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Politics will drive many of 2010’s mobile developments
Political posturing, macroeconomics and technological advances will, as always, have considerable impacts on the North American mobile industry in 2010. Because there are so many variables, there’s not much of a sure thing in the industry, but several trends bear watching.
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AT&T may face down Net neutrality with per-megabyte pricing
AT&T Mobility’s consideration of usage-based pricing for its mobile broadband network lays the groundwork for billing changes that could be induced if regulators force it to comply with any Net-neutrality rules.
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Verizon’s attention-getting ads frustrate AT&T, peak consumer interest
Verizon Wireless has raised the hackles of rival AT&T Wireless with an ad campaign that highlights the coverage gaps in AT&T’s 3G network, but is that marketing push enough to stem the tide of customers flowing to AT&T solely because they want Apple’s iPhone, for which AT&T still has the US exclusive?
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Keys to success are elusive for iPhone apps developers
IPhone application developers don’t need to offer an inexpensive iPhone app in order to make a dent in the marketplace, but, that said, it’s sometimes the simplest applications that derive the most high-profile attention.
Those were two of the lessons I learned at the 360iDev conference last week. The 225 or so attendees at this event, held in Denver, appeared to be acolytes of Apple CEO Steve Jobs (though that is exactly how one attendee said he did not want to be described). For the most part, they didn’t seem interested in developing apps for Google’s Android OS, Windows Mobile, Palm’s webOS or anything without the Apple brand on it.
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Countries demonstrating vastly different approaches to competition
Three countries in the Caribbean and Central America are taking divergent paths as they nationalize, liberalize or privatize their mobile industries, providing a fascinating microcosm for future study regarding which economic approaches will prove the most fruitful for investors and governments and deliver the best value to customers.
Belize’s government hopes that taking over incumbent operator Belize Telemedia (BTL) will ultimately mean that the company has more money to devote to its networks and enable it to provide better service. Costa Rica’s aim is similar, in that it hopes to bring in licensees to invest money and time in its newly liberalized telecoms market. And the Bahamas is convinced that privatizing its incumbent operator will attract fresh funding and pioneering business tactics that will benefit customers.
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Invisible-network concept helping Zeebo make a serious business out of wireless games
Following the business model popularized by Amazon’s Kindle electronic reader, startup Zeebo is a trailblazer in distributing mobile games transparently to end-users via 3G networks.
Wireless 2009 rewards low expectations with high hopes
With the global economy in a shambles, I didn’t know what to expect from the International CTIA Wireless 2009 event. Yet even with attendance down some 15%, the yearly industry get-together in Las Vegas turned out considerably more upbeat than I expected.
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US mobile industry still robust despite doom and gloom
Is the recession forcing US mobile customers to drop their cell-phone plans en masse, and are the remaining subscribers switching from contract plans to prepaid? That’s what some critics contend, but industry metrics reveal that the economy’s impact on US mobile-subscription trends has been far less dramatic.
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Customer service is not just a necessary evil
You would think that by now, US mobile operators would have learned that delivering decent customer service can be a competitive advantage and that providing dismal customer service is always a disadvantage.
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Qualcomm remains focused on bilateral deals for LTE IPR
As new rounds of IPR negotiations over OFDM/OFDMA technologies loom, Qualcomm is out to persuade critics that its approach to IPR is vastly transparent, not to mention fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory. But will that forestall future licensing disagreements? Read the rest of this entry »
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