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Dagbladet.no’s kommentator Jan Omdahl er lykkelig med sin Apple iPhone, og synes den er “så utrolig god på det den er god på”.

Så om den mangler klipp&lim (kommer i 3.0 versjonen, “men hva så?” undrer Omdahl), multitasking (kommer sannsynligvis ikke), videoopptak (kommer sannsynligvis ikke), fotolys (kommer sannsynligvis ikke), MMS (tredjepartsprogramvare i nettleser) med mer så gjør det ikke noe. Fordi, sier Omdahl:

Har du først brukt en Twitter-app på iPhone (eller en lang rekke andre ting som iPhone gjør suverent mye bedre enn noen annen telefon), så oppleves det som uaktuelt å gå tilbake til noe mer tradisjonelt – for ikke å snakke om til en av de mange mer eller mindre patetiske iPhone-etterlikningene.

Er enig med Omdahl i at det finnes en god del iPhone-etterligninger. Patetiske eller ei.
Men så finnes det også noe som man med rette kan kalle for smart/profftelefoner, en slik er jeg i besittelse av. Tradisjonell? Tja. Så hva gjør den så spesiell?

Jo, jeg hører på internettradio, kjører en Twitter-app i bakgrunnen (som oppdateres), mens jeg surfer på nettet (enten med innebygget nettleser eller Opera), hopper naturligvis enkelt mellom disse og QuickOffice-dokumenter hvor jeg kan skrive med mitt qwerty-tastatur. Mens alt dette surrer og går kan jeg sjekke kalenderen med ett trykk på kalendertasten mens jeg f.eks. er i et dokument.

Ja, og så kan jeg i tillegg knipse et bilde om jeg vil. I bagrunnen surrer selvfølgelig Trend Micro Mobile brannmur og viruskontroll. Glemte jeg å si at jeg (om hodet henger med all denne multitaskingen) også kan sjekke min Gmail-konto samtidig?
Vil jeg ringe noen trykker jeg naturligvis nummeret på tastaturet, eller en predefinert snarvei på tastaturet (om jeg ønsker det kan jeg benytte stemmestyrt opprigning: trykker en dedikert knapp og sier navnet på den jeg skal ringe til). For ja, denne teknobomben har en utmerket telefondel også! Nettradioen fader ut og jeg kan snakke. Når jeg har lagt på fortsetter nettradioen.

Jøss, alt dette og i tillegg varer batteriet noen dager!

Du har nok allerede skjønt det, dette er ikke en fettete skjerm med musikkavspiller jeg snakker om; dette er en Nokia E71, det man med rette kan kalle en proff/smarttelefon. Naturligvis har den også GPS, geotagging, musikkavspiller, med mer.

Prisen på disse to enhetene har jeg ikke nevnt. Lar det ligge, jeg

Oppdatert 17.03.09:
Omdahl hos dagbladet.no har fått tak i mer informasjon om det nye OS’et iPhone 3.0, saken oppdateres i hans nyhetsartikkel da nyheter om OS’et legges frem i kveld. Men noen konkurrent til E71 (nevnt over) blir nye iPhone ikke!

3G har funnits sedan 2001 och idag går det att komma upp i en hastigheter på ungefär 7,2 Mbit/s. 3G har revolutionerat det trådlösa användat, både med mobiltelefon och dator, då du kan befinna dig i princip var som helst och surfa på nätet. 3G, och mobilt bredband, har gjort att tiden kan utnyttjas bättre. Själv så sitter jag nästan varje dag på spårvagnen, på väg hem från jobbet, och läser mail, rss-flöden plus lite nyheter direkt i min mobiltelefon. Perfekt! Istället för att sitta och stirra rakt fram, eller på alla underligga människor som kliver på.

Mindpark skriver att försäljningen av mobilt bredband ökade med 52 % förra året, och försäljningen förväntas öka ytterliggare det här året.

Super 3G, eller LTE som det också kallas, har varit på gång ett tag nu. Det är fortfarande lite oklart vilka hastigheter som kommer bli möjliga med Super 3G, men det pratas om 200-400 Mbit/s. Det här kan jämföras med dagens 3G (7,2 Mbit/s) eller ett “normalt” stationärt bredband på 10 Mbit/s. IDG skrev för några dagar sedan att:

Totalt är det 26 operatörer som har bestämt sig för att satsa på super-3G, varav tio av dessa börjar rulla ut tjänsten redan under nästa år.

Läs här om du vill veta mer om Super 3G.

Masih dari pengalaman di CommunicAsia, Singapura bulan Juli lalu. Saya mampir ke stand NTT Docomo yang terlihat menarik dengan tulisan LTE (Super 3G) berwarna merah.

NTT Docomo menampilkan pengembangan yang mereka lakukan pada teknologi Long Term Evolution (LTE) atau Super 3G yang merupakan batu loncatan ke teknologi 4G (IMT-Advance). Dari hal tersebut, jelas bahwa Docomo memiliki visi teknologi yang jelas untuk masa depan: fourth generation mobile telephony technology.
Dalam pembicaraan dengan Sadayuki Abeta (Manager of Radio System Group – NTT Docomo), ditegaskan bahwa Docomo secara pasti memilih teknologi LTE dan meninggalkan teknologi WiMax.

Kenapa NTT Docomo memilih teknologi LTE? Presentasi berikut ini menjelaskan pemilihan teknologi LTE oleh NTT Docomo: Presentasi NTT Docomo

Other Downloadable Articles & Presentation can be found here: Download Page

By: Antonis Hontzeas M.B.A.

If you have a look at my previous post, you’ll see that I mentioned something about the vertical architecture of the switch, and the segregated subsystems that worked together to ensure call processing and inter/intra-switch communication (I’ll include some handmade diagrams later showing how things moved from simple interconnection to today’s  systems and tomorrow’s open service based architecture attempts.)

One of the principle revenue generators of switch providers  was (and still is) software sales which include sets of new features that each new  revision of a software package introduced. In other words, a major portion of revenue was generated by the subscriber services subsystems that were sold as part of every new version of the released software.

Now take a look at the layered architecture model. You’ll see that the part of the network responsible for subscriber services is a layer on its own and through the standardized ip network communicates with the rest of the network. So If another company/industry (such as computer software knowledge powerhouses and companies specializing in multi vendor, multi standard integration) provides the application layer (whether VoIP, iptv, mobile tv etc..) you can understand that a strong portion of revenue that originally (with considerable unadjusted margin) went to the classical switch manufacturers is now gone. And since the control and connectivity part of the network (since it is subject to standardization) is commoditized (longer to developed,costly, but faster to reproduce) and subject to price erosion, then you can see the predicament that the classical suppliers are faced with.[1]

In addition, the layered architecture aside from isolating the various parts of the network and allowing independent development, also indirectly suggests that each part or layer can actually be a different company (or logical entity). So one corporation can supply services (very possible; likely), another can control the network intelligence (not likely, usually goes with the connectivity part; but for the sake of argument) and finally a third company can assume the connectivity part of the network. Still another company can be the overall administrator and coordinator of the three operational entities (again for the sake of argument; but it is possible!!!).

So if you couple this with regulatory legislation (cfr. Functional separation) and opex reductions (outsourcing of the network to a third party) then both the traditional suppliers and the traditional telecom operators are facing transitions within their established operational domains and   structural integrity.

Some companies have taken aggressive steps towards addressing these changes. Others   still maintain a middle of the road kinda thinking.

Now that I’ve touched base on these things, I can move on and talk about network evolution. I’ll do this in the next couple of days so stay tuned.

By: Antonis Hontzeas P.Eng. M.B.A.

I/ve received a number of mails asking me where I think communication technology and the overall telecom network is heading.

First of all we have to understand that technology evolution is an ongoing process which means whatever anyone says, or whatever architecture we end up with, this architecture will be nothing more than a step in the never-ending staircase of network evolution.

Before we discuss what architectures the industry is looking at (and by this I mean plausible architectures that will result from both endogenous and exogenous pressures) I think it is important to have a brief look at the history of the telecom/information network and how we ended up where we are today.

Here’s a very basic treatment but with the provided links I think you’ll get the picture.

As I said in a previous post, the original intention of telephony was to interconnect people in the most efficient, least cost way.

This started with the switchboard where you had an operator receive your call (which was originally generated by a hand generator on the telephone set) and then through a plug based system, manually interconnect you to your wanted destination which you communicated orally to the operator.

Now, at some point in time in a little town in the states, it so happened that there were two morticians and the wife of one of the morticians was the operator. So whenever a call came in for mortician services, the operator made sure that the call ended up the funeral parlor that her husband owned.

This particular favoritism pissed of the other mortician, who was a dude that went by the name of Almon Strowger. This cat loosing business and all,  decided to design an automatic system that allowed mechanical call interconnection thus eventually rendering the manual switchboard obsolete. This system became know as the Strowger switch and was indeed the first mechanical telephone interconnection system and predecessor to the present circuit switched telephony system.

The Strowger switch, also brought forth in a primitive way the concept of equal access.

The Strowger switch eventually gave way to crossbar architectures and with the advent of computer systems, the stored program control system eventually replaced crossbar technologies.

Now the thing with stored program control (or SPC as its know in the industry) is that it was composed of segregated subsystems. You had a subsystem for CAS and then SS7 signaling, a subsystem for voice interconnection (and by that time the common form of connection was through an aggregated (multiplexed) form of PCM (pulse code modulation), a subsystem for supplementary services (such as call back, call waiting etc..), a subsystem for subscriber data, a subsystem for number translation/routing, a subsystem for operation and maintenance, and a whole other set of subsystems. All these subsystems where controlled/coordinated by a central control subsystem.

So the switch basically contained in a vertical sort of way whatever you needed to ensure proper call processing and communication with other switches and the human environment .

Typical SPC systems included the Ericsson AXE, the Alcatel System 12 (formerly ITT 1240) , the Motorola EMX,  the Siemens EWSD, the Northern Telecom (Nortel) DMS, the Stromberg Carlsson DCO, the AT&T No. xx(eventually  Lucent and now Alcatel-Lucent)  and so forth.

An interesting point is that Japanese manufacturers (for example Fujitsu and NEC) also became interested in the telecom game and started developing their own systems, but didn’t gain much headway in an industry that was dominated by European and American companies (as opposed to the   success the Japanese have had in heavy industry (cars, steel) and electronics).

Today, the Chinese (Huawei, ZTE) are experiencing tremendous success and have managed to change the rules of the game. Indeed, communication technology is no longer the prerogative of Europe and America.

The network consisted of a number of these switches, means to interconnect them (a transmission network initially PDH and then SDH) and synchronize them (a master clock that coordinated the local switch clocks) as well as a central (and many regional)operation centers for monitoring (and upgrading) the status of the switches and the network as a whole.

Now in the eighties and nineties a number of factors started disrupting this Euro American haven. First of all, we had Judge Greene and deregulation which forced the breakup of AT&T and brought forth a system of regional bells and inter-exchange carriers injecting an embryonic form of competition into the bell system (Europe followed later in its own way). This, through equal access,  increased the need for services and features at an attractive price.

Since we were now dealing with a price sensitive market, the  first signs of commoditization started appearing in voice services.

Also, we had new communications options coming in the form of mobile communication and companies (example Vodafone) that focused only on this form of communication. These companies started competing for customers and actually offered their services as replacement services to the traditional fixed line systems.

Thirdly, we had the democrats in power (the Clinton administration) that shifted investment from military technologies to communication/information technologies (the information superhighway) and a host of new proprietary military technologies became available for mass industrial deployment (example: CDMA).

We also had some bad ass entrepreneurs that viewed the telecom market a virgin territory for their offering and started to convince the industry that IP was the way to go.

And then of course, we had the internet[1] .

The telecom game was never to be the same.

Ok, I got a ride to catch but in the next couple of days, now that we’ve laid the basic foundations, I’ll give a more thorough analysis of where in my professional opinion, things may be heading. It’ll be nothing more than educated guesswork but what the heck!!!

By : Antonis Hontzeas, P.Eng., M.B.A.

Introduction

Strategic product marketing refers to the set of processes that are required to place products, services and overall solutions to ensure long term profitability and growth. Typically, a company’s product management department performs strategic product marketing with the assistance of the marketing and sales organizations. Strategic product marketing is not selling, or marketing research or product marketing per says. It is the strategic placement of products, solutions and services to lock in the market and thus keep competition in check while ensuring that the target market evolves in such a way guaranteeing long term demand for the supplying corporation’s solutions and services.

This article explains the organizational and procedural requirements required in order for a company to be market driven and ensure strategic product marketing. Although the article uses the telecommunication/information industry as a target example, the article’s concepts and thoughts can be applied to almost any growth industry.

Organizational requirements for a market driven company

There are many ways to organize a company so that it can be considered market, rather than product driven and any good text on organizational structure and organizational behavior can be referred to for this. What concerns us here is the functions that are required within a market driven organization in order to achieve long term profitability from strategic product marketing. We therefore define three necessary functions of marketing, strategic product management and sales that must function and interact properly in order to allow strategic product marketing. This article refers to functions rather than departments or units because we are not per say concerned with organizational structure of efficiencies. For the purposes of this article it is irrelevant if these functions are within the same unit, or within separate units. What is important is that these functions exist and interact properly. Where they are placed is a question of organization efficiency that has to do with the corporate culture of a particular company.

Definition and interaction of Marketing, Product management and sales functions

Marketing

Imperative to any market driven company is a strong and effective marketing department. The marketing department, aside from performing marketing research and trends analysis with the goal of identifying new potential market areas and the phase that these areas are currently in, has also the burden of interacting with particular customers and identifying this customer’s need (there may a debate here whether needs exists or are created, or both, but this debate does not concern us here).  The identification of a particular or set of customer needs must be at a level of abstraction to allow flexibility in choosing ways to satisfy this need that is, any market communication activity that identifies needs should refrain at all cost from mentioning a way to satisfy this need (ex: mentioning of products or solutions) since this will limit the possibilities of offering the imaginative and cost effective solution that will indeed cover this customer’s needs. Simply put, the marketing function is to understand the customer’s wishes and communicate those wishes in an effective manner to the organization.

Product/Solutions management

Upon identification of the customer’s needs, then the goal is to put together and deliver a feasible solution whose benefits cover the needs of the customer in question. This is the role of the product/solutions management function. Note that the input to this activity is basically the marketing communication that was mentioned previously. Good marketing input will give the product/solutions management function enough understanding of where the particular customer wants to go in order to be able to conceive (perhaps with the customer’s help) a solution whose

benefits fulfill to a large extent the customer’s wishes. Again, if the marketing information was at the right abstraction level, and did not consider or base itself on any particular solution, this gives ample flexibility to the product/solution management function to use all the available information at its disposal including competitor information and information pertaining to new technologies and product trends including strategic issues important to the company (information that may not be present at the marketing stages) in order to both satisfy the customer and keep in tune with the suppliers long term interests.

Sales

This simply said and done with great difficulty is to convince the customer that the proposed solution will meet their needs, and at the same time minimize the customer’s cognitive dissonance [1], which always occurs after a solution is purchased/installed. In order for the sales function to be successful, the solution must properly communicated to the customer and the customer must be convinced that this solution is what they were looking for. Obviously for sales to be successful, the needs of the customer must have been properly communicated to the organization (the marketing function), the solution must have been developed based on those needs (product management and design) and this solution along with the right price tag must be communicated and agreed with the customer with the usual public relation efforts (ex: wining and dining). The after sales support function, that is, supporting the products that were sold should not in any way be underestimated since again this function makes a customer feel that the supplying organization is serious and responsible about supporting the products/solutions that it thrusts to the target market. Again this all has to do with minimizing the cognitive dissonance a customer feels after a purchase. A happy customer always comes back and the 20 percent customer base does 80 percent of business, which are usually return customers.

Now that we have established the necessary functions we can focus on the product/solutions management function and the process of strategic product marketing.

The strategic product marketing process

Upon receipt of the marketing requirements, the product/solution management function will conceive the overall solution and prepare the technical requirements required in order for the relevant design departments , manufacturing and deliver channels to design and deliver the said solution at an acceptable costs in order to allow competitive pricing.

One important issue that will be tackled during the initial solution conception phase, and this is one of the primary roles of solution management, is to design a solution that first of all includes an evolution roadmap in order to secure future income from this solution, and in addition monitor/influence the customer’s network evolution in such a way that will first of all benefit the said customer, but in addition will not misalign the target customer’s installed base vis a vis the supplier’s  products. Of course this means that first of all the supplier’s technology must be state of the art, secondly that the supplier influences industry standards so that future technologies are compatible with the supplier’s  produce, but in addition that the network evolution of the customer is monitored to ensure that placed items do not produce a discontinuity with regards to products that are imperative to first of all lock out competitors, and more importantly ensure a smooth evolution to future revisions of the suppliers products.

A common approach to securing the above is to have a thorough model of the target environment that the solution is to be implemented in, before development of the solution begins. In the case of a telecommunications operator, the supplier will have a detailed model of the customer telecom operator’s target network where the solution will be implemented. Such variable as network node load as well as signaling load, billing mediation systems as well as customer care, and node load should be well defined and understood since those areas are considered of strategic importance to any operator and thus need to be addressed by the relevant supplier.

A strong understanding of the target environment implies that areas can be identified that are crucial to be addressed by the supplier in order to ensure future revenue. If we return to our telecom operator above, if the particular supplier is in the core business of selling billing systems, then it is perhaps in the interest of this supplier to have good information on what kind of billing equipment the operator has, what sort of billing mediation equipment is included in the network, and how all this is connected to the customer care units of the operator.

Another requirement for a supplier and its strategic product management function is to include roadmaps for core products that address the issue of product evolution towards a target technology while at the same time protecting present and past investments. Thus, a particular customer that invests in a particular installed base will be assured that their investment is protected as long as their network evolves in the right way.

With the above in mind we can define the following procedure:

1.        The solution management function receives from the marketing function the needs of a customer. It is assumed that these needs can be satisfied by a solution that relates to the core business that the supplier is in.

2.        A detailed copy of the customer network exists, and an analysis is performed to identify the area of the network that the solution is expected to play, as well as an anticipation of the evolution of the part of the network (as well as related parts) that relates to the present and future supplier core business.

3.        Taking as input the customer’s requirements (including budget and competitive information such as pricing, or related aspects of pricing such as network dimensioning) and the network analysis plus the anticipated network evolution to future technologies (for example evolution of a 2G wireless network to 2.5G and then 3G) a solution is drawn . It is imperative that this solution first of all satisfies the customer’s full needs including features and financial, but also contains a roadmap that coincides with the anticipated technological evolution of the customer network.

4.        When the solution is considered adequate, a financial analysis is made to see if this solution is worth pursuing. This financial analysis will of course include the cash outlays that are required to product this solution and in addition the incomes that will be received by achieving and installed base, but more importantly the future cash revenues resulting from the evolution of this solution towards future technologies as anticipated by the solution and the product roadmaps.

5.        If the result of point 4 is a decision to pursue the business, then requirements can be drawn and sent to the appropriate departments in order to design, deliver and put a final price tag on the solution, or the solution can be abandoned and other more favorable business opportunities can be pursued.

It should be noticed that the decision to go ahead or not is made in step 5. The only costs that have been incurred so far are the necessary pre-sales costs that come with marketing efforts. The said solution is only on paper and has not been communicated to parts of the company (example: R+D and design) that will develop the solution (and thus incur the costs). Rather, steps 1 through 5 dictate that a solution should first of all be developed if there is a need (and not vice versa ie. develop a product/solution and then try to find a customer), secondly that any solution should be viewed in terms of initial cash outlays in order to develop and achieve an installed base, and then revenue income initially from the installed base and future upgrades of this base.  The solution should be assessed by the initial cash outlay, the income received from the installed base, and the future income that will be received from upgrades that will evolve the solution towards a target technology. This evolution is ensured by the adherence of the roadmaps of the products that make up the solution to industry standards as well as overall technological evolution. By using the right financial assessment model (example: Net Present Value) a decision can be made whether to pursue the business or not.  Also note that taking future income in account will deter an erroneous decision from being made with regards to restrictive initial outlays. For example, it may be that the costs and received income from producing and delivering a solution result in a negative profit. However, if future income is also taken into account that the right rate of return, then the accumulate present value of the profit may turn positive thus reflecting the solution’s strategic value to the corporation. If of course the solution has a future cash discontinuity which result in a negative present value then either this solution has an inadequate roadmap that guarantees future cash flows, or the break in cost is simply too high and can never be recovered.

The important thing to notice in these steps is that an opportunity is assessed in terms of breaking into a business and ensuring future business and growth, rather than pirating in just to make a quick buck. An enterprise is assessed (in the same way that stocks are assessed ie. future dividends) not by its ability to make a quick buck, but to convert this buck into future business and of course employment.

.

Conclusion

Although this article is primarily written with the telecommunication/infocom industry in mind, its concepts can be expanded to other types of business. It is imperative to understand that in today’s world where standards dominate industrial models, in order for a corporation to ensure its future viability, strategic product marketing must be considered as a necessary process that insured, and is measured by long term investment as defined by net present value analysis. The thoughtful reader or financial officer may object citing that net present value is a tool that is used to assess the viability or rationality of project undertaking ie. the assurance that a project is financially viable. The aggressive marketing of solutions and services should be assessed in the same way since long term growth is not assured by placing a box here and there, but by entering a market in such a way that the initial cash outlays due to different pre-sales activities should be measured vis a vis long term cash inflows which can be achieved only by strategic product marketing whose roadmaps guarantee evolution in favor of the corporation’s future products / solutions and services thus effectively locking out competition in the long term.

Finally, emphasis is given to the fact that strategic product marketing will never work if the products/solutions and services of a particular organization lack quality, cost effectiveness, time to market, and simply do not satisfy the customer’s need. As the market rewards thoughtful strategies as mentioned above, it thus punishes players with questionable tactics whose results are poor products and policies that endanger the credibility of the overall business environment.

Humans are by nature social animals. Communication, expression and an overall feeling of being connected is a necessary part of the human psyche. Any technologies that are easily accessible, affordable, reliable, and facilitate this need for socialization, have a high chance of being adapted quickly and eventually becoming mainstream.

The act of blogging, and the underlying technologies that support this form of expression address this basic need of belonging, socializing and networking. Blogging also addresses the higher human needs of self actualization. In addition to allowing one to be connected, the underlying technologies, platforms and multimedia solutions that support blogging also provide the blogger with a potpourri of tools resulting in expressions consisting of text, video, sound (music, speech) and anything else that allows the individual to paint a portrait of his being on the world wide web.

Blogging and Education

Language, and the ability to communicate is one of the key determinants that distinguish humans from other animal forms. Structured thinking, conceptual analysis, clear articulation and effective expression form essential elements in forming successful personal and business relationships and determine to a large degree the milestones that one achieves in one’s lifetime.

Journal keeping has always been a strong practical tool in education to help students and the younger generations attain better communication skills.

As a result, a number of schools have introduced blogging as part of their curriculum.  

Since students are usually keen on using the internet, blogging as an activity is more successful than private journal keeping (through a notebook or other “hard” form) and deters students from having online gaming as their prime preoccupation insofar as the internet is concerned. In addition, blogging provides an interesting medium to help students become internet savvy.

Blogging and Business

Blogging and business goes hand in hand with the issue of transparency. Businesses use blogging mechanism in order to open clear two way communication channels to the target group (whether the customers, the employees, the shareholders etc…) bypassing organizational layers and allowing management to have quick and reliable information. It allows employees and management to communicate directly, management to log on a daily basis its activities so that no one is kept in the dark, and can also provide a reliable form of communication with customers. Customers voice their opinions regarding new or existing products as well as providing a good mechanism for complaint handling. This direct communication also allows the target group (whether employees, management, customers etc…) immediate feedback on issues (such as complaints, new specifications, prototype testing, and general business environment issues) and deters misunderstandings and misinformation and general collateral effects due to the grapevine syndrome.

Blogging and Media

Blogging is not (and will not) replace traditional news reporting. However it does indeed complement it since where there is access to the internet, the blogging activity gives a medium and a very large audience to report events in real time, as they are occurring. Whether we are talking about the war in Iraq, hurricane Katrina, or other events of importance, blogging and the internet provide a medium where a citizen can immediately communicate to the world (via a combination of text and multimedia, including mobile tv) the events as they unfold, receive feedback and start a chain of activities that will help resolve,  a particular conflict, or at least properly inform on a particular conflict. Blogging also forms a check and balance system to media reporting. This was indeed the case in September 2004 (the RatherGate incident; CBS 60 minutes prime time television) when reporter Dan Rather incorrectly accused President George Bush (through forged documentation) of having evaded the US military draft. The resultant blog swarm provided conclusive evidence that Rather’s information was incorrect, and led to Rather’s resignation from CBS.

What’s happening to Telecom?

That seems to be the prevailing question nowadays.

The answer is simple: Nothing!

At least nothing out of the ordinary.

Oh sure, capital generally is being concentrated and coupled with  the maturity of the voice segment, certain parts of the communication technology (and associated business models) are suffering price erosion. This means from the supply side mergers and from the demand side falling prices.

But the fact remains the same. Telecom is a tool. It’s a tool whose original purpose was (and still is) to get people to talk to each other in the most efficient way.

Of course, people found that with party lines they could meet new people (remember that party lines were FREE!!!) and expand their socializing and loh!!!, you have the social network. So the internet didn’t really invent the social network, it just made it more efficient (and cheaper!!!).

So telecom is still doing what it was meant to do. Its just that now instead of being the prime communication tool (ie. Voice), its part of an increasingly expanding set of tools that allow people to socialize (whether speech, writing or multimedia) and communicate. And since telecom/speech is another spoke in the wheel, it’ll have to learn to play as part of the orchestra, and with the appropriate remuneration.

Miss Sandy Koutsostamati is the resident psychologist of the Greek team P.A.O.K. stationed in Thessaloniki, the capital of the Greek province of Macedonia.

Aside from her extremely good looks, Sandy   focusses on  revving up mentally the P.A.O.K. players especially in these trying times for the team.

Sandy isn’t the only one of course making a difference in today’s hussle and bussle.

These cats below are busy conceiving (along with yours truly) the next generation of communication technologies.

Not bad for a Sunday (no pun intended Sandy) afternoon.

Left Mr. Loukas Zanias (Network Director :WIND)

and right, Mr. George Sarigiannidis (deputy CEO : INNOVA).

(PCINpact) -L’opérateur mobile japonais NTT DoCoMo vient d’atteindre un débit de 250 Mbits par seconde sur un réseau mobile sans fil, baptisé « Super 3G » pour les engins de poche nomades. (publicité)Cette performance s’inscrit dans la recherche d’une nouvelle génération pour un réseau mobile qui succédera à la 3G actuelle, laquelle n’atteint qu’un maximum de 3,6 Mbits/s via la technologie HSDPA. La Super 3G (ou 3.9G) offre ainsi un débit théorique de 31,25 Mo/s sans fil, contre seulement 450 ko/s pour le HSDPA (3.5G). Ce débit reste cependant circonscrit à une zone de test à proximité du centre de recherche de NTT DoCoMo, situé à Yokusa au Japon. Le réseau en est donc encore au stade expérimental, mais l’opérateur annonce déjà vouloir lancer cette technologie Super 3G en 2010, alors que les recherches n’ont commencé qu’en juillet 2006. 

Le Super 3G n’est cependant pas une finalité. Au Japon, NTT DoCoMo propose déjà du HSDPA à 3,6 Mbits/s, et compte même offrir du 7,2 Mbits/s dès le mois d’avril prochain. Le Super 3G n’est alors prévu que pour combler un manque technologique en attendant un réseau 4G dont le débit théorique est prévu à 1 Gbit/s. Les expérimentations du 4G ont même atteint les 5 Gbits/s (625 Mo/s) sans fil vers un client se déplaçant à 10 km/h.

Da har jeg kommet meg stabil med å poste de artikklene jeg skriver på bloggen min igjen. Denne gangen er det om at Telenor styrker satsningen på HSDPA og lydbøker til mobilen.

Les hele artikkelen (ITpro.no)

Og PS: Jeg skal, i likhet med Øyvind bli flinkere til å bruke bilder i artikklene mine

Now this I like (stay tuned for the pic):

Ericsson launches ground breaking platform for multimedia mass market devices

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) today announced its U500 mobile platform, a next generation architecture with a triple processor solution and a powerful multimedia subsystem, enabling new multimedia functionality and advanced multitasking capabilities. The U500 will not only pave the way for new consumer services, but also improve the usability and quality of existing multimedia services.

The U500 mobile platform is a response to the rapidly growing demand for advanced multimedia features and services requiring enhanced user experience. Designed for mass market mobile devices, the U500 is capable of groundbreaking features such as high quality camcorder, 12 Mpix camera, WVGA displays, advanced 3D gaming and 3D user interface, CD quality audio performance and high resolution video for a true mobile TV experience.

The Ericsson U500 mobile platform combines raw power through the implementation of three ARM11 CPUs and hardware accelerators, with state-of-the-art platform architecture through the integration of the digital baseband and an advanced multimedia companion chip into a single-die processor. The result is a powerful multimedia platform that is smaller and more cost efficient than what is currently available.

The advanced graphics capabilities available in the U500 are enabled through the implementation of ARM Mali200 GPU, a programmable, OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics processor producing fast, high quality graphics with the low power consumption required for a handheld device.

The U500 mobile platform is a highly integrated solution with three ARM11 CPUs providing world class multimedia performance including a 12 Mpix camera, camcorder (MPEG4, H.264 D1@30fps), TV-out, MIPI camera and Display I/F, HW Video Encoding and Decoding D1(H.263, H.264, MPEG4 (AS), VC1, DivX,), and Mobile TV (MBMS phase 2, DVB-H, Unicast). Connectivity solutions include WLAN 802.11, wireless USB(UWB) and high speed USB.  The U500 supports quad-band WCDMA radio, 7.2/5.76Mbps HSPA broadband capabilities, a world class security solution as well as highly optimized power consumption.

The U500 is the first mobile platform to support 4x full-scene anti-aliasing (FSAA) with no performance penalty, boosting the quality of all graphics rendered to the screen. ARM Mali software will be provided as an integral part of the U500 platform software. The close link between graphics processor and middleware (the Mali Graphics Stack) reduces the time-to-market and integration risks for handset manufacturers. As well as the Khronos standards, the Mali software supports the Java JSR standards for 3D and vector graphics maximizing the options for third-party software developers and backwards-compatibility with existing Ericsson platforms.

The U500 will be commercially available in the first half of 2009.

 

Well, back from Malta checking out the broadband progress, and during a seaside dinner I had a chat with a British historian doing sabbatical at the university of Malta, and he recited to us the following story:

Its well documented how the Maltese in 1565 under Grand Master Jean de la Valette   (aided by a couple of Sicilians and Greeks) successfully protected Christendom and Europe from the then mighty ottoman Turks. 

Well, them Turkish dudes wouldn’t give up that easily especially since the noble order of the hospital knights was strategically positioned in the middle of the Mediterranean, and was preoccupied with continually harassing the passing Turkish and Arabs vessels.

We’re all aware of the war.  Some  studios support the HD format while some more (for now) are set on Blu Ray.

The result is uncertainty on the part of consumers.  I mean, do I get a DVD player that supports Blu Ray or do I get one that supports HD? Also, when I make my personal DVDs, do I burn them using one, or the other?

Most probably DVD makers will eventually make products that support both (and more)  formats, and some DVD burner SW already support many formats.

And even if one format wins this one (say Blu Ray or whatever) then a new technology, much improved will come out in a very short time (and if this new technology and related firm grab enough financial muscle) and will probably knock Blu Ray out.

So the problem isn’t what is a better format, but the overall approach that this industry (as many other ones) is taking.

(I think we can maybe learn some lessons from one of the most successful, resilient, robust technologies/services/markets that exist today…that being GSM and the importance of standardizing a technology and mapping an evolution roadmap before abruptly pushing it into the market. )

The main issue is that consumers shouldn’t care about these kind of things. I mean, what I want is to be able to record my home videos (or be able to play home movies) using approved,proven commercially available equipment without really giving a hoot about the underlying technology (take it from a 3G veteran; the minutes you involve consumers in technology wars you’ve pretty well lost them).

If there’s a technology shift, I expect the industry to make my transition as smooth as possible, taking into account the existing installed base of technologies (that have been paid for after all) and allow mechanisms to migrate this installed base into the new and improved technologies with minimum consumer involvement. Said another way, when I record my family memories into some sort of medium then I expect this medium to play. Obsolescence insofar as my memories are concerned is unacceptable (take it from a veteran of the 3G wars….customers don’t want to know about technology, technology wars and technology obsolescence).

What plays today, I expect as a consumer to play tomorrow (again, I don’t care how..I expect the industry to address this ad infinitum!!!). It this doesn’t happen then I, the consumer, will loose faith in technology’s ability to serve me!!!

This whole thing explains I guess, why regular books are still a prevailing medium for storing knowledge …. ebooks certainly haven’t gone very far. No fights here about MS word formats or LaTex or jpeg or TILL formats. The final word is the word that’s printed!!

So I expect the industry to start behaving responsibly and start shielding customers from these format wars; if standardization and roadmaps are what’s needed, then lets go for that!!!

For now, I’ll keep my videos on my hard disk, my photos on regular photo albums and wait until its possible to download movies from the internet on a on demand basis to my TV. I know that at least if I follow proven methods that use standardized technologies I won’t have to worry about crummy formats and access methods (and related compatibilities) and obsolescence.

So there; both DVD-HD and Blu Ray (or whatever the freaking stuff is called) just lost another customer!!!

Just came back from another long business trip. Since my travelling is usually hectic, its important for me to feel pampered during air travel. If I get disappointed, I tend to blast the airline.

I can happily say that I had a very pleasant experience this time from one of  our local airlines. Indeed Aegean offered (aside from being punctual, as usual) simply the best service I/ve ever experienced in an Airline.

The crew was very customer oriented (simply awesome) and the service was excellent including great food (no dry sandwiches or small chocolate bars…a complete meal in economy class), great (new) plane (including takeoff and landing). This company’s gonna go far, very far.

AGain, great job Aegean Airlines, and looking forward to flying with you again.

I just got home from a business trip to lovely Malta.

If I/m writing a post this time of the morning (1:30 am) I’m either happy, or pissed off.

Well I”m pissed off.

I had to transfer in LINATE Airport and catch the ALITALIA flight A 730 to Athens which was due to leave (and did leave) at about 8:40 pm.

It was raining like hell in MILANO where LINATE airport is.

They shuttled us from the terminal (terminal A52) to the Airplane. AGain, it was raining like hell.

The shuttle drove to the back of the plane, where there was a narrow staircase eminating from the tail of the plane and leading into the plane. The shuttle opened the doors and we were expected to walk under the tail of the plane, into these narrow stairs leading to the rear part of the plane.

Of course alot of people descended from the shuttle, and since the stair to the plane was extremely narrow (with NO ONE FROM LINATE OR ALITALIA TO HELP..IT WAS RAINING AFTERALL) most people stood in the rain waiting for one and the other to mount the plane.

At some time after the airport/airline realized their mistake they opened the front hatch to the plane and a particular ground person instructed some of the passengers to go to the front of the plane.

 Note that ALITALIA/LINATE did not instruct the shuttle to drive the remaining passengers there…oh no…they asked the passengers to run like madin the rain to board the front of the plane via an uncovered staircase.

 Some of them did, run  in the rain, and eventually mounted the plane from the front staircase that was not, and I repeat, was not covered in any way. There were a little further up a couple of parked covered staircases but LINATE/ALITALIA decided that it was better to leave them there than to bring them over to help their passengers. And again, both the ground personel and the crew watched on as we got soaked.

When we finally boarded (and there’s nothing worst than sitting in a flight wet from the rain..good way to end up with a cold if not pneumonia etc..) I had a nice little chat with one of the flight attendants but he acted indifferently as if nothing happened. He was well and dry with his jelled hair and really couldn’t give a fuck…its not his ass after all….

FOUL ON YOU ALITALIA AND FOUL ON YOU LINATE MILANO!!!

Sorta reminds me of the way McLaren managed British football under his umbrella….

Yes, I know its interactive.

And yes I know and understand the technology and have seen it perform, measured it, and assessed it over adsl, ftth and wimax. In some cases its excellent and in some cases its so and so. Depends more on the last mile medium than the video head technology.

ANYWAY:

This is what I expect from interactive television:

To be able to select a film I like, and edit it according to my tastes.

For example, say there’s this great film that has a violent (or racey) scene.

I wanna be able to edit it during regular viewing hours so that the whole family can watch it, since its so great, excluding the violent or racey scenes.

I spent a couple of days 2 weeks ago in Education city where I had the pleasure of addressing a asorti of compagnies and academic institutions regarding how I, with some help from my friends and coworkers, see things changing in the communications industry (note : by communications industry I mean the universal set of all technologies that allow human interaction; telecom of course is a subset).

Regarding the mobile industry, with the mobile terminal entering the super retailing domain, one of the big issues that present day mobile operators are gonna be facing is whether to remain in the retailing business, and if they do decide to go for it, how they’re gonna compete with the super chains whose expertise is indeed retail.

I mentioned that smart move that was made a couple of years ago, here in Greece by Germanos (before the Cosmote buyout) who quickly moved to corner the whole retail market offering numerous brands ie. what Best Buy is doing but on a more local cornershop level, rather than a wall mart type of move.

Also, we spoke about the dilemmas of present day operators who uptothis time had the regal role of being both application/service providers and data movers (they provided both the means to connect, and the value added services on top of interconnection); the question still remains how much in the future the interconnection responsible (both from a competitive and a regulatory point of view) will also be the service provider, and what business model will permit these roles to be lucrative, as they have been in the past.

Also, regarding convergance of applications, with 100+ giga making its way to the home, while mobility still in the lower Mega with LTE, its hard to envision the same applications being used in the same way for both home and mobility. However, the same applications (or at least enablers) can certainly be subjected to different usage patters when either in the home, or during mobility. Also, convergence of fixed and mobile networks, with LTE coming along, seem to still be a longshot.

Now I got this input, while in education city, from the economists intelligence unit and it sums up basically what we spoke about regarding supply side changes in the Telecom value chain. Its remarkably close to the input that I gave, and have been giving to audiences in the last couple of years, so I must be doing something right.

Enjoy this very good article, again from the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Telecoms firms face new competition from disruptive innovators

Over the past five years, about two-thirds (64%) of telecoms and technology firms have had a new rival enter their market with innovative products or services, according to “Opening up: How R&D is changing in the telecommunications sector today”, a new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by SAS. Many handset providers cite the entry of Apple into the mobile phone market as a prominent example. Most of those respondents who had not faced innovative new competitors entering their market expect this to happen soon. Just 8% of firms polled for this report don’t believe this will happen to them.
Not only do executives worry about the entry of new rivals, but about eight out of ten expect both the complexity and pace of R&D within their firms to increase either moderately or substantially over the next two years. Over the same time period, one-half expect to see product lifecycles shorten further, adding increased pressure to the innovation process.
Partly in response to this, a rising number of telecoms firms are embracing the principles of so-called “open innovation”, which engages suppliers, partners, academia and—most of all—customers in the innovation process. Three-quarters (74%) of those polled for this report agree that the way they innovate today is significantly different from how they approached innovation a decade ago.
“Telecoms firms are under considerable pressure to innovate in a rapidly changing technological landscape,” says James Watson, the report’s editor. “Involving more third parties and, especially, customers in the R&D process is increasingly being seen as a means of fighting back, but this in turn also brings new challenges for organisations.”
Ian Manocha, Managing Director of SAS UK, goes on to say: “With new players entering the industry, telecommunications companies are under pressure to be innovative and thus remain competitive. This research highlights the importance of engaging with people outside the organisation as part of that process. Gaining customer insight is particularly necessary. But, as the number of stakeholders in the innovation process rises, success will depend on the ability of the innovating firm to be able to obtain the right insight, so as to make the right decisions to drive their innovation agenda forward.”
Other key findings from the report include:
• Telecoms firms plan to deliver more products than before, with shorter lifecycles.
Among the survey respondents, about one in three expect to launch between seven and 20 new products in the next two years, up from about one in five over the past two years. At the same time, the majority of respondents (about 80%) expect the complexity, cost and pace of R&D to increase over the next two years. On top of this, one-half expect product lifecycles will continue to shorten, with one-fifth of respondents think that they will shrink by at least 30%. Accordingly, nearly half of all respondents (46%) see the pace of technological change as the number one innovation challenge facing firms.
• Firms are increasingly adopting the principles of so-called “open innovation”.
Companies polled for this report are undergoing a transition towards a more open means of innovation, which seeks to engage suppliers, corporate partners, academia and customers in the R&D process. Over the past two years, firms typically partnered with two to five other organisations. Looking ahead, the number of those who won’t partner will decline (from 10% today to less than 6% two years from now), while the proportion of those partnering with more than five other organisations will increase (from 23% to 35%).
• Customers are playing a key role.
The telecoms industry is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the feedback of customers, which can be done instantly online via the Internet or mobile phones. Nearly eight out of ten (78%) respondents agreed that their customers have a much greater impact on their innovation process than in the past. More firms cited the involvement of customers in the innovation process than any of 11 other approaches, including the acquisition or licensing of technologies and collaborating with third parties.
• Embracing a more open approach brings major organisational challenges.
Working more closely with a greater number of third parties obviously brings with it greater logistical and managerial challenges. It also brings tougher decisions about whether to make, buy or collaborate on new technologies. Furthermore, the rapidly changing telecoms marketplace is also uprooting and replacing business models. Just 9% of firms polled for this report say they have not changed their business model and don’t plan to do so.

ASOCS Introduces Chip for Wireless Convergence
ASOCS, a developer of wireless multi-communication processors and system solutions for handheld devices, announced today the launch of the MP100 chip to boost wireless convergence. The Israel-based company claims that MP100 is the world’s first wireless MultiComms processor capable of running up to three wireless air interfaces concurrently.

It says that customers using ASOCS’ single-chip MultiComms processor can reduce the bill of materials (BOM) by up to 50% and reduce power consumption by as much as 70%. The chip supports wireless standards such as GSM/EDGE/GPRS, WiFi, HD Mobile Digital TV, and GPS.

The software reconfigurable ModemX core in the MP100 further enables handheld device manufacturers, OEMs, and ODMs to move into the 4G era smoothly by developing software-based Super 3G, LTE, and Mobile WiMax products.

ASOCS reveals that MP100 was developed in association with Fujitsu Microelectronics, which deals in LSI applications and semiconductor process technologies.

The ASOCS MP100 processor, according to the company, introduces a new approach to wireless communication – a single IP-based platform offering high-performance, software reconfigurable modems, low latency air-interface switching, and minimal power consumption. This enables user-transparent access to the Internet. So, users can access mobile Internet without manually optimizing performance, cost, and power consumption.

Related Article: WiMAX Gains Momentum