Cox owns some spectrum, and plans to offer wireless service in its footprint. For starters, they’ll resell Sprint’s service. With LTE off in the horizon, that means they will be in the cellular and 3G arena. Few would call this a great time to enter a market that has peaked, and may soon be in decline.

The cable operator announced Monday that it will initially partner with Sprint Nextel to resell its wireless service to customers in its cable territory. Cox already bundles high speed Internet, telephony, and TV service. And soon it will add wireless service for a quadruple play offering.

“Wireless service will be a key driver to Cox’s future growth,” Cox President Pat Esser said in a statement.

But Cox isn’t stopping with just reselling Sprint’s wireless service. It also plans to build a 3G wireless network. And it will eventually build a 4G network using LTE technology. The company will use the nearly $550 million worth of spectrum it bought in the Federal Communication Commission’s AWS and the 700 MHz wireless auctions. (Cnet)

It’s nearly impossible to be innovative when you’re reselling an established business model. This is going to be a me too, with a mediocre marketing group behind it. That’s too bad. If Cox owned enough of their own facilities and knew how to sell an idea, they could do a low priced, device agnostic, flat rate cell / 3G service and make a big enough killing to fund a LTE build when it’s actually ready.

Nice little article over at eWeek by Clint Boulton. The jest of the piece is that the Android G1 is not ready for prime time enterprise deployments. Now as it is right now that is the case But I will attempt to point out after the jump why that is parochial –

Mort Rosenthal, CEO of Enterprise Mobile, which helps companies plan enterprise mobility implementations for devices based on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, discussed why the G1 doesn’t pass the enterprise mobility acid test with me Oct. 21.

I know what you’re thinking. Rosenthal would seem to have good reason to knock the G1 down a few pegs. This may be particularly true given the speculation from GigaOm’s Om Malik via eWEEK’s own Joe Wilcox that Windows Mobile is the odd man out in the accelerating smart-phone race between Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Nokia’s Symbian. You may well be right.

Yet what Rosenthal told me makes solid sense, as long as you agree that the so-called cloud, or Internet, is no platform on which to base a device designed to house and transmit sensitive and proprietary corporate information.

Rosenthal said what’s missing in cloud computing from an enterprise perspective is control of the information in the cloud. Most enterprises are not going to be happy with an open communication structure.

Followed by…

Now the G1 finds itself in the same boat, requiring not only Exchange integration but some degree of device management, which would allow a lost device to be wiped, as well as ways to control what is and isn’t put on the device. Rosenthal added:

Google’s strength is not really in enterprise-specific tools. It’s not clear whether that will ever emerge from Google. It certainly may emerge from people who take the open-source [Android platform] and build on top of it. No one will say the cloud is the most secure environment.

One company that might help with securing Android devices is Mocana, which Oct. 22 unveiled its NanoPhone Suite for Android, which lets developers build firewall, VPN and encryption features for Android handsets. But Mocana is not enough.

Rosenthal said the ideal scenario for the G1 would be a range of integration that involves applications and connection to back-end enterprise systems.

The 5 reasons this is a effete FUD piece –

1. I hate FUD pieces and this is just over the border a classic example of that archtype of writing.
2. Enterprise snobbery. 80% of all businesses are 100 employees or less as plumbers, electricians, carpet cleaners, etc. They don’t have state secrets, unless having Sam the flunky bring over another 2″ plumbing wye will bring down the western world. Realizing that is the case, having a phone lacking SOX compliant enterprise features is not a earth shaking need as most would think in the scheme of things. eg iPhone, Motos success.
3. Given that this is an early introduction and the fact that Android is open source the big enterprises now have the opportunity to morph the OS to their will. They throw a couple of programmers at it, cobble together some encryption of their own and be done with it till a better 3rd party product comes alone.
4. But that is the point isn’t it? Being Open Source the Android platform is malleable beyond anything that either RIM or fruitPhone offer. The platform base and options will transcend anything for any other supplier. Even for enterprise snobby reporters.
5. The cloud is not the issue that the article paints it to be. If your message base is encrypted going into the cloud it should be so leaving it as a reasonable expectation. Over 50% of most messages today are transported in the clear over broadband. Probably that same % of traffic is done so in the wireless realm. If security is a concern it is applied, little noticed to the cloud. A FUDish red herring if there ever was one.

Linky

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

In a society where there is a rich wireless infrastructure, the concept of domicile makes less and less sense. Not that most people don’t want a place to call home, nesting is an instinct in humans. But wonderlust is in our nature too. Sometimes we just need to heed its siren call.

So follow the article over at WebMonkey about Nathan Swartz and Olivia Meiring as they web work their lust for a little travel. Given that if the US had a better wireless network this could be a possibility for many rural communities. Essentially the Gateway experience writ large.

In reality I thought that RIM would have been toast back in 2000-2002 timeframe. But those folks seem damn resilient and their corporate clients seem hidebound to stick with them as well. The Wired gives it another go –

Research In Motion, maker of the indispensable BlackBerry devices, may see sales stall in this brave, new, sucky economy.

That’s the conclusion of Tavis McCourt, an analyst with Morgan Keegan. He expects sales growth will slip from 40 percent in 2008 to between 25 and 30 percent in 2009.

Shareholders apparently share his concerns, because the stock sank more than 8 percent in Monday’s trading session.

But there’s the catch: McCourt also thinks new products in the pipeline, such as the Storm, (right), and the Bold, (below), may help save the day.

“We continue to believe RIM should grow significantly faster than the smart phone market given its aggressive new product introductions,” McCourt wrote in a note to investors.

While fancy new phones are great to have on the menu, they don’t really change the economic environment, in which $300 purchases are given very careful consideration, and $20-per-month in added fees aren’t very digestible.

Anything different this time around on RIM’s demise? Well a few –

• SmartPhones as now almost standard fare these days. Only thing is RIM has kept pace.
• iPhone and now Android are serious contenders. Many of their feature eclipse RIM’s offerings.
• Reliance on a single network infrastructure should give many pause in the enterprise space. The consumer really does not give this much thought.
• Economy of scale as networks like LTE and XOhm take hold may make RIM’s offerings uncompetitive.

This time around I am not placing any bets on making a short sale against RIM. Been there, done that and have the margin call to boot.

We touched on the topic of telecommuting and using it as a means to kill $4 gas here. Well Wired has picked up on that with the following Home Sweet Office: Telecommute Good for Business, Employees, and Planet. I am all in favor of this. –

Two decades later, however, most workers still trudge to the office. Though a third of the more than 150 million working Americans telecommute at least occasionally, most do so just a few days each month. Only 40 percent of companies permit any sort of work-at-home arrangement, which means most insist on full-time attendance. According to a 2006 survey by the Telework Exchange, the top fear among resisters is that they’ll lose control of their employees, whom they doubtlessly envision frittering away the hours between 9 and 5 playing Minesweeper and munching Cheetos.

Telecommuting’s foes couldn’t be more misguided. When gasoline costs $4 a gallon, companies shouldn’t just be doing all they can to expand telecommuting — they should be scrapping their offices entirely. No, not turning them into toy-filled communal spaces, as advertising titan Chiat/Day infamously did in the early-’90s, but abandoning them outright.

That might sound a bit radical to those who swear by the office’s supposed benefits, like camaraderie and face-to-face collaboration. But time and again, studies have shown that telecommuters are every bit as engaged as their cubicle-bound brethren — and happier and more productive to boot. Last year, researchers from Penn State analyzed 46 studies of telecommuting conducted over two decades and covering almost 13,000 employees. Their sweeping inquiry concluded that working from home has “favorable effects on perceived autonomy, work-family conflict, job satisfaction, performance, turnover intent, and stress.” The only demonstrable drawback is a slight fraying of the relationships between telecommuters and their colleagues back at headquarters — largely because of jealousy on the part of the latter group. That’s the first problem you solve when you kill your office.

Alvin Toffler suggested in MegaTrends that we would get back to the cottage industry with the home above the store. We are slowly getting there. But to have this happen in earnest one must have the infrastructure. For all the vaunted talk about infrastructure upgrades — roads and bridges mostly — the idea of a vast high speed wireless telecommunications network seems to take a back seat. Yet by implementing the network one would reduce the amount of $$ spent for roads and bridges. The only State that seems to recognize that fact is California, as flawed as the proposal was.

Oh and the fuel crisis? Well 150m Americans commute daily. If we could eliminate just a ¼ that would go a long way. Almost as dramatic as the Pickens Plan. Its a 2fer that should not be ignored.

Yes. 1,500,000 in preorders for the G1. That bests iPhone v3 by half a mil on a number 4 carrier. Nor will they be available till the 22nd. Thats $450m cold cash. Even today 2-3 weeks in a money market account before you ship is a nice bonus! –

That’s an insane amount of interest for such a device. Sure, Apple says that it sold 1 million 3G iPhones the first weekend the device was available, and that’s nice. But here comes T-Mobile, the nation’s fourth-largest wireless network operator, coming up with 1.5 million pre-orders on a brand new mobile platform.

HTC must be beside itself with excitement. The Taiwanese firm that is manufacturing the G1 has had plenty of success with its Touch line of Windows Mobile smartphones, but this is extraordinary. HTC was projecting that it would sell several hundred thousand G1s by the end of 2008. To learn that 1.5 million people have pre-ordered it is incredible.

Somebody at HTC is headed for VP of engineering.

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 photographer, need a new cellphone and generally carry a CoolPix for that ‘just in case’ shot, you might consider the LG-KC780 Slim 8 as a combo replacement. Its a basic cell talker with 8MP camera built in. Nothing else. From the presser –

The LG-KC780 is a full featured handset and includes the latest in mobile phone technology, including Smart Bluetooth, which opens up a number of new options when the phone is connected to a personal computer. For example, the phone’s camera can be used as a webcam for use in online conversations. Unlike USB webcams, this world’s first feature means that the camera can easily move with the user, as long as the phone stays within Bluetooth range.

Transferring the 8 megapixel photos that the phone takes is also far simpler thanks to Bluetooth. In addition, Smart Bluetooth makes it easier to send and read text messages, allowing them to be typed and viewed on the computer. The LG-KC780’s fun goes beyond its picture-taking capabilities; Motion Sensor Games make it easy to get into the action.

LG-KC780 will go on sale in November 2008, in Europe, later expanding to CIS and Asia, including India, Thailand, Hong Kong and China. LG expects that the LG-KC780 will build on the leadership the company established with its multimillion selling Viewty and enhance its lineup of 8 megapixel camera phones, along with the recently released an 8 megapixel touch screen multimedia phone, LG Renoir (LG-KC910).

Looks like a solid performer at a decent price.

Minor rant if I may. Read the presser below. You can always tell when marketing got in PR’s face. They have ‘life experience/expectations’ planted all over the thing. I don’t need you tell me that the phone will improve my sex life. I know it won’t. But it would be nice if they just provide the facts so I could make a decision. So many companies make that error of the message being more important than the product that it actually hurts sales. [/rant off]

Linky.