This blog has suggested for a long time that when prices of handsets are unbundled from the carrier subsidy that the prices would come down. Something that will accelerate that price drop is many players using an open platform to shove down R&D costs.

Well HTC comes back with a vengence right along those lines with a new line aimed at the Nexus. Two of these three phones run Android. All have the iPhone like look and feel of course. All three will be above the $100 mark, but give it time. Eventually we will see capabilities like this in that range of pricing.

Its all for the good. More here.

From Consumerist –

Sprint lost 148,000 customers after contract-subscriber defections more than offset prepaid gains. Sprint introduced new phones last year, including an exclusive deal to sell the Palm Pre, to keep more customers.

The company said it expects subscriber losses to slow this year. Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse said he will roll out more fourth-generation devices this year, which give customers high-speed wireless Internet access.

Consumerist is even running a poll to figure out why. I’ll save them some trouble. Its the contract. Sprint’s contract has not kept up with the times. Tho they have MTM plans, their post paid contracts are probably the least consumer friendly of any of the major carriers.

I would also suspect that the network is part of the problem as well. Being in the DFW area, its one of Sprints oldest territories. Yet all these years later they still have dead spots around the DFW airport area as well as other areas of the metroplex.

If you are a Sprint customer, follow the link and take their poll.

Linky.

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.

For those of the geeky variety, and not so, starting today McDonalds open up its WiFi to all comers. Free. With some catches.

Access is free. So general surfing will be available. According to McD’s web page (here) certain services and particular access needs may still require paying for the privilege. But I am fine with that. It is a step in the right direction.

McD’s being altruistic? Not totally. Their heart is in the right place, but their core reason is profit of course. You see McD’s has been in a battle Royale with StarBucks in the morning fast food segment going on 5 years now. Both players have toyed with the idea of going free on WiFi. Fact in some segments I believe StarBucks has already done so. Why do it? Draw customers in. Once they have you inside you might just buy a cup of coffee at a minimum or pop for a whole meal in the best of cases. Least thats the thinking.

This won’t go unnoticed of course. Figure StarBucks to counter across the board very quickly.

The real question becomes does WiFi stay viable for very long? In a strong parallel, WiFi hotspots are the 21st Century equivalent of the pay phone. Useful sure. But you are ‘parked’ till you finish your communications. Yet the growth of smartphones are anathema to that model as the CPE are tied to metrowide cellular/3g/4g services unrelated to specific locale. So WiFi services that McD’s is providing will fade just like the wall payphone at the local tavern did.

I’ll be blunt — this stinks!

“People are paying money in to go to college,” she said, “I don’t think any of that money should be used to subsidize the broadband effort that really is competing with the private sector.”

– Sen. Lisa Marrache, the assistant Senate majority leader

Oh, you are asking what’s the argument? The Univ of Mass is considering going into partnership with several communities and private enterprise in rural Maine locations to get broadband to these localities that are not being served now. The beef of course is that the University is competing with private enterprise. —

Marrache said constituents raised the issue with her after charges were leveled this summer that UMS is competing with private companies in the broadband business.

Severin Beliveau, an Augusta attorney representing FairPoint, blasted UMS at a meeting of the State Broadband Advisory Council, arguing their participation in a group seeking federal funds was improper competition with the private sector.

“I am concerned at what the university is proposing here, because it is receiving a form of subsidy, no they are in fact receiving a subsidy from taxpayers, in competing with the private sector,” he said.

Jeff Letourneau, associate director of information technology at UMS, said the university is part of a private-public partnership created to provide broadband capacity at a “wholesale” level and the university’s role is minor.

“The grant from the federal government went to GWI [Great Works Internet] and two private investors,” he said. “As for tuition subsidizing our broadband efforts, that does not happen and will not happen.”

I am a dirty stinking capitalist of the first order. There are not many $$ deals I won’t turn down. (Though there are moral ones I won’t touch.) But if private companies don’t want to service these areas; and that has been the case for Verizon, now FairPoint for years, then by God you have no right to complain. You were offered a franchise there Telcos, decided it was not worth your effort and now complain when your unopened candy bar is taken away from you. Pffft, tough. Capitalism works best when there is fair exchange going on. Capitalism does not work where monopolistic haunch sitting goes on and the citizenry suffer as a consequence.

Which brings me to the title of this missive. You have to ask yourself whose ox gets gored if UofMaine went thru with the deal? Why the resident Telco is who. That ladies and gentlemen has to be the back story. As a fellow conservative I know says — flare drops. This is only a cover to prevent competition.

Serve your constituents Marrache.

Link.
HT:WetMachine.

Yes Dear Reader a little TCO analysis can save you money. We have been saying for years that the shell game of free phone, payback is a b!@#$ thru the contract is a bear. It also hurts your wallet. –

He’s considering buying a data-only plan from T-Mobile and relying primarily on SkypeOut purchases, with a backup of free Gizmo5 calls through Google Voice, although new Gizmo5 sign-ups are currently suspended. That means little to no mobile calling (unless you used the free Guava app). Then again, Ben sees some significant savings by the end of what would be a two-year contract, and considers himself a “near-total” dependent on Google services. Could you imagine making the data-only jump?

Just go over to the lifehacker article and see for yourself. Keep in mind that the author is considering only going with a data only plan, 2yr contact. There are other considerations one can also employ. For instance, does your spouse have a phone with a carrier who does a Friend and Family deal? Why not punch the Google voice into the loop? Then the calls to her are free. And if perchance one has a small VoIP server then a VoIP app on the Nexus might avoid all the Gizmodo fiddling as well.

While we are on the subject. The Nexus Launch. A captured live blog feed is here with pics. Initial take — very iPhonish. But that seems to be where the jive is at the moment. The wise move being made? You can buy the phone separate and go with any vendor you wish. That’s a damn smart move, especially for the consumer.

I just hope the carriers are prepared for the bandwidth assault. This phone screams — Songbird App. But your data store staying on the home server and streamed to the Nexus as an audio terminal. Oh and anybody out there developing a multiparty audio remix app for the Nexus. It would sell.

We have projected for 2 years that it was time for unbundling the phone. We would have expected it to happen before the smartphones took hold. But I guess it takes the extra functionality of the smartphone to force the issue on the carriers. Hope I am right but wrong.

Nexus one analysis.

That is pulling the plug on POTS. You know that little jingly thing your mother and grandmother still use at lifeline rates? Yes its still out there but dwindling by the day. So what happens? –

In response to a Notice of Inquiry released by the FCC to explore how to transition to a purely IP-based communications network, AT&T has declared that it’s time to cut the cord. AT&T told the FCC that the death of landlines is a matter of when , not if, and asked that a firm deadline be set for pulling the plug.

AT&T tells the FCC that supporting traditional POTS landlines is impeding investment in broadband, VoIP, and wireless services.AT&T said in its response to the FCC that “with each passing day, more and more communications services migrate to broadband and IP-based services, leaving the public switched telephone network (”PSTN”) and plain-old telephone service (”POTS”) as relics of a by-gone era.”

It also stated “It makes no sense to require service providers to operate and maintain two distinct networks when technology and consumer preferences have made one of them increasingly obsolete.”

Is AT&T right? Yes. The fact is Central Office based systems have long lead times and nearly as long tax treatment. Most of the majors were using 19/20yr MACRS or ACRS depreciation on the capital investment as that was agreed to by both the industry and the IRS as appropriate, circa 1950’s. Little has changed on that front ever since. But that poses a problem for say Version who just put a new CO remote in 5 years ago. (Rare as that is.) So how would that install be treated? Under the current rules an accelerated recapture would take place for junking the equipment. That’s a major hit when you consider that even today CO investments are in the billions. So the Telcos would push for tax relief if devaluation ever happened.

My gut says not so fast. Even though what AT&T says is true I have the tingly feeling in the back of my head that it won’t work out that way. AT&T would take the revised recapture relief to the bank, not do any more R&D/advanced services/VOIP/network upgrades, then cry poor mouth all the way into the CEO’s pocket. I am not against AT&T, its just how these guys have operated for years. I have been in the belly of this beast to know better.

There of course is another fly in the ointment to a devaluation of CO networks. I call it the other 1200. That is approximately how many phone companies there are in this country. Most are small operators, functioning as COOPs in rural territory that none of the majors even want to touch. At a minimum there would have to be some sort of relief offered to these companies. At a minimum most would require a DSLAM to get their customers on to VOIP. Most likely SBA enhanced funding would have to be offered at 0% interest to these companies. To date I have not heard of any plans to do so.

Devaluing the POTS network has to happen. We need to realize that as soon as possible. We also need to make sure that in the switch serious profit taking does not occur. Compensation where needed, support where required, but in the end it should be a net-net wash.

Linky.

Kurzweil, is there anything this guy can’t do? His book the Singularity is Near has spawned a whole new way of thinking about the future. He is a prolific inventor past and present. So what’s he go an do? Well remedy the bland existence of eReaders that’s what! —

One of Blio’s major advantages over current e-book readers is that the software offers a full color experience. E Ink, which is the black-and-white display used currently in almost all e-readers, works best for text, and even then most e-books still look ugly, thanks to design limitations in the readers.

Blio actually lays out the “pages” as they would be seen on paper, with typography and illustrations copied across. It also supports video and animation. In some ways, it’s reminiscent of the interactive magazine applications (also meant for upcoming tablet devices) shown off by the likes of Time Warner, Popular Science publisher Bonnier and Wired’s parent company Conde Nast.

Add to that some nifty features such as text-to-speech and the ability to synchronize things (like bookmarks, highlights and the page you last read) across multiple devices, and it makes for an interesting e-reader.

“We can take a PDF and an audio book and merge the two to get a combination such that you can hear the audio book and see the words highlighted on the PDF at the same time,” says Peter Chapman, an executive at Kurzweil Technologies.

For publishers, says Kurzweil the advantage is that Blio preserves the original book’s format, including typsetting, layout, fonts and pagination.

Wired goes on to mention stiff competition, etc. My guess is maybe not. First this has the attributes that most any student or researcher keeps in the stachel — marker, highlighter, sticky notes, etc. Then it supports color. Of course that’s more a hardware restriction than anything. But still color will probably be what separates the have nots from the haves in the ebook market very quickly once power issues are corralled.

What’s not to like? Well format for one. Got too many right now. Many non-Amazon systems were starting to gravitate around the ePub format. This will delay that for awhile.

Now the hardware makers need to step up. The merge of tablet and eReader will continue. Somebody will come out with a 8.5×11 formatted screen and the rest will be history. Whoever does it will have the same impact that IBM did when they introduced their laptop line oh so many years ago.

Linky.

BlueHippo had sought bankruptcy reorganization protection last month when its payment processor’s bank unexpectedly blocked its funds, leaving the company unable to pay creditors. BlueHippo petitioned a Delaware bankruptcy court judge to allow the funds to be released to the company, but its request was denied on Dec. 2, according to court records.

Without access to the funds held by Checkgateway LLC, BlueHippo “will not be able to satisfy administrative expenses that will continue to accrue if these cases are maintained in Chapter 11 [reorganization],” according to the filing. The company has a bankruptcy court hearing on its Chapter 7 motion on Dec. 23.

With that the Blue Hippo seems on its last legs. We have cautioned about being involved with this firm in the past. The world for most of us will be a better place without them.

Link

As is give the Telco monopoly a run for their money in the voice only space. Today, Google officially announced that they acquired Gizmo5 the internet smart phone service for ~$30m. –

It’s a potent recipe — take Gizmo5’s open standards-based online calling system. Add to it the new ability to route calls on Google’s massive network of cheap fiber. Toss in Google Voice’s free phone number, which will ring your mobile phone, your home phone and your Gizmo5 client on your laptop.


Meanwhile you can use Gizmo5 to make ultracheap outgoing calls to domestic and international phone numbers, and free calls to Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo and AIM users. You could make and receive calls that bypass the per-minute billing on your smartphone.

Then layer on deluxe phone services like free SMS, voicemail transcription, customized call routing, free conference calls and voicemails sent as recordings to your e-mail account, and you have a phone service that competes with Skype, landlines and the internet telephone offerings from Vonage and cable companies.

That’s not just pie in-the-sky dreaming.

Google could pull it off. Combined with their existing Google Voice offering, a GV-Gizmo5 combo might give the Telcos the heebes. Like how about a serious integrated message stack? Its been implemented for years as a per supplier proprietary service. But till now, as an open available anywhere service? Just hasn’t happened. But Google has the tools/network/talent to pull it off. Oh and they have the customer base to go from nothing to the most dominant intgrated message stack on the planet.

Bank on it.

Linky.