Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Ups and downs for cleantech in Q1
• Cleantech and investment in 2013
• 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012

“Operators treat partners like vendors.” That quote comes form Google director of global Android partnerships John Lagerling, who said it during a panel discussion this week at Management World in Dublin, where it was captured by Light Reading. It’s a telling statement, especially coming from one of the most important players in the mobile industry.

Several years ago, operators could have gotten away with treating everyone else in the mobile ecosystem as a mere supplier. After all, they ran the whole show. If your service, device or technology was ever going to make it onto an operator’s network, you had to kiss the ring. A lot has changed in a few years.

These days, Google and Apple have far more clout in the global wireless industry than any individual carrier. Apple’s decisions on which radio technologies to support can cause seismic shifts in the industry. And any new iteration of the Android OS can spur new waves of new service innovation and app development. That’s power that no single operator has ever held.

The mobile industry has evolved, but if Lagerling is speaking the truth, then the carriers haven’t evolved with it. That Bellhead, old-school telco mindset was in evidence at the U.S. mobile industry’s biggest show, CTIA Wireless. The show has been suffering for several years and I believe the main cause for its slow demise is its stubborn focus on carriers. The show simply hasn’t embraced the new reality.

To be fair, the disdain runs both ways. Most over-the-top (OTT) app developers view the operators as mere dumb pipes, which isn’t going to ingratiate with them Verizon and AT&T anytime soon. I’ve heard developers lament the loss of unlimited data plans like old hippies pining for the Summer of Love. Mobile carriers may be treating developers and platform providers like mere vendors supplying the nuts and bolts of their services, but the developers are treating operators like mere utilities into which they plug their apps.

The thing is carriers need developers a lot more than developers need the carriers. And the carriers know it. Wireless analyst Chetan Sharma sums up their conundrum quite eloquently in his latest U.S. market update:

We are at a critical juncture of the industry evolution. The OTT phenomenon is shifting the tectonic plates at a rapid pace. What seemed like a minor irritant only a few quarters back is become a nuisance virus that is eating away the core. Some operators have gone into panic mode while others have stepped back, assessed the situation, embraced it, and will try to exploit the opportunity. The truth of the matter is that the two biggest apps – voice and messaging didn’t really evolve a period of two decades. When the last big invention was interoperability and that too a decade ago, you know things are ripe for disruption. Thanks to the availability of always-on IP networks, new and nimble players are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.

Operators are now floating the idea of OTT providers fronting the costs of delivering their traffic over mobile broadband networks. (We may even see the first instance of it in the coming weeks from Verizon.) The operators are talking about revenue sharing, and “sharing” implies a partnership of equals.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• CES 2012: a recap and analysis
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• What to watch in mobile in 2013

There isn’t much new functionality here in Cosmos; I’ve seen a number of apps that offer similar functionality. But I like having all three of these in one small package, plus Cosmos has some nice touches. Here’s a break down of the three main features:

• Battery Optimizer. Cosmos provides three basic power settings while also monitoring your battery’s health: As batteries get older and are recharged on a regular basis, they eventually hold less of a charge. The three power modes are very similar, but choosing one can certainly get your smartphone run longer on a single charge. The first mode, Balanced, turns off your data radios when the screen is turned off. Even with the screen off, however, the radios will automatically enable for a quick data sync before going back to sleep. Power Saver mode does the same but with a 30 minute auto-sync, while Extreme mode won’t wake the radios at all until the phone screen is turned back on.
• Trash Cleaner. This function monitors and reports on left-over data in three areas: Your clipboard and browser history, application cache and call logs. There are plenty of other storage areas that could be monitored for sure, but this is a good start. The first time I ran the Trash Cleaner, Cosmos found more than 250 MB of data that wasn’t really needed. One tap removed it all.
• Privacy Scanner. This may be my favorite Cosmos feature. It scans all of your third-party apps and explains which ones have access to different permissions. For example, I have 11 apps that can track my location, 38 with network access and 9 with access to my personal information. Yes, I should have known this by examining permissions before installing apps, but sometimes I get lazy. Here you can tap any permission group and see which apps have access, allowing you to review if an app should or shouldn’t have such access.

Again, these aren’t unique features for an Android utility app, and in fact, I’d like to see these features expanded. But for a free, first version app, Cosmos is off to a good start for the basis. I particularly like now the app integrates itself into the native Android notifications. By pulling down my notification shade, I can instantly see my handset’s battery level and how many hours it should last on standby or for phone calls.

And in the Battery Optimizer section itself, you can tap a number of different activities to see how long the battery would last for any of these: Calls, music, video playback, YouTube and web browsing. The times provided may not be exact, but they provide a decent indication of how long your smartphone battery will last for these activities.

Update: Cosmos may be wiping out browser bookmarks based on this comment. I’ve noticed that my bookmarks in Chrome are gone on my Mac, so it’s looking like Cosmos is the culprit. You may want to hold off on installing this release; I’m letting the Cosmos team know about the issue.

Update 2: The Cosmos team let me know that on May 15, an updated version of the app was made available in Google Play and fixes the bookmark issue. I tested the new version and I didn’t lose my bookmarks, so problem solved!

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Bluetooth to Feel Blue as Personal Area Network Battles Loom
• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• Is Android broken and if so, will Google fix it?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why service providers matter for the future of big data
• Infrastructure Q2: Big data and PaaS gain more momentum
• 2012: The Hadoop infrastructure market booms

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Ups and downs for cleantech in Q1
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• The fourth quarter of 2012 in cleantech

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Who and what to watch in the new era of the living room
• 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012
• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro

Tesla Roadsters lined up outside of the Model S Beta Customer event

Electric vehicles are a big worry for many utilities. Over the last few months, I’ve had several interesting conversations with Europeans responsible for electric vehicle pilots in places such as Denmark, Germany and Portugal. Based on the results of their research and their real-world pilots, I learned of six frequent fears that turn out to be false.

Still plenty to worry about of course. But you may be relieved to hear that:

1. We don’t need a massive infrastructure of “intermediate” charging stations in malls and parking lots. Based on real-world pilots, almost all charging takes place at home at night. (In fleet situations, in the company lot overnight.)
2. Garage charging won’t be enough. We still need to figure out how to handle on-street, overnight parking for urban dwellers who park their cars on the street.
3. We don’t need a fast-charge option for residential users. Early pilots show that users rarely get their vehicles anywhere close to “empty.” As a result, they typically only need a few hours of charging time to “top off” the battery.
4. We don’t need battery swapping stations, except in special cases. The industry will never agree on standard battery sizes and enclosures. That makes the idea of hot-swap battery stations impractical. (Though you may see it crop up in military and fleet operations.) Besides that, most early adopters use their EV for scooting around town. For longer trips, they take a gas-powered vehicle.
5. We don’t need to worry about range anxiety. It goes away quickly, often within a few weeks, as owners learn the true range and true charging times.
6. We don’t need vehicle-to-grid. We can get almost all the benefits of V2G through smart charging (letting the utility decide when to charge the vehicle, as long as it’s ready at the specified time). And smart charging doesn’t run the risk of voiding a car’s battery warranty. Warning: Any smart charging scheme needs an ultra-simple “Charge Now” override for those occasional situations where the owner needs to leave again soon and doesn’t want to wait for overnight charging.

Jesse Berst is the founder and chief analyst of Smart Grid News.com. He consults to smart grid companies seeking market entry advice and M&A advisory. A frequent keynoter at industry events in the US and abroad, he also serves on the Advisory Council of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Energy & Environment directorate.

This article originally appeared on SmartGridNews.com. SmartGridNews.com is the Internet’s oldest, largest and highest-ranked smart grid site. Visit for up-to-the-minute analysis of smart grid trends, smart grid technology and smart grid companies. Sign up for the free email newsletter or follow SGN on Twitter.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Electric Vehicles Give “Mobility as a Service” a Jumpstart
• The fourth quarter of 2012 in cleantech
• Implications of the Honeywell-Nest lawsuit

A study released Thursday by the Utilities Telecom Council estimated that utilities will spend 21 percent more than they spent two years ago, but a mere 3 percent more than they did last year. Two-way metering and associated networking represents about $1 billion of the total utility telecom spending in 2011, according to the UTC. Backhaul and transport networks represent the second largest category as electric companies try to connect their smart meters back to the web.

But surprisingly, smart meters and backhaul aren’t the big opportunity, the report found — mobile is. Spending on wireless communications as a proportion of overall telecom spending could double over the next five years, growing from 28 percent of telecom spending in 2011 to half of all telecom spending by utilities in 2016, according to the research.

The utility industry isn’t alone in its decisions to spend more on wireless; in fact, it may be running a bit behind. In August, In-Stat, another research firm, said wireless spending by small businesses will exceed their spending on wireline in 2012. At that point, wireless will become the largest portion of telecommunications spending for small biz. That’s certainly the case in our office, where cell phones dominate and mobile data plans are essential. What’s unclear is if the spending will be up so high because wireless service costs more than comparable wireline services, if the mix of services are expanding (i.e. moving from voice-only plans to data plans) or if it is being embraced by half of the SMB workforce.

Additional In-Stat data suggests that businesses are doing a mix of all three, with 44 percent more adding messaging to their voice plans between now and 2015 and forecasting that spending for voice, messaging, and data plans will rise 37 percent from 2010 through 2015 across all businesses.

This shift means enterprise apps will become much more important in the next few years as will figuring out how to secure mobile phones and tablets. Equally important, once someone is connected 24/7 and anywhere they go, is how to think about drawing a line between work and play– and then communicating that line to colleagues and superiors. Seems like the utility industry will soon get the practice that some other professions have had navigating this transition. Hopefully the end result is a safer, smarter and more efficient grid.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Confused about the wireless markets? Here’s a breakdown
• LTE-Advanced: what it is and isn’t
• LTE changes everything; LTE changes nothing

Here are five smart-grid startups to watch out of the Cleantech Open:

1. Smart Grid Billing. As the name suggests, this Folsom, Calif–based company sells services to utilities that enable more intelligent billing and smarter ways to start up demand-response events based on its algorithms. Consumers don’t want utilities to noticeably manage their end devices during a demand-response event, so this technology can help make that process more seamless and useful.

2. Qado Energy. Qado has developed software for modeling, analytics and monitoring for utilities for the distribution portion of their grids. Utilities can use the software to model how their grids will react when they add new clean-power generation that can be variable and cause power spikes and gaps.

3. GridMobility. GridMobility is working on a particularly fascinating project: using hot water heaters to store energy for utilities to help integrate wind power. The startup’s technology enables utilities to keep track of power assets in real time, and the company is working with Mason County PUD, Bonneville Power Administration and PJM.

4. Growing Energy Labs. Growing Energy Labs is developing networking technologies for energy storage. Researchers think there will be a breakthrough in energy storage in the U.S. in 2012, given that a variety of pilots will have been completed, and much more energy storage will be needed to integrate clean power onto the grid.

5. AC Research Labs. AC Research Labs sells an air-conditioning retrofit product called HelioMist that reduces air-conditioning power by 20 to 30 percent.

See any new smart grid startups I should check out? Leave me tips in the comment section.

Image courtesy of Vladeb

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Green IT Q1: Cleantech Breaking Out — and Bracing for Hard Times
• Home Energy Management: Consumer Attitudes and Preferences
• The fourth quarter of 2012 in cleantech

PowerMeter has seemed to have been on life support for much of the time it’s been in existence, and last I heard, it had brought in just 11,000 users. Turns out it’s difficult for a large Internet company to convince utilities to partner with it, and it’s also hard to get consumers to care about energy consumption. At the same time, PowerMeter was closely tied to smart meter data when it was first launched, and smart meter installations were still in an early stage back in 2009 (and still are).

PowerMeter enabled its users to monitor and manage their energy consumption online via an iGoogle widget, if the utility had agreed to connect their smart meter data with Google. Utility San Diego Gas & Electric and smart meter maker Itron became Google PowerMeter partners. Later, Google opened up the PowerMeter API and connected with gadget makers to make it more of a direct-to-consumer tool.

PowerMeter stemmed out of Google’s philanthropic arm Google.org, and Google long said it didn’t plan to make any money off of the tool. Well, that turned out to be true. Other companies that have launched services and gadgets in the home energy management space have changed course or folded. Microsoft launched a similar tool to PowerMeter called Hohm, which it later evolved.

Still, Google’s moves are often influential, even if they aren’t profitable. Google’s launch of PowerMeter worried startup competitors and entrepreneurs at the time, and scared some utilities who didn’t want Google owning the relationship with its power customers. PowerMeter also brought a lot of attention to a space that, for the most part, can be less-than-sexy.

Google shutting down PowerMeter will also draw attention. Startup Wattvision, which makes a low-cost energy home energy management tool, wrote on its blog yesterday that it’s offering a $50-off coupon for this weekend only — use the coupon code: “byepowermeter”.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• The Developer’s Guide to Home Energy Management Apps
• Home Energy Management: Consumer Attitudes and Preferences