telecompetitor

With machine-to-machine (M2M) services, aka the Internet of Things, “now scaling to be a significant business” for a growing number of telecom and Internet service providers, Infonetics on May 14 released the results of a global survey of M2M service providers’ market expectations and strategies.

With each providing at least 1 million M2M connections to customers, M2M is a “sizable” business for over half the 20 service providers Infonetics surveyed for its “M2M Strategies: Global Service Provider Survey.” Collectively, businesses in the automotive/transport/logistics and utility sectors account for nearly half, Infonetics states in a news release.

“Service provider focus and prioritization of the M2M segment has been a relatively recent phenomenon, but as our latest M2M service provider survey shows, M2M is now scaling to be a significant business for a good number of providers around the world,” Infonetics’ Godfrey Chua, directing analyst for M2M and The Internet of Things, was quoted as saying.

Charter Communications is working on some important new set-top box technology, Charter Communications President and Chief Executive Officer Tom Rutledge revealed.

The goal is to use IP communications to the set-top box, which will act as a thin client that can be updated from the head-end to support new capabilities, including security system functionality.

Charter is working on technology that would enable any set-top box the company has deployed to act as a thin client that the company can easily upgrade through an IP connection. The company hopes to have the technology deployed throughout its network by 2015. “From an investment perspective and a capital intensity perspective it [makes things] a lot easier,” said Rutledge of the new approach.

The thin client approach also will enable Charter to “leverage the interactivity of our network,” said Rutledge, adding “that’s what differentiates us from satellite.” Using a thin client “enables you to stay state-of-the-art and it’s also customizable,” Rutledge noted. “Whatever interfaces you think are attractive might not be what somebody else thinks is attractive and you have all the different demographics,” he said. “I could see a world where everybody could make up their own user interface.”

It has been a rule of thumb that US cable TV operators have operating costs lower than their major telecommunications competitors. But on one metric -- revenue per employee -- AT&T and Verizon arguably perform much more efficiently than US cable TV operators.

Between 2007 and 2012, AT&T eliminated 67,620 jobs, almost a quarter of its workforce. At least in part, that accounts for average sales per AT&T employee of $495,000 in 2012, up from $209,000 in 2006. Over the same five-year period, Verizon eliminated 48,000 jobs. Industry wide, employment in the entire telecom industry has fallen by almost 200,000 since 2007, according to the US Labor Department.

Most of those cuts have come in the fixed network business, as mobile segment headcounts have been roughly flat between 2001 and 2008, and have been declining since 2008. Between 2008 and 2010, the mobile segment lost about 40,400 jobs overall, by some estimates. By other estimates, US mobile business jobs dropped by only about 10,000.

The point is that, by any estimate, most of the lost US communications jobs have come from the fixed network business. Still, it remains the case that US cable operators have operating cost structures lower than the leading US telecommunications companies.

Canadian Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are now among those rated by Netflix for speed and performance, and hence their ability to “provide the best prime time Netflix streaming experience.”

Bell Canada and Bell Alliant’s fiber optic network services, at an average 3.19 and 3.10 Mbps respectively, ranked highest among Canadian ISPs in the April edition of the monthly Netflix ISP Speed Index. Following closely in third was cable provider Shaw with an average bandwidth of 3.00.

As a country, average Netflix performance speeds in Canada beat those of US ISPs but ranked below those of most European nations, Netflix elaborates in a post on its “US and Canada” blog.

Cablevision, at an average 3.00 Mbps, rated tops in the US in Netflix’s April “USA ISP Speed Index,” followed by Cox at 2.90 and Comcast at 2.77.

[Commentary] With Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler vowing to take action against state-level laws that block municipal broadband networks, we are seeing considerable debate about the pros and cons of those networks. Nineteen states currently have laws limiting and in some cases effectively prohibiting municipalities from offering commercial services on broadband networks constructed by the municipality, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I thought it would be a good idea to review the arguments on both sides.

Supporters of municipal broadband opposition laws
Chairman Wheeler’s opponents, including industry research consultancy The Precursor Group, say the FCC would be overstepping its authority if it were to take the sort of action Wheeler has threatened. “Municipalities are legal creations of the state, not the federal government,” argued Scott Cleland, president of The Precursor Group, in a blog post.

Opponents of anti-municipal broadband laws
Municipal network supporters, including the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative, dispute the claim that “the vast majority” of community networks have been failures. Noting that there have been more than 400 municipal projects to date, Chris Mitchell -- director of the ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative -- said there were some projects that didn’t work out but others that have had major benefits. As for FCC authority, Mitchell said the recent Net Neutrality court decision said that the FCC had the authority to remove barriers to broadband network deployments.

What happens next?
In taking action against anti-municipal network legislation, Mitchell believes the FCC will go after the “most egregious” state-level laws. He cited North Carolina as one state with such laws, noting that the North Carolina law totally prohibits municipal networks. But if the FCC makes such a move, Cleland argues that it will encounter substantial opposition.

In a new report, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) forecasts app usage will continue to increase through 2014, as US households download a greater number of apps to smartphones, tablets and smart TVs, among other devices.

Each app-enabled device category evaluated by CEA in its “16th Annual CE Ownership and Market Potential Study” registered year-over-year growth in the first part of 2014. Gaining at least six percentage points in app-ownership over 2013, smartphones, tablets and smart TVs were the fastest growing device categories, according to a CEA news release.

There were over 1 million apps on both Apple and Google Android’s app markets at the beginning of 2014. Generally speaking, app users are interested in apps that have compatibility across a range of devices (61 percent), and a high level of functionality, such as the ability to control other devices (52 percent), CEA found. Two-thirds (67 percent) said they enjoy using apps, 59 percent said the number of apps available is overwhelming. Less than half (46 percent) of respondents agreed that apps “remove the need to purchase separate electronic devices.”

As much as they like using them, consumers don’t like to pay for apps. Just one-third (32 percent) of those surveyed said they are willing to pay for apps.

Obtaining a good, strong cellular mobile connection inside homes anywhere in the world can be a challenge. Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones may offer a readily available solution, according to the results of a global consumer survey released by mobile industry telecommunications over-the-top solutions provider Kineto Wireless.

Kineto found that 89 percent of respondents who said they had “poor-to-no mobile voice coverage at home” also owned Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones. The Kineto-sponsored survey also found:

1. 12 percent of all respondents classified mobile voice coverage within their home as poor (e.g. dead spots within their home) to non-existent
2. 25 percent of all respondents indicated they had switched mobile service providers due to a home coverage issue
3. In the US, 87% of respondents with poor to no mobile voice coverage at home indicated they were smartphone users that regularly connect their phone to a home Wi-Fi network. That same number was 89% in the UK and 84% across Asia.

Schools and libraries nationwide should be able to get gigabit connectivity to their service provider’s central office for an average of $750 per gigabit per month, said Evan Maxwell, CEO of Education SuperHighway, at a Federal Communications Commission workshop about E-rate modernization.

The E-rate program is part of the Universal Service program, which covers some of the costs of broadband connectivity for schools and libraries. The target speed for connectivity from the central office to the Internet should be three dollars per megabit per month -- a substantial decrease from the average $22 paid today, Maxwell said.

Education SuperHighway is a research and advocacy group that aims to improve broadband connectivity to the nation’s schools. Maxwell based his comment on research conducted by Education SuperHighway, which has been collecting cost and speed data from schools nationwide.

“We know these prices are possible,” Maxwell said, noting that the top half of schools pay an average of just under $600 per gigabit per month for local connectivity. “Every school with over 100 kids should get fiber,” added Maxwell. He added, however, that the nation will have to subsidize deployment where deployment would not otherwise be commercially feasible.

Envisioning the future of the Internet and its impacts on society and the world we live in, nearly 1,500 experts agree that the Internet will become less visible even as it becomes more central and important in daily life.

And although they believe the ramifications of the Internet’s evolution on society and the larger world will be positive on balance, they also see signs of trouble.

Trends towards ubiquitous Internet access across wireless and wired networks, skyrocketing growth in sensors and machine-to-machine (M2M) network connections, and ever-greater information processing power and capacity foreshadow much of what the consensus of experts surveyed imagine the Internet will look like and the ramifications it will have across societies worldwide in coming years.

The Pew Research Internet Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center compiled the results of their survey of experts into the “Digital Life in 2025” report. In the coming years out to 2025, the research partners summarize, experts believe that the Internet “will become more ‘like electricity’ and produce vastly greater human and machine connectivity that will change everything from personal interactions to the decisions made by governments around the world.”

According to most of the respondents, by 2025 there will be:

• A global, immersive, invisible, ambient networked computing environment
• A continued proliferation of smart sensors, cameras, software, databases and massive data centers in a world-spanning information fabric known as the Internet of Things
• Portable/wearable/implantable technologies that will allow people to “augment reality”
• Disruption of business models established in the 20th century, most notably impacting finance, entertainment, publishers of all sorts and education
• Tagging, databasing and intelligent analytical mapping of the physical and social realms

Verizon plans to offer an in-home router that will support Wi-Fi connectivity at speeds up to 300 Mbps beginning this summer, said Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo.

The device supporting Verizon 300 Mbps Wi-Fi is proprietary, Shammo said, and is expected to drive increases in subscriber broadband speeds as end users consume more bandwidth within the home.

Verizon also plans to phase out set-top boxes, Shammo said. Beginning this summer, the company will provide video customers with a single video media server per home and will distribute video content in IP format.

“We will deliver everything through IP to FiOS,” said Shammo. Customers “won’t need a set-top box,” he said. “For televisions that are not IP capable, we will have an attachment.”

The new approach will cut installation time 50%, Shammo said. Installers will attach the media server to the optical network terminal and won’t have to test coaxial cables, he noted.