Category: Mobile

Maybe we should chalk it up to the upcoming season of jolly, but lately it seems like everyone wants to give away free Wi-Fi access to travelers. Well, free as long as you watch an ad or a promo for whichever company is sponsoring it, such as Yahoo, Microsoft and now Google. But while we might roll our eyes at what looks like just another way to serve up ads, the idea of free WiFi-based marketing is actually pretty smart. Among the current offers:

• Starting today, visitors to Times Square in New York City will be able to get free Wi-Fi on their computers and mobile phones, courtesy of Yahoo. If you log in from your mobile phone, it is going to take you to http://m.yahoo.com. On a computer, you end up at a Yahoo page filled with ads.
• Google is offering free Wi-Fi access on Virgin America through Jan 15, 2010.
• eBay is sponsoring free Wi-Fi on 250 flights on Delta Airlines during the week of Thanksgiving. Wi-Fi users will get access to the eBay home page and an invitation to shop there.
• Microsoft is working with JiWire to give away free Wi-Fi in premium hotspots in hotels and airports as long as they use Bing for search via their connection.
• Google is giving away free Wi-Fi in 47 airports across the U.S., including hubs such as Miami, Seattle, Houston and San Jose, Calif. The promotions will last through Jan. 15, 2010.

Google, from the looks of it, is using Boingo Wireless’ network. The Los Angeles-based hotspot operator today announced a new sponsored access program that will allow brand advertisers to engage with Wi-Fi users.

Wi-Fi usage has been on the upswing recently, thanks to the rise of smartphones, especially the iPhone. Whether it is airports or cafes, people are increasingly logging onto Wi-Fi networks. “People are creatures of habit and one of the goals of this campaign is to open people up to new ways of finding what they are looking for on the Internet,” said Jeff Bernstein, senior vice president at UM (the agency formerly known as Universal McCann). “JiWire’s media channel serves our goal because it gives people an incentive to try Bing and let the engine speak for itself.”

Given that many of the estimated 100 million travelers who will spend time in airports with Google-sponsored Wi-Fi will at some point in time encounter Google ads, the decision is more than a nice gesture. Google providing access to free Wi-Fi is kind of like publishing those free magazines littering coffeehouses. It’s all about the ad revenue.

A typical free Wi-Fi campaign from Boingo offers travelers 15-20 minutes of complimentary Internet access in exchange for watching a 30-second video, by which the user is engaged directly with the brand. Other opportunities to engage consumers include lead generation, product and service trials, social media applications, location-based searches, customer surveys and downloadable content, Boingo noted in a press release.

Giving users something in return for their attention is a smart way to engage with an audience, which increasingly glosses over display advertising. It’s a welcome development, one that strikes a better balance between the needs of a marketeer and the end user (and potential customer).

It’s also a recognition of how important Wi-Fi is in the quest for constant connectivity, especially as more and more folks tote around WiFi-enabled smartphones. With 70 minutes spent behind the security gates at airports on average, everyone from business travelers to harried parents looking for a kid-friendly diversion can now find something online. That’s all good, but one can imagine it’s going to get a lot harder to find an empty power outlet this season.

Photo courtesy of Yahoo

The FCC has had conversations with Qualcomm and Skyterra in the last few weeks about an effort to use a combination of satellites and a terrestrial network known as ATC (Ancillary Terrestrial Component), which could make 100 MHz of spectrum available for mobile broadband. Given that both the wireless industry and the FCC are unified in calling for more spectrum for mobile data services, the satellite companies are setting themselves up for a potential payday, but I still think it’s a sucker’s bet.

The FCC is interested in learning more about ATC, Dean Brenner, VP of government affairs for Qualcomm, told me. SkyTerra’s VP of regulatory affairs, Jeff Carlisle, said he was meeting with the FCC to point out that companies holding ATC licenses could get 100 MHz of spectrum online within the next couple of years. Back in 2003, the FCC overruled objections from the CTIA and the wireless industry, and told satellite companies holding spectrum in the L and S bands that they could offer broadband as long as it had a both a satellite and a terrestrial network component. Companies with this ATC approval promptly went out and raised billions to create such networks.

However, the cost of launching a satellite, and a lack of partners to help offset the price of a terrestrial network, means that for now, there are satellites but no terrestrial component. Another issue is the fact that a handset would need to operate on both networks, and so far the efforts to produce one that would appeal to consumers look pretty lame. One of the bigger beneficiaries of the ATC decision, a company called TerreStar, appears to have switched its goal from providing broadband to offering satellite communications as a backup to existing cellular network — a strategy I still question. TerreStar could not be reached for comment.

SkyTerra’s Carlisle believes a consumer-serving combination network has value, but that the likeliest route to the spectrum will be from existing carriers that license it from the satellite companies and then build out the terrestrial component. At that point, the satellite may become an albatross given the challenges of creating a dual-mode handset and the fact that all of the real speed and action will be delivered via the terrestrial network. (Satellite broadband speeds so far are unimpressive.) Carlisle pitches the bird as a nice form of backup service that public safety professionals and even consumers would still find valuable.

Yet that’s not going to stop the CTIA, which has been against ATC and satellite broadband for years. In a filing with the FCC last week it asked the commission for more spectrum, including that used by satellite providers. From its filing:

Finally, CTIA urges the Commission to undertake an examination of spectrum allocated to U.S. satellite providers. CTIA believes that a review of current satellite authorizations, coupled with an assessment of whether such providers are fully and efficiently utilizing their spectrum allocations, will inform whether this spectrum should be reallocated for licensed CMRS wireless broadband use.

The CTIA is asking the FCC for 800 MHz and isn’t afraid of going up against broadcasters to get it, so this plea for a rethink on satellite may just be the organization’s effort to throw everything including the kitchen sink, at the spectrum issue. And even if the industry accepts that it needs the 100 MHz of spectrum that SkyTerra claims is available, it comes attached with some pretty big risks.

Image courtesy of SkyTerra

I am impressed with a new mobile application that allows iPhone users to quickly search consumer product information. Currently, the Visual Search is designed for iPhone only and is not yet released by IQ Engines.

According to IQ Engines’ Website, you can use your iPhone’s camera, point at any product to retrieve detailed product information, reviews, prices, and purchase links.  To learn more about Visual Search, please view the following video created by IQ Engines.

I think Visual Search is an interesting mobile application that has a potential use in education and training.  Image that we can use our mobile devices and an application like Visual Search to find similar drawings, paintings, images, music sheets, art works, and etc. from libraries and museums in the world.  I guess it won’t be long to see more powerful media-centric Web applications.  Web 3.0 is coming soon.

Posted in Mobile Technology, Web 3.0 Tagged: iphone, mobile, search, visual

The floundering economy hasn’t kept consumers from spending on mobile data, according to the latest quarterly report on the wireless industry from Chetan Sharma, one of our GigaOM Pro analysts. U.S. data service revenues grew 27 percent year-over-year in the third quarter, Sharma reported, with Verizon Wireless and AT&T accounting for 80 percent of the rise, underscoring what I wrote last week about how the rich carriers are getting richer. Given the investment needed to build out new networks, and the incredible growth in data, both the smaller carriers and U.S. regulators should mind the growing gap between those that are raking in the wireless data dough and those that are not.

Verizon’s data revenue exceeded $4 billion during the quarter, and is now approaching longtime global leader NTT DoCoMo.  Overall, the top four U.S. carriers “are now a permanent fixture” among the top 10 worldwide carriers in terms of mobile service revenues. Other nuggets from Sharma’s report include:

• 3G penetration in the U.S. stayed at “a healthy” 43 percent in the third quarter of 2009, with Verizon outpacing its competitors and T-Mobile slowly expanding its 3G coverage. The growth in 3G and smartphones helped offset some of the downward pressure on the data revenues and overall ARPU.

• Flat-rate pricing continued to gain steam in the U.S. market with industry-wide flat-rate pricing plans that included data. Almost all of the major carriers are offering flat-fee access plans for most of the new smartphones being introduced in the market, and roughly 20 percent of the consumers have flat-rate data plans.

• The subscriber gap between the two largest carriers (AT&T and Verizon) and the next-largest two (Sprint and T-Mobile) will continue to increase, Sharma predicts, rising from 28 percent.

U.S. mobile data traffic is likely to exceed 400 petabytes by the end of 2009, according to Sharma, up 193 percent from 2008. And that increased usage is forcing carriers to accelerate their 4G strategies and adopt a multipronged model to manage traffic more effectively. With the larger carriers seeing the greatest revenue gains from data, it stands to reason that as more investment is needed to “keep up with the Verizons” both AT&T and Verizon will continue their data lead. That’s bad news for T-Mobile and Sprint. Sprint’s investment in WiMAX was its attempt to get out in front of this demand for data, but so far it looks like its timing may have been off.

Yesterday I called my dad on my cell phone (neither of us have landlines) to tell him about something his granddaughter did, and a few minutes into the conversation he asked if I were near my computer. If I was, couldn’t we Skype instead? In my home Skype is both the P2P telephony program and a verb for video chat. My dad now prefers to Skype with me rather than talk on the phone, a tipping point of sorts in the way we communicate. He said he grew up watching cartoons where folks like the Jetsons talked via videophone, and since the possibility is here today he wants to use it.

In this multimodal communications world, the phone companies, which still rely on voice for both wired and about a quarter of their wireless revenue, should be worried. Voice revenue isn’t growing in the U.S., but that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t if carriers got a bit more creative. So far, data is helping phone companies that have wireless networks as well as those that are providing Ethernet backhaul for anticipated growth in data.

However, the real focus at carriers should be about getting beyond merely providing the pipe in this multimodal world. Check out what BT is doing with its Ribbit acquisition, as an example.

Skype CEO Josh Silverman would certainly be thrilled to hear about my dad’s preferred form of communication, as would the Telepresence folks at Cisco hoping to get the same thing happening in the business world. Silverman told Om in September:

“We are pretty big on video calling,” Silverman told me. The company is putting a lot of resources into building a better video conferencing experience, he said, because he believes that person-to-person video calling is going to be as big as video. That absolutely makes sense because today the definition of communication is constantly changing. In the past, the world was all about voice, then instant messages and now video calling. People are sending messages and status updates via Twitter and Facebook. The communications are now multimodal.

Perhaps in the not-too-distant future my phone calls with be less about voice and more about video, voice, link sharing, and even media sharing all within the context of a television or PC screen. I can turn parts of it on or off as needed. It’s like the vision for social TV that Liz outlined back on March (subscription required) rather than the Jetsons-style videophone that my dad is so excited about right now. The carriers are implementing on this social vision for television, but they should be thinking about adding this to voice as well.

In a clear sign that mobile advertising has arrived and become a major revenue opportunity, Google today announced that it is buying AdMob, the upstart mobile advertising company based in Mountain View, Calif., for $750 million in stock. On AdMob’s blog, Google’s Susan Wojcicki, VP of product management, and Vic Gundotra, VP of engineering, write:

For publishers of mobile websites and applications, this deal will mean better products and tools and more effective monetization of their content — allowing them to focus more on their users and less on how to generate revenue.

For advertisers who want to reach users when they are engaged with mobile content, this deal will bring better, more relevant ads and greater reach. It will also mean more interesting, engaging ad formats.

AdMob has long been the dominant pure-play ad company in mobile, gaining traction as a kind of automated ad clearinghouse for inventory on the mobile web. The company has also expanded into mobile app advertising, which has exploded thanks to uptake of superphones such as the iPhone and Android handsets. Google, meanwhile, has primarily focused its mobile ad business on search.

As Google pointed out, the deal follows a handful of similar acquisitions by traditional online companies looking to move into mobile: AOL bought Third Screen Media more than two years ago, Yahoo picked up Actionality several months later and Microsoft bought its way onto the field with the pickup of ScreenTonic. But Google’s move raises the stakes for all the players in the game, and fires a warning shot across the bow of smaller mobile startups. Expect Google to move quickly to integrate AdMob’s business with its own mobile ad division as the company’s Android platform picks up steam.

While Google certainly paid a premium for not buying in earlier — or for establishing a thriving mobile ad placement business of its own — the tie-up appears to be a good fit. UBS analyst Brian J. Pitz speculated that Google is likely to integrate AdMob’s technology, clients and publishers into its AdSense network, which launched a mobile component two years ago. And J.P. Morgan said the acquisition “makes perfect strategic sense,” allowing Google to leverage AdMob’s technology to serve and analyze emerging ad formats:

“In our opinion, Google has invested heavily in growing the mobile Internet business through its development of Android and inclusion of mobile ads on AdWords,” the firm wrote in a research note. “The acquisition of AdMob should allow Google to monetize its support of the development and use of mobile Internet content further.”

AdMob doesn’t disclose revenues, but J.P. Morgan estimates the company generates between $45 million and $60 million in revenue on an annual basis. The company has raised $47.2 million in venture capital from Accel Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Sequoia Partners, and it has seen its number of monthly ad requests increase sixfold over the last two years, reaching 10.2 billion in September.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise: Clearwire, the WiMAX-based wireless network operator, is looking for a $1.5 billion infusion from Sprint and other backers including cable giant Comcast. Clearwire executives, including CEO William Morrow, have been publicly talking about a need for new capital. The announcement is likely to be made later this week, The Wall Street Journal reports. The investment once again shows that networks cost a lot of money, especially ones that are based on new technologies.

It also shows that Sprint CEO Dan Hesse doesn’t have any choice but to go all in. He was the man who made the decision to merge Sprint’s Xohm business (and spectrum) with Clearwire to form a new company. As a result, Sprint is the largest shareholder of the WiMAX network operator, and “Sprint will use money from its own cash pile or raise new debt for the $1 billion investment,” the Journal reports. About a year-and-a-half ago, Sprint, Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Brighthouse put a total of $3.2 billion in Clearwire.

Intel is the company’s biggest investor, even though Sprint is the largest shareholder because of its spectrum and other contributions to company. In August, Stacey pointed out that the money Clearwire had was enough to offer service to about 75 million possible subscribers, not enough in its battle against large phone companies.

Interestingly, Google is not likely to participate in this next round of funding. I wonder if that has something to do with Google’s new, cozy relationship with Verizon. With over half a million subscribers, Clearwire hasn’t been a raging success. Its service is available in Chicago, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Texas, parts of North Carolina, Philadelphia and Portland, Ore. (Related: “When and Where to Find 4G in Q4″)

Both Clearwire and Sprint are in a race against time: They need the new networks rolled out before Verizon and AT&T launch their next-generation high-speed wireless networks based on Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology. Sprint has been bleeding customers at an alarming rate and soon might find itself at a point of no return. Let’s hope for Hesse’s sake, the Clearwire bet pays off! (Related post: “WiMAX’s Future Is in Emerging Markets”)

Earlier today in response to my post about Nimbuzz, a good pal emailed to find out why the service didn’t work over the iPhone’s 3G connection. After all, a few weeks ago AT&T announced support for VoIP over 3G with much fanfare, a move that was widely applauded, including kudos from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

A month has passed since the decision was announced, and there is still no support for VoIP over 3G. “Apple actually did not approve the 3G calling — so they completely broke their promise of allowing VoIP calls on 3G,” a Nimbuzz spokesperson said.

Even Skype doesn’t work over 3G (see attached screenshot). Truphone is not working either, much like Fring. I am not sure if these services work over 3G data connections in Europe and other parts of the world, but it looks like Apple is the one putting in the roadblock here.

Besides Gary Hayes’ social media count I introduced in my blog last week, Gary also created a mobile count showing interesting statistics driving the mobile revolution.  According to Gary, the mobile data was taken from the source articles/statistics below:

• TechCrunchies – Mobile Video Viewers Statistics
• AdMob June 2009 Mobile Metrics Report
• PortioDirect Mobile Factbook 2009
• Mashable – CITA report – 4.1 Billion SMS Messages Are Sent Daily USA
• iPolicy UK – SMS messaging has a bright future
• Research and Markets Global Mobile Broadband – Statistics and Trends
• Smartbrief Sharp Increase in Mobile Internet
• ABI Research In 2014 Monthly Mobile Data Traffic Will Exceed 2008 Total
• HotHardware Huge Growth in Daily Mobile Web Access
• Ecoustics
• Cio GPS Enabled Mobile Phone Shipments to More than Double Over Next Five Years
• Nielsen Americans Watching More TV Than Ever: Web and Mobile Video Up too

To see Gary Hayes’ Mobile Count running in real time, please click on the following image to launch the live counter.

Also, Gary provided some of the interesting statistics about the tremendous growth of games recently:

• 50 million daily users of Zynga social games (Inside Social Games 2009)
• $2.8 bill generated yearly by China MMOG players (Raph Koster 2009)
• 16 million quests per day completed by WoW players (Maximum PC 2009)
• $22 Billion US games revenue in 2009 (IDE Agency 2009)
• 50 000 person to person auctions per day on Gaia
• 1 million currency transactions per day in Eve Online (MMORPG.com 2009)
• 9 games sold every second 2007 (GrabStats 2007)
• $5.5 bill spent on virtual goods globally
• 4.1 million new MMORPG subscribers 2009 (MMORPGChart.com 2008)
• $125 mill advertising revenues in Social Virtual Worlds (GamineExpedition 2008)
• 575000 log into Fantasy Westward Journey per day (Seeking Alpha 2009)
• 250 thousand virtual goods created on Second Life per day (MarketWire 2009)
• $594 million invested in Virtual World companies in 2008 (Engage Digital Media 2009)
• 1.5 million new 3-11 US children subscribing to Virtual Worlds annually (GamineExpedition 2009)
• 1 million message board posts per day in Gaia online
• 7.5 million per month use Habbo
• $2.45 billion per year revenue made from World of Warcraft (Edge Online 2008)
• 13.4 million portable game units sold in 2007 (Grab Stats 2007)
• 936 mill Chinese user hours per week in online games (78 mill @ 12 hrs pw) (Futures of Learning 2008)
• 1250 text messages sent per second in Second Life  (Linden Lab 2009)
• 465 million user hours in second life over the last year (Linden Lab 2009)

Posted in Edutainment, Mobile Technology, Social Media Tagged: count, counter, games, Gary Hayes, mobile

Location is a core element in mobile applications and smartphones. We take our mobile devices with us everywhere we go. Their location, and the context in which we use them, changes constantly. In the next two years, location will become central to user experience and performance on hundreds of millions of handsets and applications.

We most commonly think of location within traditional mobile applications. Navigation apps were the first to use it. Local search results and social-networking apps are more relevant when mapped to a person’s current location. But location can do more than simply drive people to places where they can shop, eat or meet friends. Soon, all mobile applications will need to be tied to location if they want to stay relevant.

Applications that we currently do not think of as location-relevant, such as books, sports, reference, music and cooking all become more interesting when a user’s location is taken into account. Home cooks will be able to check out the most popular recipes in their neighborhoods. Music lovers will see where others are listening to their favorite artists around the country. Sports fans will be able to interact with other spectators in the same stadium, and book enthusiasts will be able to search for books written about their neighborhood, or find nearby book clubs to join.

Some apps are already beginning to experiment with location in unusual ways. Sportacular, a top iPhone sports app, allows users to vote for which team they predict will win an upcoming game. The votes are tallied and categorized by region and state. Three days before a recent Red Sox v. Angels baseball game, we saw that every state in the country thought the Red Sox would win except for the Angels’ home state of California. In the end, the Angels dominated, but the voting process encouraged debate and banter among users, fostering a deeper sense of community.

TuneWiki takes over a mobile device’s music player and offers a more compelling user experience by displaying song lyrics and adding community features. The app also ties in location with TuneWiki music maps, which displays the songs that are currently playing around a user’s current location. The community feature lets people see what songs are popular in their area for the current hour, day, week, month or year.

Over 3 billion mobile applications like Sportacular and TuneWiki will be downloaded in 2009. This market will explode to 7 billion applications in 2013 alone, The Yankee Group projects. These apps will make already-powerful mobile devices more functional, social and customizable to a person’s interests and style. Neither Sportacular nor TuneWiki need location. But serving up music and sports content within the context of location makes the information more relevant, engaging, and socially connected.

Data represents location apps from the iPhone App Store, Android Market, Ovi Store, Palm App Catalog, and BlackBerry App World.

The developers of these applications are driving the mobile marketplace. Some are generating millions of dollars in revenue, and are becoming hot acquisition targets. Amazon acquired Lexcycle’s Stanza, an iPhone eBook reader, in April 2009, and SnapTell, a location-based image recognition and shopping application in June. Also in April, IAC purchased Urbanspoon, a location-based restaurant search app. In July, Blackboard, an educational software provider, purchased TerriblyClever, developers of the location-based MobileEdu applications for college campuses, for $4 million. The location-based TomTom iPhone navigation app generated $4.8 million in the third quarter, Distmo estimates, while the location-aware I Am T Pain app from Smule is projected to generate $3 million alone in 2009.

The applications generating real revenue and that have been targeted for acquisition are not simple, gimmicky apps. They are highly functional and take full advantage of device capability, like location, accelerometers and graphics. Millions of dollars in revenue and high-profile acquisitions are classic early signs of a lucrative tech investment sector. As these trends continue, the size of the mobile application market will continue to accelerate.

Massive growth in these types of rich and context-relevant mobile applications will change the way consumers purchase and interact with mobile devices. Ultimately, the growth of mobile apps will help drive the device market. And while apps get even cooler over the next five years, mobile devices and data will get more accessible. Handset prices will fall, and hot devices like the iPhone, Palm Pre and netbooks will capture even more consumer attention. 3G networks will get more powerful; the demand for mobile data and connectivity will increase; and operator subscription fees will get more affordable worldwide.

We’re seeing a shift in the market away from feature phones (voice and SMS-only) to smartphones. An estimated 63 million mobile phone users upgraded to smartphones from feature phones in 2008, from approximately 15 million upgrades in 2005. We will see massive growth of the market over the next four years with 503 million smartphones projected to ship in 2013, RBC Capital Markets projects. The netbook market will also expand — 50 million netbooks will ship in 2012 alone, Gartner projects. Consumer demand for location-aware applications will help drive the distribution boom of these devices.

Developers of today’s most lucrative applications are applying location to their apps in compelling, new ways, and there’s every reason to expect this trend to continue — and to open up new revenue models in the future.

Kate Imbach is the head of marketing at Skyhook Wireless and co-founder and organizer at Mobile Monday Americas. You can follow her on Twitter @Kate8.

Verizon has been all over the Android news this week, with two of the hottest phones finally arriving on the scene. The Motorola Droid, a stylish phone almost as thin as the iPhone but with a sliding QWERTY keyboard, debuted Friday. Early reviews are not finding the keyboard to be much of a bonus, but it’s amazing to find one at all in a thin handset. Verizon is also offering the HTC Droid Eris for just $99 with a contract. It’s shipping with the HTC Sense interface on top of the stock Android UI, making it the cheapest phone thus equipped.

Some Droid phone reviewers have taken note of the Verizon Channel in the Android Market. This channel offers apps that have met Verizon’s approval before offering them to customers. T-Mobile announced its own channel for the Android Market this week. Both channels allow customers to buy apps and have them charged to the phone bill, eliminating the need for a credit card transaction.

Meanwhile, two recently announced e-book readers could have more than the Android OS in common. Spring Design this week sued Barnes & Noble over the Nook reader, claiming it has features the bookseller gleaned from information Spring Design shared with B&N under NDA. It has requested an injunction to prevent the Nook from being sold.

The rich mobile carriers got a little richer in the third quarter, as the nation’s top two operators increased their leads over the rest of the field. Verizon Wireless added a million subscribers and posted revenue of $15.8 billion, up 24.4 percent year-over-year, while AT&T reported 2 million net adds — thanks largely to the iPhone — and $13.65 in revenue, up 8 percent over the year-ago period. Meanwhile, the increasingly heated prepaid space took its toll on Leap Wireless and MetroPCS, as both service providers saw customer growth slide in the third quarter. 

We’re only a few hours into the official Droid era, but already it appears that Motorola’s bet on Google’s mobile OS was a good move. The first Android 2.0 device is conjuring memories of the iPhone’s debut, prompting techies to line up by the dozen in Manhattan, inspiring a tweeting frenzy on Twitter and helping to boost shares of the Schaumburg, Ill.-based phone manufacturer. But to fully leverage all the hype, Motorola should invest in ads that push its brand and increase consumer awareness.

Verizon Wireless isn’t the largest carrier to join the Android bandwagon — that honor goes to Vodafone, which launched the HTC Magic in February — but the debut of the Droid looks to be the operating system’s biggest single step since Android debuted with the HTC G1 last year. And while Verizon is also launching the $100 HTC Eris today, Motorola clearly has more at stake in the Google/Verizon tie-up than any other OEM. In fact, Droid “promises to reverse Motorola’s fortunes” in mobile, according to a statement this morning from iSuppli:

“Droid is potentially a game changer for Motorola,” said Tina Teng, senior analyst, wireless communications for iSuppli. “Motorola now is no longer just emphasizing slick form factors, such as it did with its RAZR handset. The company now has focused on the hottest segment of the global mobile handset market — providing compelling smartphone products that are usable and expandable through third-party applications.”

Indeed, Motorola wisely joined the Android bandwagon ahead of some of its competitors, and it appears to have produced a compelling handset at a competitive price. Just as importantly, it is benefiting from a big-budget marketing campaign backed by the nation’s largest carrier. But that campaign is focused entirely on Verizon Wireless and its Droid initiative — not on Motorola or any other manufacturer. For Motorola to fully leverage the momentum it’s gaining from the launch of the Droid, it should produce its own marketing campaign to push its suddenly hot brand — just as HTC is doing with its compelling “You” campaign.

A large group of carriers and equipment makers yesterday came out in support of a standard called One Voice to provide voice over the next-generation Long Term Evolution mobile networks. For those adopting the standard, LTE mobile calls would become VoIP calls. The standard is necessary to ensure you can call people on 3G networks from a 4G network and across different providers, and reduces the complexity of making that happen. 4G networks are all IP-based, while voice calls are still routed over circuit-switched networks, which could cause communication problems. Figuring out how to deliver circuit-switched calls on a packet network was going to result in compromises and costs I detailed back in April.

So enter AT&T, Orange, Telefonica, TeliaSonera, Verizon, Vodafone, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nokia, Samsung Electronics, and Sony Ericsson, which are all stepping behind the One Voice effort that will use a standard version of the IMS framework to route voice calls between the IP and circuit-switched networks. It’s easy to understand why the equipment makers are behind this — they’ve been trying to sell IMS gear for years, and because most of the carriers involved have their own IP-based wireless network they’ve already got their own IMS equipment.

However, a few notable players are missing from the One Voice effort, such as T-Mobile and some of the Chinese carriers. There is also still the question of when these standards will actually be implemented and, thus, able to be deployed in the network. Verizon plans to have its LTE network covering 100 million people by the end of next year, and AT&T will start trials at that time as well. Given that yesterday’s announcement was the beginning of a process that could take a year or longer to cement, we’re still going to need an interim solution if carriers want to provide voice on LTE networks.

This standard shows that voice over LTE is finally a big issue for carriers, said Steven Shaw, VP of marketing for Kineto, which is part of a competing LTE voice effort called VoLGA. He denied that One Voice obviates the need for VoLGA given how long it will take for a standard to be ratified and implemented. Carriers can use VoLGA in the meantime, he notes, which would generate revenue for Kineto. Regardless, getting big industry players to get a standards effort rolling is a key step for those who want 4G handsets — even if they won’t be out in 2011.

Mario Queiroz, VP Production Management for Google Android, talked about Android and its competition, the iPhone, in an interview with FOX Business Network’s Liz Claman. Queiroz touts his company’s approach to form partnerships and alliances with carriers and handset makers as a better way of doing business compared with the iPhone. You can watch the video, which comes across as an Android advertorial.

T-Mobile USA lost 77,000 customers and saw revenue continue to slide in the third quarter even as its operating profit margin increased two percentage points. But the nation’s fourth-largest carrier continued to enjoy a surge in mobile data uptake and said it will continue to aggressively — if belatedly — roll out its 3G network next year.

T-Mobile USA is fighting heated battles on both ends of the mobile spectrum: It has introduced competitive prepaid plans in an effort to compete with cut-rate service providers such as Leap Wireless and MetroPCS, and it is vying for revenue-boosting, smartphone-using consumers with devices such as the Android-based Motorola Cliq and myTouch 3G. But while the carrier’s strategy may be paying dividends for shareholders of parent company Deutsche Telekom, it will have to address the serious network hiccups that have infuriated customers in recent weeks.

DT blamed increasing competition and competitors’ “handset innovation” for its 2.4 percent churn rate, which was unchanged from the previous quarter. T-Mobile USA’s $5.57 billion in revenue was up 2.8 percent from the year-ago period, and its all-important data traffic grew by 45 percent quarter over quarter.

The carrier spent $800 million to build out its 3G network in the U.S. during the quarter, though, and said the network will cover 200 million Americans by the end of the year. T-Mobile brought 5,200 cell sites online during the period and said it plans to add nearly 4,000 more sites by the end of the year, reaching 25,000 total sites. That build-out will be necessary to meet the demands of T-Mo’s rapidly expanding base of data-hungry customers.

Amid the slew of exciting, new phone announcements (the HTC Hero turned Droid Eris!!!) Verizon Wireless said it would offer prepaid data plans, something we’ve been saying the industry should do for a while. The company is offering folks the chance to pick up data on an as-needed basis, instead of having to buy it as part of a monthly contract. That’s mighty fine of them, and should net the carrier some extra dollars, especially since the convenience charge for the prepaid data is pretty darn high.

But if there’s no expiration date on how long people can use the data, even at a huge markup, these plans might help get people hooked on mobile broadband by allowing them to start using data without an expensive monthly commitment. However, folks will need to purchase a $130 USB modem in order to access the cell network. I’m waiting to hear from Verizon to see if the data expires or if the daily, weekly and monthly titles are mere suggestions of how much someone should use in that time period. The plans are as follows:

• Daily – $15 for 75 MB (20 cents a MB)
• Weekly – $30 for 250 MB (12 cents a MB)
• Monthly – $50 for 500 MB (10 cents a MB)

For comparison’s sake, I pay $60 a month for 5GB or 1.2 cents per MB, although the 250MB plan Verizon offered for $40 on contract seems like a loser when compared with getting the same amount for $30 on prepaid. My guess is these things expire.

There are no longer any doubts that T-Mobile has hitched its smartphone bandwagon to Google’s Android operating system. The company today said that it will be selling four Android-powered handsets to its (current and potential) customers during the vital holiday season. It is clear T-Mobile is hoping to sell a lot of smartphones. As part of its push, the company is making some plans regarding applications and application discovery. Here are some excerpts from their email pitch sent earlier today:

With the introduction of the T-Mobile myTouch 3G, T-Mobile created T-Mobile AppPack on Android Market, which features select 3rd party and T-Mobile made apps. T-Mobile recently refreshed AppPack with new, suggested applications – 34 apps in all, including a mix of free and paid apps. Later this month, the company will take this a step further by introducing a T-Mobile Channel on Android Market (that will be live by Thanksgiving), and Android Market (including the T-Mobile Channel) will soon feature carrier billing making it easier and more streamlined for customers with T-Mobile Android devices to purchase their favorite applications.

When I read that pitch, the first thing that came to my mind: hey isn’t that what the carrier decks of yore really used to be?

Carriers playing godfather to the fortunes of small companies in exchange for some baksheesh. Apps placed by them on the deck was how start-ups fortunes were decided. Carrier decks also were a way to sell premium applications and services. So how are T-Mobile channel and T-Mobile App Pack any different than the carrier deck? My inner skeptic says: not much!

Any thoughts folks?