets (PC Cards and PDAs are also on the market).

And KT needs to spend a lot on IPTV this year.

To add to the fun, competition is definitely getting fiercer in Korea : POSDATA is facing technology thieves within its own staff and 4 researcher have just been put in jail because they tried to steal WiBro secrets for the US.

Now that's a brilliant PR operation : you don't want to steal something you can't sell... Unless you're an art lover falling for rare antiques.

free without Boukobza

Mickael Boukobza, who brilliantly ruled for 7 years over the development of France's most disruptive player in the telecom arena, will quit by this summer. His successor took part in some of TF1's most exciting moves beyond its core business (TPS, Metro, production...). A protege of Patrick Le Lay, Maxime Lombardini leaves the TV giant just before his boss retires, and joins Iliad at a rather exciting moment : here, the whole business is about to venture in unknown territories.
free should easily reach its target of 2.8 M ADSL customers EOY 2007*, and 4 M EOY 2010 doesn't seem a totally farfetched goal... It's just that the competitive landscape and the nature of the job are bound to change with WiMAX and FTTH (not to mention 3G**). It's just that you'll have to be strong to make it in the convergent, troubled, boost or bust times ahead.

The capacity to deliver, but also to anticipate and to evolve quickly have been free's trademarks under Boukobza. Let's see if this survivor of the internet bubble manages to reach yet another level with a different player at the joystick.

* EOY 2006 : 2,278,000 - 75.9% undbundled - ARPU EUR 34.5
** see previous episodes : "3G license part III - France's fourth wedding or a funeral ?" (20070309) "3G & 4G - WiMAX flirts with ITU " (20070303) "Free WIMAX and quadruple play" (20051226)

Pandora's set top box

The F.C.C. ruled that municipalities had to take quick decisions (within 90 days) regarding video franchise agreements with telephone companies. Due to excessive delays, telcos often cannot compete with cablecos on their highly profitable turf (Comcast & Co charge an average $43 per month, 5% more than last year and double the rate of 10 years ago). And the battle reaches beyond services : rolling out a fiber optic network can be prevented on the ground that it can deliver television and video.
But Verizon & Co haven't won yet. Is the F.C.C. the relevant authority ? Is the American broadcasting ecosystem ready to open all gates at such a crossroads (convergence, DRM issues, free DIY n-to-n casting for everyone...) ?
We already know that USA doesn't mean United Spectrum of America, but things are not that easy in the fixed arena either, where Federal, State and local layers also pile up. We already know that US operators always finish last in the lobbying race : media / content groups are tough opponents and high tech players make sure the game remains open to all of their kind.
Ten to fifteen years ago, Europeans would dream of a US like market where local calls would be free and hundreds of TV channels available to almost everyone.
Nowadays, I guess many US players are envying their European counterparts. If they cannot even leverage on the scale of their own country / continent, they should be worrying about yet another set of competitors (Asia, Middle East, you name it).

T Login for HSDPA, EV-DO, WiBro and YouNameIt

SK Telecom having a knack for new brands and new technos, customers must be struggling to keep the pace with the operator's launching machine.
T Login isn't Deutsche Telekom's latest Business Unit but a key to all SKT wireless data accesses (3G EV-DO, HSDPA, WiBro... or why not TD-SCDMA tomorrow* ?) for all devices (laptops, PMPs, digital cameras, car navigators...).
And which common denominator connectivity do you think they picked up before embedded solutions - T Login inside - are available ? Neither Bluetooth nor a vulgar 802.1x wannabe, but Korea's ultimate entry point : the USB.
Yet another proof of SKT's priorities, the first T Login modems will start with HSDPA and add WiBro on time for Xmas and at full throttle 3 months later**. Thanks to KRW 190,000 subsidies, retail prices are slashed to KRW 50,000 or about $ 50, which reflects the importance of this new entry point. SKT decided to boost the buzz by recruiting 30 "quality reviewers" on the web besides the usual pilot testers. Service rates range from KRW 29,900 per month for 2GB (+ KRW 184 per additional MB) to KRW 45,000 for 3GB (+ KRW 123). To be compared to, say, a basic fee of KRW 33,000 for Hanaro Telecom's unlimited Fiber LAN access for cyber apartments.
Overall market is estimated at 2 million people, with the usual suspects mobile office workers and road warriors among core targets, but also students because the group intends to embed its major entertainment brands MelOn, cyworld & Co. too - hell, they even offer dodoris as prelaunch incentives ! In a country where PC cards failed, HSDPA does stand a chance and SKT can leverage on security advantages as well as roaming perspectives for business users.



* since the techno is about to enter Korea (see "TD-SCDMA in Korea" - 20060901)

** No S-DMB in sight and anyway TU media didn't communicate much after the launch of free T-DMB services while KTF claimed 164,000 customers end of May.

AT&T U-Verse 1 - better than chapter 11

Born again AT&T introduced its U-verse concept at the 2005 CES, with the ambition of covering 18M homes by the end of 2008. FTTH IPTV services only started late last month in 5,000 homes in San Antonio, TX with the help of Verizon's FiOS network.
This offer would look rather disappointing to Korean eyes and wallets : no more than 6 megs, up to $120 per month for a wireless bundle... but hey that's a start and ain't that much competition in SBC's 13-state-wide kingdom, so let early adopters finance innovation.

AT&T already rules in SBCland with 7.4M ADSL lines, but they intend to reach 100% in broadband coverage thanks to various fibers in urban areas, satellite broadband in rural areas (Project Lightspeed is supposed to reach 5.5M low-income households by the end of 2009), and fixed wireless (WiMAX a top pick) to fill the blanks.

The first 13 states before the whole country... this state of the AT&T-SBC union address should resonate as a warning to competing superpowers : we're not only focusing on homeland security ; we're also preparing preemptive strikes everywhere. But the old Texan way : we don't want to make it sound like an aggression, so no need to add "bring it on".

I also find rather clever their partnership with Yahoo! and Verizon Wireless "for a generation of tech-savvy consumers who rely on the Internet and wireless phones as their primary communications tools" (to wit : the smart ones who are leaving the incumbent - a speechless and voiceless carrier). AT&T position themselves as a central integrator of services : we help you subscribe to AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet, and to Verizon Wireless as well if you need a wireless service, but you can still chose AT&T for voice services at home. Beyond the usual "free" LLO services (Call Waiting, Three-Way Calling, Call Forwarding...), the AT&T CallVantage package proposes well marketed bonuses :
- Call Logs (with "click to dial")
- Do Not Disturb (only emergency calls pass through)
- Personal Conferencing (10 people overall)
- Locate Me (when you're away from home, incoming calls track you by ringing up to five phones all at once or one right after the other)
- Web-Based Voice Mail (AT&T just couldn't not include it in such an offer)

Why is it so interesting ? I'm not sure it will work, but it's neither some double-stage VoIP thing like Skype, nor an ugly plug-in like Vonage's latest USB gizmo. It's a truly operated service from a genuine operator or better, a Virtual Network Operator on its own network. It's both a win-back and a win-period approach, an attempt to sublimate voice services and fully give them their value back. I wish it weren't that expensive and I wish it could go beyond fixed and mobile, and even beyond the now traditional homezone concept.

You look WonderPhone tonight

This week, Les Echos mentioned WonderPhone were considering MediaFLO as well as DVB-H and DMB-T for the "push to store" concept they've been lobbying for since last october at the French NRA. I guess Qualcomm would love to enter by the content window after being turned down at the infrastructure door...
Along with the article came a crossbar handset, the kind of beauties dominating the airwaves in Korea since TV and movies entered mobility. T-DMB services (dubbed "take out TV") joined SKT's S-DMB Tu Media last month, but handsets are just arriving now. LG (the manufacturer) also released a T-DMB LG PDA called PM80 and big enough to tear your pockets off... judging by the size at least - I didn't read the price tag.
LG Telecom (the operator) don't offer DMB, nor even MediaFLO. So they decided to offer mobile TV for free and KTF may well follow suit.
But such devensive gifts have nothing to do with innovation, and broadband Korea will go even more broadband this year : FTTH keeps spreading* and KT will launch their Wibro services next April in Seoul. The fixed incumbent intends to compete with SKT & KTF's HSDPA much more aggressively than it did with their WiFi services (Nespot).
In the meanwhile, ReignCom Ltd (iRiver's manufacturer) are building an impressive (and not so unreminiscent of N-GAGE) platform around their new Wibro game console : partners include KT, POSdata Co. (system integrator), CJ Internet and NHN (Hangame portal).
How do you say "plenty" in Korean ? "Manta"... Which leads us back to WonderPhone : Manta happens to be the name of their mobile game portal.

* I've been enjoying it at home for one year now. In Seoul, because as far as Paris is concerned, I understand FT were just planning a few thousand lines for the next two years at 4 to 5 times the price charged in Seoul...
A few links : wonder-phone.com - nespot.com - reigncom.com

http ftth pfft

While Qualcomm are suing Nokia as a retaliation against a very much needed EU investigation on Doc Jacobs' licensing practices, DoCoMo are caught copying SK Telecom : they're taking a 42% stake in a record company (Tower Records), launching a credit card brand (iD™), and even contemplating investing in Asian MNOs. Taiwan and Hong-Kong look ripe enough but an assault on Korea would be a spectacular move (unless they manage to convert LGT to W-CDMA, they'd have to claim KTF).
Competitors badly need a boost, and both seem to focus on bigger pipes. Vodafone KK are trying as hard as they can to catch up, flexing their muscles in the wireless field (Ericsson just completed a big wave of HSDPA upgrade), but other kinds of fibers are expected to be needed. KDDI decided last month to absorb PoweredCom Inc, a TEPCO subsidiary (Tokyo Electric Power Company). We're talking about Fiber To The Home (FTTH), we're talking about convergence, we're talking about a born again MNO competing not only with the leading MNO but with the fixed incumbent. Sparks will definitely fly. Concentration is on the way this side of the Pacific Ocean too.

Hardcore gaming

According to Marketing Insight, 40% of Korean mobile users are also m-gamers - over 6% for hardcore mobile gamers (daily use). If you want to know what a Korean hardcore gamer is, ask Mr Lee : the 28 year old collapsed after playing 49 hour non stop in a PC Bang. Mr Lee would often stay there 3 days in a row but this time he died. No wonder : I tried the same game ("World of Warcraft") in a PC Bang and had to leave after one hour, my heartbeat pulsing a steady 359. Around me, people wouldn't leave the screen one second, even while ordering ramions or pizzas with their mobile phones. I also left because I had been methodically buldozed, nuked and vaporized by a giant bug army (who happened to be controled by a 12 year old), but luckily enough, I survived in real life.
Now you can turn your own home into a PC Bang : in http://ftth Korea (Fiber To The Home), 100 Mbps rates are getting common and BcN (Broadband Convergence Network) first pilots are starting in Seoul thanks to DaCom* (a broadband-VoIP-broadcasting triple play for the 350 first customers). The Government wants every Korean to have at least a 1 Mbps connection by 2010 and the country proved it could deliver.
I wonder how life in appateu will look like when everybody's playing with 3D goggles on an ultimate shoot'em all...

* Among the other 3 BcN consortia, those led by KTF and SKT are focusing on wireless first (unlike DaCom, their core business) : real convergence in BcN may take 2 more years and both players already enjoy key entry points in the country's households. Note that KTF launched their mobile music portal half a year after SKT : dosirak started last may (download & streaming services - 192 Kbps for streaming, interesting coupon packages) and should get 300,000 customers by year end (MelOn targets 800,000 paying subs at that time out of 3M total subscribers - they hit the 2M mark after 7 month).

4G take-offs and SOFT landings

Captain Kirk obviously paid a visit to Japan, where "4G" trials are announced by ever-the-customer-oriented NTT DoCoMo : "the 1Gbps real-time packet transmission was realized through Variable Spreading Factor-Spread Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (VSF-Spread OFDM) radio access and 4-by-4 Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) multiplexing using "adaptive selection of surviving symbol replica candidate" (ASESS) based on Maximum Likelihood Detection with QR decomposition and the M-algorithm (QRM-MLD)".
This nuclear mushroom is supposed to impress people listening to the sound of miserable 3G+ trials under way across Asia (ie HSDPA in China and Taiwan, HSUPA sites under construction everywhere - websites, that is).
This time, no one is wondering why high speed is needed : back to Paris I badly miss my 100 Mbps home. Jet lag is OK the other way : that's what I call the "SOFT landing" (Seoul Optic Fiber Transition).


PS : I don't know whatever happened to Club Nokia but here are a few figures from Samsung's Anycall Land : 180,000 hits per day for 4M members.
PS2 : I don't know whatever happened to KTF's investment fund devoted to content but here is how they start countering SKT's shopping spree : a minority stake in a movie investment fund set up by a key player in distribution (among Showbox Inc assets : Megabox multiplexes, On*Media cable TV...)
PS3 : sucks (according to an independant Redmond based group of Xbox consumers and developpers).