BBC NEWS Technology City-wide wi-fi rolls out in UKI have to say I'm very excited about this company. I know its old news that
The Cloud is rolling out city wide WiFi networks in London, Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham etc AND that this business/technology concept has been around since the beginning of last year when Google announced that it was going to offer free WiFi in Mountain View California, but I'm still very excited. I think we will see the start of the next consumer revolution in communications occur when these arrive. It will give people the complete freedom to connect to the internet, make video and VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) calls using services such as Skype and the others in the report, in fact Motorola demonstrated its first phone back in May time last year including an application to link to Skype. The ability to connect anytime, anywhere (within a city) at a reasonable cost (figures have been muted to be around the £10/month flat fee for up to 1mbps) will see people hitting a tipping point whereby they will not only think of broadband as being something in the home or work, but something that can offer them specific, relevant, secure (WEP - Wireless Encription Protocol enabled links to keep your connection private) content on the go.
As important as it is for consumers, it is also a potentially devastating blow to the mobile carriers. Imagine, people will be able to use their Motorolas, Nokias, Sony Ericsson phones to connect at the touch of a button to broadband, bypassing the mobile carriers and their clunky, stuttering, expensive 3G applications and data rates and talk to anyone in the world for free (if the receiver is also using broadband and for an almost nominal amount if connecting to a land line). Why bother paying the mobile carriers? Why pay £7/mb for data downloads when you can stream video for 'free' within your monthly flat rate price? I'd like to think the mobile carriers are looking into ways they can link into this technology and i'll watch with interest as to their strategy to either combat it or embrace it.
You'll be able to play games, keep bang up to date with stock movements, weather updates, (or for a geek like me) RSS feeds from favourite websites. You'll be enabled for Location Based Services whereby you can be triangulated accurately from the WiFi masts giving both you and business great power to be able to send you relevant, targeted adverts, messages, offers and information. Indeed today, there are already smaller I(T/P?) based advertising companies specialising in the latest form of marketing "the segmentation of one". This technology looks at what you've been checking out on the internet and sends adverts and offers to you that it thinks you might like, but, with LBS the adverts will also be location relevant, popping up when you pass McDonalds recognising its lunchtime and offering you an extra cheeseburger if you go in and have a bite. The advertising will tell you that the latest Nike trainers have come in as you pass the store because the behavioural engine remembers you bought a pair online. Now, whether you like this idea or feel its an invasion of privacy, its exciting and its only just round the corner.
I think The Cloud, which is rolling out this technology in the UK is a very interesting company, i like its revenue models, scalability and flexibility to deliver these Metro area WiFi networks.
Bring it on!
Digital Television, Part 1: Making Sense of it all - EngadgetYou should read this, its a great introduction to Digital TV, explaining the standards which have been accepted around the world for both Terrestrial and Mobile TV.
One thing i don't get is why we can't have a universal standard? Surely, in the end, convergence is the way forward. Rather than blocking consumers from using their device anywhere in the world and trying to force them to buy region specific devices, therefore missing out on both content and device revenues. Enabling me to watch anything anytime anywhere and sharing content revenues (if i'm abroad) would generate faster uptake of said devices, a compelling reason to watch content (i.e. Lost, Invasion, Friends etc) on the go because its always there and lower costs to the consumer due to increased traffic, thus enabling further optimization of the cycle.
But far be it from me to mention anything which makes sense ;)
The Telecoms Landscape
The Telecoms LandscapeI must start with an apology. I said in my initial post that I’d try to post everyday, typically as soon as I said this I got stuck and haven’t posted for the last 4 days. I’ve discovered that when time allows its easier to comment on news and blogs during the day whereas my own thoughts take a considerable time longer to distil and transcribe into Technologydecoded. So I need to revise my initial position and say that I’ll add my own analysis on topics a couple of times a week. I hope you stick with it!So, I’ve been asked by K3ith “What do you think the telecommunications landscape looks like in 10 / 15 / 20 years, both wireless and wireline and where do you see Google fitting in?”. I have to confess that I’m not a futurologist, well, not 20 years out anyway, but the rest of the question is an interesting one as it brings to light the fundamental shifts that are occurring at the moment.Not that I want to come over as a consultant or anything ;) (or perhaps this goes back to my Investment Banking days…) but the way I see the future panning out could be radically changed by just a couple of fantastically strategic buys / killer apps hitting the market. I think this is another way of saying that, during a revolution, perceived power changes hands often and that partnerships only last as long as it serves each party. I think we won’t see the technology landscape settle down for another 20 years. By settle I mean reach the market stability seen in the Utilities sector or Financial Services (albeit they face their own upheaval over the next 50 years as the worldwide balance of financial transactions and wealth moves towards China). Bearing this in mind and with a particularly UK biased view on this question, here are my thoughts:The first thing to be aware of is British Telecom is at the forefront of the worlds telecoms markets following its bold decision to transition the UK onto an IP based communications network. Other countries (notably Italy) have started to implement changes to their comms infrastructures, but none with the boldness presented by Ben Verwaayen, BT’s CEO, that the UK will have its MPLS (MultiProtocol Label Switching) network by 2008! As a result the rest of the world is watching to see how BT manages with regards to its successes and failures. While it means these other incumbent telecom companies can avoid some of the pitfalls as well as leverage up on some of the successes, there will be a staggered roll out of a global IP network which will reduce the ‘first mover advantages’ available and allow other players, specifically the Internet players like Google, to come in and try out their own technologies and applications on the more advanced networks before rolling them out on the nascent IP telecoms networks effectively drawing out any customer value before the incumbent telecoms companies can utilise the networks they’ve put in.However, let’s bring it back to the first 5 years. Rolling out the IP network in the UK is going to be incredibly expensive and complex. BT has put a spend of £10bn on rolling out this technology over the next 3 years. As such the old PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network, using copper wire and analogue signals) will run in parallel with the IP roll out for some time to come. As this transformation keeps BT busy, the rest of the market will start to consolidate as companies vie to use the new technology to their best advantage while there’s still considerable value to be had. This consolidation is likely to go on between the smaller telecom providers and ISPs. The real threat over the next 5 years comes from the likes of Google, Yahoo and MSN. These internet behemoths have the eyeballs of 60%+ of all internet users, that’s a billion people. As I mentioned in my last post on Google (Technology Decoded: The strength of Google), Google wants to be the equivalent ‘webtop’ to Microsofts desktop. This is an incredibly powerful position to be in and particularly dangerous for the telcos, let me explain.While rolling out IP networks is a relatively new thing, especially on a massive scale, the codex and protocols that work over the network have been around for a while. Google et al have and are creating customer web applications (Google Pack, Yahoo Konfabulator) which are easy to download, useful, fun and free! These applications and services (Google Maps, MSN Hotmail) are advertised globally, across culture and language every day, something BT and the other incumbents are incapable of doing. As a result it is Google et al which stand to take any value in the communications space, they are the companies which we might deal with in the future for our video and voice calling rather than the ‘old world’ telecoms companies. There is one other reason Google et al present such a threat, telecoms companies by their very nature, are full of engineers, mathematicians, computer scientists etc. This is great for creating a telecoms company and shit if you want to address your products and services to the customer. The internet players are the other way round. They recognised that the only way to get eyeballs and concurrency on their sites was to please the customer and design the technology to achieve this, technology based on IP principles which run on today’s telco systems as well as tomorrows. For telco companies to compete against the internet players in a IP world means they have to go through a cultural paradigm shift to meet the internet players head on and gain the time and eyeballs of the consumer.While it is difficult for me to see how the telco players are going to win this battle, all is not lost. Telcos are trying to engage with customers and a fighting their corner in this area. However, they do have one advantage, much akin to the tortoise and the hare analogy. No matter whether your Google, MSN, Yahoo, eBay or any of the other myriad internet players, you all HAVE to use incumbent telco infrastructural backbones to move your data about. Google wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for BT’s cables, pipes, routers and gateways bringing their data packets to your computer. Even if Google keeps growing and wants to put in its own country infrastructure, no government is going to allow it.For the telcos to increase their value and remain technology companies rather than just another Utility company, they will need to tap into creating their own web applications and services. Except these have a difference. They will not be aimed at the consumer, because, as we know, the internet players have this stitched up, they will aim them directly at Google, Wanadoo, AOL etc. These will be network level applications and services which the internet players will use enabling even better web application and services for the consumer AND if the telcos can negotiate deals based on Transaction pricing “there be life in dem dare bones yet lad”.So, as the IP network is rolled out and the internet players use more of it, the telcos will be recompensed accordingly. Even if Google sets up a worldwide WiFi network, the backhaul still goes over AT&T, France Telecoms and BTs infrastructure. In return, the telcos can charge for this usage, which keeps them alive, which, while internet companies will come and go (often with the fashion of the moment) telcos longevity is immutable as the only way to transfer others data around.
Look-to-talk
From
Wired.com"The U.S. Navy is field-testing a new short-range communications device called LightSpeed that could soon let sailors talk securely up to two miles away -- just by looking at each other.
The device uses infrared, similar to that of a television remote control, to transmit audio and visual information. To overcome range limits, LightSpeed connects to ordinary binoculars and uses the optical lenses to amplify the signals. Then soldiers on either end can simply plug headphones and a microphone into their binoculars to talk to one another."Hmm, not sure about this. Must be line of sight and is only available up to 2 miles away. To be honest i don't know what's wrong with encrypted radios as most countries don't have the technological means to hack encrypted naval comms at sea? How are the 2 sailors going to see eachother at night at up to 2 miles away? There seems to me to be enough substitute communications technology for this to be a bit of a gimmick.
Obviously it would be great to have some sort of secure, low power (and therefore relatively invisible) means of communications in the field, especially for the army, but line of sight just isn't practical for them. They'd have to raze everything first to maintain the signal....
I'm struggling to see the business case for this technology. Can anyone enlighten me?
Norweigian Outdoor Ad Campaign
I saw this article on
Picturephoning.com"The poster invites the target group to pose in front of it, take a picture, and send a picture message to a friends mobile."I really like this idea, it's a simple way of encouraging the use of camera phones in a spontaneous, humourous way which is what i think camera phones are all about. Yes, they are starting to become substitutes to low end digital cameras, particularly now high end camera phones in the UK are 2Megapixels with auto focus e.g.
Sony W900. But it is not the fact decent pictures can now be 'posed' using camera phones, it is the immedacy of being in the vicinity when an event occurs that makes camera phones so exciting. There are a number of companies out there starting to take advantage of this technology and i think we will see a paradigm shift in the way we collate and disseminate images of events in the next few years. Using humourous backdrops today for a campaign is seeding the mainstreaming of ubiquitous camera phone imagery of tomorrow.
The strength of Google
I've downloaded Google Pack to get the best of Googles free products into one application which will automatically manage and update them. This is how software and applications should be available to the public. Simple, effective and i want more!
Google is such an exciting company! Half the world's internet population, 1bn plus, either have them as their homepage or as their primary search engine. They are in control of the 'webtop' (much the same as Microsoft to the desktop). I know that at the moment they're still essentially (as the analysts put it) a 'one trick pony' with 98% of their revenues coming from advertising, but you gotta hand it to them, they REALLY know their customer.
I think this is their 'unfair advantage'. Everything they're creating is simple, easy to use with nicely rendered graphics, lots of white space to remove information overload and even if you don't need their applications they're fun to play with anyway.
Now don't get me wrong, every dog has its day and I'm sure there will come an end to Google's meteoric rise (IPO August 2004 $85, close of play friday $465 with Bear Stearns giving a 'buy' guidance and target of $550), but lets be fair, Google knows this and is using its almighty market valuation of $113bn to get all the techie and marketing brains together to stave off that chance and turn it into the world's dominant communications company.
To me it appears to have a 'land grab' strategy. Screw Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay and anyone else, they want as many eyeballs at whatever price now and will work out how to extract revenues at a future moment. This is working well, they are in their honeymoon phase with the markets and are using their cash reserves to acquire the necessary eyeballs. As the markets chose their next favourite, Google will need to work out how to convert their audience to a wider revenue set beyond Adsense and Adword.
Of course, they recognise this and are making headway into Wifi / Wimax (Mountian View, San Fran), developing Map and Location Based Services based on the epic Google Earth and Google Maps and are even partnering with Sun Microsystems to offer the Java Runtime Environment to people who want to develop applications which could be used by Google and perhaps more interestingly for the rest of us, OpenOffice, an open source office suite (much like Microsoft Office) which is free to download. These and other partnerships and application development projects are all designed to get under our skin, making them indispensible which frankly, is and will be correct for the mainstream consumer over the next 3 years, especially if the basic versions remain free. Once embedded in the Google consumer psyche, 'standard' and 'premium' versions of the applications will be monetized and, in my opinion, providing Google keeps the price low (ergo volume take up high) they will establish themselves as much more than the aforementioned 'one trick pony' and we really will see Google standardised as THE webtop.
Overall, such an exciting company to watch and one which i will come back to time and again.
In my next post on Google I want to spout about the potential damage it can cause to the world wide telecommunications industries with its land grab strategy and Google Talk.
Thoughts?
May I introduce myself
Hello and welcome to my blog!
So why me? no particular reason, I'm just facinated by the current communications revolution and i do have something of an inside view as i work for the world's largest management consultancy as a strategy consultant to the communications and technology sectors. Among others, I've been involved in defining the business cases and writing the business models for CRM systems integration projects, standardising a mobile operators internal view across all countries of their 'customer touch points' (i.e. call centres, retail outlets) and rolling out a broadband assurance service so that means broadband is always 'on tap' for the end user anywhere in the country.
Threre are 2 main reasons why I personally want to start this blog:
- Over the last few months I've been working with BT on THE most exciting project i've undertaken as a consultant. Context: It is no secret that BT is looking to transfer all of its telecoms systems onto one system, its Internet Protocol (IP) Network. If it manages to do this it (in theory) will save a £1bn+ each year in network maintanence, servcing and upgrades. However, cost cutting is not the only thing BT wants to achieve, they also want to use the new systems and protocols to develop new applications, web services and businesses which will enhance revenues. It is in this space that I'm working with people in their Innovations Labs looking at business ideas and propostions for development today and prototypes that will affect consumers tomorrow. While i would never discuss these ideas and applications, it's given me an appetite to learn much more about comms.
- I've been trying over the last 2 years to set up a business which exploits what the latest internet and communications technology platforms have to offer - ubiquity and speed. During this time I've met and come to know some of the entrepreneurs and creative people already hard at work in the communications revolution. Each one of them has given me an exciting and different perspective which at the same time made me realise just how complex, fluid and fast the speed of change is in this industry. As a result I thought i'd try and bring to the viewers attention a constantly changing selection of stories, thoughts and analysis of what's happening in this space and write it like i was telling it to an interested friend.
I very much hope that any of you reading this blog will add your comments and views for people to digest, push back on or agree with.
I will do my upmost to blog daily, but, as you know, working for a consultancy does demand much of your time and sometimes I won't be able to blog. Please be patient...
