Think not being able to secure customer customer email addresses is a hiccup from two otherwise savvy network / ecommerce operators? Apple has proven itself as a top rate designer and marketer of consumer electronics. AT&T has masterfully managed to use its lock on a popular device to oversell its underpowered wireless net at stratospheric prices.  But wait! It appears neither is really up to the task of running ecommerce and customer care systems.

The fourth-generation iPhone, which features a higher-resolution display, longer battery life and a front-facing camera for video chat, appears to be in high demand. So high, in fact, that when Apple and its partners started taking pre-orders on Tuesday, many anxious customers were unable to reserve one. The phone will be released next Thursday.

“This pre-ordering process is an absolute joke. I’ve tried Apple.com, ATT.com and even calling the store… no luck. #FAIL,” Andrew Dumont of Seattle wrote on Twitter.

Another Twitter user by the name of JoeKLee wrote: “Apple.com and Att.com, I just want to give you guys money. Please fix your websites.”

Other users have said that Apple’s new retail application, which the company introduced Tuesday morning to allow customers to pre-order the iPhone 4 on their existing iPhones, isn’t working. (New York Times)

With demand so high, I doubt this lack of a core customer care competency will deter the hungry masses from buying Apple’s new handset in record numbers. It’s unfortunate for them that we still have a wireless cartel where carriers and devices are locked to one another.  It’s also sad that to so called technology leaders have  managed two huge technology blunders inside of a week.

For Starbucks to open up their WiFi network for free to their customers? Their biggest competitor, Micky D’s, did this about 6 months ago. D’s is not totally open, but if all you want to do is surf, well then it is. But still, ‘Bucks usually moves faster than this —

Starting July 1st, Starbucks will finally begin to offer free and unrestricted Internet access over Wi-Fi in its stores. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz made this announced at Wired’s Disruptive by Design conference today. With this, Starbucks finally joins the ranks of neighborhood coffee stores all over the world that have long offered free and easy access to Wi-Fi. By Fall 2010, Starbucks also plans to give Internet users in its stores free access to paid sites, including the Wall Street Journal.

Until now, Starbucks customers were restricted to two hours of Wi-Fi access and needed to register for a Starbucks Card in order to access the Internet. Starbucks already offered free Wi-Fi access to AT&T customers.
Free Access to Paid Content

The free access to paid content sites, however, is the big news here. According to Starbucks, this new service, called the “Starbucks Digital Network,” will give users who surf the Internet from U.S. company owned stores access to “various paid sites and services such as wsj.com, exclusive content and previews, free downloads, local community news and activities, on their laptops, tablets or smart phones.” Besides the Wall Street Journal, Starbucks’ partners include Apple’s iTunes, The New York Times, Patch, USA TODAY, Yahoo and ZAGAT.

The free paid access sweeter I guess makes up for the delay?

Linky.

Much of the wireless industry has been resisting pretty strongly the idea of giving up the voice channel as a revenue stream. Fact what they are resisting is the concept that voice is just another piece of data. For example, almost a year ago Apple disapproved a Google app that permitted VoIP on the iPhone at the insistence of their AT&T transport partner.

Ok, but then what can you do about this? –

More time laughing with friends.
Less time in front of a computer.
Take free, unlimited Skype-to-Skype calls and IM on the go with your BlackBerry® or Android™ 3G smartphone from Verizon Wireless.

Yeah, its a shill quote right off the Skype site. But that is not what matters here. What is, is the fact that Skype/Verizon are putting a shot across the bow of every other vendor out there as it relates to voice minute charges.

Now of course there is a down side. That Skype call is now a data rated call. Which if you look at Verizon’s data rate plans is not a bargain in comparison. So for the consumer it is not a block buster cost saver. But this opens the door that voice is just another chunk of data. I would be inclined to look at T-Moble’s unlimited data plan for this Skype service. Get one of their Android phones and see what happens….

But the door is opening. Might take a year or two for folks to catch on but eventually there will be a data rate war in the wireless arena as voice channel services are dropped by consumers.

The FCC’s broadband plan called for wireless to provide broadband competition. Many of us see that as a duopoly ruse to get the FCC to make more spectrum available on auction. Auction virtually guarantees only the very deep pockets of the telcos would be able to place a winning bid.

Not so fast says an investment group and owners of satellite spectrum. By consolidating under utilized spectrum held by satellite operators, it becomes possible to free a big enough swath of bandwidth to provide a competitive service.

A New York private equity firm plans to build a multibillion-dollar 4G wireless network that will cover most of the country by 2015. The ambitious plan by Harbinger Capital Partners relies on deploying a Long Term Evolution network over spectrum owned by a few satellite companies — and would create an open wholesale wireless network available to retail companies, PC manufacturers or anyone who wants to offer mobile broadband. Last November I wrote that certain satellite companies were visiting Washington hoping to somehow cash in on the 100 MHz of spectrum they collectively have. After reading the FCC order and Harbinger’s plans filed with the FCC on Friday night, it looks like those satellite firms may have found a way thanks to the FCC’s faith in mobile broadband as a means of promoting innovation and competition. (Gigaom)

Will this bring new broadband competition? Maybe. The incumbent wireless cartel will certainly protest. The armies of telco lwyers are probably already flooding the feds with reams of legal  fodder while the lobbyists unleash new favors and cash. We’ll see plenty of new paid for placement hit pieces in the media just like the assault on Wimax and Clearwire we’ve witnessed over the last couple of years.

One thing is certain. Mobile broadband will be an explosive market in the coming years, and it can’t be built out fast enough. A new player in the game will certainly accelerate availability, improve performance, and lower prices. That’s all good.

The big caveat is that wireless cannot take the place of ultra fast fixed line service. Any competent technologist understands this. This is more proof that  the competition through wireless concept the FCC is selling is a  ruse to protect the telcos last mile monopoly.

While the FCC releases it’s naked power grab carefully in a “Broadband Plan” wrapper that has AT&T and Verizon’s fingerprints all over it, wireless underdog Sprint is filling in a few of the gaps.

On demand, short term and prepaid brought wireless voice service to the under served masses, and on demand broadband can do the same. No fed subgeniuses and K street telco mouthpieces required, thank you.

Sold through Telespree, Mobile Broadband on Demand (TM) provides Sprint Wholesale partners a way to offer their customers an easy to use and economical way to experience mobile broadband. Offered as a standalone product or packaged with back office services, this unique plug and play product with over-the-air activation is so simple that a wide variety of enterprises will be able to add wireless broadband to their portfolio - from traditional MVNO wireless partners to companies that cater to more casual mobile data users such as rental car companies, airport kiosks, hotels, and retail stores.

Now, Sprint Wholesale partners are able to provide on-demand access of prepaid mobile broadband services to their customers by the day, week or month - or should the customer prefer, by megabyte. Consumers can enjoy an “off the shelf” experience; in which they simply purchase the partner-branded data card (no contract required), select the data plan of their choice, and connect. Users can easily track usage from a small data meter icon and can “top off” their balance as needed.  (Fierce Wireless)

While I hesitate to call the same product, offered at wholesale from a single source a way of fostering a competitive market, it’s a step in the right direction. By putting the service in the reseller channel, the service is likely to be offered in diffetent increments that will fit the needs of a wide variety of consumers. Making broadband available instantly, on a pay as you go product nit only makes sense, it’s bound to reach more of the under served than than any FCC authored subsidy scheme ever will.

If you are a major carrier that wants maximum distance between towers and total control of a national network based on old technology, maybe. When it comes to wireless, I think we have been and continue to take the wrong approach. We are currently supporting a big government / wireless cartel solution. There could be a better way. After all, the airwaves belong to all of us, not the FCC and a few corporations.

In a speech last year, Michael Calabrese proposed an alternative worthy of consideration.

Michael Calabrese argues that the FCC’s depicted apportioning of the airwave spectrum gives a false impression of scarcity, especially as it fails to consider the real use of each frequency assignment and the full capabilities of digital transmitters and receivers today. The government can do more to assure the wireless future offers pervasive, ubiquitous, and affordable connectivity.

By considering the two general concepts of underlay (increasing use of a particular frequency, such as in a time-sharing condition) and overlay (filling unoccupied frequencies), he means to show how much more can be done with the airwave spectrum, taking into account possibilities for frequency sharing and the adjacencies now possible without interference. He gives an example of “cognitive radio,” which operates at low power and searches out the most appropriate frequency in a given condition. (IT Conversations)

Audio link follows:

 

 IT Conversations [21:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

All of the chatter about  4G wireless in the big tech media is really beginning to annoy me.  The wireless broadband world as of right now is 100% Wimax, and it works. In fact this post comes to you tonight via a Wimax connection that outperforms AT&T’s best DSL offering in my neighborhood, and lags behind Time Warner’s pricey 15MBPS service a bit. So, 4G wireless is here, working and destined to improve.  Today it is 100% Wimax. You’d never know that from reading posts in the big tech media. They keep telling us that something called LTE is what I’ve been waiting for. Well, excuse me, I’m not waiting, I’m using. So why is it we keep reading FUD like this in GigaOM? I think it’s pretty simple. Lots of bloggers are following the lame stream media and recycling press releases and talking points as news. Sorry to single you out Om, I really do like your blog and you’re far from  the worst offender.

Let me spell my bias out for you, and I think it’s pretty much the same as the average broadband consumer. IF an LTE based carrier  shows up with a better deal I’m a customer. But, that’s based on if and when. Today, I’m writing about what I can buy now.

I do wish we’d get past discussion of technology. It’s a no brainer that LTE has a commitment from the major cell phone operators. It’s also a fact no one really has a clear idea of what LTE will be beyond the results of preliminary lab stats. The idea behind LTE is to make an easy transition form current cell phone technology for the nickel and dime you to death cellular carriers. Wimax was never designed to do that. So far, Wimax has been deployed as a big open pipe. Try getting that from the cell phone guys. By the time LTE is expected to be available in major markets, next gen Wimax will be available and an upgrade. I see a coming 4G war not only between two technologies, but also between two business models.

Bottom line: I can promise you we’re getting no largess from either the LTE or Wimax camp. We’re based in Texas, so I’ll use a little local analogy. Today Wimax is the only horse in town, and it’s pricier than we would like and slower than we would like. At the same time, as of today, the LTE camp is all hat and no cattle. Contrary to all of the tech media propaganda, both are likely to be with us for some time to come. In fact, I doubt one will be an clear winner over the other. There’s plenty of evidence for how that could work in today’s two competing cell phone standards.

It’s extremely irresponsible to call one a clear winner over the other before both players even take the field, and we’re not going to do that.

Which in this case means that if Google wants to deliver it, and you want to use it, Google WILL find a way to do so. Even if the device mfr says NO! Well in this case its AT&T/Apple saying no to a Google Voice app on the iPhone.

Now I understand why AT&T did not want it, it hurts their voice traffic income. But do both of these partners realize the semi truck load of a mistake they just made? Had Google followed their original plan they would have locked the Google Voice into the app space of the iPhone architecture. Doing so would have meant Google duplicating that for any subsequent smart phone with the attendant hassles and costs of handling multiple variants of software. Now?

Now Google has turned the software and the iPhone into a VoIP TERMINAL. Unleashed from the underlying architecture Google Voice can now live on any device capable of handling HTML5. Any smart phone, MID, Nettop, Netbook, you name it. That single denial has unleashed a monster, at least for a Telco.

Very dumb AT&T.

Linky.

In this case its Verizon again. The name of the game is a Titanic shuffle of their data rate plan. May sound like small potatoes till you see the hurdle before you as a customer –

First, the details: Verizon has introduced a new data tier at $9.99 per month with a 25MB cap—this is the cheapest data plan now offered by the company and by most US wireless carriers, and applies to all 3G devices. Why does this equate to “upping” the data charges? Because the company is ditching its $19.99 per month plan with a 75MB cap altogether—you must either go with the $9.99 plan for a third of the data or or the $29.99 smartphone plan that applies to WinMo, Android, or BlackBerry devices.

This in a sense is a variant of the give the lantern away but charge for the oil dearly. Only this is charge minimally for low oil but if you want to use the lamp every night you has to pay!

Why can’t stuff be simple? Just charge .001¢ per kilobyte and be done with it. Equitable, quick and customers can check their bills quickly. But then that would not justify the marketees salary would it?

Linky.

I usually avoid perpetuating rumors, but this one is too interesting to resist. Imagine you are Clearwire and you sign a single contract that gives you a massive number of tower sites. Not only to you solve a siting problem, you  get an “anchor customer” for your backhaul network in the process.  In fact, putting a tower on every single Wal Mart could bring more broadband to rural America before the first one of President Obama’s very pricey broadband availability maps are completed.

Our source tells us that the effort to grow the nationwide WiMax network includes placing place WiMax towers on the top of all Walmart locations.  According to them, they were advised to consider how many stores overlap each other in a 30-50 mile radius.  Essentially, this would be enough to cover a good chunk of the United States. Plus, this would not cost nearly as much as erecting towers and dealing with hassles like zoning permissions. (Andriod Guys)