Prepaid cellular. Generally been treated as a niche market. But now it looks like even the majors are recognizing that this is a segment that can’t be ignored. The biggest player in this market is TracFone. The interesting thing is every where Trac goes they never seem to exit and end up with a 2-3% market share. Not bad for a ‘niche player’, all cash. –

Over the past several weeks a number of operators have re-jiggered their offerings in an attempt to attract more customers and hopefully fatten the bottom line.

Earlier this month, Leap Wireless International Inc. threw out its often-overlooked Jump prepaid service like an old pair of sneakers to try on its new PayGo offering. The new service trades in Jump’s per-minute charges for an unlimited, per-day offering that varies according to the extra features a customer chooses. The plans include a $1 per-day option providing unlimited local calling, voicemail, caller ID and three-way calling; a $2-per day price that adds unlimited text and picture messaging to the unlimited local calls; and a $3 daily option that features unlimited U.S. long distance, international texting to more than 100 countries, mobile Web and directory assistance, alongside the options of the $1 and $2 offerings.

and…

“Verizon is not the cheapest,” Ho said. “But the demographic of Verizon Wireless people is that they’re willing to pay for the network.”

AT&T Mobility’s GoPhone prepaid service features two pay-as-you-go options. The carrier boasts a dollar-per-day plan that charges 10 cents per minute and features unlimited on-network calling. To solely go minute by minute, the carriers charges 25 cents per minute. Now, 25 cents is no clearance-rack deal, and Ho said it might be time for the carrier to re-evaluate its choices.

Linky

Well now, we have had several state courts rule on ETF’s and the SCOTUS deny review. We have the NY AG looking into issues related to ETF’s. Now we have a notice being issued by the FCC for comment on the following –

On May 20, 2008, the Rural Cellular Association (“Petitioner”) filed a petition for rulemaking (“Petition”).1 “Pursuant to Sections 1, 4(i), 201(b), 202(a), 303(r), and 307(b) of the Communications Act, and Section 1.401 of the Commission’s rules,”2 the Petitioner asks the Commission to “initiate a rulemaking to investigate the widespread use and anticompetitive effects of exclusivity arrangements between commercial wireless carriers and handset manufacturers, and, as necessary, adopt rules that prohibit such arrangements when contrary to the public interest.”3 The Wireless Telecommunications Bureau seeks comment on the Petition.

Interested parties may file comments on or before [40 days after publication in the Federal Register], and reply comments on or before [60 days after publication in the Federal Register]. All filings should refer to RM No. 11497. Comments may be filed using: (1) the Commission’s Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS), (2) the Federal Government’s eRulemaking Portal, or (3) by filing paper copies. See Electronic Filing of Documents in Rulemaking Proceedings, 63 FR 24121 (1998).

Purpose of this legalize? Why to impute fair market competition and pricing for wireless CPE. The contention of the rural carriers of course being that the cozy relationship between the CPE supplier and carrier makes for a noncompetitive market in devices. It could be true, or not.

ThirdPipe has been 4 square against the buried costs of CPE since its inception. Not seeing the real cost of devices prevents the market from realizing true savings in devices. If wireless CPE followed the price curves of other complex consumer electronics something like the iPhone would be $100, no subsidy. But lets not delude ourselves either. The rural carriers aren’t doing this out of altruism but a chance to compete along the edges where they bump heads with the majors. Pure and simple. We catch the trickle down of their success. I can live with that though Motorola might have a different take on the matter.

Linky.

In what has to be a massive blow to the 700mhz band, the FCC in a report and as a policy decision has concluded that a open frequency will be necessary for this nation in the future. –

“We need to reserve some spectrum for free broadband services,” Martin said. “This would be lifeline broadband service . . . that would be designed for lower-income people who may not otherwise have access to the Internet.”

Of course the legacy carriers are all up in arms! –

But several large wireless carriers, including T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and AT&T, argue that using the spectrum will in fact interfere with their own broadband services operating in adjacent airwaves.

T-Mobile has been a vocal opponent of the plan, saying it will cause major disruption for its customers, especially as it rolls out its new G1 phone in partnership with Google.

FCC engineers conducted field tests last month in Seattle to determine the level of static between the services. The FCC concluded that sufficient technical protections would prevent major problems.

Martin’s proposal is to auction off the spectrum, with some rules attached. Some of the spectrum would be used for free Internet service, which would have content filters to block material considered inappropriate for children. Adults would be able to get around the filters.

The network would have to reach half of the U.S. population after four years, and 95 percent after 10 years.

I will be the last to tell you that I love the shaft the carriers are giving the American Public. But then again, were I Verizon I would probably be asking for my money back on the 700mhz space they just won. Nor from a FCC perspective is this prudent. It damages any future auctions they may have in the wireless space. Buyers will factor in any possibility of a free band that will compete against them as part of their pricing strategy. That’s Adam Smith’s Invisible Hammer at work.

But on the other hand, I see the need for the free band. There are frequencies that will not be used. We have had the battle of the white space wars and it has been proven that a properly designed spread spectrum device will not cause havoc. That it will be used only by low income will be a fallacy. So long as anybody can walk down to Frys and buy it off the shelf, it will be deployed regardless of income level.

Were I Verizon I would be seriously concerned.

Linky.
Linky.

If you are a California resident and were a Verizon Wireless customer you have till September 30 to receive and relief from the final agreement. If you wish to object to the final settlement you have till Oct 7th to do so.

Here is the webpage where you can sign up.

It may be time for the FCC to apply the evil “r” (regulation) word to the our US wireless cartel. Three major carriers made a joint announcement that they have no plans to open their network to compatible devices without heavy handed “management”. While they tout quality of service, the real reason is that open networks will push the envelope.  Pushing the envelope will require carriers to invest more in their networks while losing revenue from services that would be freely available and common as dirt in an open environment. On the plus side for carriers an open network significantly reduce their labor casts, while creating new competition and innovation in transmission and back haul equipment.These two pluses could actually deliver more profit.

CEOs from three of the big four wireless operators in the U.S. took the stage during a keynote panel at the CTIA Fall 2008 trade show here Wednesday to discuss what they envision for open cell phone networks. While Robert Dotson of T-Mobile USA, Dan Hesse of Sprint Nextel, and Lowell McAdam of Verizon Wireless all agree on the importance of opening their networks to developers and allowing subscribers to access the mobile Internet freely, the executives still say mobile operators need to have some control over which devices come on their network.

“If you look at unfettered access on the network, all of us would agree that it’s a pretty poor experience for users,” T-Mobile’s Dotson said. “There needs to be some stewardship or control.” (Cnet)

In a Third Pipe world, closed networks are a threat to the national economy. We are not fans of regulation, but in the case of the wireless cartel, it may be necessary. Being granted an exclusive license to a big chunk of our limited public airwaves for data or communications services offered to the public should also require that these networks be open. FCC regulations need to be revised to reflect this. Sure, such rules will accelerate the decline of wireless as we know it. This will happen sooner or later anyway without new regs, but my vote is for sooner.

The IEEE’s publication of the 802.11r spec cold have far reaching implications for wireless voice. Aside of the obvious opportunity for device convergence in the corporate campus. there are simply too many opportunities to build a business on the concept to beleive that both fixed and legacy wireless carriers won’t be effected.

The IEEE standards body has officially published the Wi-Fi protocol 802.11r, something that has been in the works since 2004 and was finally approved by the body earlier this year. The new protocol is designed to allow for quick roaming between access points while maintaining security. Handoffs between access points that used to take seconds (and result in dropped calls) can now take place in less than fifty milliseconds. This improves connections between multiple private networks but is particularly beneficial to Wireless VoIP.  (DSL Reports)

Bill Stone is CEO and president of Handango has a reality check article on RCR . He has an article that in the main I totally agree with, as far as OS’s go on the handset. But that is as far as I agree with him. –

It feels like every day we are seeing articles about the “operating system wars” and who the winners and losers will be. The questions and analysis seem endless. What about Nokia’s purchase of Symbian? Will Google’s Android gain traction? What is the impact of Apple’s proprietary OS on the marketplace? Is Palm going to survive? Is Windows Mobile 7 going to allow Microsoft to finally break out in mobile? What about LiMo? Will Adobe be able to do for mobile what Flash did for the Web? RIM: mainstream or destined to be only 10% of the market? Then there are the “Mobile 2.0” widget/browser technologies. How many widget containers (AXcess, Plusmo, Widsets, Opera, Plaza, etc.) will make it? There’s lots of confusion out there when it comes to finding answers to these questions.

And this of a 5 point observation –

1) Fragmentation is here and we better get use to it.

The “winners” will have to support multiple OSs. We all know applications run best in a native environment. Developers are going to have to build their applications across multiple environments in the future (vs. primarily Java or BREW today for feature phones). Prioritization of which environments to support and near ubiquitous coverage of the OS will be key to success.

I agree with the what of his observations. We diverge however when it comes to why which is the crux of the issue. The failing in my view is in his first point. Fragmentation maybe here but the carriers aren’t going to like that for the simple reason of — portals. For three iterations now Apple has convenietly (iTune, iPhone, iPhone2.0) utilized a portal with considerable success. The Verizon’s, AT&T’s and other carriers will do the same. But wait! Can one really expect the carriers to write portal code for a dozen OS systems? Perish the thought.

The second one comes right out of the Desktop environment — thin clients. The desktop world has realized for at least a decade that one of the largest cost centers is the ongoing support required to keep a discrete compute system running. The usual approach to deflect this support has been thin client developments — Citrix, RDP, etc. Those same costs are evident in the handsets to a greater or lesser degree. It would be beyond comprehension for a Verizon who has visions of portals in their heads to face the daunting task of managing this for four handset suppliers.

The final realization is that if one has a reliable high speed connection why not use it? Not only that but a great deal of the carriers game plan is to assure lock in. Hence the reason the ETF has long outlived its financial need. So how would this play out? –

• A very small layer to provide boot code and lock on to the network.
• A minimalist IO layer is downloaded to handle the various ports.
• Finally a X-like layer is downloaded followed by the desktop presentation. But the desktop is not downloaded it is handled as session layer traffic and the actual compute is done on back end servers.

The benefits? You code to a single IO/UDP layer on the handset. You don’t care about the OS! A whole cost layer is removed so the handset could be considerably cheaper. The support goes to the datacenter where it is the cheapest it can be. Bottom line, the handset is nothing but a fancy terminal.

Dog what about my data when not on the network? I still want my data! That’s actually already resolved as well. The carriers use a AJAX based, ala Google Gears layer to provide persistence at the handset. When you get back to the network a sync occurs. The IO sublayer handles making sure that the data in RAM stays that way even when the handset is turned off.

Benefits to the customer? Well there is a big one. You can sit at your desktop or laptop thru a remote access connection work on that data that is on the server just like it is on the desktop. Syncing becomes somewhat easier as well. If done right one could have this as a data store like gSpace.

The bottom line is, done correctly the OS is toast. The irony is Google with or without Android is better positioned to pull this off than anyone. Though to be honest the technologies to be used are company agnostic.

Bill, the fact is in a high density wireless world the need for a permanent discrete OS on the handset is superfluous. Its better for the carriers. The carriers can deliver a cheaper handset. It has features the users would like. Its where we are headed.

Linky

Consumerist, a fine publication by the way, covers a piece here on how one reader negotiated with AT&T. They got the ETF reduced to 75%. I say that is a very good deal on the reader’s part. But that is not the play now.

Here’s what you do. The California ETF decision has destroyed ETF in the largest market in the nation. That means over the long haul its toast. How? You buy from a Calif. based supplier for contract and phone. then have it shipped to your home. Then you just move your service to your home LATA. That’s how ETF’s are toast. But that is not actually how I expect you to play it. There is another way, but do keep this Calif idea in mind.

When your current contract expires you walk into Sprint/AT&T/Verizon store and tell them you want to buy a new phone. Once you have your phone picked out and they get ready to do the contract you state you want them to waive the ETF 100% and go month to month. Otherwise you will go to T-Mobile. That ladies and gentlemen IS the play to make. If they go for it be sure you get it in writing of course.

As a consumer its time to use that T-Mobile offer against the other cell vendors. Get enough people walking out of the store empty handed and the word trickles back. Corporations do hear you — at the cash register. All it takes is a drop in contract renewals and they react. They track renewals monthly, its a sensitive metric for all of them.

Linky.

Here’s something a few of you may not know that is food for thought. If you use a mobile phone, more often than than not, the backhaul from the tower is done via a DSL connection. So, if you use a mobile, you been using VoIP for some time. With the entry of WiFi and 3G enabled smart phones, a few applications and services have emerged that will enable some to use VoIP their mobile outside of the wireless providers closed network. The obvious benefit for the end user is using no premium minutes via WiFi, and the ability to bypass outrageous international calling rates. The consumer benefits are also the main reason why the cartel of US wireless providers would prefer to keep VoIP capability off of their customers devices.

The current state of mobile VoIP software and services are not perfect, but they are improving - with or without the carrier’s blessings. In a recent post on GigaOm, Jason Harris details Seven ways to VoIP from your mobile. It’s a good read if you own or are considering the purchase of a smart phone.