Tag: 3G

Netbooks at $99 from AT&T

This piece of news is exciting enough to merit a blog post.

This year, at least one wireless phone company in the United States will probably offer netbooks free with paid data plans, copying similar programs in Japan, according to industry experts.

But this revolution is not just about falling prices. Personal computers — and the companies that make their crucial components — are about to go through their biggest upheaval since the rise of the laptop. By the end of the year, consumers are likely to see laptops the size of thin paperback books that can run all day on a single charge and are equipped with touch screens or slide-out keyboards.

How long before we have the intersection of 3G and Netbooks in India? I see this as a positive trend for Web services and the Internet economy.

3G auction skewed in favor of CDMA

Two professors from MDI, Gurgaon assert that the rules behind the 3G auction do not foster fair competition between CDMA and GSM technologies. The last I heard, the 3G spectrum will be auctioned off some time at the end of 2007 or early 2008.

The ramifications for the end-consumer are deep. Due to the lack of competition, operators won’t be incentivized to market innovative pricing schemes in favor of growth over price-hoarding.

Economic Times – “TRAI must try again“.

What is 3G? (Wikipedia).

Will Seven APAC get lucky with mobile e-mail?

Siddharth Mahajan, CEO of Seven thinks so.

From the article,

“We believe it’s going to be mobile e-mail’s year,” said Siddharth Mahajan, vice president and general manager of Seven Asia-Pacific. “We are putting all the right structures in place to help the market grow and hopefully we’ll see the results coming in Q3 or Q4 this year.”

…
“We see an evolution of the [mobile] e-mail market starting with enterprises,” Mahajan said. “But at the same time, we also see a growing trend where a growing number of users would like to get access to their IMAP and POP e-mail accounts from the mobile phone.”

Like previous versions, the Consumer Edition push e-mail application will allow users to send and receive e-mail on handsets from different vendors, said Mahajan. Users will also be able to read, edit, re-send e-mail attachments, and maintain always-on access to their calendar and contacts when on the move, he added.

However, Mahajan noted that while the mobile e-mail is immensely popular North America, it still ranks a distant second behind text-based short messaging (SMS) applications in Asia.

He conceded that it is probably due to the fact that “text messaging is a popular messaging application across Asia”, though he expects mobile e-mail to strike a chord with the business crowd.

“As far as business communication goes, your e-mail is important,” Mahajan explained. “You can’t close business deals using SMS. The moment you want to get into a formal type of communication, you need to use e-mail.”

The senior Seven executive was also bullish about mobile e-mail’s chances in developing countries like India and China. Citing India as an example, Mahajan noted that the number of e-mail users outnumber the number of PCs in the country, which could give operators an opportunity to showcase the virtues of mobile e-mail.

“We believe there is going to be a huge demand for mobile e-mail in this segment. India has probably an estimated 150 million email users but only 50 million computers,” observed Mahajan. “That clearly shows that a lot of the e-mail users are actually using Internet cafes or office PCs to access their email accounts.”

Mahajan said for this group of consumers without access to a PC, the ability to communicate and type e-mail messages using the mobile phone will be an “attractive factor”.

ZDNet Asia – “Seven: This will be mobile e-mails year“.

Sounds like his reasoning is way off target. So far my own bet has been not on mobile e-mail, but on mobile entertainment.

When you take a serious look at the 100 million users of the internet that Mr. Mahajan talks about, a few assumptions come to light.

The typical westernized solution that companies like Seven could offer through carriers includes a typical monthly service fee at around USD 20 per month. This includes unlimited e-mail access and the ability to add one or more POP and IMAP accounts. On the move, the consumer can get access to either a push-based e-mail solution or an on-demand e-mail solution. Personally, to me such a price wouldn’t seem very right – until and unless Seven had a creative model and a cheap solution to change that in India.

What problem can mobile e-mail solve for that user segment?According to him, they don’t own a PC, and yet they have access to their e-mail through work, and cyber-cafes. In other words, these users answer their personal e-mail when they would like to. It wouldn’t hurt if they went a few days without answering their e-mail.

E-mail happens to be a relatively formal activity when compared to SMS. However, they both thrive on the network effect. In the USA, all my friends had active e-mail lives. I knew I could count on near instant replies. In contrast, My friends here in India, who have limited access to the Internet don’t expect me to reply to e-mails in an instant. SMS on the other hand is a totally different culture. I am almost always expected to reply. Even if I could compose an e-mail to my friends while on the move, I know that they would not reply immediately. Turning behaviour around would be Seven’s (and other personal e-mail providers’) greatest challenge.

I think e-mail is a great feature to have if you have already subscribed to mobile data, I can’t be sure if many folks like me will want it turned on just for e-mail’s sake. In any case, I could still get a custom solution from my e-mail provider rather than rely on Seven.

Who needs 3G? Lets just go Wifi!

Netgear SPH101I finally tried out a Skype-Wifi phone this weekend. The Netgear Skype Wifi phone SPH101 was on display at a local IT-exhibition here in Pune. The phone was already preconfigured to pick up on the Wifi network at the Netgear stall. I picked up the phone, signed into my skype account and made a local call. The call clarity and quality were average and I enjoyed the feel of the keys and the overall skype experience. The keys were configured similar to any other standard phone with 3 alphabets to a key. The phone retails for approximately Rs. 15,500.00 in India, not a small order by any measure.

The Wifi phone itself not really a revolutionary breakthrough. Skype has been bundled with other data-enabled phones in the past – specifically, Pocket PC and Windows mobile. Also, at that price-point, the Wifi phone does not exactly make sense as a replacement for a fixed line telephone. But what makes Skype exciting to me is the idea of a global identity. With Skype you no longer need to know my locally relevent contact number, area code and country code. I can also purchase local numbers in different countries using SkypeIn and have those identities map to my single Skype identity. The global traveler (ahem ;)) could stay connected wherever there is a civilized airport with Wifi.

As long as I am signed into Skype that is. Mobile data connectivity here in India is a story by itself. I am currently signed into GPRS with AirTel. Depending on the day, month, time, latitude, longitude, environment, and of course – depending on how the god of the air feels (Vayu), I could get average connectivity or no connectivity at all.

Could Skype on 3G change all that? Skype is still exploring VoIP on the Hutchison 3G networks in Europe starting way back in Febuary.

In an effort to scope user demand, 3 Sweden is offering a Skype bundle with a 3G flat-rate subscription and 3G data card. With a mobile flat-rate data plan from Hutchison 3, users can make unlimited Skype calls. Christian Salbaing, MD of Europe Telecommunications at Hutchison 3, downplayed concerns that Skype traffic would cannibalise voice revenues. He described it as an attractive value added service that would help tempt more customers onto its network.

The pleasures of flat-rate dialing were too tempting to resist. As I placed the SPH101 down and turned around to leave the Netgear stall – my thoughts were all about the current 3G bids taking place in India. Is there a solution on the cards?

Just then, my eyes landed on the stalls of a popular VoIP provider in India – Phonewala. Phonewala were offering Broadband+VoIP-enabled PCO’s (for those interested, PCO is short for Public Call Office). With a simple Linksys phone adapter (approximately Rs. 4200), Broadband connection (Rs. 900 p.m for 256kbps) and a handset – PCO’s could offer “dial the world at Rs. 2.99/-“. Great, the local tea-stall owner can now call his cousin in Atlanta at rock-bottom rates.

Brilliant! What if PCO’s began offering Wifi? The entire city of Pune would be connected within a few days. We could give some of the big wireless guys a run for their money. Of course, there remains the question of how would the poor PCO operator get paid? But then with our history of socialism – I am sure the city municipal can work something out 🙂 (for those not laughing yet, please don’t mind my rambling).

At the end of the day, the Indian private wireless providers just don’t want to have to do anything that might disturb their revenues. I wish they would stop haggling and seed a long-delayed wireless data revolution in India. Sure voice revenues would start to whittle down – try focusing on areas where there is real value.

Oh and just so that you should know, using Skype in India is not politically correct according to the Economic Times – “Illegal web calls by BPO face axe“.