Analyst Angle: Drunks, lampposts and the mobile industry: Reflections on talk-time as a measure of multimedia devices

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly feature, Analyst Angle. We’ve collected a group of the industry’s leading analysts to give their outlook on the hot topics in the wireless industry. In the coming weeks look for columns from Current Analysis’ Peter Jarich, NPD Group’s Ross Rubin and Enderle Group’s Rob Enderle.
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, last month, one could not help but be impressed with the wide array of mobile devices launched and showcased by the leading device vendors. Nokia launched four new devices, including the N78 and the N96, Samsung hawked its Soul (Spirit of Ultra, the U900) and the F480, Motorola showcased its Z6w along with the Rokr 8 and the Z10, Sony Ericsson debuted its Xperia X1 along with a couple of cameraphones, and LG unveiled its KF700 and KF600. Although the devices differed along various vectors, they had one thing in common: each was chockfull with power-intensive features, from music and multimedia to gaming and Internet browsing — and everything in between.
The cellphone has, obviously, come a long way since its inception as a “talking” device, emerging as the singular laboratory for testing the limits of technological convergence. The cellphone has morphed over time as it has appropriated quintessential attributes of other consumer devices — from music players to digital cameras and gaming devices, for instance — and grown to support high-end applications. In the process, it has required faster processors, larger displays with higher screen resolutions, and multiple antennas.
Device vendors, exploiting advances in processing and display technologies, as well as improvements in memory and miniaturization, have dutifully incorporated these elements in their latest products. And their marketing departments have done a spectacular job of positioning the once humble cellphone as the device of choice that might anchor our gradually unfolding, “always on” digital lives. To bolster their case, the cheerleaders of mobile data consumption have also pointed to the increasing availability of high bandwidth mobile data networks that might support the high-end data applications.
Verbal sleight of hand
What they leave out of their slick, grand narrative is the unfortunate reality of the battery power. In a verbal sleight of hand, even as they talk of mobile data consumption, they very often offer “talk time” and “standby time” as the principal measures of their devices’ endurance. In so doing, these industry players seem to behave like the drunk who searches for his car keys under the lamppost, not because he lost them there but because that is where the light is.
Talk time and standby time may have been a valid and illuminating metric for cellphones when “talk” was indeed the primary use of a mobile device. It is indeed still a valid measure for basic, entry-level devices seeking to serve the voice connectivity needs of users, whether in developing or developed markets. But it surely cannot be an appropriate measure of a mobile device’s enduring power when the device is designed to support multimedia functionalities. Device vendors need to deliver clear, real-world performance statistics that take into account typical usage patterns in a converged world for multimedia devices that are designed to deliver communication and entertainment in parallel.
An industry-wide problem
Device vendors and their network operators, as well as others in the mobile value chain, including chipset vendors and application developers, need to squarely confront the constraining reality of the battery power. They need to work — perhaps, together, in an industry association — to develop appropriate metrics for power consumption in multimedia devices if mobile data consumption is to become a profitable venture for every player in the restructured mobile value chain. Recognizing a problem is, after all, the first and necessary step to solving it.
For the mobile industry to get past the stumbling block of batteries and power consumption, the issue needs to be dimensioned properly in all its complexity. All elements of power consumption — from power-hogging apps and inefficient device components to poorly designed chipsets and displays — need to be investigated if the industry is to avoid making unfortunate compromises in industrial design, levels of connectivity and/or device functionality.
And the metrics need to be anchored in a robust methodology that helps us find appropriate answers for the question being asked. Measuring talk time when the usage being investigated is data consumption on multimedia devices will not do. Otherwise, the industry will forever be looking under the lamppost for car keys lost elsewhere. With expected results.
Shiv K. Bakhshi, Ph.D., is Director of Mobility Research at IDC. He can be reached at sbakhshi@idc.com. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com. You may contact RCR Wireless News at rcrwebhelp@crain.com.