http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1487Wed, 1 Sep 2010 17:40:00 EDTThe September 2010 Apple event has come to close and with it comes a new lineup of iPods, updates to iOS, a revamp to the company’s “hobby” with Apple TV, and Ping – the social network feature integrated into iTunes.  Considering this was a music centric event the question perhaps most asked was “how is Apple going to convince consumers to buy an iPhone and an iPod?”  Did Apple answer this question with today’s announcement?  In part yes, but mostly no.   Of the three iPod devices discussed in today’s event the Nano underwent the most changes with this new generation, with a significantly smaller form factor (approaching the Shuffle), multi-touch screen, and an iOS like interface.  It will be interesting to see how consumers receive this n ... Digital Home,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1486Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:40:00 EDTIn the last few days, details have emerged of two new Video on Demand (VOD) services.  YouTube (owned by Google) is said to be negotiating content deals to enable streaming of newly released movies -- about when they are released on DVD -- at a rate of approximately $5 per movie.  Apple may or may not launch its highly anticipated iTV product on Wednesday, 9/1.  Apple already has a good library of TV shows for sale at $2 and $3.  Many speculate that they will allow customers to rent these for $1 per show, and are working to extend content licenses to include premium movies as well. Pay Per View (PPV) and Video on Demand (VOD) have long been a small but highly profitable service operated by video operators (Cable, Satellite and IPTV provide ... Digital Home,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1485Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:48:00 EDTCisco recently announced their intentions to acquire ExtendMedia, which operates in the white-label online video platform space.  ExtendMedia’s main product OpenCASE offers an “end-to-end platform for the management, publishing and delivery of innovative content services to PCs, television, and mobile devices,” (from ExtendMedia’s website) highlighting a further move for Cisco into the “TV Everywhere” (TVE) space - the company had also previously invested in Digitalsmiths.   While Cisco has a strong presence in the CPE space (through acquisitions of Linksys and Scientific Atlanta) and the enterprise level segment, the acquisition and focus on content management platforms is a strategic move to more tightly integrate the two.  As more opera ... Digital Home,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1482Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:25:06 EDTIn Brazil, the last spectrum auction that occurred in 2007 was for 3G frequencies. Auctions for other frequencies were planned for 2008. That year, the auction was postponed to mid-2009, and in December 2009 it was postponed to mid-2010. MMDS operators owned 190 MHz of spectrum in the 2.5 GHz and 2.6 GHz range, in which they had wanted to, as early as 2007, deploy WiMAX and provide triple-play services to customers. MMDS operators have been providing broadband services on these frequencies since 1997. So when claims that broadband couldn't be done over the air and that WiMAX wouldn't be able to provide this using these frequencies they argued otherwise. They pointed out that WiMAX would be much more efficient than the radio standard being ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1481Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:02:17 EDTIn my recent report on Digital Radio, I made the case that “Smartphones are expected to include digital radio receivers starting in mid-2011, driven by carriers’ desire to offer users premium audio content while limiting the use of scarce radio spectrum”. This reason for adding radio to the cell phone is driven by market demand (to use the radio spectrum effectively) and based primarily on technical factors. I was surprised to read other news that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) are behind a push to mandate (through Congress’s Performance Rights Act (PRA) in the House and Senate) that portable devices, which include portable media players (PMPs) and cell phones, require an ... Digital Home,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1480Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:56:12 EDTYesterday, I was briefed by the open source unified communications (UC) solution provider, eZuce. Their openUC is a SIP-based solution that combines a number of key UC functionalities such as voice, video, conferencing, instant messaging, presence and mobility. What is unique about openUC is that all its components, including call control, can be hosted in a data center environment without the need for an on-premise PBX infrastructure, unlike certain comparable solutions out there in the market today. I can see the product’s potential in centralized, private enterprise clouds where it can be coupled with SIP trunking for delivering enterprise-wide UC functionality at significantly lower costs. The TCO model they shared with me showed up to ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1479Tue, 17 Aug 2010 11:31:00 EDTQualcomm unveiled its initial dual-core chipset strategy during the COMPUTEX 2010 tradeshow in June. The company announced this week that OEM system customers are expected to receive production-ready shipments of its 1.5 GHz QSD8672 Snapdragon chipset before the end of the year. The first dual-core chipsets rolling out to customers fall into the MSM8x60 family intended for high-end smartphone handsets. One model provides HSPA+ protocol support while the other enables multi-mode HSPA+/EV-DO Rev. B. Both smartphone chipsets feature two CPU cores running at up to 1.2 GHz. The top-end mobile processor offers specifications rivaling CULV architectures for low-end laptops. Utilizing a 45nm production process, each of the cores is rated up to 1. ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1478Wed, 4 Aug 2010 17:48:00 EDTIt just goes to show you how much interest there is in mobile proximity payments (physical location mobile commerce, call it what you’d like) that the scoop Bloomberg had on the not-ready-for-primetime Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile/Discover/Barclaycard initiative has set off so much media speculation.  Yes, this initiative could be very big news for mobile commerce. But as noted by Digital Transaction News, http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=2599   there are lots of hurdles facing the group, not the least of which is convincing merchants to participate.  The biggest issues there – capital costs for point of sale terminals and lower card processing costs.  The group does have a pressure point they can exploit if they are wi ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1477Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:59:37 EDTThere has been a lot of talk surrounding WiMAX and LTE lately. Especially around companies that have had network deployments and experience around WiMAX in the past years. WiMAX vendors that have stuck through the whole thick of problems and issues that have been associated with commercially developing, deploying and expanding a 4G radio access network, are now able to leverage this experience. Infrastructure vendors have planned on supporting WiMAX and LTE. This way, they can keep their WiMAX customers and maintain this market and expand their LTE customers. In essence, there is a lot of re-useable hardware in a WiMAX base station that can be used for manufacturing an LTE base stations. They are using the same OFDM underlying technolog ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1476Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:47:31 EDTAfter our recent whitepaper on Compact base stations there have been a lot of questions on why we didn’t include femtocells within the coverage. The reason was because we see femtocells as low power access points, where the output power is typically 10mW-100mW for indoor residential grade femtocells, and 200-300mW for enterprise grade or metro femtocells. Rural femtocells (currently in development) are known to have output power between 200mW-1W. We would typically classify any femtocell between 200mW-1W as a super femtocell or greater femtocell. The self-configuring, self-provisioning characteristics of femtocells do change as we increase the output power and user capacity and become semi auto-configurable. Some would debate that greater ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1475Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:51:35 EDTYesterday Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in their earnings call that “In the last 12 months customers around the world have ordered more than $1 billion of products from Amazon using a mobile device.” This is not the breakthrough point you might think it is for mobile commerce. There is no doubt that $1 billion in sales from a single company in mobile commerce is a significant number. eBay reported that in 2009, they had $660 million in sales attributed to mobile commerce, and they believe they will jump to $1.2 billion in 2010. These numbers reflect the sale of physical goods sold by eBay.  But the Amazon number is a different story.  The problem with the Amazon number is it includes sales of digital books purchased via the Kindle ereader. Wh ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1474Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:49:33 EDTSome will look at Apple’s response today to well-publicized concerns over antenna design in the new iPhone 4G as tempering an overblown non-issue. Others will see it as a company with a relatively unblemished track record in product launches taking the “rock star” approach and pointing fingers at the rest of the mobile device industry. Is the company still an innovator or has it become relegated to merely part of the flock now?   Apple chief Steve Jobs is quoted today as saying, “0.55% of all iPhone customers have called AppleCare with an antenna issue,” and, “So this doesn't really jive with what you read about this problem.” Is the concern about all iPhones? No. Only the iPhone 4. Should anyone expect 3+ million people with iPhone 4 worl ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1473Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:15:34 EDTIf this report is true and made official, then the Indian government will ban 25 Chinese firms and one Israeli firm from doing business in India.  This includes Huawei and ZTE.  This is happening just as the 4G market is about to explode in India, with service providers with new spectrum planning WiMAX, LTE, and potential transitions from WiMAX TDD to LTE TDD.  Major mobile infrastructure companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, Motorola, NEC, Nokia Siemens Networks, Samsung, and ZTE are expected to fiercely compete for business in India, as are other very important smaller 4G companies such as Alvarion, Aviat, and many others.   Supposedly, security agencies in India were able to prove that Chinese companies' equipment and sof ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1472Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:44:01 EDTWhile the Android Market and its selection of apps has grown steadily and far outpaced the rest of the challenger’s to the iTunes App Store, it still trails the iPhone’s store’s app count by more than half. Starting this week, Google is taking steps to correct that mismatch in available apps with the launch of ‘App Inventor for Android’. The App Inventor is a do it yourself application design suite, downloadable by anyone that allows those without any programming or development experience to create rich applications for the Android Platform and then download the same to their Android handsets. The tool gives users a drag and drop easy-to-use interface with rich functionality-allowing applications to access core phone services such as text ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1471Thu, 1 Jul 2010 01:40:43 EDTSo, here it is. Launch day for the iAd mobile ad platform from Apple. It’s going to be a big deal…just not today. Some of the initial advertisers will not have campaigns ready for several months, according to AdAge. So this won’t be anything like the launch of a new iPhone model. It’s a first step. But with $60 million of inventory sold, iAd generates plenty of heat. Here’s what a couple of experienced mobile advertising people told me they expect from the new ad network: “iAd pushes mobile advertising into a new realm. For the first time, for good reason or not, advertisers are excited about being associated with mobile…and actually putting budget behind those efforts to prove it,” says Ben Gaddis, director of mobile and emergin ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1470Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:20:57 EDTThere is fresh evidence that more online retailers are getting their mobile acts together. And while that’s a welcome trend for the future of mobile marketing, the vast majority of sites still need to get this sorted out. The new evidence comes from digital marketing firm Acquity Group, which announced results of its second annual Mobile Commerce Audit. The audit examines Internet Retailer’s 500 list of companies. Key findings this year include: ·         12% of sites are compatible with mobile browsers, up from 4% last year ·         11% of sites are optimized for the iPhone, up from 1% in 2009 ·         7% offer downloadable apps for mobile devices, up from 2% a year ago Interestingly, only a few sites had both a downloadable app and a s ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1469Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:49:07 EDTThe WiMAX Forum today announced that it has published a standard for 802.16e femtocells. There is a certification drive planned for early 2011, something which we haven’t seen on WCDMA or CDMA femtocells.   While a standard is always good for the general adoption of a technology, WiMAX femtocells haven’t really taken off. There are very few vendors who are actually spending resources building WiMAX femtocells. Few of them like LG Nortel who showcased at last years Femto World Summit in London have seen some trials in Korea and in the US. Samsung did develop a WiMAX femtocell initially but it has since been focusing on the CDMA/LTE femto market ever since. On the operator end, Comcast has been known to be testing WiMAX femtocells but nothin ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1468Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:16:40 EDTI've had my Sprint EVO for nearly a week and one thing that has been lurking in the back of my mind is how the EVO will do in terms of battery life. Some early reviewers have said that things are a bit thin in this regard but obviously I need to find out for myself. First, let's set some ground rules. I am not a person who spends six hours a day streaming video over 4G. My typical daily usage includes about 20-30 minutes of phone calls, lots of checking of my Outlook email and Calendar plus sending an email or two, a bit of messaging and reading about 15 minutes of news. With all this I don't think that I am too untypical of many business users. Under the above scenario I have found that my EVO will run all day without issue and have som ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1467Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:41:59 EDTI activated the phone by calling Sprint as their on-line tool seemed a bit balky with the EVO. All in all, it only took a few minutes. I found the EVO large, by cellphone standards, but this should not be a surprise since it has such a large screen (4.3"). For me, it's a kind of blessing as I find most cellphones a bit awkward to talk on as they are relatively small. The EVO feels more like a normal phone. It's not really heavy but let's just say that it's substantial. Setting the EVO up was fairly intuitive and I only had to refer to the manual once or twice. I had my EVO in 3G and Internet operation was good and trouble free. I watched a few of the obligatory YouTube videos to check things out. The display is vivid, liquid-looking ... Wireless,http://www.abiresearch.com/research_blog/1466Thu, 10 Jun 2010 03:49:55 EDTIf there is one lesson to be learnt from the growth in 3G and 3.5G services, it is that widespread service adoption is contingent on the availability of attractive ‘blockbuster’, ‘must have’, handsets. This was true of 3G services, which only really gained the massive data-hungry popularity they now enjoy thanks to the remarkable success of the iPhone and its clones. What this did, was provide services and applications that gave compelling reasons for users to adopt 3G data plans. For network operators looking to sell their 4G services to the public, they must look to selling the ‘experience’, not the speed. In that context, Mobile WiMAX’s quest to be the 4G service of choice received a fillip this week with the introduction of the HTC EVO ... Wireless,