GigaOM » handsets

Forecast: the converged mobile messaging market

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 15:45:50 +0000

The traditional mobile-messaging value chain is changing as upstart over-the-top (OTT) players upend mobile operators’ highly profitable SMS business. The emergence of virtual phone numbers presents opportunities for IP-based messaging players to compete and cooperate with carriers, adding interoperability to their services. We forecast there will be 27.7 trillion messages by 2016. We expect most of the growth in messaging traffic will come from IP-based messaging services, which will account for 60 percent of messaging traffic. Successful carriers will embrace this new technology and use it to extend the value they are best-positioned to provide: reliability and scalability.

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Ericsson takes its fight against Samsung to the ITC

Kevin Fitchard — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 22:08:05 +0000

Ericsson isn’t just suing Samsung for patent infringement but is also deploying another common tactic in the patent wars: trying to ban Samsung products from entering U.S. borders. Ericsson on Friday filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission, a U.S. agency that has the power to ban or restrict imports.

After seeking damages and an injunction in Texas federal court, Ericsson is now going the regulatory route with a request to ban pretty much any piece of hardware Samsung sells in the United States. Ericsson’s complaint targets “wireless communication devices, tablet computers, media players, and televisions” and lists products like the Samsung Captivate Glide smartphone and the Galaxy tablet.

As we noted last week, Ericsson is challenging Samsung on radio technology, which spans the entire mobile industry from the lowliest handset to the most powerful cell-site base transceiver station. Though Ericsson is no longer in the handset business, it was one of the key contributors to every generation of handset technology from analog to LTE. It now seems to be using its patent portfolio to hit Samsung where it hurts: device sales.

But Samsung has seen a lot of recent success in its infrastructure business. It’s building Sprint’s LTE network right alongside Ericsson.

If this dispute follows the course of other patent blow-outs between industry titans, Samsung is likely to file a countersuit in court and at the ITC. Big companies like Samsung and Ericsson typically possess hundreds of thousands of patents and use them as strategic weapons against competitors. Typically, the disputes are resolved by cross-licensing or in court but, in recent years, the ITC has become a popular secondary venue because of its power to ban imports and because the body often issues decisions faster than courts.

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Mobile 2012 and beyond

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 06:55:31 +0000

Few industries change at the pace mobile does. Whether it’s the iPhone 5, the importance of LTE, or BYOD trends disrupting the enterprise, there are always new technologies, trends, and companies changing the way we define mobile. Here, GigaOM Pro highlights a few segments of the mobile industry that will be important to watch in the coming months, from location-based shopping to wireless networks, and new business models for carriers.

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How mobile data is making us question everything

Kevin Fitchard — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 15:14:52 +0000

FreedomPop wants to create a social mobile-data network, where access is a secondary business consideration to services. GSM Nation plans to build a business around the idea that any customer should be able to pick any device, not just from a carrier’s limited portfolio. Republic Wireless is challenging the notion that mobile data plans can no longer be unlimited, tapping into a vast wealth of open Wi-Fi.

Three different carriers. Three completely different approaches to the market. The only thing they have in common — besides being part of the newest wave of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOS) — is that they are questioning long-accepted mobile business models. As mobile evolves from a carrier-dominated, vertically integrated and voice-centric industry into a more inclusive, data-focused one, they’re making the case that our fundamental notions of what a carrier is and what it provides should evolve as well.

That transformation will be a major theme at GigaOM’s Mobilize conference next month in San Francisco. David Morken, CEO of Bandwith.com (Republic’s parent); Scott Bendar, co-founder and CTO of FreedomPop; and Ahmed Khattak, co-founder and CEO of GSM Nation will be on the stage at Mobilize to debate the merits of their new approaches to wireless market.

But the transformation of the industry isn’t just limited to carriers. The switch from voice to data has led every link in the mobile value chain to question assumptions formed when the world used wireline networks for data and mobile networks for voice. Device makers have changed the way handsets are designed. Internet companies are grappling with the fact that their customers are moving away from the PC to small-screen devices, with their limited real estate and more challenging revenue models. And infrastructure makers and carriers are re-architecting the fundamental topologies of their networks.

We’re seeing examples of it all over the industry. Facebook’s IPO was clouded by the revelation that it had no idea how to port its advertising-based revenue model over to mobile phones. A growing number of developers are looking to mobile as their first and sometimes only platform. For a company like Foursquared the smartphone isn’t so much a telephony or a computing platform as it is an extension of its owner’s presence in the world. Path (whose CEO Dave Morin is also speaking at Mobilize) has discounted the PC completely, believing the future of social networking relies solely on mobile devices.

In handsets, device makers are grappling with new form factors and users interfaces as the phones original primary function, voice calls, falls to the wayside and the need to create a more immersive data experience comes to the forefront. New large-screened devices like Samsung’s Galaxy Note are blurring the distinction between smartphone and tablet, and my colleague Kevin Tofel believes that one day tablets will replace the smartphone entirely.

Nokia Siemens Networks’ conception of a heterogeneous network

On the network side, carriers and their infrastructure vendors have begun realizing that the big t0wer-based macro-umbrella networks that fueled two decades of voice services aren’t going to cut it in a data-centric world. They’re designing new types of small cells and base stations intended to deliver intense levels of bandwidth over limited areas. Those small cell deployments will eventually evolve into the new heterogeneous network, or HetNet, which will transform cellular systems from coverage-to capacity-focused topologies. Today’s carrier networks have tens of thousands of cells. Future networks will hundreds of thousands if not millions of cells.

The next few years are going to be tumultuous as we negotiate these seismic shifts from mobile voice to mobile data and from the PC-centric to the mobile-centric Internet. Not every MVNO, app developer and infrastructure maker is going to make it. We’ve already seen a big shakeup on the equipment side (Nokia decline and the dissolution of Motorola and Nortel Networks), and the big incumbent mobile operators are struggling to understand their role in the mobile broadband age.

At Mobilize, we’ll be tackling a raft of topics related to that transformation. Here are a just a few speakers to look out for:

The technology gurus of two major carriers will be in attendance. Sprint CTO Stephen Bye and T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray will discuss their aggressive plans to overhaul their respective carrier’s networks. T-Mobile and Sprint aren’t just launching LTE, they’re actively shutting down large swathes of their 2G networks, and in Sprint’s case, pursuing new small cell and heterogeneous network (HetNet) architectures.
Samsung has always been a mover and shaker in the handset market, but the rise of the smartphone turned it into the world’s largest mobile device maker. Samsung VP of Global Product Innovation Yoon Lee will discuss with GigaOM’s Stacey Higginbotham how build on that lead and challenge the ever-present Apple.
Dealing with constantly fluctuating connection speeds – or no data connections – offline synching and huge array of different operating systems are problems with which the old internet didn’t have to cope. Parse CTO Kevin Lacker will discuss how mobile devices becoming the endpoints of the Internet has made the industry rethink the PC-centered models on which data services were built.

Featured photo courtesy of Flickr user Mark Strozier

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Can Bluetooth handsets help the smartphone to tablet switch?

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 18:48:42 +0000

Earlier this month I made a bold prediction that within five years we’ll see people replacing their smartphone with not another handset, but a small tablet. Voice is being supplanted by data-centric activities and we’re consuming more content than ever, so a larger, but still mobile, display will appeal. The idea is highly debatable, of course, and many commenters pointed out why they don’t see this ever happening, even though the majority of our commenters thought this scenario could become a reality.

Aside from the pocketability of a smartphone, folks simply don’t want to rely on wired or wireless headsets for their voice calls. And speakerphone conversations? Sure they work, but you lose out on privacy, since anyone nearby can hear both sides of the conversation. These are totally valid concerns, but I like thinking beyond the limitations of current mobile devices.

So I recently ordered a Bluetooth handset from Hong Kong: Samsung’s HM5000, for about $45 shipped to the U.S. This type of form factor brings the portability of traditional Bluetooth headset, but doesn’t require you to wear it on your ear. Instead, it looks like a pen, so it fits in a shirt or pants pocket; it even has a pen-like clip to help carry it. A single Talk button and a volume rocker are the only items to press.

To use the HM5000, you just tap the Talk button to answer an incoming cellular or VoIP call — the device vibrates to alert you – from a phone or tablet. The handset has a small earpiece on one end and a microphone on the other: Think of it like a very thin, small handset that looks like a gadget right out of a James Bond movie. The HM5000 supports multipoint connections so it can be paired with two different phones or tablets.

There’s no display on the HM5000, so I’ll have to look at my tablet to see who’s calling, but this is a step in the direction. Ideally, I’d like to see a small display on future handsets with this style to view caller ID information and even text messages.

Will it work effectively to allow my tablet truly replace my smartphone? On paper, I’d say yes but I’ll have to give it a solid few days of testing to see. I’ll follow up with a video look at my likes and dislikes shortly, so stay tuned.

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Research In Motion: future scenarios for its fate

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 06:55:26 +0000

It’s all too easy to pile on to the Research In Motion–bashing bandwagon. The company’s decline is the stuff of water-cooler chatter, and RIM will doubtless end up as the subject of dozens of business-school case studies. But technology markets are always a little uncertain, so for now let’s get beyond the finger-pointing. RIM is a different firm today than it was in 2007. It has new management, a full awareness of the gravity of the situation, restless investors, an upcoming OS release and a number of lingering advantages that can still be leveraged. What might the future hold for RIM? CEO Thorsten Heins has said he plans to surprise critics with RIM’s transformation. But in case you don’t like surprises, here’s a brief look at the most likely scenarios for RIM going forward and their probability of occurring.

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Social media in Q1: commerce and discovery dominated

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 06:55:19 +0000

Media issues like advertising and discovery along with commerce dominated the activity in social and real-time Web technologies during the first quarter of 2012. Google raised some hackles, Facebook responded to demands from traditional advertisers, and Yahoo got a new chief executive. The quarter also saw Pinterest, the newest social media star, showing signs of staying power; it is starting to be a force in content discovery. This report examines these trends and more, as well as provides a near-term outlook for the next 12 to 18 months.

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With Apple and Nokia at war, nano-SIM vote is postponed

Bobbie Johnson — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:13:56 +0000

The group in charge of arbitrating the battle over the future of mobile SIM cards appears to have choked — by postponing the contentious vote for at least a month.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute, ETSI, was due to vote on Friday over which standard to adopt for the nano-SIM card — the smaller, next generation chip that is likely to become the norm in mobiles over the coming years.

Adopting an even smaller card will allow manufacturers to make thinner handsets, store different sorts of information or use the space for larger batteries or other technology — and at a meeting this week ETSI’s members were faced with a choice between two competing ideas — one backed by Apple, and the other supported by Nokia and RIM.

Both sides had been lobbying hard to get their standard adopted: Apple suggested that it would offer the technology royalty free to carriers, but Nokia responded angrily by saying it would not license its applicable patents if that happened.

It quickly became a vicious battle, with control over the future of mobile at stake — particularly given that Apple is thought to be considering embeddable SIM cards that would eventually allow it to sidestep carriers and other parts of the mobile industry.

In the end, the clash appears to have been too hot for ETSI to handle, as the organization eventually decided that it was better to postpone the vote since there was a clear failure to reach an accord. ETSI rules suggest it will be at least 30 days until a vote can be held — so expect to see both sides going at each other over the next month as they try to politick their way to success.

Comparison of SIM card sizes by Giesecke & Devrient

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The big theme of MWC: How to live in a connected world

Kevin Fitchard — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:55:38 +0000

It has been just over a week since the Fira de Barcelona gates closed on Mobile World Congress 2012, so now is a good time for a retrospective look at the event. The big thing at MWC wasn’t a phone or new network architecture but the much more subtle shift in focus on how we live in a hyperconnected world. This year the industry seemed to move beyond starry-eyed soothsaying about a world of 50 billion connected devices to start talking about how these mammoth networks of objects and appliances would actually work and how they would be managed.

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Opportunities and challenges for mobile deals

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 07:55:17 +0000

The trend “mobile deals” combines location-aware discounts with mobile marketing campaigns and often incorporates purchases made on the phone at brick-and-mortar retailers. This report sizes up the mobile deals space with an aim to present a comprehensive view of the influential companies and technologies. Heavyweights like Google, PayPal and American Express are moving aggressively forward with new offerings, and it will be worth watching their different strategies (e.g., deploying QR codes vs. NFC technology) to see which dominates and sets the overall bar for the market.

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