NFC goes shopping : live in Seoul

As announced (see "Grand NFC Korea Alliance"), the heart of Myeongdong, a major shopping neighborhood popular among younger generations and Japanese tourists, will be a key test bed for NFC transactions in Korea next month.

This "NFC special district" operation is organized by the KCC (since security is key, the national authority delegated the mission to its KISA unit / Korea Internet Security Agency) and involves all 3 operators (SKT, KT, LGT/LGU+), 9 credit card companies, and key players and enablers listed last June (more are expected soon, particularly in ticketing / couponing applications).

Now for the hard(ware) part ? Terminals are ready on both ends : 100 shops will be equipped with dongles, and enough enduser should be enabled from day one. The NFC payment solution has already been embedded in the Samsung Galaxy S II and other recent models, and rival iPhones can join in thanks to a plug-in developped for Korea Telecom.

Microsoft might join later, but I'm not sure the Samsung Series 7 Slate has already the solution.

mot-bile 2011

Steve's Wonders

The first computer I owned was a Mac. That was back in 1989. I switched for my third one, but even now I keep a special affection for Apple.

I'm not a member of the Stevejobs Adventist Church and I never quite liked the guy, but I always respected the innovator.

Not the inventor but the innovator, the person who decisively accelerates the adoption of something new. People like to quote Steve Jobs quoting Picasso ("good artists copy, great artists steal"), or to remember how he "stole" Xerox's inventions (the windows interface later copied by Microsoft, the mouse)... Nokia and others could argue the Apple Store and iPhone borrowed more than a few characteristics but you've got the general idea : the company suing Samsung & co is not exactly the Saint it pretends to be.

Of course, Steve Jobs was not the only brain in Cupertino, and not the man who brought up new ideas. Of course, his fingerprints will be all over Apple's releases for the next few years, and the company has the money to remain a top competitor far beyond that.

But Apple lost the heck of a decision maker.

Innovating is about making decisions, trading-off at all levels (time to market, availability of key features, readiness of distribution channels...)... and this is the fastest-changing of all environments. Steve Jobs knew when to say no and when to say go. He could launch the first iPhone in 2G because he knew he could count on the customer appetence for the brand (a key asset built over years and perfectly entertained by the King of Hype), and because he had to leverage on the iPod / iTunes momentum without waiting for competitors to soak the market with 3G novelties. But some decisions must have been tougher, and future decision makings will be tougher without him.

It's time for Apple to expose its real innovation engine. We don't necessarily need to hear it roar now and then, but constant purring would be a nice surprise.

mot-bile 2011

Apple employee walks into a bar...

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Again, an Apple employee walks into a bar, where he leaves unattended the company's latest prototype (this time a tablet*).

Highest stage of incompetence or ultimate marketing genius ? This incident feeds the buzz and tells the whole industry nothing has changed in Cupertino following Steve Jobs' resignation.

Want to hear the latest Polish joke ? Steve Wozniak walks into a bar of justice with a Samsung lawyer...

mot-bile 2011

* probably an iPad with a very Random Access Memory

HomePlus subway virtual store gets "real" (from click and mortar to billboard and click)

Following the success of its QR code-based advertising campaign in Seoul subway with Cheil Worldwide (see "HomePlus subway virtual store - 2011 Cannes Lions"), Korean retailer HomePlus, a Tesco-Samsung JV, launches its first permanent virtual store in Seollung station, Gangnam area.

Since you liked it (over 10,000 views), I'll play it again, Sam :


This time, 2D shelves will stretch deeper into the station : with screen doors and pilars simulating popular sections and products of the hypermarket chain, all commuters have to do is to direct their smartphones to the items they please. HomePlus also decided to beef up backhaul, multiplying the time slots available for home deliveries.

Major hypermarkets being already open 24/7, now there's no way consumers can escape from contextual shopping traps.

mot-bile 2011

Supercharging Whom ? Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility

"Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google's patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies." That's how Larry Page explains the twelve billion purchase in the official Google blog.

The blog is titled "Supercharging Android: Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility"*, but one could wonder who will be supercharged in the end. Third parties and endusers may start asking themselves what will come out of a landscape where former archrivals Microsoft and Nokia tie the knot, or where the mother of all netcos swallows a former giant manufacturer. SonyEricsson theoretically went even further on the value chain, but the union was celebrated in completely different times, when networks were not precisely clogged with mobile internet traffic.

More moves are expected. Apple has been rumored to be in a mega purchasing mood for quite awhile, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Samsung making something big. Lee Kun-hee just pointed out the necessity for the company to evolve, an evidence we recently repeated (see "Huawei Vision : a view from the cloud"). This should go beyond such acquisition as Grandis, a specialist in memory wolfed down earlier this month by the South Korean chaebol.

Anyway, the Motorola episode reassesses the importance of patents in the legal war raging worldwide. Apple claimed a few significant victories : a big chunk of Nortel patents, plus a suspension of Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in key markets.

The problem is Apple is not John Grisham, an entity that makes money with legal stuff. Being the next NTP is not exactly "cool".

And the consumer is not likely to beg "supercharge me".

mot-bile 2011

* where the king of the 80s is kindly put at the same level as bankrupt Nortel : an empty shell with a collection of patents

Huawei Vision : a view from the cloud

Huawei Vision runs on Android 2.3 but comes with a 160 Gigabyte spot in the cloud for every owner, positioning the Chinese player at the strategic gateway between that soft spot and its own hardware (scheduled for September in China, along with 4G). Apps agregation starts with the usual suspects : music, images or video that you may not want to transfer forever from laptop to laptop or to XX century storage solutions (ie CDs, DVDs).

Hardly disruptive : Alibaba just launched a similar concept, and of course Apple made a splash with its iCloud earlier this year. But Huawei was supposed to be essentially about hardware.

Sounds like that business model may not be sustainable anymore. Clouds may pass in the sky, replaced with new UFOs, but the truth is starting to sink in : smartphones are not much smarter than computers, and differenciation is getting more and more difficult every year. Worse : product cycles are even shorter and being cool never lasts long.

Food for thought for Samsung, who's been threatened by the Nokia syndrome even before claiming the leadership in handsets. But at least the Finns did venture into new business models. Never forget that OVI preceded Apple's App Store iOs by one year.

Of course, back then, Jorma Ollila was already gone, and Steve Jobs still cool.


mot-bile 2011

A Kbiz MNO ? SMEs vs Korea Inc

The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Businesses (KFSB or Kbiz) wants to join SK Telecom, Korea Tecom and LG U+ (LG Telecom) as Korea's fourth mobile network operator.

This bid looks like a complete joke : a Kbiz-led consortium of 900 small businesses would invest about KRW 100 bn (USD 94 M) in "4G Wibro". How could it succeed where much stronger players failed and where MVNOs themselves cannot thrive* ?

Kbiz claims 2.7 million SMEs, but I don't see this greenfield player take those demanding customers from the big boys.

WiBro, a WMAN technology competing with WiMax, remains a Koreano-Korean thing with a convenient 4G label. Typically, KT is advertising about their "4G WiBro" coverage as SKT launches its LTE as the "real 4G", but eventually all 3 MNOs will implement LTE. Note that KT is also willing to close its 2G CDMA networks and proposing nice 3G/4G plans to die hard users, some of which have been keeping prehistoric handsets because of unbeatable unlimited rates.

Kbiz needs Samsung to propose WiBro, and that could be the actual aim of the game : not the candidacy to a license, but the PR operation behind the announcement.

Samsung is the ultimate chaebol, the perfect symbol of those almighties who rule over Korean economy and are often blamed for the weakness of the nation's SME ecosystem. Worse : they create their own SMEs to benefit from pro-SME incentives and suck even more value from the market. Even LEE Myung-bak, the CEO president who came from Hyundai Engineering and Construction, is campaigning about a 'fair society' where chaebols would allow small fish to survive.

I don't know if Kbiz will really go all the way, or if Samsung will pretend to play their game for image's sake... but Korean market remains fun to observe.

mot-bile 2011

* see "Korea : Onse Telecom wants to be a MVNO", "Korea Telecom signs the country's first MVNOs"...

HomePlus subway virtual store - 2011 Cannes Lions

Cheil Worldwide won the Media Grand Prix at the 2011 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival of Creativity for its amazing HomePlus campaign in Seoul subway, three years after claiming a bronze award for an outdoor advertising campaign "Plus to your life - HomePlus" with the same customer (Samsung Tesco).

Pushing to new levels the now decade-old barcode mobile advertising concept, "Homeplus Subway Virtual Store" transforms a subway station into a replica of supermarket where commuters can register and order online with their smartphone. This is not only spectacular and smart, but efficient : the number of subscribers and the turnover skyrocketed, helping the retailer overtake Emart as the national leader in online sales* :



Of course, you don't want to miss your subway and you won't fill your virtual cart through this sometimes tedious process, but you can just load the first items and quietly finish shopping on the way home.

Expect more of these. I already can see Amazon setting up his own virtual libraries near rival brick and mortar shops...

mot-bile 2011

* a key channel in Korea, see "Online sales become the first distribution channel in Korea - or is door-to-door back ?"

Grand NFC Korea Alliance

Ten years ago, SK Telecom would carpet bomb Korea with 400,000 terminals ("dongles") to boost its Moneta mobile payment service. Yesterday, Korea Inc. announced 300,000 NFC-enabled Point Of Sales by the end of 2011 to put the country ahead of the pack in this very very strategic sector.

The difference ? This is not a solo act anymore : SKT alone couldn't succeed in setting the new standard in mobile payments at home and pushing the concept overseas, but this time, the whole value chain and ecosystem is following. And if it works, each player will claim a nice slice of a much bigger pie.

Under the regulator's umbrella (KCC, the herald of "NFC-based Mobile Smart Life Services"), over thirty Korean CEOs met at the Seoul Press Center to sign this decisive MOU in Near Field Communications, and if you throw in the members of the recently formed Grand NFC Korea Alliance, you've got the closest thing to a mobile payment dream team :

- all 3 Mobile Network Operators : Korea Telecom, SK Telecom, U+ (LG Telecom)
- the biggest card players around : Visa, MasterCard, Shinan Card, Kookmin Card (KB), Lotte Card, Hyundai Card, T-Money, MNO partners (Hana) SK Card and BC Card (KT)...
- key authorities and associations : KCC, ETRI, TTA, KISA (Korea Internet & Security Agency), MOIBA (Mobile Internet Business Association), RAPA (Korea Radio Promotion Association)...
- top manufacturers : Samsung, LG, Pantech...
- top enablers: UbiVelox, KEBT, MtekVision, 3ALogics Inc, KICC...
- top payment enablers / billing service providers : KSNet Inc, Mobilians, Galaxia, Danal Corp., KCP...

The only players missing on the picture are the endusers.

And as we saw before, pedagogy will be key in a country where hacking happens to be a national pastime (if you include North Korea in the package), where few people protect their handsets with a PIN code, and where distrust in smartphone security keeps spreading like wildfire.

Of course, "Near Field" meaning 10 cm and below, close encounters of the third thief will require more intimacy than via Bluetooth. Besides, many Koreans are already used to contactless micropayments thanks to T-Money (ie Seoul public transportations and taxis, thousands of convenience stores and vending machines...). Furthermore, NFC trials have been under way for quite a while : for instance KT's "Mobile Stamp" couponing system, SKT's Mobile Commerce Zone or Q Store pilots, or cross border trials between SKT's T-Cash and Japan's KDDI and SoftBank...

This MOU aims at multiplying testbeds and giving momentum to the technology, the bulk of the infrastructure being planned for Q4 2011. So where will NFC-based payments be available ? GS group plans to implement them in its convenience stores (GS25) and gas stations (GS Kaltex). Major retailers (Lotte Mart, Emart...) are joining the party. Seoul and Gyeonggi-do buses and subways, as well as many taxis will be converted. A major shopping area for tourists (particularly from Japan), Myeongdong has been identified as a strategic hotspot to feed the buzz.

Needless to say, the number of NFC-enabled handsets is another essential element in the equation. The alliance targets an ambitious 5 M units by the end of the year, leveraging on existing devices (Samsung Galaxy S II and Sky Vega Racer opened the way), and the Google-Apple war : since Android Gingerbread OS supports NFC, Cupertino had to consider it for iPhone 5.

And oh. This non-event : Samsung is expected to surpass soon Nokia as the world's top handset manufacturer.

mot-bile 2011

* sorry, not yet in English : "국내 통신사·금융(카드)사 CEO 최초로 한자리에 모여 NFC 서비스 활성화를 위한 MOU 체결"

KT and Softbank wed in the cloud

Two years after the merger of Korea Telecom with KTF, the group claims 27% of its turnover in the "non-communication sectors", and targets 45% by 2015. "Non-communication" covers "convergence, IT service/media and global operations", which have something to do with communication but nevermind :
- 'Communication' means wired and wireless comms + call centers (KRW 18 Tn in 2010, 22 in 2015).
- 'IT service/media' stretches over 'SI/NI, cloud, solutions, contents', so typically Software as a Service (SaaS)... (evolution 2010-2015 : KRW 2 to 6 Tn).
- 'Convergence' includes 'communication-finance convergence' (KT will absorb BC Card and challenge more directly Hana SK Card or the duo SK Telecom - Hana Card), 'car' (KT Rental), 'security', 'ad/commerce' (evolution 2010-2015 : KRW 4 to 8 Tn).
- 'global operations' collects the rest : 'investment, IT and communication' (!), and probably real estate (evolution 2010-2015 : KRW 1 to 4 Tn)

In this last category, KT intends 'to expand its global markets for Smart City, Cloud, and ICT Solutions', and 'to secure more than ten new business items, such as Smart Home, Smart City and Digital Signage', or to 'develop globally competitive products and services and consider expanding its business worldwide from the launch of a project, as in the case of KT Kibot and CCC'. For your information : KT Kibot is a cute robot.

CCC means, of course, Cloud Communication Center. And that's where Korea Telecom and Softbank decided to create a 51/49 Joint Venture next September : a huge cloud data center will be created in Busan, with a back-up system in Seoul. A smart risk management move from ethnic Korean Masayoshi Son : the March 11 earthquake + tsunami followed by Fukushima meltdowns caused major business disruptions and massive energy shortages. This center will start with a 6 MW capacity (the equivalent to 700,000 PCs or 10,000 servers according to KT), and quickly reach 20 MW. A dedicated 10 GW line will secure the traffic and that's another reason why Korea's second biggest city was chosen : it's very and one of the closest to Japan (210 km or 130 miles), with all the right IT and human connections.

Yet. If Korea is spared by tsunamis and earthquakes, it is frequently attacked by North Korean hackers, and that's the reason why mobile banking and finance, a traditional strong point in the country, is not booming as fast as smartphone sales.

NFC-based Google Wallet* will have to overcome even more resistance there considering the company's image in Korea these days and the intense lobbying campaign from local netcos against its potential dominant position.


mot-bile 2011

* see "Coming soon: make your phone your wallet"

Don't catch a Chromebook cold

In "A new kind of computer: Chromebook", Google announced for June 15th the first Chromebook computers from Samsung and Acer.



Big G claims 160 million Chrome users, and that's more likely Chrome the browser than Chrome the OS. The new devices are supposed to take 8 seconds to boot. How long to catch a virus that may leave you with a useless piece of metal desesperatly knocking on the cloud's door ?

mot-bile 2011

Showing off : Google I/O, World IT Show, Android@Home, Flixster@omized...

More news from Google I/O* :
- Google loves contents and furthermore, how it's conveyed to you : beyond Music Beta by Google (see "Skype keeps moving, Google googling"), "Movie for rent" sounds like the killer app for (or rather against) Flixster & co.
- Android rocks and keeps gaining Gmentum in the hardware and middleware wars : 100 million activated Android devices (+ 400,000 every day), 200,000 apps in Android Market (4.5 bn apps installed from the same joint)
- on the go : handsets and tablets to converge in the Ice Cream Sandwich version of the OS
- in the more "fixed" range : with the Android@Home concept, Android starts sniffing around your place for friendly devices (including the Project Tungsten designed for Music Beta by Google)

... deja vu all over again for Apple, even if Google won't dominate the OS world the way Microsoft did.

More modestly, the World IT Show (WIS) started at the COEX in Seoul, with LG back on tracks (LG Optimus 3-D handsets, 3D TV war on Samsung, who also pushes its Smart TV and its dual core, 4G Galaxy S2), and SK Telecom showing off its own novelties (N-Screen, LTE network, Wibro CCTVs...).

mot-bile 2011

* "Android: momentum, mobile and more at Google I/O"

Skype keeps moving, Google googling

Microsoft purchased VoIP 1.0 leader Skype. Not for the technology but for the address books and the entry point to interhuman communications, something Redmond still has trouble getting into.

Google Music sounds like Google Book redux. No agreements yet, but a statement, and an invitation to store your stuff on Big G's cloud. You know, Google, not the major media company but the tech nerds with the big servers that never crash (take that Jeff - see "Melting clouds"). And as YouTube turns 6, Google promotes user generated quality content (YouTube Next, YouTube Creator Institute, YouTube NextUp...). So beyond storage, the idea will soon be to source new talents and to give everyone the opportunity to broadcast oneself.

The main news here is not the service but the branding: it's not "Google Music" but "Music Beta by Google", which allows a future brand to fill the blank (ie a future purchase), but furthermore echoes Google's pervasiveness on Android. In Korea, for instance, a country where it was lagging far behind Naver or Daum, the company managed to accumulate an impressive content far beyond mobile searches, through its no-logo apps and in particular in the LBS fields (maps, places...).

The debate shouldn't be only about collecting personal data but about dominant position in collaborative contents.

mot-bile 2011

Did you slap your PaperPhone on ? Snaplet

Foldable screens and e-ink technologies have fueled our imaginations for years (remember the downloadable newspaper ?), and teams of North American researchers* added the logical next next step, with a PaperPhone prototype to be on display next Tuesday at the Computer Human Interaction conference in Vancouver. They went one notch further with the Snaplet, a wristband which becomes "a watch when convex, a PDA when flat and a phone when concave"**.

The Snaplet is a really interesting concept because it adds a human touch and provides a wearable solution for the rollscreen (call it a tablet or a phone depending on the circumstances). Of course, it won't be that simple (consider sweat, thefts, or shocks, for instance), but that's a nice upgrade for the snappable watch, and a perfect support for promotional gifts : I don't see people paying fortunes for a rugged version, but couple this with the disposable phone...

mot-bile 2011

* from Human Media Lab, Queen's University / Motivational Environments Research, Arizona State University
** both unveiled by the Beeb, see BBC's "Flexible phone made from electronic paper to debut"

Melting clouds

Amazon claims its Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) "changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use".

Quora, Foursquare, Reddit and co didn't pay much when, the other day, the said elastic snapped (or as Einstein would put it : EC2 = Mess*) : their customers couldn't reach the service.

Sony also faced down servers issues with its PlayStation Network, but the trouble went even further : it appears that accounts were hacked, password and credit card details potentially stolen. Not the best context for the Sony Tablet launch.

This tablet runs on Android, an OS under scrutiny these days, just like rival iPhone : users start wondering about what happens to the huge amount of data generated by their compulsive smartphone behaviors, and their blind acceptance of countless obscure authorizations. They're afraid of Apple and Google might abuse their power, and they're right. But they should be worrying even more about what might happen when really bad guys reach their supposedly safe place in the cloud.

mot-bile 2011

* not yet a car crash ("Amazon Cloud Drive, cloudn't it ?") ?

Samsung SH100 : from your camera to your social network

A Wifi camera, a keyboard enabled touch screen, a remote viewfinder Android app and voila, your picture straight to YouTube or to your Facebook page.

You can bet the said app will itself be connected to the existing Samsung Mobile Print app, which allows me to print wirelessly from my Samsung Galaxy phone or my Samsung Sens laptop to my Samsung Printer.

Sooner or later, my Samsung Fridge shall join the party to spit shopping lists out, but I don't have the Wifi model yet.

Next thing you know, SGR-1, Samsung's killer-robot that has been patrolling the DMZ since last year, will update his status on his twitter account ("shot a crane today - getting rusty I guess").

mot-bile 2011

PS: and as far as Samsung's army of 400 lawyers is concerned, they just sent one message to Apple : bring it on (see "Samsung Electronics cleared of infringement of Japanese patents" after "Apple heart(break)s Samsung")

Apple heart(break)s Samsung

Copycats. That's how Apple sees iPhone / iPad rivals. The main culprit and market share holder with its Galaxy lines, Samsung would have infringed no less than 10 patents, 2 trademarks, and 3 trade dress. As much as it hates suing a good client (Apple devices scream "Samsung Inside" from many angles), Samsung will file a counter-suit for less specific motives.

Nokia, HTC, or Motorola also have two-way legal battles with Cupertino, who also faces lawsuits from H-W Technology, or Robocast.

It's like a poke game : sue me ? suits me: I poke back. Forget hardware, OS, platform, or app wars : lawyer layer's all the rage now, and that's where innovation will come from...

Speaking of upgrades : LTE will be commercialized in July 2011 by SK Telecom and LG U+. Korea Telecom will follow suit (no lawyer needed) the following year : if they haven't decided yet with which infrastructure, they can until then rely on a strong nationwide Wifi presence to absorb the smartphone boom (unlimited wireless data plans include free access to Nespot). LG Telecom is probably eager to switch as quickly as possible to a more universal technology than the CDMA allowed by its own 3G license.

4G in SK ? 3G in NK ! On the other side of the DMC, North Korea's mobile market keeps booming : 430,000 subs EOY 2010, not much for a 24 M strong country, but quite big for a place with so few strong people. Mobility reaches far beyond the first nomenklatura circles : this is the place where not so long ago, only a few priviledged people were allowed to have a radio, locked on official frequencies. Here, suits to be feared are less of the law than of the military kind.

mot-bile 2011

Kakao Talk of the day

Kakao recently claimed its 10 millionth KakaoTalk user - or is it app download ? -, including 10% overseas (mostly in the US, thanks to the Korean diaspora, but the service is also available in English and Japanese). Now the Bundang based venture wants to go global.

Good luck : VoIP is a highly competitive field where "incumbent" Skype almost looks like the obsolete PTT running on grand dad PCs. In Korea, Kakao faces giant netco Daum's MyPeople, a more comprehensive social networking tool, or pure players like NeoMecca (OlivePhone app)... not to mention Google Talk, present on all Android smartphones.

Note that rivals Daum and Naver are considering suing Google for its dominant position as Android's favored search engine.

Indeed, the Google brand is indeed reigning on every Android smartphone's main screen, and more discreetely but pervasively present across the app menu : "Talk" for Google Talk, "Maps" for Google Map, "Places" for Google Places, "Latitude" for Google Latitude, "Finance" for Google Finance. Also there : Gmail, YouTube...

What puzzles me most is the way local MNOs deserted the battlefield : where a Vodafone would have branded the UI, KT / Show remains in the background. You know you have an iPhone or an Android device, but the operator appears simply as the hardware salesperson, and a not so proud carrier.

As we saw earlier, Korean MNOs have very poorly prepared for the smartphone revolution, but even now, it almost looks as if they want to dump their own app stores.

mot-bile 2011

Amazon Cloud Drive, cloudn't it ?

Most retailers dream of emptying their shelves. Amazon dreams of seeing his customers leave their stuff in its warehouses. That's called living in a cloud. And these days, preempting cloud space is about keeping your feet on the ground.

Here's the claim:

- 5 GB of free online storage
- Unlimited access from any computer
- Never worry about losing your files again

Here's the catch:
- 5 GB doesn't mean anything these days (ie ADrive has been offering 50 GB for years), but you're invited to buy additional storage and conveniently enough, the stuff you purchase on Amazon store is not included in the 5 GB
- unlimited access from any computer, but forget about your iPhone (only Android does it for mobile devices - and needless to say, Cloud Player doesn't read iTunes)
- never think about changing providers : try moving once you've uploaded the whole shebang

But that's OK. Once again, Amazon shot first among the big non operator fishes. Amazon acted as a leader. As the Kindle proves, it's not a silver bullet, but this shot in the cloud is certainly not a lost bullet.

mot-bile 2011

Sprint fires Google Voice at AT&T - T-Mobile

It doesn't take an app anymore to use Google Voice on Sprint*.

It doesn't take an ape anymore to spot the 800 pound gorilla in the US wireless jungle : AT&T is having T-mobile for lunch, and the great silverback issues $ 39 bn in greenbacks and shares to pay the bill.

Putting both events at the same level seems unfair, but this is all about asymetric warfare. Sprint Nextel will probably tell this kind of story to the FCC.

Meanwhile, the VoIP app battle keeps raging between Google Voice, Tango, Viber, Skype, Fring, and scores of new players who don't have to plant antennas across the States.

Meanwhile, IRL, people try to survive a much more vital battle in Japan's most battered prefectures, where fixed broadband often proves to be the last link with the rest of mankind.

mot-bile 2011

* as the operator introduces Nexus S 4G, the netco stresses the software level ("Sprint integrates Google Voice") :

"Over time, we've worked to bring an integrated Google Voice experience to your mobile device by building mobile apps, introducing Google Voice Lite, and most recently Number Porting. But we felt that ultimately, the most simple solution would be to partner with carriers to seamlessly integrate Google Voice with your mobile phone.
Today, we’d like to share that we’ve teamed up with Sprint to do just that.
First, Sprint customers will be able to use their existing Sprint mobile number as their Google Voice number and have it ring multiple other phones simultaneously. So now, calls to your Sprint mobile number can easily be answered from your office or your home phone, or even your computer through Gmail. Calls from Gmail and text messages sent from google.com/voice will also display your Sprint number. This basically gives Sprint customers all the benefits of Google Voice without the need to change or port their number.
Alternatively, Google Voice users can choose to replace their Sprint number with their Google Voice number when placing calls or sending text messages from their Sprint handset. This feature works on all Sprint phones and gives Sprint users all the benefits of Google Voice without the need for an app.
In both cases, Google Voice replaces Sprint voicemail, giving Sprint customers transcribed voicemail messages available online and sent via email and/or text message. International calls made from Google Voice users’ Sprint phones will be connected by Google Voice at our very low rates, and Sprint customers will also have access to the rest of Google Voice’s features, like creating personalized voicemail greetings based on who’s calling, call recording, blocking unwanted callers and more."