Verizon Wireless U Turn: To embrace Google’s Android

The march of the telecom industry towards open-ness and metaphorical plug and play continues. After holding back to supporting Google’s Android Platform for a few weeks, Verizon Wireless today announced its support to the platform in allowing Android based devices on its network. According to Business Week, Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam today announced ” We are planning on using Android. It is an enabler in what we do”.

According to the article, McAdam who has spent time in both Europe and Asia was the prime mover for the Verizon Wireless volte-face – given his experiences on open telecom practices in these two regions.

To me it would make strategic sense for Verizon Wireless with its reputation in the United States of being the most reliable wireless provider with the strongest network infrastructure – it can increasingly count on the less nimble wireless providers to continue losing subscribers ( read, Sprint) – now that subscribers dont have to lose the phones and devices they were already using with other CDMA based competitors.

On the other hand, adherence to Android introduces a world of third party application developers to produce an overall consumer experience that Verizon Wireless would not only be unable to replicate in a closed environment given constraints of financial commitments and lack of specific expertise.

Since wireless providers (save ATT, which has hung on, probably based on its recent iPhone backed performance) would essentially become voice and data pipes – it raises a question – since most revenue growth of the future would be data-driven – which companies would be best positioned to exploit the explosive growth in data based devices and services just round the corner.

Logic would say there are two components involved in this – a blanket coverage in much of the continental United States and data throughput rates. With Google in the fray for the 700Mhz auction (which it can use to build those data channels), Verizon committed on the LTE initiative (which does not provide true 4G data throughputs till 2012) and Sprint hedging its bets on Wimax ( true 4G) – I think, if properly managed, implemented and delivered, Sprint, along with Google can be a true value differentiator in the new market environment.

According to Yankee Group’s chief strategy officer Berge Ayvazian, “Sprint has a two year head start on real 4G implementations” – and according to me, perfectly positioned to harvest the benefits of the explosion of third party hybrid devices and services that are going to be developed based on the Android platform.

If Sprint does not spin-off its Wimax initiative (called Xohm) – I predict it stands in an extremely enviable and unique position to exploit the strategic metamorphosis of the telecom industry.

Clearly, apart from Sprint and Verizon, noone seems to have a coherent 4G service based strategy – ATT is still deploying HSDPA (and its EDGE is pokey at best), T-Mobile does not have any 3G offerings to speak of (though they plan 3G deployments this year – too little, too late again) and the regional providers dont have data in their play currently, being more focused on retaining regional subscribers with solid voice based coverage and innovative price plans.

Again, stay posted on this forum for further updates and analysis.

The Republican Presidential campaign and Immigration

Have been meaning to write about this topic ever since I sat through the last Republican CNN-YouTube debate. There are so many thoughts that one finds it extremely difficult where to start. The level of stunning dis-ingenuousness exhibited by all the candidates save John McCain (Even Ron Paul has gone the no-amnesty route that is such a populist position now)

I don’t want to go into each candidates’ position on immigration – its frankly tedious and I would just be repeating myself – but I did want to opine about how stunningly dis-ingenious the populist position is.

Firstly, this whole debate on H1B – I will predict that without H1B workers, 90% of the actual IT execution in major US corporations would collapse. I know it doesn’t sound terribly good – but I speak from a vantage point of having worked in a number of US Fortune 500s – way more than most readers of this post – and let’s not kid ourselves alright – most IT and development organizations in most companies are vastly Indian. There I said it. They are not diverse. They are not inclusive. They are mostly Indian.

And H1B is an euphemism for Indian software developers. And love them or hate them – the US industry, if it wants to maintain its competitive advantage cannot do without them. Besides, Indian entrepreneurs generate a disproportionate number of startups and generate wealth ( read this, for proof). I am sorry if I am coming across a little aggravated – but I am sick now of these grossly egregious debates on H1B quotas and what not – I would rather have the politicians say Indian – I mean 85% of these visas are taken by Indians arent they. And for the record, they pay Social Security taxes (which they are not eligible for post 65).

So coming back to the point, reduce H1B visas – and it becomes an eminently self defeating exercise. Luckily, I think both Democrats and Republicans get that. But I am modestly insulted by such talk – as a home owner, as a tax payer, as a law-abiding citizen, as someone who productively adds to the US economy and its productiveness – I just find it insulting.

Now, for the other aspect – Illegal immigrants. I dont know why I get it more than most Americans do – you cannot kick out 20 million illegals out of the country. And more importantly, most of them do very productive work, the effects of which, dear citizens, you reap. When you buy coffee for 1.59 at Wawa – you can only do that because that poor woman at the back of the counter fills the coffee carafes all day at minimum wage. And probably without any health coverage.

When you stay at a hotel for USD 99.00 per day, you probably feel nice coming back to the room because the housekeeping has enough staff just because those people you so badly want to kick out have come in and done your bed.

You go to the grocery store and can only buy the cheapest food in the world ( in purchasing power parity) because your Florida oranges were plucked by those people that the Minutemen would gleefully shoot.

Disingenuous? Isnt it apparent? Worse, it borders on implicit racism and xenophobia.

America would be so much better served if its politicians actually acted with some “moral leadership” they claim they offer to the world and not with the hypocrisy that is becoming increasingly so nauseating.

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Flock – the web browser

Started using Flock, the web browser that bills itself as Social Web browser – providing close integration with Flickr (click and drop of photos), RSS feeds and blogging tools and social networking sites like Facebook as well as YouTube.

Have been using Flock 1.0 for the past few weeks and I have been pleasantly surprised. Great integration, practical convenient tools, blog tool integration – all in all, makes it a pleasure to use.

Also, Flock 1.0 seems to be stable enough – I haven’t had to deal with a crash till now – on my Apple Macbook running Mac OS X Tiger – which is not what I can say for Firefox – another absolutely wonderful browser – and still my primary choice among all the browsers that I have installed on my macbook.

I particularly find the integrated blog tool very convenient – I had to install ScribeFire on Firefox to have some kind of blogging support in the browser.

Will keep testing and post my thoughts as I discover new features and/or glitches.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Technology, Internet, Browser

Mobile Internet: A uniquely Indian experience

Something unusual is being reported in the Indian news media over the past few weeks. According to Rediff:

For the first time the number of Internet connections via the PC declined, from 9.27 million in the first quarter to 9.22 million in the second quarter, according to TRAI. In the same period, state-run telecom-service providers Bharat Sanchar Nigam and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam [Get Quote], which account for about 54% of the country’s total Internet customers, lost almost 3% of their subscribers.

This, when the number of users connecting to the internet using their mobile devices more than doubled from 16 million to 38 million users – according to the same article.

What is amazing and utterly counter-intuitive is that most cellular data services in India are based on GPRS based data access – leading to a rather slow and frustrating customer experience.

So what is causing this phenomenon – given that current mobile internet experience is largely constricted by low speeds, unreliable connections, lack of mobile optimized web pages and device limitations. One could be the low quality experience of Indian broadband service providers as also the cost.

Maybe the mobile internet experience demanded by Indian subscribers is again uniquely Indian – that there are certain channels that Indian subscribers are most interested in browsing – leading to an acceptable level of experience for mobile users – for e.g. cricket scores, news, bollywood, ringtones etc.

Another reason for the fixed broadband numbers could be just that they are misleading in the Indian context. In the urban Indian context (that is currently fueling most of the growth) – it could be again a uniquely Indian situation where two or more households subscribe to one broadband line – and then wirelessly share the bandwidth.

Whatever it is, it is counter intuitive. In every other society, where wireless internet usage has high penetration or is high growth – there is also a commensurate growth in fixed line broadband usage. Also, markets of high growth wireless have highly developed 3G and increasingly 4G deployments. Mobile providers in India are still largely using the 2.5G GPRS technology for its data access.

I would predict that as fixed line internet access in India becomes better -there will a sudden spike in subscriptions – ready markets for ATT and Verizon just poised to enter the Indian market.

Keep an eye on this forum for further updates.