The swappable SIM card was one of the original attributes of GSM trumpeted by users and operators as an advantage over CDMA. The logic went that a removable SIM allowed users to swap hardware without needing to contact their operator and made the address book portable. This was particularly useful for corporate clients managing break/fix and hardware migrations as well as anyone who suffered equipment failure or was upgrading devices. CDMA carrier customers on the other hand had to call customer care and manually make the switch with a customer service representative; deally no digits were misread, typed incorrectly, and the over the air provisioning (OTA) was successful. These were simpler times and data services were just coming online around the late 90s and the beginning of the next decade. Read More...

Tags: AT&T Wireless

Last week I received my beta invitation from Ting; Tucow's entry into the competitive mobile services market. Tucows is following closely on the heels of the recent Republic Wireless launch by bandwidth.com. Neither company possesses a history in the mobile space and instead come from the Internet hosting, services, and platform world. Both are seeking to address what they perceive as fundamental flaws in the wireless industry: pricing, service and support, contracts, and billing transparency. Read More...

Tags: No Conract

By: Chad Nordby

Before the market opened on August 2, 2011, MetroPCS released their second quarters earnings announcement and Wall Street subsequently sent the stock plummeting 37%. WIth the end of trading on Friday, August 5th, the stock sat at $9.53. In the comparable period the Dow Jones fell 6% raising the questions of whether the no-contract model in general, MetroPCS’ execution, or both were out of favor with Wall Street? Considering that Leap Wireless (Cricket) fell 50% in the same period it appears to be the former. Wall Street may inadvertently created two excellent buying opportunities.

MetroPCS’ earnings announcement contained the following highlights:

Highest Adjusted EBITDA in Company History
Second Quarter 2011 Highlights Include:

• Quarterly net subscriber additions of approximately 200 thousand, resulting in an approximate 19% increase in total subscribers over the prior twelve month period

• Quarterly ARPU of $40.49, an increase of $0.65 over second quarter of 2010 and $0.07 sequential increase

• Record Adjusted EBITDA of $357 million, an increase of approximately 11% over second quarter of 2010

• Quarterly consolidated total revenues of $1.2 billion, an increase of 19% over second quarter of 2010

• Quarterly net income of $84 million, an increase of approximately 6% over second quarter of 2010, and EPS of $0.23 compared to EPS of $0.22 in the second quarter of 2010

Read More...

Tags: MetroPCS, Cricket Wireless, Simple Mobile, H2O Wireless, Virgin Mobile, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, Boost Mobile

The Los Angeles market is full of competing Pre-Paid wireless services including MetroPCS and Verizon’s Unleashed offerings. Driving anywhere around the basin and the billboards jump out advertising no contracts and price points of $40 and $50 for various unlimited offerings. MetroPCS also offers their 4G LTE offering and various 3G and 4G Android phones from Huawei and Samsung. As we noted in an earlier post MetroPCS also now offers Metro USA that expands their coverage out to a claimed 90% of the United States’ population. All combined residents of Los Angeles have a wide array of Pre-Paid offerings to select from the major carriers without having to dip into the non-carrier owned MVNO offerings of Net10, Tracfone, Simple Mobile, H2O Wireless, etc..

Read More...

Tags: Boost Mobile, MetroPCS

Guest Post by: Anna Tumadottir

You can't buy a room ...

Scheduled at the inconvenient time of 4 pm on a Thursday afternoon, I was fortunate enough to have the employment flexibility that allowed me to attend the CPUC hearing regarding the AT&T and T-Mobile "merger".

We arrived just a couple of minutes late to a packed room. Surrounded by people of every race and religion and possible minority group, every seat was full, every person had an opinion, and the back end of the room was flanked by an army of people with bright orange stickers (reminiscent of the Cingular logo of yore) that read MERGER=JOBS // MERGER=ACCESS.

Read More...

Tags: CPUC, AT&T Wireless, T-Mobile

This is the preface to a series of posts documenting international data roaming alternatives on two continents.

It was time to head out on a nineteen day, two continent and three country tour. Most people I know prepare for a travel by packing early, double checking that they have sunblock, enough shoes, shirts, underwear and the like. I on the other hand started about twelve hours prior to the seven AM flight by making sure the batteries to my laptop, iPhone, and Samsung i780 were all charged. A second check confirmed that the credit cards and passport were in their usual spot and I was ready to go. Any missing clothing articles could certainly be purchased along the way. My thoughts were on my internet connectivity which I like to have anytime, anywhere and on any device without paying a fortune. Read More...

In the United States some people have been closely watching the debated changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. See article from the Wall Street Journal. Across the Atlantic in Sweden a sweeping surveillance program was approved in June. Here are link to Times Online and The Register.

The Swedish law calls for the recording and documentation of every communication, email, voice call or SMS, that crosses Sweden’s international border. Civil rights and personal privacy issues aside two very practical issues for the wireless industry and Danish citizens are brought to the forefront. Read More...

Tags: 3

If the media and the analysts are to believed AT&T and Verizon Wireless have decided to undo the shackles and constraints of their respective networks. Considering the holiday season it would seem the Ebenezer Scrooge (Verizon Wireless) and the Grinch (AT&T Wireless) have had their hearts warmed by the benevolent Google and residents of Whoville. Before we knock back the eggnog and planning our 2008 new year resolutions around a more altruistic US carrier industry I would point out a number of items that may make the more jubilant pause.

Verizon Wireless has announced that they will allow devices that meet certain minimum technical standards will be allowed on their network. In addition any software application will be allowed to run on those devices. Shortly thereafter USAToday announced that "AT&T flings cellphone network open." AT&T Wireless CEO de le Vega goes on to say "We are the most open wireless company in the industry." It was no surprise that someone in Kansas City had to find a venue to say something about open networks. Sprint's Kevin Packingham used Sprint's 7th Annual Developer Conference to tout that Sprint has had an open network for years. Somewhere to I imagine T-Mobile USA has made it's me to statement while vigorously pointing to their endorsement of Google's Android.

All the noise aside an open network comes down to two criterium that Verizon seems to have summed up: any device and any software application

There are the obvious obstacles such as CDMA versus GSM and the frequency bands of the devices. This has been hashed over by a litany of analysts and blogs so I won't go into it here except to say that a square peg won't go in a round hole and vice versa. So most of those cool DoCoMo phones won't be available on Verizon no matter how badly you want them. Even so Verizon, Sprint and AT&T may have more credibility to their statements and many news outlets are giving them credit for.

The hot button in Congress, the media and many blogs seems to be around devices and specifically the iPhone. There are two main issues at stake here. First should a carrier be able to make exclusive partnerships with vendors and protect the resulting products and revenue? Second, should a carrier be able to arbitrarily "lock" a device to prohibit it from working on another competing system if there are not technical impediments (i.e. frequency band, technology, etc..).

On the first issue most corporations, Congress and individuals would recognize the rights of a corporation or individual to make exclusive deals with a partner based on some type of mutual consideration. Look at DirectTV's NFL Sunday Ticket, Tiger Woods and Nike, Qualcomm Stadium, airline loyalty programs, digital rights managements, Verizon Wireless's ESPN arrangement, exclusive soft drink contracts with schools and the list goes on. To not allow AT&T their exclusivity of the iPhone calls into question the aforementioned list and countless others.

The second issue on arbitrarily "locking" a handset seems to be almost as old as the wireless industry itself, ok maybe only fifteen years or so. One argument has been that if the handset is subsidized in exchange for a long-term contract then there is mutual consideration. There are several small points that then have not always followed such as the device should be unlocked once a contract is fulfilled or the subsidy repaid, i.e. the early termination fee. The other side to this argument is to bar handset subsidies, as in South Korea and The Netherlands as two examples, and then the customer pays the actual cost. Consumers of course aren't largely interested in paying more money for their handsets as all the carriers are quick to point out. In fact GSM carriers in general have showed varying degrees of willingness to unlock their customer's phones when the above criteria has been met or their customers are traveling abroad for extended periods.

The spotlight turns to the CDMA carriers and their locking practices. Indeed Verizon Wireless did make a significant statement in saying that they would accept devices from other CDMA carriers such as Sprint and Alltel. Sprint has since put in motion the systems to be able to also accept devices from other CDMA carriers too. The CDMA world highlights a number of issues that cross technology platforms and are specifically hardware related. In the CDMA world Sprint operated a mobile IP CDMA2000 network and as such required vendors to supply mobile IP handsets. Verizon Wireless did not operate a mobile IP network until several years ago and therefore had no such restriction. Since the user experience is directly impacted by this network element Sprint's stance in not allowing simple IP devices is logical. This is where Verizon's comment that they can't guarantee the user experience has some credibility. Similarly in the GSM world certain email, multimedia and entertainment services are designed and billed around the ability for a device to support multiple network contexts. This is a two way street in that if a set of services requires hypothetically three network contexts and the device only supports two then there will be impaired or limited functionality. Likewise a device supporting three network contexts on a carrier network that only supports a single or two carrier contexts has reduced functionality. This brings us very close to the application question.

One more comment on devices. AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile all do and have for years differentiated between supported/stocked and unsupported/not stocked hardware. Simply put it is the recognition that the carrier must stock, brand, and offer their customers an array of handsets yet they most likely can't supply 100% of the needs or niche applications. Traditionally these types of devices have been corporate focused, more so than consumer devices, and come from vendors such as Symbol, Intermech, Airlink (now owned by Sierra Wireless), MultiTech, Digi International, Franklin Wireless and the list goes on. The GSM carriers have their certification process for such devices however because of the nature of GSM SIMs it is more a formality than a requirement. The CDMA carriers controlled network access by way of the ESN and so device certification was and is required. These programs are not new and have been around for years. In many cases they are part of the carrier's developer programs. The challenge for the companies that get their hardware certified is distribution and an artificially inflated price if carrier handset subsidies don't apply. If it's not being sold in a carrier store and subsidized the manufacturer needs distribution channels and strong incentives. For hardware the carriers largely control the keys to the store.

These developer programs bring us full circle to the application question. Nextel could be considered a pioneer in the support of independent developers and was followed by Sprint, AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Each carrier has certification programs and developer resources for designing applications that can run on the carrier's devices. Here are the links to Sprint's and AT&T's developer sites. This is where the water gets a bit more muddy since applications run on operating systems and many exclusive content deals rely on application enforcing digital rights management specific carrier network access. J2ME, BREW, Access/Palm, Windows Mobile, RIM, and Symbian are the dominant platforms or operating systems. (RIM has specific API's even though they support a J2ME environment)

Even if an application or content source is not exclusive to a carrier there are significant hurdles to allowing any application on any device. In theory J2ME was supposed to allow a write once deploy everywhere capability for software coders but this has not come to fruition. The plethora of devices supporting different J2ME profiles and capabilities is extensive. (MIDP 1.0, MIDP 2.0, and all the various JSR components). BREW also did not offer a a write once and deploy everywhere environment. Likewise some Microsoft devices support Java, some don't, some run Windows Mobile Professional and others Standard etc. It is understandable that carriers look to work with developers to certify their software to ensure the widest array of device compatibility and the smoothest customer experience. Even so not all developers write their applications for all platforms. (this is a particularly vexing issue to me on the email and Instant Messaging categories). Simply put just because the carrier says ok doesn't mean the application can actually run on a certain device. A different way to look at it would be when your child becomes bored with their Nintendo Wii and wants to play Halo 3 you either must say no or capitulate and purchase a xBox 360. Round peg, square hole.

Let's assume for a minute though that the developer codes for and supports all operating systems and devices for their application. The next step is distribution. Carriers have a very limited amount of space on the device home deck and jealously guard who, what and how they place items there. The carrier has the keys to the store and decides who gets to be front and center for promotional purposes. Think for a moment if you had to punch in a URL on a 10 digit phone keyboard to navigate to a site to try and purchase or download an application? Chances are most people can't even find the menu on their phone that allows for the entering of an independent URL. Smart devices from Palm, RIM, Nokia etc make this process easier with full keyboards yet finding applications independently of the carrier's home deck is still very difficult. Some companies such as Handango have appeared as aggregators yet they don't always allow for the billing of an application directly to your carrier invoice making the purchase process cumbersome to say the least. Beyond billing not all applications can download directly to the device and must be side loaded from a computer. This practice is changing but also exposes the users device to potential malware and malicious downloads. Like the certified but non stocked hardware the carrier controls software access and distribution.

Best Buy in partnership with Carphone Warehouse is looking dive deeper into the US wireless space. Carphone Warehouse in the UK offers a wide array of phones, services, applications, accessories and home broadband. A similar approach to redefining the US wireless retail space is fairly wide open. A brick and mortar retailer combined with a web presence that offered a wide array of unlocked and subsidized devices, support, service and applications could break the carrier lock on the proverbial doors to the store. Think of a Handango/Expansys/Radio Shack type entity. National presence, huge selection, supports and services. All this could be done in partnership with the carriers who already have refined and evolved third party distribution agreements. Carriers would and should support such an initiative as they aren't well suited to being handset logistics or content companies. Just look at all the outsourcing that carriers and MVNOs have done with Brightpoint.

A loose analogy of the wireless carrier hardware and software distribution system can be compared to that of the railroads in the 1800s. The railroads controlled the tracks, the trains, the rates, the ratio of passenger to freight cars and the grain elevators. Farmers were at the mercy of the railroads for the distribution and price of their products. So to are device manufacturers and software developers in the current model beholden to the carrier. Indeed the carriers are open to software and hardware as they are now publicly touting, in fact they have been for years. Maybe Best Buy will change the model, perhaps my suggested hybrid everything to everyone store will develop or maybe nothing will change but I don't expect 2008 to be remarkable simply because of these announcements.


UPDATE: The Register reported that Handango and Carphone Warehouse are partnering to promote mobile software applications and handsets. This is a good step in the direction I was promoting above. A hybrid approach would open a new retail opportunities for both Handango and Carphone Warehouse while bypassing the "pain" of downloading applications on the device. A web kiosk incorporating a Handango portal combined with a WideRay/Qwikker system to "beam" content to the handset would provide a simple instant gratification model. It will be interesting to see if Best Buy/Carphone Warehouse/Handango extend this format to the United States and Canada.

Tags: AT&T Wireless, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA

Clearwire's stock has been hammered in the last month from the cancellation of the Sprint network sharing deal and the overall market conditions. Clearwire appears to be moving forward with several tier one markets now. Job postings were rumored for San Francisco and now a network planning and development manager position has been posted online for Minneapolis / St Paul.

Minneapolis / St Paul would follow Clearwire's midwest launches in St Cloud, Duluth and Eau Claire, WI. Clearwire will face stiff competition from Sprint and Verizon EVDO Rev A, AT&T HSUPA and possibly a muni-WiFi project. Follow the link to Clearwire's national coverage page. Read More...

Tags: Clearwire

It seems a bit strange that Iceland which is about the size of Kentucky and with only 301,000 people would have three wireless carriers in it's capital of Reykjavik. Then again there are two additional carriers looking to launch service in Iceland which would bring the total amount of national carriers to six. With the launch today of the newest carrier, Nova, in Iceland I thought I would take a moment to comment since most non Icelandic sites most likely aren't taking any notice. Even GSMWorld doesn't bother to keep current on the network launch events here in Iceland. Read More...

Tags: HSDPA, Iceland

The inimical part of seizing the initiative with an early operating system release is that you have to brace yourself for the unknown. Obviously this makes sense to everyone sitting on the sidelines waiting for the inevitable service pack or software update.... Read More...

Tags: Apple, OS X, Azureus

Last fall T-Mobile USA started testing their fixed mobile convergence (FMC) consumer service in the Seattle area. FMC is one of those technology groups that's intriguing both for it's practical application as well as it's ability to cause great amounts of confusion with the variety of standards and acronyms.

There are two approaches for improving in-building coverage that are gaining traction across North America and Europe, FEMTO cells and dual mode handsets (cellular and WiFi). Both solutions solve an in-building coverage issue while moving the backhaul to the carrier switch off of the carrier's leased lines and onto the users' broadband DSL or Cable connection. A carrier can find compelling cost savings metrics that apply to RF planning and customer retention efforts.

Both approaches require the seamless handoffs between the macro network and the local FEMTO or UMA (unlicensed mobile access)/WiFi router. This is where the execution has to be flawless. Customers still complain and switch carriers for the most basic reasons of coverage, blocked calls and dropped calls. If the handoff is not seamless the customer will experience more dropped calls and attribute them to the carrier acerbating the problem the solution was designed to fix.

UMA has an advantage in that it can run over almost any WiFi connection but requires special DMH which limits the addressable installed subscriber base. A FEMTO cell is a essentially a micro CDMA or GSM base station allowing it to work with almost the entire existing customer base. The FEMTO cell must integrate with the macro host network and automatically manage it's RF footprint to minimize local interference. There is also the issue that the FEMTO cell broadcasts on licensed spectrum. Carrier spectrum assets carry multi billion dollar price tags and are jealously protected from unauthorized use or interference. Carriers must ensure FEMTO cells only to be deployed in areas where they own or lease the required license. Samsung has partnered with Trimble to make it's UbiCell location aware as one way to restrict usage to the licensed footprint. On the other hand the DMH's use of WiFi for the coverage enhancement sidesteps this issue as WiFi is globally available at the unlicensed spectrums of 2.4 Mhz (B, G and N variants of 802.11).

a UMA DMH enabled handset is a tradeoff of, coverage, signal quality and battery life. This is particularly true in condo and apartment buildings that have high levels of WiFi deployments, causing interference which drives higher power output along with increased battery drain. High density residential buildings are prime candidates for UMA/WiFi deployments but the large quantity of residential WiFi access points that are usually found become a handicap to the service levels needed to ensure a positive experience.

A value proposition component of the DMH powered HotSpots@Home comes from the unlimited calling that does not draw from your plan bucket of minutes. The carrier, in this case T-Mobile, achieves improved network coverage while incurring no cost to carry the increased traffic until it reaches the network core. The unlimited calling has a higher level of attraction in markets that are less price competitive than the United States. None the less it is a compelling feature for the consumer and a strong retention component for the carrier. In markets that employ home tariff rates based on cell site location a DMH FMC solution properly localizes the tariff to the local premises and prevents carrier revenue leakage.

The practical application portion of FMC DMH to address international roaming intrigued me. In theory I could use my Samsung T-Mobile USA phone anywhere in the world where I could access WiFi and make and receive local US calls for free. T-Mobile incurs no costs for the IP traffic until it terminates at their United States based UMA RAN network controller. I stated earlier that the technology needs to be flawless in it's execution which includes seamless handoffs between the DMH WiFi connection and the circuit voice network. Without tight integration calls will drop when moving between the two. To ensure a positive customer experience and limit dropped calls the service needs to be prohibited from functioning in areas where T-Mobile does not have roaming agreements that include UMA/WiFi handoffs. The other side of the coin is that T-Mobile's target audience isn't going to be globe trotting and attempting to utilize the HotSpot@Home service to bypass international roaming charges. Those of us that are one could assume know enough that the calls will be dropped if we stray too far from the WiFi access point.

When I first tried the service internationally I could not successfully connect to T-Mobiles UMA RAN network controller. Technical Customer Care had a series of explanations that ranged from the ridiculous to some that had actual merit. Since the product was still in beta I put the t709 back in a drawer and it only came out again over the next several months for periodic trips to the US.

Recently I powered up the t709 for no particular reason and it promptly connected to the T-Mobile UMA RAN network controller. I was able to make and receive calls internationally as if they were local calls in the US. With a pending trip to the UK and the continent I added the t709 to my bag of toys that accompany me. I had visions of free calling for my various conference calls and the option to not use Skype. At Stansted airport I located the T-Mobile HotSpot area and put my plan in motion. Failure.

T-Mobile HotSpots in the countries I was visiting were T-Mobile owned (just not T-Mobile USA owned) and therefore billed WiFi roaming charges at $0.12 or so per minute. This is the gotcha with the UMA t709. It can not connect to WiFi if the WiFi service has a landing page that requires authentication or some user action prior to unrestricted internet access. This discovery eliminated my airport hopes and limited my calling options to European wireless carrier extortion on roaming or Skype Mobile.

I walked the streets of several of the cities I visited when I had a spare moment looking for a residential WiFi signal to connect to that wasn't locked down. Unfortunately the WiFi signals that leak into the street are usually not of sufficient strength for the t709 to connect with. They are adequate but slow for my Treo to connect (with a Spectec MiniSD card) and pull down email but apparently not sufficient for the t709 UMA connectivity.

After a week of using the t709 I find it a feature that it won't handoff to the local GSM network in my particular case. Conducting a call that is "local" only to have it handoff to the GSM network and start billing at a roaming rate of $0.99 or more a minute would be financially stressful. For most people DMH and FEMTO cells are going to provide new cost saving plan options and a greatly improved voice and data experience where they work and live. For those that are not T-Mobile USA subscribers Sprint will soon be an option as they deploy the Samsung UbiCell.

Tags: Smasmsung T709, T-Mobile, HotSpot@Home, FEMTO Cells, UMA

T-Mobile USA is found of touting the various JD Power and Associates customer care awards. I have had the opportunity to call T-Mobile customer care in the past and have always been dealt with by cheerful and generally competent people. My call yesterday was with the normally dreaded customer service industry interactive voice response units (IRVU).

Some may remember Sprit's ill fated Claire (they named the IRVU) from several years ago. Claire left much to be desired. Claire like systems have inspired me to immediately hunt for the "0" option to be connected to a representative when at all possible, The systems are generally poor, irritating and can run in circles. I am not interested in the underlying technology of the IRVU but instead the experience that it renders while trying to automate and reduce human resource utilization in the customer care experience.

I started yesterday by calling 800-937-8997 as I had locked up my online account access and needed to post a payment. T-Mobile's IRVU was engaging, if that term can be used here, and quickly walked me through the owing balance, processing a credit card payment and bring my account current. In and of itself i don't consider this noteworthy however the IRVU then asked if I wanted to schedule regular automated credit card payments. I told it I "yes" and after a brief pause the IRVU confirmed that my account was configured for recurring credit card payments. I never had to use the ten digit keypad as the speech recognition system worked flawlessly. Best of all I didn't have to talk to a live person and go through the headache of account verification, being told what I already knew and in general dragging out a process.

T-Mobile was able to automate a mundane and irritating task with their IRVU and actually make it a pleasant experience. In fairness if T-Mobile's account management website had made it easy to set up recurring payments I never would have been calling the IRVU.

Many people are probably asking why I am taking the time to write about a pleasant IRVU experience and justifiably so. The simple reason is that poor customer service has become the norm across so many industries that even a brief example of courtesy for a customer, let alone a well executed implementation of technology in a customer facing care system, deserves note and credit.

Industry customer care / experience vice presidents have long had reason to study T-Mobile USA's customer service techniques and this is another one.

Tags: Customer Service, T-Mobile