Should Apple Become a Wireless ISP?
Posted on May 5, 2011
There are four reasons that Apple may eventually launch a Wireless ISP subsidiary.
First, the market for Apple’s portable hardware cannot achieve full potential without significant improvement in Wireless Internet access. The exceptional iPhone and iPad successes are forever changing user expectations about network connectivity.
Download audio narration to iPhone, iPod, and iPad — eight minutes.
Twenty-five years ago when Sun Microsystems developed the slogan “The Network is the Computer” office workers without LANs were puzzled. But once everybody got LANs, the connotation became obvious. Instead of being independent tools, our personal computers became workstations that shared office-wide data processing assets ranging from printers to centralized storage. The network itself became our computing resource. Read more…
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Undiscovered Gem
Posted on March 31, 2011
Nearly everyone realizes smartphones and iPads are intensifying cellular congestion, particularly in major cities like New York and San Francisco. Since last June AT&T refuses to offer new subscribers an unlimited-use flat rate. Even though Verizon declines to impose metered usage for new iPhones, their contracts reserve the right to unilaterally limit bandwidth to heavy users.
Download audio narrative to iPad, iPod, or iPhone here - three minutes.
The chart below projects that smartphones will rise from 14% of domestic subscribers in 2008 to 90% by 2014. Even though LTE fourth generation cellular networks are coming online, they are not enough to handle the problem, particularly given the rise of iPads and other tablet computers. Read more…
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TV Band White Spaces Report Now Available
Posted on March 23, 2011
Our research report Television Band White Spaces: Analysis and Forecast is now available from The Diffusion Group. A Summary, Table of Contents, and Exhibit List are provided below.
Download audio narration to iPod, iPad, and iPhone here — two minutes.
The price is $2,500, but those attending the FISPA/WISPA Conference in Orlando this week are entitled to a 10% discount. To access the discount attendees must place their orders with Wendy Stockard of The Diffusion Group. She may be phoned at 469-287-8061 or emailed at ws@tdgresearch.com.
Summary
TV Band White Spaces are the unused TV channels in each geographic area. The FCC set-aside almost fifty TV channels, but not a single city comes even close to using them all. That means there is unused TV spectrum in each locality that could be employed for other purposes including (1) wireless Internet service, (2) wireless local area networks, and (3) hot spots for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. The spectrum could be used without taking anything away from TV stations.
This report includes a five-year quantitative market forecast, as well as future business opportunities for TV Band White Spaces.
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Understanding Wireless Frequencies
Posted on February 22, 2011
When turning into a teenager, I’d go to bed listening to songs on my favorite rock station. If there was a thunderstorm I couldn’t fail to notice that lightning was synchronized with static in reception. I didn’t know why, or really care very much because it was only momentary.
But I was curious…
To download audio narration to iPod, iPhone, or iPad click here (five minutes)
Eventually I learned that lightning is a blast of electromagnetic radiation spamming nearly all frequencies. That explained why I would hear the static no matter what station I was listening to. It also provided a link back to the earliest days of radio, when it was known as wireless telegraphy. In point of fact, the first devices used to produce electromagnetic signals were termed spark-gap generators. The signaling waves were created by actual sparks. As this YouTube video demonstrates, the sparks were essentially little lightning bolts.
Radio engineers quickly realized that unless sparks could somehow be “tuned” to individual channels, each additional transmitter would add noise to an increasingly unintelligible background cacophony. The result would be the radio equivalent of voices in a steadily more crowded bar room with the result that only nearby people can understand one another. Read more…
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AT&T’s Seeds of Self Destruction
Posted on June 10, 2010
To download, instead of stream, this video click here.
AT&T Wireless’ decision to replace iPhone and iPad $30 monthly unlimited Internet access with metered pricing is significant for two reasons. First, consumers will learn that it is much more restrictive, or costly, than they want. Second, it will stimulate the development of competitive lower cost municipal-mesh-WiFi-networks or alternate technologies which consumers will eventually prefer. Consequently, AT&T has planted the seeds of self-destruction.
AT&T claims that most subscribers will save money under the new plan. While presumably valid when based upon historical usage, there’s not a shadow of doubt that the projected future usage patterns for all-you-can-eat pricing were going to be much more data intensive for two reasons. One is that iPhone patterns were already trending that way. For example, it was recently reported that iPhone data traffic was bigger than voice traffic. A second reason is that iPad Internet usage is expected to be even more intensive than that of the iPhone particularly considering the new product’s enthusiastic market reception. Read more…
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When Habit Becomes Reflex
Posted on May 17, 2010
While watching a theatrical motion picture, have you ever instinctively reached for the DVR remote in order to replay a scene where you didn’t quite catch the dialog?
I have – a number of times. Even though I was in a dark theater surrounded by many people, it became a reflex.
To download audio to iPod, iPad, or iPhone click here.
There have been similar experiences while listening to my car radio. I get sporadic impulses to advance the playlist to the next song. It happens when I don’t like the DJ’s current selection. Read more…
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Two Years Ahead of the Record Labels
Posted on January 4, 2008
About two years ago we published a research report entitled Digital Music Goes Mainstream concluding that it was in the best interests of the record label industry to abandon digital rights management (DRMs). You can get a copy of the February 15, 2006 report by clicking on the preceding link.
Over a year later EMI decided to sell DRM-free tracks, followed by Universal in the autumn, and Warner Music just last month. Finally Business Week reports that Sony-BMG will be the last of the four major labels to throw in the towel sometime during the first quarter of this year.
In our analysis DRM abandonment will benefit the industry for two reasons. Read more…
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Verizon Wireless - The Importance of Being Open
Posted on December 1, 2007
If you would like to learn about the importance of Verizon’s announcement that it will be permitting its wireless network to become an open platform, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Alan Reiter who has been a wireless industry consultant for nearly 30 years. He was with the leading Radio Common Carrier trade association before the first cellular licenses were awarded. Now he runs the Wireless Internet & Mobile Computing consultancy. Read more…
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