Tag Archives: wireless

I love My MiFi!

Posted on 15 June 2009 | 4 Comments

In an effort to establish professionalism, I do try to not pimp my employer’s products or services.  I’m an unabashed user of a product on a competitor’s network (iPhone) and try to make it clear that the content here represents my own opinions and not those of my employer.  So I hope that you will maintain a level of respect for me and give me some objectivity points when I say that I have a new love: my Verizon Wireless MiFi.  It’s a pocket-sized wifi hotspot for up to 5 devices that connects to the Verizon Wireless EV-DO 3G wireless broadband network.  The device is manufactured by Novatel Wireless and is also sold by Sprint.

My Verizon Wireless MiFi, next to standard business card for size comparison.

My Verizon Wireless MiFi, next to standard business card for size comparison.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any period of time you have no doubt concluded that I am a gadget hound and tech nerd.  Would it surprise you to learn that when I travel for business I usually travel with two laptops?  It’s a sickness, I know.  I’m a firm believer in keeping my work work on my work PC (an HP) and my personal material and projects on my MacBook Pro.  In most hotels this has resulted in a life-or-death decision of which computer will be registered for the (usually expensive and slow) hotel broadband connection.  In a few instances in the past I was able to use my Apple Airport Express to connect multiple devices to the hotel broadband.  In those instances the connection is generally very slow, and often I find myself unable to use my VPN to connect to my work e-mail and other intranet resources.  Bummer.

Even when I bite the bullet and decide that my work PC will be the sole digital link to the outside world performance is inconsistent.  In my years of travel I have found it amazing how many times my VPN did not work.  It still also amazes me how many hotels still treat broadband as an optional amenity.  It’s not– a hotel room might as well not have electricity or running water.  The net is central to how I and many others live our lives today and is non-negotiable if I am going to remain a productive employee while on the road.  It also still amazed me the rates hotels charge for Internet connectivity: $12.95/day seems to be the standard.  You don’t learn the VPN won’t function until after you’ve connected the work laptop and tried to connect.  Want to cut bait and just use the personal machine?  That’s another $12.50, please.  Don’t even THINK of connecting your iPhone or other wifi-enabled smart phone (you can generally fall back on your usable if somewhat slow 3G connection there).  Coffee shops and other hotspots also have spotty, inconsistent support for VPN connectivity.  A lot of productivity has been lost struggling to get a VPN connection only to give up and just resign myself to days of catching up on e-mail and other tasks when next I am at home or in the office.  To put it mildly, connectivity when traveling sucks.

I don’t have to worry about that anymore.  Since I bought my MiFi I’ve had one day of meetings outside of the office and one business trip.  On my day running around the Washington metro area I was able to use my down time to great productive effect   The VPN works flawlessly every time.  I can connect my PC, Macintosh and iPhone all to a blazing fast (in wireless terms) network with great coverage.  On my recent business trip I did a speed check to find that I was getting 1097 Kbps down and 652 Kbps up.  While it’s not as fast as my FiOS connection at home (I will limit myself to pimping one Verizon product in this post) it’s faster than most hotel broadband connections.

I’m not the only one who loves this devices and have made productive use of the MiFi.  Andy Abramson of VoIP Watch and Bob Gourley of CTOVision have both sung the praises of their MiFis.  Guy Kawasaki made a great post to the American Express OPEN for Small Business blog highlighting some valuable use cases for his Sprint MiFi, and some relevant to people who are not afflicted with my tech nerdery:

  • In your hotel room
  • Traveling with kids
  • MacBook Air, iPhone and iPod Touch owners
  • Smartphone users using VoIP such as Skype
  • Making a sales pitch when you need a reliable and fast Internet connection
  • Conference attendance (often wifi at a conference is either completely unavailable or an additional daily expense.  Now you can even use the MiFi”s support for multiple connections to make friends and influence people).
  • Speaking or presenting when you need an Internet connection (a requirement I can say with experience many venues are challenged to provide reliably)
  • Alternative to tethering your computer with a mobile phone

One challenge I have had with the MiFi is maintaining a charge on the device.  On my recent business trip I learned that my MiFi as well as a few other devices that charge via USB do not like my Belkin travel surge suppressor.  This is a handy three-outlet surge suppressor that also has two USB ports to charge devices without the need for additional power adapters.  This I think is a problem more of the Belkin than the MiFi, because my iPhone also would not take a charge from this device.  So the one cautionary advice I would offer is that travelers should take the MiFi’s power adapter on the road with them just to be safe.  The MiFi can be charged via USB from your computer, and I found this to be somewhat idiosyncratic and felt that the MiFI didn’t get the full charge it does when plugged in directly to an outlet.

Overall this is a device I strongly recommend.  The retail price is competitive with standard 3G adapters for laptops (that only support connectivity for that single device).  You barely have to travel more than once a month to make the $60 monthly price (5 Gigabytes cap) more cost-effective than paying for daily connectivity at hotels, in airports or coffee shops.  The MiFi has already paid for itself this month and kept me happier and more productive in the bargain.

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A Wireless Revolution on the Horizon

Posted on 8 December 2007 | Leave a comment

It’s a shame that my nose has been so completely placed on the grindstone the last few weeks.  Some very cool, game changing developments have taken place in the wireless industry that I’ve wanted to blog about for some time.

Item the First: Amazon Kindle complete with Sprint EV-DO

The week of Thanksgiving Amazon entered the tumultuous space of e-book readers with the Kindle.  A lot has been written about the status of e-books in general and the utility of the Kindle in specific.  Some have caught on to what I think is one of the most revolutionary elements of the service: bundled Sprint high-speed EV-DO wireless data service.

The real revolution here is the wireless service bundled with another device and service and sold as an element completely independent from traditional mobile telephone or data services.  Kindle points us to a day when standard devices will have on-board mobile data connectivity as a bundled service element.  You won’t need to migrate your phone carrier from AT&T to T-Mobile in order to take advantage of the discrete connectivity provided by some new gadget or doo-dad.  This is an example of the new business model.

Item the Second: Verizon Wireless says they will open their network to any device

In a completely unexpected move, Verizon Wireless announced that they will open up access to their wireless network to any device that is approved through a technical review process to ensure the integrity of the network.  Once again the whole tech world asked “WTF?” all at once, but this time with a great sense of optimism.  While a number of details need to be hammered out, this move does represent a truly game-changing development.  Obviously the wireless industry is going to be turned upside-down.  Other industries and business models are going to be revolutionized as wireless connectivity becomes ubiquitous (two industries that jump immediately to mind are consumer electronics and automotive).

Two major details that need to be hammered out are what the vetting process will look like and what pricing models will be made available.  If the barriers to technical certification are set too high or take too long innovation will be greatly slowed.  I fully expect other carriers to announce plans to open their own networks as well, and getting the best and most demanded gadgets on your network is going to be a dimension of competition among the wireless carriers.  

The second issue to be addressed is pricing.  Already AT&T have tried to make the case that their network is already open because any device that uses a SIM can be connected to their network.  While there is an element of truth to this (one reason I’ve always preferred GSM to CDMA is the flexibility offered by a SIM card), the SIM card model is still based on pricing built around the concept of the mobile phone service.  

The real revolution in the pricing of open wireless wide-area connectivity is going to be a move away from the traditional mobile phone pricing models.  This is important because the truly game-changing element of open networks is creating opportunities for machine-to-machine connectivity.  One the wireless network of the future a large percentage of the traffic will be computers talking to one another.  Pricing models will need to be developed, either directly or indirectly, that support a mix of constant and variable connectivity requirements for a wide array of devices.  The per-bit charges must be sufficiently low for device manufacturers and value-added services to be priced at levels that will deliver value for end customers.

We are on the verge of a very exciting time in the wireless space.  Other carriers are going to follow VzW’s lead, and if Google wins any piece of the airwaves in the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction we can expect them to be a very aggressive and innovative competitor in this space.  Within a couple of years we will come to take ubiquitous connectivity of certain devices for granted.  Some product/service combinations we can easily foresee:

* Constant diagnostic data from cars and other durable goods
* Improved energy efficiency of home heating and cooling
* Real-time remote home security
* Internet audio and video in your car or through mobile devices
* Location-based services, such as luggage that is never lost

These are just some of the concepts off the top of my head.  I have no doubt that I am only scratching the surface and not even tapping into the deep veins of opportunities that some very imaginative people will develop.

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i Touched the iPhone and Was Healed

Posted on 2 July 2007 | Leave a comment

Last Friday (i-Day) after class I found myself at a shopping center that happened to have an AT&T store. I saw that the line was not too long so I decided that even if I did not make the plunge to buy an iPhone I would probably at least get to play with one. An AT&T marketing rep was working the line with an iPhone that I did get to spend a few minutes examining. The interface is sweet, though text entry will take a little getting used to.

When I finally got into the store after about 15 minutes in line they were out of the 8 gigabyte models. The sexy screen of the iPhone was just made for watching video, so in my opinion 4 gig just are not enough. So, that was enough of a reality check to call me back into reality, so I walked away without getting the iPhone.

All in all I’m on the fence about whether or not to wait for version 2.0 of the iPhone. I still think not having the higher-speed HSDPA on the phone makes it less useful. Also in the last several months it seems that the number of places AT&T service is not available is pretty significant, including the business school and my office. I would overlook this if I could hop on to a wireless network to connect my voice traffic, a la T-Mobile’s voice call termination over Wi-Fi.

The iPhone presents wonderful opportunities for carriers and handset-makers alike, and I expect that the benefits will felt beyond AT&T and Apple to extend to their competitors. I’m very biased when it comes to Apple’s genius with user interface and integration of multiple (admittedly proprietary) hardware and software products into a functional and usable system. Smart phones have historically been very poor in this area: the data side of my Treo is so useless it’s little more than a big-ass phone. Hopefully a usable and beautiful phone that functions seamlessly with the Internet and users’ computers will be the kick in the pants phone manufacturers need to make useful smart phones of their own. AT&T are opening up the gates ever so slightly to a more open approach to applications and business models– they’ll see the benefits of this and other carriers will hopefully pick up the clue phone.

Technorati Tags: Wireless, iPhone.

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Ringback Tones

Posted on 10 August 2006 | Leave a comment

While I have no doubt that I am outside the current target demographic, I have to say that the choices of ringback tones offered by Cingular really sucks. With a few exceptions of quotes from the movie “Office Space” there is just nothing there.

What would be cool is the ability to upload my own sound files as ringback tones. Can you say Royale with Cheese?

Tags: Cingular, Wireless.

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Total Telecom Asks What Users Want

Posted on 7 July 2006 | Leave a comment

Following up on a post from earlier this week, Total Telecom did a quick, unscientific survey of what mobile services would be interested in paying for above and beyond their line rental. The unscientific survey was of some small subset of mobile users in the UK with some ties to the telecommunications industry, so theres a high likelihood of early adoptership among those surveyed as well as perhaps a bit too much inside baseball in the respondents feedback on what services would and would not be welcome.

Since TT is a pay site I am not going to provide a link, but rather lift what I thought was the meat of the article:

Interestingly, of the mobile content services that many see as the likely winners in future, few seemed to appeal to our select group of users. Mobile email was one service cited as potentially useful, but on the whole music downloads, TV and sports updates met with an almost complete lack of interest, although football video clips and access to new music downloads as well as Internet Radio were highlighted as possible areas of interest.

What did emerge was that if services were seen as directly relevant to a user’s life, they would be far more willing to pay for them. In addition, users clearly don’t want to pay for services they already get elsewhere, such as news and sports updates.

One respondent, a mature student with no budget to spend on any extra services, commented that they might be interested in practical services such as links to bus-running times, or banking services. The respondent added that service providers could also encourage loyalty amongst students by offering them discounted account deals and after all today’s students are tomorrow’s high earners.

The study was by no means scientific or widespread, but one key message to emerge is that “one size fits all” will probably not work and service providers need to spend a great deal more time on finding out who their customers are and what they really want.

I like the transport schedules service. On a somewhat related note I would be willing to pay to receive updates and announcements of traffic times and incidents for routes that important to me. If I could receive an update on travel times between Sterling and Tysons Corner either on Route 7 or the Dulles Toll Road that would be pretty sweet. If I could receive alerts of traffic incidents on my commuter routes that would be great, too. My willingness to continue to pay for this service is how correctly the service enables me to estimate how long my commute will take each morning.

I currently get e-mail on my Treo and do find my ability to check mail on the go to be very useful, so I would definitely continue to pay for that.

I have a tough time thinking of any content sufficiently compelling to make me want to buy. I dont like the concept of a premium for content I can get elsewhere for free or low cost, and integration of exclusive content deals is a continuation of the cursed walled garden approach to mobile data and content. I probably would be interested in seeing short mobisodes of the shows Im really in to like 24 or Battlestar Gallactica, but theres no way Im going to switch carriers for such a frivolous offering.

Social networking and user-generated content suited for mobile consumption have some appeal as well. If mobile carriers were willing to bring down the walls of their gardens I think there are a number of business models that could catch on in this space and generate data revenue for carriers.

So, what would you be willing to pay extra to get on your mobile?

Tags: Wireless

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Europe says “SMS Only, Please.”

Posted on 3 July 2006 | Leave a comment

According to a recently released report from JupiterResearch, European mobile customers are pretty much only interested in mobile-to-mobile text and (to a lesser extent) picture messaging. A scant few customers have used additional data services. This is the case despite Internet-enabled phones.

This article from Silicon.com goes into a bit of detail.

From the report:

A report from analyst house JupiterResearch has found that the majority of European consumers – some 68 per cent – are not interested in paying for any data services outside text and picture messaging.

But what I find most interesting is this:

According to JupiterResearch, a dearth of suitable handsets cannot explain the lack of enthusiasm. As phones with more sophisticated functionality – such as internet access – have hit the market, use of such capabilities has not risen accordingly.

There are two real possibilities that I see here:

  1. Using handsets to access the Internet is still just too cumbersome and difficult for most users to learn. The menus are cumbersome and arcane, and it seems one can only get connected half the time.
  2. Most mobile data offerings are still based on a walled garden. This is more so for handsets than for smartphones or PDAs. Users can only access the content their carriers allow them to see. Its boring AND expensive; hence no one is interested in it.

That second point has real ramifications for all of the hubbub about network neutrality here in the US. If the fixed broadband carriers should emulate the failed service model of their wireless brethren they can expect to see broadband subscriber numbers fall through the floor.

Tags: Net Neutrality, Wireless

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Cingular to be AT&T Wireless Again? Oceana at War with Eastasia, Peace with Eurasia

Posted on 21 November 2005 | Leave a comment

According to this article in USA Today, AT&T (ne SBC) CEO Ed Whitacre has announced that Cingular Wireless services will be marketed under the AT&T brand. This follows SBCs acquisition of AT&T and re-branding as AT&T over this weekend. Cingular is 60 percent owned by AT&T/SBC and 40 percent by Bell South. Cingular had acquired AT&T Wireless, itself having been spun off from AT&T in 2001. Got all that? Im just waiting for this plot line to involve a case of amnesia, the evil Stephano or some long-lost child returning from a Swiss boarding school all grown up in the space of two years time.

I can see why AT&T are pushing this to consolidate all of their services under the AT&T brand. According to the USA Today piece the Cingular mark will still be used in certain markets, which sounds like about the only thing that could add more confusion to customers. Im actually very surprised that Cingular co-owners Bell South are so blas about all of this.

BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher says anything that boosts Cingular’s revenue is good for BellSouth. “This is not an issue,” he said Sunday.

Whitacre also sees a silver lining, of sorts, for BellSouth. If the switch to the AT&T name helps attract customers to the wireless company, he noted, both carriers will benefit.

Now, if I were a marketing exec at Bell South, I would be looking for AT&T to pony up the bill for any goodwill the Cingular brand had accumulated over the years. I would have my counterpart from AT&T on the phone and letting him know, in no uncertain terms, that 40 percent of that goodwill is going to be needed in payment in exchange for my agreement to move this forward. Bell South are getting screwed in this unless they get some sort of compensation for their support in building the Cingular brand.

As something of a telecom nerd, I have to feel sorry for people for whom this is just a service and not a fascinating industry to observe. Im sure the average user doesnt even know what the hell is going on. This has got to feel a bit like Oceana has always been at war with Eurasia and at peace with Eastasia.

Considering the negative press AT&T Wireless were getting in their last days as an independent carrier, combined with the fact that the AT&T brand itself has seen better days, the new AT&T have a whole lot of brand building to do.

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Cingular Sticks it to AT&T Wireless TDMA Customers

Posted on 25 September 2005 | 2 Comments

I came across this in my RSS aggregator, and I have to say that I was very surprised. According to the Washington Post, Cingular switched off the entire legacy AT&T Wireless TDMA infrastructure this past July.

The transition from TDMA to GSM has been underway in earents at AT&T Wireless and Cingular (first separately and now merged almost one year now) for at least three years. According to the Post article, Cingular did not inform the AT&T Wireless customers using TDMA of the turn down of the infrastructure. I have no idea whether or not this was really the case or whether or not those customers are still able to use Cingulars legacy TDMA network, but these customers would likely find their phones either unusable or unable to get decent signals.

Man, if Cingular didnt let these customers know this was going to happen, thats just bad, bad customer service management. According to the article 90 percent of the former AT&T Wireless customers had migrated to the GSM platform, leaving 10 percent on TDMA. That 10 percent is not seeing their coverage extremely limited, and thats assuming that theyre able to use the Cingular TDMA network. Im not sure how technically feasible that is because there were some issues with simply offering AT&T Wireless GSM customers access to the Cingular network without getting a Cingular SIM. I have to think TDMA network sharing would be at least as difficult.

The way to handle this would have been to offer those customers new, free (low end) GSM phones and try to get them to sign contracts for new service plans. Cingular should not be surprised to see a good number of those customers leaving Cingular altogether, and I hope they get their act together before they turn down the Cingular TDMA network.

One hopes the folks at Sprint are paying attention to this as they consider a strategy to migrate Nextel customers away from the iDEN platform.

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Analog Mobiles in Rural America

Posted on 26 July 2005 | Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I wrote a bit on how the DoJ were forcing the divestiture of some rural wireless assets in Alltel’s acquisition of Western Wireless. Specifically I wrote about the nature of mobile phone services in rural America. For the most part, coverage is the most important and challenging issue.

This perspective seems to be shared in an Associated Press article today discussing how many rural mobile phone customers are concerned about their ability to receive service when the FCC mandated deadline for eliminating analog-based services comes in 2008. One major driver of the move to turn off the analog networks is to standardize on digital signaling in order to facilitate emergency services.

In rural areas where cellular towers are far apart, analog phones often work when digital models can’t get a signal. With the Federal Communications Commission pushing the move to all-digital phone service across the country, Smith and others in rural areas are urging the agency to wait until more towers are built to improve service.

Build more towers, eh? Maybe the DoJ and FCC should read my suggestion about fostering cooperation among wireless carriers to build infrastructure and roaming agreements. Cross-platform phones which can connect (at a minimum) to both GSM and CDMA networks would be a big help, too.

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DoJ Imposes Restrictions on Alltel Wireless Deal

Posted on 10 July 2005 | Leave a comment

Last weekend I wrote an entry about the rumored sale of T-Mobile USA by Deutsche Telekom. I indicated that there might be an issue with any of the current wireless market leaders making that acquisition based on concerns the wireless market is consolidating too quickly. Now we’re seeing some evidence of this, as the Department of Justice have imposed restrictions on Alltel Wireless’s acquisition of Western Wireless.

Specifically the DoJ are requiring the liquidation of assets is rural Arkansas, Kansas and Nebraska. It seems the DoJ have some growing concern over the lack of competition for wireless services in rural markets.

Having spent a lot of time in a rural market when I go home to visit my family it always amazed me how very different the rural market is. For one, the cast of characters is different. Alltel are almost unheard of in the major coastal markets, as are the Midwestern carrier US Cellular.

One consequence of this that I have noticed is the choice of handsets is narrower, usually favoring the inexpensive end of the spectrum, and therefore the equipment has a tendency to be less feature-rich. The customers tend to be much more oriented towards simple voice services and maybe SMS, with skepticism about the utility or functionality of advanced data services.

Coverage is KEY in these markets and to these subscribers, who have to cope with large areas in which they regularly travel having a complete lack of coverage. Rural customers also see the negative aspect of poor inter-carrier roaming arrangements, incompatible wireless standards and equipment more readily than those of us in the big cities. For example, customers using US Cellular’s CDMA network might find themselves out of luck in a location where they have no signal but that has service from the likes of Nextel, which use the iDEN standard or even a Verizon Wireless CDMA signal. The general lack of roaming agreements and cross-standard equipment hurts rural customers the most.

Truth be told, if the DoJ wanted to ensure quality coverage in rural America, they would do well to entice a little collusion in those markets by facilitating joint ventures to build out network facilities and roaming agreements among carriers. Wireless penetration is generally less in rural America, and theres room to grow average revenue per user (ARPU), so rural markets represent one of the last frontiers in wireless growth.

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