Spectrum of Greed

Wireless Revenue Juggernaut

It is past April fools, but I couldn’t resist.  AOL isn’t really charging per IM - but cell phone providers are.  As a means to grasp what is going on in the text messaging world, downloading the song Complication by Nine Inch Nails would cost $9,512.50…if you paid current text message rates of .24 per 140 characters of text sent.  That’s right - IMing on a cell phone generates big bucks!  SMS, or text messaging, is the fastest growing part of the cell phone providers product portfolio, and the least costly to provide.  Compared to downloading music or video, the little text messages barely make a blip on the traffic monitors of internet service providers.  This means BIG margins for those that provide text messaging services.  This explains why in America’s toughest economy in more than a decade, cell phone provider profits were up substantially.  Maybe AIG isn’t the only place that a little outrage should be directed.

Gregg Christofferson, who’s 13 year old daughter Dena sent 10,000 texts to friends in the course of a month and received a similar number, received a shocking bill for $4,756.25.  The total amount of data that was moved by the wireless ISP for this charge?  2.67 Megabytes.  If Comcast or another wired ISP charged this for people using IM, the nation would be outraged.  Dad was understandably outraged, and took his frustration out on his daughters cell phone.  Great headlines for the media to play with, but shouldn’t we look a little harder at these incidents?  (continue reading…)

Wireless Achille's heel

Group urges FCC … Wow, deja vu, man!  If you do a google search of the first 3 words of this post, a truism is apparent: over 135,000 entries testify to the futility of asking the FCC to intervene on behalf of the citizens of this country.  The rest of the headline repeated today is …urges FCC to open AT&T 3G network to Skype on iPhone.

I am encouraged that many in the media have picked up on this particular effort when wireless battles traditionally go unsung by the press.  I think they have because a different tack is being taken by the Free Press advocates in addressing the FCC.  In the past, they have aimed at the large, overwhelming grievances enacted on consumers by carriers when they are limited in choice and restricted in use of both wired broadband and wireless services, of which only a sub-set is internet.

There is no specific remedy for large grievances that can be pursued under the current rules that the FCC has deployed, as so many of them are vague and being violated in one form or another.  This time however, the advocacy group is playing with more finesse, approaching their adversary with more respect and aiming their energy at the Achilles heel that has been exposed by the popular iPhone and the highly publicized Skype Voice over IP internet service.  Many are watching these events and quietly getting excited, because the chance for real change may actually be upon us. (continue reading…)

Fill seats, avoid complaint!

I love this picture.  As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.  I think some points should be awarded here for creativity.  If you want to cut down the opposition at a hearing that could threaten your revenue stream, there aren’t too many better ways to do it than enlisting the disinterested to replace the passionate.  Many of the ills that befall us in today’s society are a direct result of apathy.  When a company can find a way to make apathy work for them, you have to give them a little credit, don’t you? (continue reading…)

The future of mobile internet - sucks!

But does it have a Hemi? On the 2009 Dodge Ram, a new feature amongst the other high tech bells and whistles is now available.  A wireless internet access point called Autonet, by Mopar, will allow you to wander up to 100 feet from your trusty pickup and attain speeds of 400-800k!  This will allow one person to watch YouTube video that looks like a flip book silent movie, and two or more people trying to use their laptops will need to go into Dunkin’ Donuts to get breakfast while their internet pages load.  It does looks pretty cool though.  Has that matte black techie appearance. (continue reading…)