Realtime tweets from Pepcom and CTIA, 8 October 2009 8 October 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: AT&T, augmented reality, digital sixth sense, pepcom, qualcomm, roambi, rocketvox, trilibis
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Irwin and Paul Jacobs of Qualcomm on stage talking about mobile phone development history, fascinating long view of industry.
Paul: user interface is the killer app, Irwin: iPhone was the major breakthrough.
These guys love their stuff, think critically about how it’s used, best session of the show!
Far out & spot on prediction from Paul Jacobs: mobile phone will become “digital sixth sense”.
John Donovan, ATT CTO, speaking now, interesting so far, outlining wireless data challenges.
Donovan slowly slipping from interesting talk into ATT briefing, almost defensive about tech choices.
Donovan managing to balance ATT pitch with industry high view, talk is substantive.
Increased focus on integrating social nets into unified communications platforms, new stuff from Trilibis, RocketVox at last night’s Pepcom event.
RocketVox looks like the best of breed so far, goes live next Tuesday, will check it out.
Roambi showing platform for translating spreadsheets to mobile medium, adds killer graphics.
Real-time tweets from CTIA and Showstoppers, 7 October 2009 7 October 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: AT&T, bitstream, fcc, FloTV, friendcaller, intermap, showstoppers, verizon, yahoo
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Julius Genachowski, FCC chair, CTIA keynote, commends ATT, Verizon for opening iPhone to Internet calls, adopting Android.
Four priorities at FCC, spectrum for 4G, remove obstacles to 4G, “fair” rules of road for Internet, empower consumers.
Ralph de la Vega, ATT CEO up now, thanks Genchowski, but warns of danger of interference.
Ralph saying US mobile industry most innovative, consumer friendly in world, damn we’re great.
Ralph descends into ATT sales pitch, time for a nap.
David Ko Yahoo Mobile SVP up now, he’s excited about Yahoo’s ads.
Ko hands off to tacky home page demo, abuse of a captive audience IMHO, l8r dood.
At Showstoppers event at CTIA show, saw some interesting companies and products.
FloTV is potential disruptor. Originally delivered streaming video for Verizon and ATT, now going direct to consumers.
FloTV will be selling something like 16 TV channels nationwide, via UHF channel 55, for $9 per month.
FloTV demonstrated branded mobile device with $249 price point, but no reason to think their market is limited to mobile subs.
FloTV essentially $9 per month basic cable with streaming news, sports & such. Get rest off air & by download, bye bye cable.
BOLT browser launched out of beta by Bitstream, heats up browser competition, further tilts market away from native apps.
Virgin Mobile showing first nationwide pay-go mobile broadband. $149 dongle, buy bandwidth in $10 or more increments.
Friendcaller.com showing browser to browser VOIP, not revolutionary but still a neat angle that’ll find a market.
Intermap has Accuterra service, runs on iPhone, links GPS data to downloaded maps of parks, wildlands, fine for tourists.
Talked to Zer01 Mobile, claims unlimited data & voice for $70/month, lots of holes in their story though.
Mobile devs aligning into 2 camps: those who do & don’t play nice with iPhone. Is iPhone the Apple II of smartphones?
Quick look around the press room at CTIA, nearly everyone using Macs, even the guy from PC World magazine.
Genchowski has an activist agenda for the FCC 7 October 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: 4G, AT&T, CTIA, fcc, regulation, wireless broadband
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FCC chairman Julius Genachowski delivered the opening keynote at the CTIA IT and Entertainment conference today. He offered good of idea of what he has in store for the industry, and gave us a feeling for who he is.
If you take him at face value, the FCC is going to be the wireless industry’s best friend. And the consumer’s best friend. In fact, everybody’s best friend.
Genchowski unveiled what he called the FCC’s mobile broadband agenda:
1. “Unleashing spectrum” for 4G service. He said mobile broadband usage is exploding, and the FCC has to promote more efficient use of spectrum.
2. Remove obstacles to 4G deployment, for example by streamlining the tower siting process.
3. Develop fair rules of the road for the Internet. He said it’s important to ensure the Internet remains open, and that the FCC has to empower entrepreneurs, not lawyers.
4. Empowering consumers by supporting a transparent marketplace. He also said vibrant and competitive marketplace, but he focused on transparency — nominally more information for consumers — as the means to fostering greater competition.
He clearly intends to be an activist FCC chairman. His plans would create a bigger role for the FCC in regulating the telecommunications industry, wired and wireless, telephone, cable and broadband alike.
The better the available information, the better a free marketplace will work in theory. That’s fine. But it’s a short step from requiring better information to trying to actively manage the workings of the market, and then to dictating outcomes.
The point wasn’t lost on Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility and the second keynote speaker. He thanked Genchowski for his stated good intentions, but quickly hit back, saying we (presumably meaning America if not the entire world) need an Internet free of “burdensome regulation”. He said the Internet is open now, and needs to stay that way.
In a genuine debate, it would have been difficult for de la Vega to make the case that the particular corner of the Internet that he is responsible for is open. Like all U.S. mobile carriers, AT&T manages what subscribers can do with their bandwidth, and what devices they can use.
On the other hand, Genchowski would have been equally hard pressed to explain how a more activist regulator will lead to greater market freedom. Creating “fair” rules and “empowering” particular market players is in fact the reverse of letting the market operate.
Even free market economists usually allow that natural monopolies, such as telecoms networks, need some degree of regulation, so there’s clearly a role for the FCC to play. If that role is limited to increasing transparency and improving the ability of consumers to make economically rational choices, Genchowski and de la Vega should have no argument between them.
Will Genchowski so limit himself and his colleagues? I did not leave with the feeling that he sees himself as a simple referee. Rather, his enthusiasm is palpable for the work he laid out. I expect he will lead an FCC that increasingly sees itself as an industry player, at the least co-equal with the private sector, and sitting on the opposing side of the table.
Maybe Genchowski really believes he can foster entrepreneurial growth through federal regulation, rather than creating a bull market for Washington lawyers, lobbyists and special interests. If he does, he needs to explain how.
Carriers can’t rock and roll 6 October 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: apple computer, AT&T, CTIA, verizon
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AT&T’s Rob Hyatt and Verizon’s Ed Ruth spoke today about the music business at the Mobile Entertainment conference at the CTIA show in San Diego. Neither were upbeat about their success to date, and both seemed to be waiting for something to happen. They seemed to define that something as “innovation” in the market place, but what they really seemed to want are innovations that allow them to keep music downloads and streaming within their walled gardens.
Hyatt said that AT&T’s executives don’t find the business case for music to be compelling. While Ruth paid lip service to openness, or rather Verizon’s version of openness, he made it clear that Verizon intends to own the app and download stores on its network, and keep content revenue moving through their existing customer billing relationships.
More than anything, they seemed puzzled by the way the music industry itself works and the relationship that consumers have with it. A telling moment was when Ruth talked about their devices and download stores being on a par with Apple’s products and iTunes store. The point that he seemed to be trying to make was that it’s just a matter of time before they start eating into the iTunes market share.
Others attribute Apple’s dominance to its understanding of the app store ecosystem. It’s the combination of a developer community, the blessing and support of a major mobile carrier, compelling content and a pleasant, easily grasped user experience.
Apple is the application and content provider that has gone the furthest in busting out of the mobile carriers’ preferred business model. Money is more evenly divided amongst the players — developers, content owners, retail and carrier. More generous cash flow is an incentive for developers to put the iPhone at the top of the priority list, which means more applications are released for it, and more quickly. In turn, more apps lead to greater consumer interest, which translates into more sales. More sales means more money, and the cycle reinforces itself.
Meanwhile, the carriers wait for (there’s that word again) innovation. The content owners have to be innovative enough to accept the mobile carrier’s business model, and consumers have to be innovative enough to just do what they’re told. Success is just a matter of time. Could be a very long time.
Maybe they meant stimulating conversation? 13 March 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: AT&T, broadband stimulus, california emerging technology fund, cetf, fcc, NTIA, RUS, verizon
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Following a couple weeks of meetings and conference calls with industry, government and community people, and doing some reading, the broadband portion of the stimulus package isn’t looking so stimulating…
- The real fight is on now. Lobbying groups are fully engaged as the NTIA determines the scoring criteria it will use. The process will continue over the next two to three weeks. There are more hearings scheduled for Washington, plus two others next week, one in Las Vegas and one in Flagstaff. Expect wonks from all sides to parachute in, trying to tweak details and definitions to their advantage. Same story for the RUS money.
- The deck seems stacked against urban community broadband projects. The focus at this point is on two criteria, 1. job creation and 2. reaching unserved and underserved areas. In that order. Big city interests want to equate “underserved” with “unaffordable”, but even if they are successful, they’re pitching jobs tomorrow against jobs today.
- There are three kinds of jobs that could be created via broadband process: one-time system construction, ongoing system operations, and second order effects where the availability/affordability of broadband creates and/or preserves jobs down the road.
- The consensus within the industry is that priority will go toward construction jobs, because those will get money into peoples hands and then into the economy most quickly. I wrote about this subject earlier.
- At the state level, the expectation is that substantially all of the NTIA money will go through the states. That’s probably not realistic. The broadband portion of the stimulus bill, unlike nearly all of the rest of the bill, does not require the money to flow through the states.
- Community and municipal people think that taking the state out of the funding stream means the NTIA will direct more money directly to community projects. That possibility becomes likelier if the current lobbying efforts directed at NTIA’s scoring criteria are successful. But the prevailing industry view is that the reason the NTIA money doesn’t necessarily flow through states is because the big incumbent carriers, like AT&T and Verizon, won the day in Congress and will be at the head of the line.
- The prevailing industry view also assumes that some money will go to community projects, if only for appearances sake. If so, cities could be in line for a bit of funding if a concrete job creation case can be made.
- The California Emerging Technology Fund has identified a substantial amount of money – more than $60 billion – that the stimulus bill directs towards broadband-related technology projects, with health-related IT projects at the top of the list. Most of that money ($55 billion? More?) will flow through the states, and CETF and the California governor’s office are well positioned to claim a nice chunk. The $7.2 billion of NTIA and RUS money could slipt away from them, though.
- Everyone agrees that the process is moving quickly, that the fact that several key positions in the new administration are unfilled makes the process very difficult, and that presenting a unified message, if not speaking with one voice, is the key to being heard before the scoring criteria are set. The game could be all but over by the end of March or the beginning of April.
- The FCC is in the act as well. It’s planning to come up with a national broadband strategy by the end of May. I think it’s a mistake to think that it will have much influence on NTIA and RUS grant decisions. The grants, and the process of making the grants, will create jobs, or so the Obama administration thinks. The FCC process will create or save jobs — mostly for lobbyists, lawyers and other Beltway bandits, but a job is a job, I guess. It’s about jobs, not grand broadband policy or even coherent management.
The mantra so far is “fast, fast, fast”. Fair enough. But everyone will want a say, then everyone will want a say regarding what everyone else said. It would be nice if the serious money actually started to flow by this Summer, or even by Fall. It would be nice. But I’m not counting on it.
When they say shovel ready, they mean real shovels 3 March 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: 12seconds.tv, AT&T, Blue Field Strategies, floor64, kerton group, NTIA, rini coran, RUS, silicon valley telecommunications council, silver springs networks, techdirt, tia
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Notes from the Silicon Valley Telecom Council’s Policy Luncheon
The prevailing view amongst the private sector people who have been talking to contacts with the Obama team is that the lion’s share of the broadband stimulus money will go to incumbent carriers. “Jobs are created through the existing structures,” was how Mike Masnick put it, quoting a highly placed source in the administration.
Yesterday’s Silicon Valley Telecom Council policy luncheon in Santa Clara was sponsored by AT&T, but big carriers by no means dominated the panel. Speakers represented a wide variety of sectors and areas of expertise, from both inside and outside the Beltway:
- Jon Metzler, Blue Field Strategies
- Christopher Boyer, AT&T, AVP – Internet & Technology Policy
- Danielle Coffey, Vice President, Government Affairs for the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA)
- Derek Kerton, The Kerton Group & SVTC
- Mike Masnick, founder Techdirt; CEO, floor64
- Robert Rini, Partner, Rini Coran PC
- David Pejcha, Marketing Director, Silver Spring Networks
It pretty much looked like this on 12seconds.tv
With $7.2 billion specifically earmarked for broadband projects, the stimulus package is the largest U.S. government disbursement for telecom purposes ever. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the panelists were 100% in agreement: the priority is job creation, not broadband build out, and incumbent carriers can create — or protect — more jobs more quickly than start up companies or community-based projects.
The audacious hope is that once the dust settles from the stimulus extravaganza, a genuine broadband and telecommunications policy, with money attached, will make its way through the administration and congress. That program, should it ever come to pass, would address how to upgrade the U.S. national broadband infrastructure and extend it to unserved areas. The stimulus package, though, is about something else.
There’s a lot of detail that is still uncertain, not least who will be running the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Rural Utilities Service, the two agencies that will be ladling out the grants. But the consensus yesterday was clear: whoever is appointed will be answering directly to John Maynard Keynes.
It’s not doing the great man justice to focus on a couple of his quips, but he put the awful truth very succinctly. If you hire hire a bunch of people to dig a ditch, you’ve stimulated the economy. If you hire more people to fill it back in, you’ve doubled the stimulus. It doesn’t matter that nothing of value was created in the process. What is most important is that people are receiving pay packets and spending the money.
The bottom line is that the Obama administration would rather fund a project that puts a thousand people to work installing ten miles of fiber, than pay ten people to lay a thousand miles.
Of course, a thousand miles of fiber will support many thousands of jobs in the long run. But, according to yesterday’s private sector expert view, the administration will be thinking about the here and now when it hands out the cash. The first, and maybe only, question for applicants will be “how many people will you hire today with this money?”
Short term thinking perhaps, but as Professor Keynes put it, “this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run, we are all dead.”
