The FCC Report and Order that wasn’t
On March 12, the Federal Communications Commission released the 400-page Open Internet Report and Order. Think of this as part one of a dramatic miniseries on Internet regulation, which you would prefer to turn off after the first hour...
January’s Consumer Electronics Show and the recently concluded Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain, punctuated a fact fairly obvious to anyone in attendance or following from afar: Connected devices are here in a big way. They continue to weave their way into almost...
This has been a week filled with news – Mobile World Congress, analyst conferences and the normal course of business – and regulatory conjecture. I have decided to stop trying to figure out what fine-tuning the Federal Communications Commission is doing between the vote last...
How to optimize UX development and increase return on mobile app investment
In an increasingly interconnected world, it’s not difficult to see why the user experience – all facets of an end-user’s interactions with a particular product or service – can enhance or diminish a...
As expected, last week was full of rhetoric with respect to the Federal Communications Commission’s pending Open Internet Order. Pictured below is Verizon Communications' response typed in Morse Code – a brilliant PR move, although one unlikely to help their position with the FCC.
As...
Heterogeneous networks have been brewing for a few years now, but 2015 will be the year they become mainstream as several core components reach maturity. The starting point came with mobile network operators offloading data to Wi-Fi in order to avoid a capacity crunch...
It’s easier than ever for consumers to regularly have the latest and greatest mobile device, thanks to continued price decreases and special carrier programs. This leads to happy consumers, carriers, manufacturers – and yes, happy distributors, too. But it also can lead to overflowing...
Over 50% of the world’s LTE subscribers today are in the U.S. With its aggressive 4G deployments aided by the thriving application ecosystem, the U.S. was able to wrestle back the leadership mantle of the mobile world.
While consumers are enjoying their mobile broadband devices and services,...
Verizon spectrum auction results conference call: Densify, baby, densify
Verizon Communications’ Tony Melone, EVP network, and CFO Fran Shammo held a short, but extremely informative, conference call helping the analyst and investor community think about the results of Auction 97 (full information and details here).
One of...
Many of you have called/written me about the general chatter regarding regulatory changes proposed by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler. The telecom industry needs to take Aaron Rodgers’ advice and “r-e-l-a-x.” While it is strangely undemocratic that the FCC chairman would be very...
Some of the recent competitive promotions from wireless service providers are concerning for the industry as a whole. Telecoms can learn from the overall value destruction experienced in other industries, such as airlines, where lower price pressure and higher costs through customer incentives left...
True to 2015 form, last week was a full news week with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler taking to Wired’s blog site to outline his recommendation to implement Title II regulations (more on this as more details are disclosed; for a very interesting...
Media reports suggest that Google is taking actions to launch mobile service as a mobile virtual network operator. Why on Earth would they do that? MVNO is such an archaic and anachronistic concept. It is unlikely that Google will launch a traditional MVNO. Traditionally,...
The Supreme Court sided with T-Mobile US on its challenge to the city of Roswell, Ga., denial of an application to build a cell tower – but Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s opinion raises more questions than it answers.
Section 332 of the Communications Act allows cellphone...
Lots of plane time last week, which means lots of time to think about earnings announcements and trends. On top of this, last week was heavy on non-earnings news, with T-Mobile US’ innovative smartphone approach to credit-challenged customers (see more here), to Google Fiber’s...
As companies hit 2015 in full sprint, they need to stay ahead of the shifts that will define business in the coming years. The changes I believe are on the horizon will enable teams and individuals to manage their data and make decisions at...
Today, everyone connects effortlessly to the Internet via Wi-Fi technology when at home or in coffee shops, or on the move via the 3G or 4G networks used by smartphones and tablets.
Fifteen years ago, everyone was literally tethered to the Internet via a cable,...
Self-driving cars are not a pipe dream – they are inevitable. When you count up the benefits, the value is huge: found time, increased safety, better energy use, much better traffic management and more dense utilization of each square foot of pavement. While the...
Verizon Communications reported earnings last week. Without going through every detail of their 1.99 million wireless retail postpaid net additions – 1.4 million of which were tablets – let’s focus on two of the most important figures: postpaid churn and broadband (FiOS + DSL)...
It’s been a week full of news, with the Federal Communications Commission’s Auction 97 almost ending, AT&T’s acquisition of Iusacell closing, rumors that the Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile US Softcard mobile wallet venture will be sold to Google emerging, and Sprint bucking the trend with mild but...
Prediction No. 1: Merchant- and bank-branded mobile wallets vs. third-party wallets.
• Apple Pay has some early momentum right now. They have created interest and that will drive consumer comfort with mobile payments – whether it’s Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Pay Pal, merchant-branded, bank-branded or other...
New Yorkers, rejoice! According to an article in Crain’s New York Business, about 90% of commercial buildings are not wired with enterprise-class broadband, and “a technology known as fixed wireless broadband” is coming to their speedy-connectivity-deprived rescue. Reading this piece brought to light that there...
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column where C-level executives and advisory firms from across the mobile industry share unique insights and experiences.
While there was a lot of news last week, we will focus today’s column on the Sling TV announcement, Federal...
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column where C-level executives and advisory firms from across the mobile industry share unique insights and experiences.
A recent Ericsson Mobility Report found that by 2020, more than half of all mobile traffic will be made up...
