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…)

Craigs List for a cell phone - Coming to Kenya first!

According to FastCompany’s most recent article highlighting wireless innovation beginning on the Serengeti before it does in New York or Boston, trickle up is a new innovation phenomenon that will sweep the planet. Not so fast. The conclusions are incorrect for the wireless marketplace. There is a much more important reason why innovation MUST occur outside the US and then perhaps one day (if we are lucky) find it’s way here. It isn’t user choice as the article hints at with the quick references to two obscure wireless companies, insinuating they just couldn’t get customers interested.

In the US, we have a walled garden where the wireless gatekeepers don’t let innovators in because it would jeopardize a rich revenue stream for them. If they don’t get a significant cut of the pie, you can’t play ball, and they would rather just do it themselves. See a recent article from ARSTechnica on Canadian reaction to these restrictions. (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…)