Telenordic followup
A reader in Norway wrote in with these comments:
"I just want to tell you that I have signed up for Telenordic's GlobalLink service and tested it.The service offers a fixed rate of NOK 2.99 per minute to basically everywhere. It is a 'call back' service where you call a number in Norway and hang up five seconds after initiating the call (just enough time for Telenordic to register the cell phone number you are calling from). Immediately after hanging up, Telenordic calls your cell phone and a machine asks you to enter the number of whom you want to call. Then, a call is set up and charging commences once the called party picks up. For many handsets (it appears they are all(?) running Symbian) you may download a GlobalLink client application. I did this on my SonyEricsson P900. The client simplifies the calling process: basically you just enter a number or click on a contact in your phone's contact list and all the call back-stuff is taken care of behind the scenes. I tried clicking on an entry in my contacts list who lives in Canada and her PSTN-phone started ringing after, say, 10 seconds. Everything worked fine.
My wife has relatives in Pakistan who own cell phones. I will ask her to call them when she comes home to see how that works (I don't speak Urdu and they speak neither Norwegian nor English so I cannot call them myself :). Calling a cell phone in Pakistan is among the more expensive calls one can make from a PSTN phone in Norway. We always try to use SkypeOUT or other VoIP softphones, but quality varies a lot and often we have to use Telenor PSTN (which always works, but their rate is NOK 17 per minute--don't know what the Telenor Mobil rate is, but it is probably astronomic)."
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
From Norway to the world
A mega-hyper value reader points me to the introduction of flat-rate VoIP calling from mobile-to-mobile to any country for NOK2.99 per minute (EUR0.36), from Telenordic. If I'm reading this article correctly, a call from Telenor Mobile to the UK costs NOK7.49 (EUR0.91) per minute. Will look into this one in greater detail.
A mega-hyper value reader points me to the introduction of flat-rate VoIP calling from mobile-to-mobile to any country for NOK2.99 per minute (EUR0.36), from Telenordic. If I'm reading this article correctly, a call from Telenor Mobile to the UK costs NOK7.49 (EUR0.91) per minute. Will look into this one in greater detail.
Monday, April 04, 2005
It's the Skype, stoopid
Got my copy of the Eurescom Message this morning in the post, and it contains this comforting message for telcos - the stupid network is just a myth. Whew, thank God for that. I thought the sector was really in trouble for a minute there (UPDATE: I enjoyed forwarding this to Martin - I could hear him snarling all the way from Edinburgh). My friend Richard seems to be saying something ever-so-slightly at odds with this view in this strong post here (I like his point 10: "Be scared", and also his observation that a lot of the best and brightest in the industry are still in the dark about things like Skype. I have to confess that I rarely come into contact with industry people who are the in the dark about Skype these days, but I know Richard has deep and far-reaching roots in the industry, so his assessment is all the more chilling.).
Got my copy of the Eurescom Message this morning in the post, and it contains this comforting message for telcos - the stupid network is just a myth. Whew, thank God for that. I thought the sector was really in trouble for a minute there (UPDATE: I enjoyed forwarding this to Martin - I could hear him snarling all the way from Edinburgh). My friend Richard seems to be saying something ever-so-slightly at odds with this view in this strong post here (I like his point 10: "Be scared", and also his observation that a lot of the best and brightest in the industry are still in the dark about things like Skype. I have to confess that I rarely come into contact with industry people who are the in the dark about Skype these days, but I know Richard has deep and far-reaching roots in the industry, so his assessment is all the more chilling.).
GIPS going mobile
Following on from last month's Voice Engine for Symbian announcement, Global IP Sound is at it again in the mobile field, this time with OptiMobile of Sweden. OptiMobile has an interesting management lineup, as well as investors.
Following on from last month's Voice Engine for Symbian announcement, Global IP Sound is at it again in the mobile field, this time with OptiMobile of Sweden. OptiMobile has an interesting management lineup, as well as investors.
Friday, April 01, 2005
Look around you
This is the name of a strange current BBC series which aims to ironically capure the spirit and look of the various futuristic science programs which so enthralled viewers in the UK and elsewhere in the 1970s and 1980s. I'm not sure I fully understand the motivations of the creators, but one strong underlying message I get is that trying to predict the future is folly.
This leads me to an unfortunate commercial I saw last night for BT Broadband, in which a pair of grandparents, eager to share photos of their grandkids, inexplicably approach a woman in futuristic garb reminiscent of the stewardess in 2001: A Space Odyssey, who stuffs their photos into a giant pipe and off into the cloud. Fabulous.
The received selling point is that BT Broadband leads its customers into some magical world where their futuristic multimedia dreams come true. Fair enough, you couldn't do these things without a fat-ish pipe, but the tone of the commercial, as I interpreted it, was that BT is somehow actively involved in facilitating photo sharing. This is a bit like your electrical power company claiming to have made your family Christmas merely by giving you the means to light up your tree.
I think the more likely scenario is that the grandparents approach "futuristic lady", who installs the big pipe in their house and disappears, never to be thought about again, unless she messes up their bill at some point in the future. To expect that she retains any position in the chain beyond crude enabler of access is, frankly, naive.
Recently my mind keeps coming back to the comment from a reader in industry in response to this recent post: "We are doing a good job of keeping our eyes on the ball, but I am worried that the consumer may be playing something else than ball."
Indeed, catching up on my blog reading today, I have come across some amazing things which seem to bear this out, via a blog called pasta and vinegar (and this too), J D Lasica's blog, and Dan Gillmor, not to mention the Skype Journal (are these men on fire, or what?) observation that Skype awareness is significantly accelerating. How much clearer can the message to the telcos be? Look around you.
This is the name of a strange current BBC series which aims to ironically capure the spirit and look of the various futuristic science programs which so enthralled viewers in the UK and elsewhere in the 1970s and 1980s. I'm not sure I fully understand the motivations of the creators, but one strong underlying message I get is that trying to predict the future is folly.
This leads me to an unfortunate commercial I saw last night for BT Broadband, in which a pair of grandparents, eager to share photos of their grandkids, inexplicably approach a woman in futuristic garb reminiscent of the stewardess in 2001: A Space Odyssey, who stuffs their photos into a giant pipe and off into the cloud. Fabulous.
The received selling point is that BT Broadband leads its customers into some magical world where their futuristic multimedia dreams come true. Fair enough, you couldn't do these things without a fat-ish pipe, but the tone of the commercial, as I interpreted it, was that BT is somehow actively involved in facilitating photo sharing. This is a bit like your electrical power company claiming to have made your family Christmas merely by giving you the means to light up your tree.
I think the more likely scenario is that the grandparents approach "futuristic lady", who installs the big pipe in their house and disappears, never to be thought about again, unless she messes up their bill at some point in the future. To expect that she retains any position in the chain beyond crude enabler of access is, frankly, naive.
Recently my mind keeps coming back to the comment from a reader in industry in response to this recent post: "We are doing a good job of keeping our eyes on the ball, but I am worried that the consumer may be playing something else than ball."
Indeed, catching up on my blog reading today, I have come across some amazing things which seem to bear this out, via a blog called pasta and vinegar (and this too), J D Lasica's blog, and Dan Gillmor, not to mention the Skype Journal (are these men on fire, or what?) observation that Skype awareness is significantly accelerating. How much clearer can the message to the telcos be? Look around you.
Dutch WLL
KPN and T-Mobile have been awarded the 26GHz licenses in the Dutch market after an unnamed third bidder dropped out of the process. My barbaric machine translation suggests that T-Mobile walked away with 2/3 of the spectrum on offer. The licenses run to 2017. Given their aggression on the Wi-Fi front so far, it's hardly surprising that DT would emerge as the dominant force here, and I'm intrigued to see what takes shape around this spectrum. T-Mobile is already conducting Flarion trials in The Hague, and T-Mobile Ventures is a shareholder in Flarion, as well as in mesh specialist BelAir Networks.
KPN and T-Mobile have been awarded the 26GHz licenses in the Dutch market after an unnamed third bidder dropped out of the process. My barbaric machine translation suggests that T-Mobile walked away with 2/3 of the spectrum on offer. The licenses run to 2017. Given their aggression on the Wi-Fi front so far, it's hardly surprising that DT would emerge as the dominant force here, and I'm intrigued to see what takes shape around this spectrum. T-Mobile is already conducting Flarion trials in The Hague, and T-Mobile Ventures is a shareholder in Flarion, as well as in mesh specialist BelAir Networks.
Open source management consultancy
Slightly off-topic, but as our overriding focus is on disruption, and we have discussed a number of industries outside telecom from time to time, this one's for you, McKinsey. A group of smart people who have an unabashed affection for UK supermarket chain J. Sainsbury have set up a group blog to identify strategic flaws and solutions to help the company dig itself out of the hole it's in. Marketing and customer service heads have certainly been given plenty to chew on over the years from the likes of the Digital Spy forums, but this is the first case I've seen in Europe of a company-specific blog which is actively trying to engage management in how to run the business better.
Slightly off-topic, but as our overriding focus is on disruption, and we have discussed a number of industries outside telecom from time to time, this one's for you, McKinsey. A group of smart people who have an unabashed affection for UK supermarket chain J. Sainsbury have set up a group blog to identify strategic flaws and solutions to help the company dig itself out of the hole it's in. Marketing and customer service heads have certainly been given plenty to chew on over the years from the likes of the Digital Spy forums, but this is the first case I've seen in Europe of a company-specific blog which is actively trying to engage management in how to run the business better.
Vive la TDD
Interesting how little attention this announcement seems to have received, possibly because the deployment France Telecom is pursuing in its home market seems fairly innocuous and non-threatening. What I would be more interested to learn is what scope there is to exploit this in the residential space in markets where FT/Orange is a bit weaker (Netherlands, UK). In the UK, where Orange and Wanadoo appear to be lining up a more coherent cross-marketing arrangement, this could be really interesting. In fact any UK operator has the spectrum to pursue this line, with the exception of Vodafone, whose license contains no TDD, and I assume from comments here that OFCOM would welcome such a development.
Interesting how little attention this announcement seems to have received, possibly because the deployment France Telecom is pursuing in its home market seems fairly innocuous and non-threatening. What I would be more interested to learn is what scope there is to exploit this in the residential space in markets where FT/Orange is a bit weaker (Netherlands, UK). In the UK, where Orange and Wanadoo appear to be lining up a more coherent cross-marketing arrangement, this could be really interesting. In fact any UK operator has the spectrum to pursue this line, with the exception of Vodafone, whose license contains no TDD, and I assume from comments here that OFCOM would welcome such a development.
Distributed BitTorrent, the final frontier
Well, we're one quarter on from the assault on Suprnova and the premature reports of the death of BitTorrent, and meanwhile Germany seems to be emerging as a hotbed of next-gen P2P applications. Cybertelly is poised for launch, and newcomer Anatomic looks to be another emerging challenge to centralized control of content. An interview with the developer is here, and it sounds as though he's a high school student...
Well, we're one quarter on from the assault on Suprnova and the premature reports of the death of BitTorrent, and meanwhile Germany seems to be emerging as a hotbed of next-gen P2P applications. Cybertelly is poised for launch, and newcomer Anatomic looks to be another emerging challenge to centralized control of content. An interview with the developer is here, and it sounds as though he's a high school student...
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Taking a byte out of TV viewing
I have received a user ID and password for Cybertelly, which I will set up tonight at home. The message was accompanied by two pieces of information: service launch has been delayed by a temporary injunction from Premiere (which presumably didn't want any adverse press ahead of its IPO), and is now expected to start on 12th April.
I have received a user ID and password for Cybertelly, which I will set up tonight at home. The message was accompanied by two pieces of information: service launch has been delayed by a temporary injunction from Premiere (which presumably didn't want any adverse press ahead of its IPO), and is now expected to start on 12th April.
What's in the box?
The Thomson story gets more interesting, and is one which I return to from time to time. Here is a toaster maker which looks to be assembling the ideal all-singing, all-dancing home gateway, while also trying to position itself in the DRM and transaction layers of IP-based content, presumably so as to avoid being marginalized as yet another CPE maker. This week brings two more interesting acquisitions along this dual-theme. Tuesday the company acquired Inventel, which looks like just the sort of company a Skype or Popular Telephony would do well to get to know. Today Thomson has acquired German content watermarking specialist MediaSec, whose management team have highly credible backgrounds in security. I'm not sure I understand fully how all the pieces will come together, but it's interesting to watch as it takes shape.
The Thomson story gets more interesting, and is one which I return to from time to time. Here is a toaster maker which looks to be assembling the ideal all-singing, all-dancing home gateway, while also trying to position itself in the DRM and transaction layers of IP-based content, presumably so as to avoid being marginalized as yet another CPE maker. This week brings two more interesting acquisitions along this dual-theme. Tuesday the company acquired Inventel, which looks like just the sort of company a Skype or Popular Telephony would do well to get to know. Today Thomson has acquired German content watermarking specialist MediaSec, whose management team have highly credible backgrounds in security. I'm not sure I understand fully how all the pieces will come together, but it's interesting to watch as it takes shape.
In search of a name
One valued reader, who clearly has too much time on his hands /;-) writes in to ask if there is a collective noun for financial analysts (as in a "gaggle" of geese, or a "pack" of dogs). I await your suggestions.
My first humble contributions would be:
a "fodder" of analysts
a "baffle" of analysts
a "lemming" of analysts
a "drone" of analysts
None of this is meant to be disrespectful in any way, just good clean fun. We shouldn't take ourselves too seriously. If we're lucky we might occasionally be just a bit better than the information we have to work with, and sometimes that's not all it should be.
UPDATE: I have had my first reader submission:
a "posse" of analysts (I like it, though it may make us sound a bit hipper than we are)
One valued reader, who clearly has too much time on his hands /;-) writes in to ask if there is a collective noun for financial analysts (as in a "gaggle" of geese, or a "pack" of dogs). I await your suggestions.
My first humble contributions would be:
a "fodder" of analysts
a "baffle" of analysts
a "lemming" of analysts
a "drone" of analysts
None of this is meant to be disrespectful in any way, just good clean fun. We shouldn't take ourselves too seriously. If we're lucky we might occasionally be just a bit better than the information we have to work with, and sometimes that's not all it should be.
UPDATE: I have had my first reader submission:
a "posse" of analysts (I like it, though it may make us sound a bit hipper than we are)
More hackle-raising muni-network stuff
An ultra-special reader points me to this interesting blog from LafayetteProFiber, a group of pro-fiber activists in Lafayette, Louisiana. The site has a lot of interesting resources, most recently this paper on the issue of market concentration, but is not without a good sense of humor.
An ultra-special reader points me to this interesting blog from LafayetteProFiber, a group of pro-fiber activists in Lafayette, Louisiana. The site has a lot of interesting resources, most recently this paper on the issue of market concentration, but is not without a good sense of humor.
The Empire Strikes Back, again
I maintain a keen interest in developments in the Norwegian market, not only because it is a lovely country full of nice people, but also because it looks to me like a laboratory for future developments elsewhere. It is the only market in Europe (so far) where the regulator has explicitly mandated naked DSL, it has an aggressive FTTH player, and is the only market where an access-independent VoIP provider has gained enough critical mass to risk causing the incumbent some pain. Therefore, I've naturally been eager to see the response from the incumbent.
Telenor revealed its pricing yesterday, and this inevitably raises the issue of comparability with Telio. The noticeable differences are:
I maintain a keen interest in developments in the Norwegian market, not only because it is a lovely country full of nice people, but also because it looks to me like a laboratory for future developments elsewhere. It is the only market in Europe (so far) where the regulator has explicitly mandated naked DSL, it has an aggressive FTTH player, and is the only market where an access-independent VoIP provider has gained enough critical mass to risk causing the incumbent some pain. Therefore, I've naturally been eager to see the response from the incumbent.
Telenor revealed its pricing yesterday, and this inevitably raises the issue of comparability with Telio. The noticeable differences are:
- Telenor has drastically undercut Telio on monthly line rental (NOK49 vs. NOK159), as well as its own PSTN monthly line rental (NOK159). Again, not only is the company dealing with competition issues, but also with the naked DSL threat, so pricing VoIP at this level potentially claws back some of what might otherwise be lost completely.
- The line rental charge has no inclusive minutes, unlike Telio, which offers free unlimited calling to fixed lines in Norway and all of Western Europe and North America, as well as 100 free minutes to a selection of other countries. Only on-net calls are free.
- Telenor is charging for call set-up, whereas Telio foregoes this, and mobile pricing is significantly higher on Telenor (NOK1.19 - 1.85, depending on network, vs. NOK0.89 to any network on Telio).
- Though a subtle distinction, Telenor states that its activation fee is zero, but charges NOK499 plus postage for the ATA. Telio charges NOK495 for activation, but states that this includes the adaptor (postage separate).
- Telenor VoIP customers can port an existing PSTN number for free (generous of them given that it's an internal transaction), whereas Telio (and therefore Telio customers) has to pay NOK110 for the privilege.
My sense is that, rather than go head-to-head for the intensive user who probably uses Telio already, Telenor is pitching this at a more marginal user, and one more risk-averse. Playing around with a spreadsheet (which I can't replicate here because Blogger doesn't do tabular data), it looks to me as though, for anyone making less than about 130 minutes of fixed line calls per month (to both fixed and mobile) within Norway, the Telenor plan may offer some slight savings over Telio. The more marginal the user, the greater the savings over Telio (at 90 minutes per month I come up with c.15%). However, once we start adding in international calling, these quickly evaporate.
Telenor, however, is (rightly or wrongly) the "devil you know" for many Norwegian consumers, and for households considering cutting the cord and going with naked DSL and mobile only, this product may be a more palatable alternative, particularly if they have only a very weak loyalty to fixed line services in general. To these customers I assume Telenor will push the message of lower cost of ownership (which they theoretically can claim in certain scenarios), as well as free number portability and a familiar brand. How, and if, it is marketed aggressively outside this target audience is an issue I will be very keen to observe.
UPDATE: An astute reader points out that I failed to clearly note that naked DSL from Telenor costs NOK60 per month more than if the DSL subscription is accompanied by PSTN subscription. I excluded this factor initially because, strictly speaking, it relates to broadband access, not voice service. However, it is arguably a part of the cost equation which consumers would consider in a purchase decision (and could be viewed as an effective surcharge on VoIP). Plugging this NOK60 increment into the cost comparison (effectively as a higher monthly line rental cost) pretty much wipes out savings over Telio, except at very low levels of usage (60 minutes per month). In other words, a Telenor DSL customer looking to opt out of the PSTN would be leaving behind a NOK159 monthly subscription fee in exchange for a NOK49 VoIP subscription, plus an additional NOK60 for naked DSL, with call charges unchanged. Taking this into account, I'm not convinced that there is a huge incentive to adopt the product as it is now.
Change partners
M&A mayhem appears to have broken out. Reuters is reporting that Alfa Group of Russia (TeliaSonera's partner in MegaFon) has tabled a higher bid for the 27% of Turkcell which TeliaSonera appeared to have nailed on Tuesday. I, and seemingly everyone else, subsequently upgraded the stock, as this sort of deal would truly transform the fortunes of the group, and judging from the relative performance of TeliaSonera and Telenor yesterday, it looked like there was a lot of switching going on, on this basis. Oh dear. This should make the next MegaFon board meeting even more interesting...
M&A mayhem appears to have broken out. Reuters is reporting that Alfa Group of Russia (TeliaSonera's partner in MegaFon) has tabled a higher bid for the 27% of Turkcell which TeliaSonera appeared to have nailed on Tuesday. I, and seemingly everyone else, subsequently upgraded the stock, as this sort of deal would truly transform the fortunes of the group, and judging from the relative performance of TeliaSonera and Telenor yesterday, it looked like there was a lot of switching going on, on this basis. Oh dear. This should make the next MegaFon board meeting even more interesting...
More money than sense?
I've observed a number of times that the incumbent sector looks certain to adopt VoIP as a blunt weapon in the quest for out-of-footprint growth, but if we ever needed any confirmation that European telecom is awash with cash and running short on ideas, we need look no further than the current flap surrounding the auction of a 51.1% stake in Cesky Telecom.
Telefonica has yet to acknowledge that it is bidding, though a Bloomberg story this morning quotes an official related to the auction as saying that Telefonica has bid 502kr per share, and a press release from Swisscom this morning confirms that it bid 481.5kr per share and will not revise the offer (CeskyTelecom closed yesterday at 401.6kr, so both bids constitute a nice premium for control).
Swisscom's press release insinuates that other bidders (I read that as "Telefonica") might break up the company, and also makes clear that it has proposed a secondary listing of Swisscom stock on the Prague exchange to prevent a collapse in liquidity should Cesky be delisted (it is 14.9% of the Prague Exchange). Swisscom is understandably miffed at the direction of the auction, as its geographic location and longstanding interest in acquiring Telekom Austria (I expect largely due to its investments elsewhere in Eastern Europe) arguably make it the only bidder with an obvious strategic rationale for being there. What possible fit Telefonica can see with its other operations is far from clear, unless there's some lost Czech-Hispanic cultural connection that I'm missing.
All this smacks vaguely of industry desperation, and the sense of frustration must be immense. Swisscom is already committed to buying back a very generous amount of stock this year, and others are following suit (KPN has done a fifth of its annual target in the past month alone, and will continue buying through the closed period). All that effort, and yet no one seems to care, judging from performance. Of the 18 STOXX industry groups, telecom is the third worst performer on both short (3-month) and long (5-year) term bases (and it's the only sector to see negative absolute performance over three months), and is bottom quartile on a one and two year view. Maybe investors are sensing, rightly or otherwise, that acquisition criteria in the sector are becoming more fluid as the cash piles up.
I've observed a number of times that the incumbent sector looks certain to adopt VoIP as a blunt weapon in the quest for out-of-footprint growth, but if we ever needed any confirmation that European telecom is awash with cash and running short on ideas, we need look no further than the current flap surrounding the auction of a 51.1% stake in Cesky Telecom.
Telefonica has yet to acknowledge that it is bidding, though a Bloomberg story this morning quotes an official related to the auction as saying that Telefonica has bid 502kr per share, and a press release from Swisscom this morning confirms that it bid 481.5kr per share and will not revise the offer (CeskyTelecom closed yesterday at 401.6kr, so both bids constitute a nice premium for control).
Swisscom's press release insinuates that other bidders (I read that as "Telefonica") might break up the company, and also makes clear that it has proposed a secondary listing of Swisscom stock on the Prague exchange to prevent a collapse in liquidity should Cesky be delisted (it is 14.9% of the Prague Exchange). Swisscom is understandably miffed at the direction of the auction, as its geographic location and longstanding interest in acquiring Telekom Austria (I expect largely due to its investments elsewhere in Eastern Europe) arguably make it the only bidder with an obvious strategic rationale for being there. What possible fit Telefonica can see with its other operations is far from clear, unless there's some lost Czech-Hispanic cultural connection that I'm missing.
All this smacks vaguely of industry desperation, and the sense of frustration must be immense. Swisscom is already committed to buying back a very generous amount of stock this year, and others are following suit (KPN has done a fifth of its annual target in the past month alone, and will continue buying through the closed period). All that effort, and yet no one seems to care, judging from performance. Of the 18 STOXX industry groups, telecom is the third worst performer on both short (3-month) and long (5-year) term bases (and it's the only sector to see negative absolute performance over three months), and is bottom quartile on a one and two year view. Maybe investors are sensing, rightly or otherwise, that acquisition criteria in the sector are becoming more fluid as the cash piles up.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Muni Networks - this time it's personal
Via a highly valued reader, the American Public Power Association has published a scathing rebuttal to the Rizzuto and Wirth 1998 study often cited as the definitive source by opponents of municipal network projects. Beyond getting their cash flow definition profoundly wrong, the authors are also accused of bias by association with the then-TCI.
Via a highly valued reader, the American Public Power Association has published a scathing rebuttal to the Rizzuto and Wirth 1998 study often cited as the definitive source by opponents of municipal network projects. Beyond getting their cash flow definition profoundly wrong, the authors are also accused of bias by association with the then-TCI.
Expanding Skype-o-sphere
While I'm still waiting to see a depiction of Skype use in a TV drama, or some other popular culture affirmation that Skype use is going mainstream, users are getting on with the business of using. The first example is from a community media perspective, the second from the U.S. National Network of Libraries of Medicine, which is connected with the NIH.
While I'm still waiting to see a depiction of Skype use in a TV drama, or some other popular culture affirmation that Skype use is going mainstream, users are getting on with the business of using. The first example is from a community media perspective, the second from the U.S. National Network of Libraries of Medicine, which is connected with the NIH.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Reading for the long weekend
It's a four day weekend in the UK, so here's another one for the reading pile, via Digital Music News. The Consumer Federation of America has done what looks to be an interesting paper on the wider issues surrounding P2P, in an attempt to take the debate beyond the familiar "this is your brain, and this is your brain on P2P" hysteria.
It's a four day weekend in the UK, so here's another one for the reading pile, via Digital Music News. The Consumer Federation of America has done what looks to be an interesting paper on the wider issues surrounding P2P, in an attempt to take the debate beyond the familiar "this is your brain, and this is your brain on P2P" hysteria.
Spectrum of opinion
Interesting paper here in response to OFCOM's spectrum consultation in the UK, by Open Spectrum. I like the emphasis on encouraging OFCOM to regard license-exempt uses as normal rather than exceptional, and also the gentle chiding of OFCOM for ghetto-izing cognitive and software-defined radio as "threats."
Interesting paper here in response to OFCOM's spectrum consultation in the UK, by Open Spectrum. I like the emphasis on encouraging OFCOM to regard license-exempt uses as normal rather than exceptional, and also the gentle chiding of OFCOM for ghetto-izing cognitive and software-defined radio as "threats."
Mutual assured destruction: another step
Tiscali has confirmed one of the worst-kept secrets in Italy: negotiations to sell-out to Telecom Italia in France. The company has never broken out specific broadband numbers by country, but their user breakdown from Q4 suggests something like 400k users in France, which is big enough for FT, Cegetel, Iliad and Neuf to worry about, particularly once they're in the hands of a properly financed and aggressive player like TI. Just another log on the deflationary funeral pyre. Over to you now, DT...
Tiscali has confirmed one of the worst-kept secrets in Italy: negotiations to sell-out to Telecom Italia in France. The company has never broken out specific broadband numbers by country, but their user breakdown from Q4 suggests something like 400k users in France, which is big enough for FT, Cegetel, Iliad and Neuf to worry about, particularly once they're in the hands of a properly financed and aggressive player like TI. Just another log on the deflationary funeral pyre. Over to you now, DT...
Bridgeport update
There's no sign of an announcement yet on their site, but Bridgeport Networks has apparently been given the Frost & Sullivan award for product differentiation in Europe. Can't wait for that first blockbuster announcement in Europe!
There's no sign of an announcement yet on their site, but Bridgeport Networks has apparently been given the Frost & Sullivan award for product differentiation in Europe. Can't wait for that first blockbuster announcement in Europe!
P2P = Pod2Pod
More validation for the rise of device-to-device content transactions, this time from Pew Internet. One-fifth of music/video downloaders have swapped content directly between iPods and MP3 players, not far from the number (28%) which has used email and IM. I expect other forms of portable storage have also played a significant role. Does anyone expect that this trend wouldn't accelerate with zeroconf Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or UWB in the handset?
As usual, the incumbents in the content world seem to be backing legal, walled garden approaches that rely on some sort of centralized control, but having put P2P networks on the run through litigation, it's inevitable that users will find a workaround. The Pew research suggests that users are falling back on old-fashioned personal relationships as the new P2P network, and what the mainstream offerings being developed so far seem to ignore is this social aspect, which makes monetizing the device-to-device transaction more difficult. Others, at the edge of the market, are trying something else, but genuinely untethering it to capture these offroad transactions is going to be challenging, though not impossible. This is going to be fascinating to watch unfold.
More validation for the rise of device-to-device content transactions, this time from Pew Internet. One-fifth of music/video downloaders have swapped content directly between iPods and MP3 players, not far from the number (28%) which has used email and IM. I expect other forms of portable storage have also played a significant role. Does anyone expect that this trend wouldn't accelerate with zeroconf Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or UWB in the handset?
As usual, the incumbents in the content world seem to be backing legal, walled garden approaches that rely on some sort of centralized control, but having put P2P networks on the run through litigation, it's inevitable that users will find a workaround. The Pew research suggests that users are falling back on old-fashioned personal relationships as the new P2P network, and what the mainstream offerings being developed so far seem to ignore is this social aspect, which makes monetizing the device-to-device transaction more difficult. Others, at the edge of the market, are trying something else, but genuinely untethering it to capture these offroad transactions is going to be challenging, though not impossible. This is going to be fascinating to watch unfold.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
More IR weirdness
Yesterday we saw an IR department spreading nasty emails about an analyst report, today we have another apparently pimping one. Am I alone in thinking this is very strange?
Yesterday we saw an IR department spreading nasty emails about an analyst report, today we have another apparently pimping one. Am I alone in thinking this is very strange?
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Leapfrog
Cellular connectivity on the London Underground by 2008 - wonderful. Why not? There's fiber, electricity and millions of mobile users down there, afterall. Brokers should immediately return to their spreadsheets and pencil in a 20% increase in MoU for UK cellcos, and Londoners everywhere should be proud to know that, within only three years, they will be on a par with the experience of Beijing subway riders at least two years ago (based on my personal experience). Frankly, the "text-o-rism" threat mentioned in this report is risible, next to the daily reality of potential incendiary/gas/pathogenic mayhem which is obvious to any thinking user of the Tube. There is also no mention of the greatly enhanced ability to alert the emergency services which such connectivity would offer.
Cellular connectivity on the London Underground by 2008 - wonderful. Why not? There's fiber, electricity and millions of mobile users down there, afterall. Brokers should immediately return to their spreadsheets and pencil in a 20% increase in MoU for UK cellcos, and Londoners everywhere should be proud to know that, within only three years, they will be on a par with the experience of Beijing subway riders at least two years ago (based on my personal experience). Frankly, the "text-o-rism" threat mentioned in this report is risible, next to the daily reality of potential incendiary/gas/pathogenic mayhem which is obvious to any thinking user of the Tube. There is also no mention of the greatly enhanced ability to alert the emergency services which such connectivity would offer.
Tomorrow never knows
Well, actually it does, sometimes. I'm going to be in and out of action tomorrow, but here's a bit of post-dated blogging - look for a fairly major announcement tomorrow from XConnect.
Well, actually it does, sometimes. I'm going to be in and out of action tomorrow, but here's a bit of post-dated blogging - look for a fairly major announcement tomorrow from XConnect.
Variations on a theme
A few weeks back I posted this piece, which was one of several over the past year which touch on the dilemma faced by incumbents in the growing tension between handset-as-exploitable-endpoint (point of sale) for the carriers, and handset-as-independent-capture-and-storage-device, eventually (soon) capable of off-net device-to-device content sharing. Judging from this piece, it looks like I am not alone. It's hardly surprising that the folks at Weedshare would have a similar worldview, but if we accept the idea that the mysterious non-appearance of the ROKR at CTIA and CeBIT is down to a carrier backlash at the uppity handset makers, then I think their case is even stronger.
A few weeks back I posted this piece, which was one of several over the past year which touch on the dilemma faced by incumbents in the growing tension between handset-as-exploitable-endpoint (point of sale) for the carriers, and handset-as-independent-capture-and-storage-device, eventually (soon) capable of off-net device-to-device content sharing. Judging from this piece, it looks like I am not alone. It's hardly surprising that the folks at Weedshare would have a similar worldview, but if we accept the idea that the mysterious non-appearance of the ROKR at CTIA and CeBIT is down to a carrier backlash at the uppity handset makers, then I think their case is even stronger.
ECTA Q4 broadband stats
Just out, hot as a pistol, and free. France and the Netherlands are once again confirmed as PTT nightmare zones, with unbundled lines accounting for 25% of DSL connections in each market, as we forecasted. Sweden saw a big move (17% to 24%) in Q4, and markets like Greece, though far smaller, continue to shame the likes of the UK.
Just out, hot as a pistol, and free. France and the Netherlands are once again confirmed as PTT nightmare zones, with unbundled lines accounting for 25% of DSL connections in each market, as we forecasted. Sweden saw a big move (17% to 24%) in Q4, and markets like Greece, though far smaller, continue to shame the likes of the UK.
Below the belt, below the radar
Recently I've devoted some space to funny happenings on the IR front, so here's another good one. About 90 minutes ago I got a press release from Alcatel Investor Relations attacking the work of an analyst at another firm, and disputing the conclusions reached in a recent research note. I don't know the background, so I can't comment on the relative merit of each argument, but I've had a look on the website, and this press release isn't there (if it appears later, then apologies and please don't issue another press release on my account).
UPDATE: Now the following day, and still no sign of this release on the website. It's interesting how a company of this stature feels it can diss an analyst to a narrow audience (presumably investors and other analysts) with impunity, but doesn't have the courage of its convictions to do so in a public forum.
Recently I've devoted some space to funny happenings on the IR front, so here's another good one. About 90 minutes ago I got a press release from Alcatel Investor Relations attacking the work of an analyst at another firm, and disputing the conclusions reached in a recent research note. I don't know the background, so I can't comment on the relative merit of each argument, but I've had a look on the website, and this press release isn't there (if it appears later, then apologies and please don't issue another press release on my account).
UPDATE: Now the following day, and still no sign of this release on the website. It's interesting how a company of this stature feels it can diss an analyst to a narrow audience (presumably investors and other analysts) with impunity, but doesn't have the courage of its convictions to do so in a public forum.
It's getting crowded in here
Further to this post on internet advertising, figures released today show UK internet advertising expenditure up 44.5% in real terms in 2004, and in absolute terms almost reaching the same level as radio advertising. It would be really interesting to see a Nielsen//NetRatings-like breakdown of impressions in the UK market to plot against this.
Returning to radio, we appear to be entering a phase of consolidation in 2005, but I'm really curious to see what happens in 2006, when we should have some Digital Radio Mondiale receivers in the market, and some funny things happening with traditional market boundary definitions.
Further to this post on internet advertising, figures released today show UK internet advertising expenditure up 44.5% in real terms in 2004, and in absolute terms almost reaching the same level as radio advertising. It would be really interesting to see a Nielsen//NetRatings-like breakdown of impressions in the UK market to plot against this.
Returning to radio, we appear to be entering a phase of consolidation in 2005, but I'm really curious to see what happens in 2006, when we should have some Digital Radio Mondiale receivers in the market, and some funny things happening with traditional market boundary definitions.
And now for some truly disruptive wireless
Further to the previous post, this may be of interest in addressing some of the interoperability issues raised in the link below. Noteworthy quote: "By the time committees come up with a standard, and industry designs radios that meet the specifications, the technology is often obsolete."
Further to the previous post, this may be of interest in addressing some of the interoperability issues raised in the link below. Noteworthy quote: "By the time committees come up with a standard, and industry designs radios that meet the specifications, the technology is often obsolete."
Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle
Phrase used back in my native Tennessee, which has the dubious historical distinction of hosting the Scopes Trial (or the battle between evolution and anti-evolution). Anyway, I am often tempted to say this in mock-shock when I come across stories like this one. VoIP over wireless? A proliferation of wireless technologies fostering a breakdown of order in the mobile voice market? Damn, I'm gonna have to read this report. How much does it cost?
Phrase used back in my native Tennessee, which has the dubious historical distinction of hosting the Scopes Trial (or the battle between evolution and anti-evolution). Anyway, I am often tempted to say this in mock-shock when I come across stories like this one. VoIP over wireless? A proliferation of wireless technologies fostering a breakdown of order in the mobile voice market? Damn, I'm gonna have to read this report. How much does it cost?
Digital blindspot
UK leading camera retailer and photo processing business Jessops (which only floated last November) issued a regular trading update yesterday, in which it said full year results would be "significantly below" previous expectations. The market responded with a brutal 30% drubbing of the share price. The Financial Times coverage of the story quotes the CEO as saying that the past six weeks have been the worst he has seen in seven years at the company, and underlines the fact that management apparently had no explanation for the sudden deterioration. Apart from whatever seasonal and macro effects may be involved, is there more to the story than is being considered?
This slide pack (see page 11) from the maiden set of results last December contains a discussion of market dynamics and a market forecast out to 2008, with observations that the replacement cycle for digital cameras is shorter, and that the company has first mover advantage in digital processing and printing. However, to a casual outside observer there are a couple of obvious pieces missing from the puzzle: cameraphones and online photo hosting/sharing. As I thought people in the imaging industry might have clocked by now, cameraphones are getting steadily more acceptable as candidates to absorb replacement demand from "traditional" digital cameras, and at an almost ludicrous pace. It also seems to me that the market outlook given last year clearly ignored the potential for demand to be sucked out of the local market, and into cyberspace, by global players with other agendas (sound familiar, telcos?).
It seems hard to believe that this would not have even been factored in to the previous outlook, and if my reading of the situation is correct, it looks like another example of industry vertical silo thinking ("TV and internet are fundamentally separate media", "Skype can never be an acceptable replacement for the QoS of the PSTN", "Freeview can't be viewed as serious competition to pay TV", "cameraphones are not a suitable replacement for digital cameras.") Consumers famously vote with their feet, and it's painful when companies get so badly wrong-footed.
UK leading camera retailer and photo processing business Jessops (which only floated last November) issued a regular trading update yesterday, in which it said full year results would be "significantly below" previous expectations. The market responded with a brutal 30% drubbing of the share price. The Financial Times coverage of the story quotes the CEO as saying that the past six weeks have been the worst he has seen in seven years at the company, and underlines the fact that management apparently had no explanation for the sudden deterioration. Apart from whatever seasonal and macro effects may be involved, is there more to the story than is being considered?
This slide pack (see page 11) from the maiden set of results last December contains a discussion of market dynamics and a market forecast out to 2008, with observations that the replacement cycle for digital cameras is shorter, and that the company has first mover advantage in digital processing and printing. However, to a casual outside observer there are a couple of obvious pieces missing from the puzzle: cameraphones and online photo hosting/sharing. As I thought people in the imaging industry might have clocked by now, cameraphones are getting steadily more acceptable as candidates to absorb replacement demand from "traditional" digital cameras, and at an almost ludicrous pace. It also seems to me that the market outlook given last year clearly ignored the potential for demand to be sucked out of the local market, and into cyberspace, by global players with other agendas (sound familiar, telcos?).
It seems hard to believe that this would not have even been factored in to the previous outlook, and if my reading of the situation is correct, it looks like another example of industry vertical silo thinking ("TV and internet are fundamentally separate media", "Skype can never be an acceptable replacement for the QoS of the PSTN", "Freeview can't be viewed as serious competition to pay TV", "cameraphones are not a suitable replacement for digital cameras.") Consumers famously vote with their feet, and it's painful when companies get so badly wrong-footed.
Trackback fatigue
Enough already. Happy to be mentioned on Engadget, but this story seems to be getting more distorted with each degree of separation, as in a message starting out as "My brother has a new bike" ends up as "Your mother is an old dyke." So, for the avoidance of doubt, I never said there weren't security options to deal with this. My point was a bit more subtle, or at least I thought so. Stuart and Martin also have a lot of interesting things to say on the issue of presence management, which was really at the root of what I was trying to say.
Enough already. Happy to be mentioned on Engadget, but this story seems to be getting more distorted with each degree of separation, as in a message starting out as "My brother has a new bike" ends up as "Your mother is an old dyke." So, for the avoidance of doubt, I never said there weren't security options to deal with this. My point was a bit more subtle, or at least I thought so. Stuart and Martin also have a lot of interesting things to say on the issue of presence management, which was really at the root of what I was trying to say.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Skype photo essay 1
Today I had lunch with Niklas Zennstrom. The last time we met for lunch, Skype for Windows CE was still a prototype. Things have clearly changed a lot since then. I'm not going to blog what we talked about today, but I have gotten his agreement to let me do an in-depth interview in the future, which I hope will go beyond what we normally see. Instead, here are some photos from the office, which I think tells us a lot about the company.
Skype occupies inconspicuous serviced office space in an unremarkable sidestreet in Soho. The only hint of extravagance is the frosted glass logo in the doorway, and we're talking about a pane of glass about the size of a PC screen.
Skype photo essay 2
Enter the office and this is the first thing you see. A coat rack, a handful of vinyl banners (presumably for events and conferences), boxes of promotional stuff stacked up. What you don't see in this photo is five poorly aligned clocks, under each of which is an unassuming ordinary piece of paper taped to the wall, displaying the name Tallinn, Luxembourg, London, San Francisco, or Tokyo. The whole office is unwired, and the handful of laptops I could see were not necessarily state of the art.
Skype photo essay 3
There are also a number of plants which appear to be standard office rental items, and some anonymous reception area furniture probably from Ikea or perhaps Habitat. I enjoyed the large number of Skype/tom.com cushions strewn about, which were one of the few frivolities in view.
None of this is intended to be in any way derogatory, rather I think it is refreshing, and a pretty clear analogue for the industry. Skype's offices are virtual offices (maybe even a caricature of an office), meant to house the people developing the application and marketing it, not to be emblematic of a piece of national heritage, provide fine dining experiences, or to challenge the set designers on Battlestar Galactica.
SkypeOut ARPUs may be miniscule, but they're also not expected (as far as I can see) to cover the costs of lavish surroundings. And herein lies the rub for the traditional telco - how much do you really need, and how much can you do without, both in terms of your traditional business, and your expectations of standard of living?
Storage, the enemy within
The message to the consumer is ambiguous, and if you're a mobile network, you must feel fairly ambivalent. Yes, the handset can be a catch-all device for content, but how are the bytes getting in the handset?
What I did on my summer vacation, part 2...
Om has the goods on PSP Video 9, another good example of what MSc Computing candidates can get up to in their spare time. This time it's the author of Videora, which was one touchstone of the tortuously long BSkyB note I produced last month. PSP Video 9 takes the whole prospect of portable video and place-shifted content another notch higher. Again, here is a game-centric phenomenon potentially impacting adjacent industries in a way that the defending incumbents might not have envisaged. Has use as a gaming console occurred to any of the portable video device makers?
Om has the goods on PSP Video 9, another good example of what MSc Computing candidates can get up to in their spare time. This time it's the author of Videora, which was one touchstone of the tortuously long BSkyB note I produced last month. PSP Video 9 takes the whole prospect of portable video and place-shifted content another notch higher. Again, here is a game-centric phenomenon potentially impacting adjacent industries in a way that the defending incumbents might not have envisaged. Has use as a gaming console occurred to any of the portable video device makers?
Anyone can play
Last year at VON Europe, I included a slide on the theme of how interesting applications can come from nowhere, and used TeamTalk, which I had only just stumbled across, as an example. Brainchild of a single computer science masters degree candidate in Denmark, it claims a lot of features which "conventional" VoIP users might dream of - unlimited conference call participants, narrowband compatability, 3D spatial positioning of conference participants. It's interesting to see what direction voice can take when the starting point is something other than reinventing telephony - in this case it was the expectations and demands of massively multi-player gaming, which are shaped by a different user experience. TeamTalk is now available as a developer kit for 3rd parties looking to integrate voice into other applications.
Last year at VON Europe, I included a slide on the theme of how interesting applications can come from nowhere, and used TeamTalk, which I had only just stumbled across, as an example. Brainchild of a single computer science masters degree candidate in Denmark, it claims a lot of features which "conventional" VoIP users might dream of - unlimited conference call participants, narrowband compatability, 3D spatial positioning of conference participants. It's interesting to see what direction voice can take when the starting point is something other than reinventing telephony - in this case it was the expectations and demands of massively multi-player gaming, which are shaped by a different user experience. TeamTalk is now available as a developer kit for 3rd parties looking to integrate voice into other applications.
Come friendly bombs
These are the first three words of a famous poem about Slough, which is also home to mobile network O2 (and also to the fictional company Wernham Hogg featured in The Office, although one building used in the opening sequence is actually near Waterloo Station in London and is home to the Central Office of Information). Anyway, it seemed an apt introduction to the feature in the "Jobs & Money" section of The Guardian on Saturday, which sought to bring the drama and economic benefits of the MVNO price war to the masses. I met up for coffee with a UK wireless entrepreneur last week, who told me he is personally aware of at least six MVNOs preparing to go live in the coming months, in addition to whatever more exotic services may emerge in the converged space.
These are the first three words of a famous poem about Slough, which is also home to mobile network O2 (and also to the fictional company Wernham Hogg featured in The Office, although one building used in the opening sequence is actually near Waterloo Station in London and is home to the Central Office of Information). Anyway, it seemed an apt introduction to the feature in the "Jobs & Money" section of The Guardian on Saturday, which sought to bring the drama and economic benefits of the MVNO price war to the masses. I met up for coffee with a UK wireless entrepreneur last week, who told me he is personally aware of at least six MVNOs preparing to go live in the coming months, in addition to whatever more exotic services may emerge in the converged space.
Stepping on your footprint
More today from the competitive dystopia which is the Dutch market. Het Financieele Dagblad reports today that UPC is to proceed with plans to unbundle DSL lines outside its footprint (as we fully expected), bringing it into confrontation not only with KPN and Versatel, but also fellow MSOs Casema and Essent. The emphasis initially will be broadband access and VoIP, to be followed later by IPTV, apparently by Q4. If I understand the crude machine translation I ran, there is reference to a EUR300m price tag for the investment, which, if correct, may further fuel some of the discontent brewing in the market over cable pricing, and the uses to which the cash is put.
More today from the competitive dystopia which is the Dutch market. Het Financieele Dagblad reports today that UPC is to proceed with plans to unbundle DSL lines outside its footprint (as we fully expected), bringing it into confrontation not only with KPN and Versatel, but also fellow MSOs Casema and Essent. The emphasis initially will be broadband access and VoIP, to be followed later by IPTV, apparently by Q4. If I understand the crude machine translation I ran, there is reference to a EUR300m price tag for the investment, which, if correct, may further fuel some of the discontent brewing in the market over cable pricing, and the uses to which the cash is put.
Friday, March 18, 2005
Silhouettes on the shade
In the year that I've been doing this blog thing, one thing which has always interested me intensely is who is reading. Given that I syndicate entire articles, people using newsreaders never need enter the site, to be picked up by my sitemeter tag (challenge - can you find it on this page?). However, my observation is that only around 10% of visitors are entering the site from a newsreader.
Anyway, I've always been curious to see not only who was coming in, but also from where. Sometimes the limited data I can see paints a pretty clear scenario, other times not. One thing that has always intrigued me is the almost complete absence of broker URLs, particularly in light of some of my inflammatory views on the future of research. This seems to have changed a bit in the past few days, and I'm not quite sure why. Hello, whoever you are.
In the year that I've been doing this blog thing, one thing which has always interested me intensely is who is reading. Given that I syndicate entire articles, people using newsreaders never need enter the site, to be picked up by my sitemeter tag (challenge - can you find it on this page?). However, my observation is that only around 10% of visitors are entering the site from a newsreader.
Anyway, I've always been curious to see not only who was coming in, but also from where. Sometimes the limited data I can see paints a pretty clear scenario, other times not. One thing that has always intrigued me is the almost complete absence of broker URLs, particularly in light of some of my inflammatory views on the future of research. This seems to have changed a bit in the past few days, and I'm not quite sure why. Hello, whoever you are.
You're gonna have to serve someone
Readers of this bloglet may have noted that I am developing an obsession with ancillary industries lining up to feed on the desperate carcass-to-be which is the telecom industry. First and foremost among them is advertising, which in my casual observation, seems to be going great guns in the UK market as the various carriers, handset manufacturers and broadband access providers swim ever faster to avoid being washed away by hypercompetition and consumer forces which they may not really grasp. David Jackson, who seems to be quietly pioneering this holy grail of hybrid blog and solid fundamental research (another developing obsession), has some very exhaustive and interesting observations to share. I slotted both Google and Yahoo! in my global model portfolio for this year in anticipation of exactly this scenario (not that I have anything to show for it yet...).
On a related note, if this weblink weren't broken, you would see the Nielsen//NetRatings press release I received earlier today, which contains the following table, which reveals that Vonage ranked third in numbers of impressions in the US in the month of February:
Top 10 Advertisers by Company
Advertiser*------------------------------Impressions (000)
1. LowerMyBills.com, Inc.-----------------2,535,700
2. Netflix, Inc.-----------------------------1,884,247
3. Vonage Holdings Corp-------------------1,791,195
4. Dell Computer Corporation --------------1,656,487
5. Ameritrade Holding Corporation---------1,652,247
6. United Online, Inc.-----------------------1,395,761
7. Monster Worldwide, Inc.-----------------1,365,388
8. InterActiveCorp--------------------------1,357,191
9. Scottrade, Inc.----------------------------1,320,070
10. The News Corporation Limited ----------1,318,400
*Impressions reported exclude house ads, which are ads that run on anadvertiser's own Web property.
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings
Outgunning the likes of Dell, Ameritrade, Monster and Rupert Murdoch must carry quite some price tag.
Readers of this bloglet may have noted that I am developing an obsession with ancillary industries lining up to feed on the desperate carcass-to-be which is the telecom industry. First and foremost among them is advertising, which in my casual observation, seems to be going great guns in the UK market as the various carriers, handset manufacturers and broadband access providers swim ever faster to avoid being washed away by hypercompetition and consumer forces which they may not really grasp. David Jackson, who seems to be quietly pioneering this holy grail of hybrid blog and solid fundamental research (another developing obsession), has some very exhaustive and interesting observations to share. I slotted both Google and Yahoo! in my global model portfolio for this year in anticipation of exactly this scenario (not that I have anything to show for it yet...).
On a related note, if this weblink weren't broken, you would see the Nielsen//NetRatings press release I received earlier today, which contains the following table, which reveals that Vonage ranked third in numbers of impressions in the US in the month of February:
Top 10 Advertisers by Company
Advertiser*------------------------------Impressions (000)
1. LowerMyBills.com, Inc.-----------------2,535,700
2. Netflix, Inc.-----------------------------1,884,247
3. Vonage Holdings Corp-------------------1,791,195
4. Dell Computer Corporation --------------1,656,487
5. Ameritrade Holding Corporation---------1,652,247
6. United Online, Inc.-----------------------1,395,761
7. Monster Worldwide, Inc.-----------------1,365,388
8. InterActiveCorp--------------------------1,357,191
9. Scottrade, Inc.----------------------------1,320,070
10. The News Corporation Limited ----------1,318,400
*Impressions reported exclude house ads, which are ads that run on anadvertiser's own Web property.
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings
Outgunning the likes of Dell, Ameritrade, Monster and Rupert Murdoch must carry quite some price tag.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Always be polite
I'm presently finding a distinct lack of enthusiasm for writing my contribution to our global monthly product. I decided to trawl the analyst ratings pages on Bloomberg in search of something to spur me into action. I think I might have found it. I compiled 418 analyst ratings on 15 stocks (SBC, Verizon, BellSouth, Nextel, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, BT Group, Telefonica, NTT, KDDI, DoCoMo, SK Telecom, China Mobile, Telstra), and here's the split I got:
Positive 50%
Neutral 38%
Negative 12%
The MSCI World Telecom Index has underperformed the MSCI by 5.3% year-to-date. The power of positive thinking may be impotent.
I'm presently finding a distinct lack of enthusiasm for writing my contribution to our global monthly product. I decided to trawl the analyst ratings pages on Bloomberg in search of something to spur me into action. I think I might have found it. I compiled 418 analyst ratings on 15 stocks (SBC, Verizon, BellSouth, Nextel, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, BT Group, Telefonica, NTT, KDDI, DoCoMo, SK Telecom, China Mobile, Telstra), and here's the split I got:
Positive 50%
Neutral 38%
Negative 12%
The MSCI World Telecom Index has underperformed the MSCI by 5.3% year-to-date. The power of positive thinking may be impotent.
Sticks and stones may break my phones...
The MVNO catfight in the UK is much more interesting than politics or soap operas. Today Easy Mobile issues a retort.
The MVNO catfight in the UK is much more interesting than politics or soap operas. Today Easy Mobile issues a retort.
The real digital divide
Last night I was sitting on the sofa, playing around with Skype, watching a bit of television, and generally being unproductive. I tormented myself by watching an interview with another sell-side telecom analyst who, when asked about VoIP, referred to a company I'd never heard of called "Sky-pee" (hey is it March 2005 or what?). I can only assume that said analyst may not have had any personal experience with Sky-pee, and I wonder generally what proportion of finance industry pundits have actually taken the time to consider the user experience before dismissing it as "kidstuff."
I then got pinged on Skype by a guy in our IT department who also uses it - or so I thought. It turned out to be his 17-year-old son, who was responding to my earlier unanswered IM, just to say, "This is xxxxx's son. My dad's asleep now." We had a brief chat, and then I wrote, "It's 11:00 PM and Jeremy Paxman has just appeared on my TV screen - that's my cue to go to bed." The reply was:
"Jeremy Paxman?"
The American equivalent of this when I was 17 would have been to say, "Who's Tom Snyder?" Inconceivable. He might as well have said, "What's broadcast TV?"
I paused. He responded, "Don't worry, I'll Google him."
We signed off, and I thought about the diverging worlds underlying all this convergence. Telcos, in your IPTV assault, make sure your focus groups are full of 17 year-olds. And analysts, get in the game.
Last night I was sitting on the sofa, playing around with Skype, watching a bit of television, and generally being unproductive. I tormented myself by watching an interview with another sell-side telecom analyst who, when asked about VoIP, referred to a company I'd never heard of called "Sky-pee" (hey is it March 2005 or what?). I can only assume that said analyst may not have had any personal experience with Sky-pee, and I wonder generally what proportion of finance industry pundits have actually taken the time to consider the user experience before dismissing it as "kidstuff."
I then got pinged on Skype by a guy in our IT department who also uses it - or so I thought. It turned out to be his 17-year-old son, who was responding to my earlier unanswered IM, just to say, "This is xxxxx's son. My dad's asleep now." We had a brief chat, and then I wrote, "It's 11:00 PM and Jeremy Paxman has just appeared on my TV screen - that's my cue to go to bed." The reply was:
"Jeremy Paxman?"
The American equivalent of this when I was 17 would have been to say, "Who's Tom Snyder?" Inconceivable. He might as well have said, "What's broadcast TV?"
I paused. He responded, "Don't worry, I'll Google him."
We signed off, and I thought about the diverging worlds underlying all this convergence. Telcos, in your IPTV assault, make sure your focus groups are full of 17 year-olds. And analysts, get in the game.
Don't rattle my coax cage
Yet another groot-value reader just forwarded me a press release from UGCEurope, responding to the bombshell article in yesterday's Trouw. It's in Dutch, and there's no sign of it on either the UGCEurope website, or that of parent UnitedGlobalCom. The reader's translation is:
"UPC demands rectification of Trouw
UPC requires from Trouw a rectification of its statetement that UPC in the Netherlands in 2004 made a net profit of euro 200 million, or a profit of 87 euro per customer. The real tale is that UPC Netherlands made a loss of euro 50 million, or euro 20 per customer.
In the past years UPC in the Netherlands has invested some billions of euro and it will continue to invest hundreds of millions euro of in the Netherlands.
UPC asks Trouw to be more meticulous in the future with its financial and economic reporting.
UPC Netherlands are a consolidated subsidiary of UnitedGlobalCom Inc. (UGC)"
I understand that a couple of opposition parties in the Dutch parliament have asked awkward questions of the Economic Affairs Minister based on yesterday's article, and I also understand that Trouw today carries an article seeking to draw a contrast between UPC and a small regional MSO in Brabant, which publishes a breakdown of the cost of its services here. The total per home, including 19% VAT, is EUR10.50, and this MSO only has 2,600 customers, some of whom were not easy to reach. The implication seems to be that UPC, with a customer base nearly 1,000x greater, and much better clustering in its footprint, should be able to amortize costs more effectively given its scale, i.e., whatever the stated accounting profits might be, the cash costs should be well below those of Brabant.
I think what we are witnessing here is a journalist with a tiger by the tail, and an evermore politicized, maybe even nationalistic aspect to it, and I think we can expect the saga to run. It's worth remembering that the Dutch market has previously explored the course of mandatory unbundling of the cable plant, and I wonder if this mounting debate will revive calls for such action.
Yet another groot-value reader just forwarded me a press release from UGCEurope, responding to the bombshell article in yesterday's Trouw. It's in Dutch, and there's no sign of it on either the UGCEurope website, or that of parent UnitedGlobalCom. The reader's translation is:
"UPC demands rectification of Trouw
UPC requires from Trouw a rectification of its statetement that UPC in the Netherlands in 2004 made a net profit of euro 200 million, or a profit of 87 euro per customer. The real tale is that UPC Netherlands made a loss of euro 50 million, or euro 20 per customer.
In the past years UPC in the Netherlands has invested some billions of euro and it will continue to invest hundreds of millions euro of in the Netherlands.
UPC asks Trouw to be more meticulous in the future with its financial and economic reporting.
UPC Netherlands are a consolidated subsidiary of UnitedGlobalCom Inc. (UGC)"
I understand that a couple of opposition parties in the Dutch parliament have asked awkward questions of the Economic Affairs Minister based on yesterday's article, and I also understand that Trouw today carries an article seeking to draw a contrast between UPC and a small regional MSO in Brabant, which publishes a breakdown of the cost of its services here. The total per home, including 19% VAT, is EUR10.50, and this MSO only has 2,600 customers, some of whom were not easy to reach. The implication seems to be that UPC, with a customer base nearly 1,000x greater, and much better clustering in its footprint, should be able to amortize costs more effectively given its scale, i.e., whatever the stated accounting profits might be, the cash costs should be well below those of Brabant.
I think what we are witnessing here is a journalist with a tiger by the tail, and an evermore politicized, maybe even nationalistic aspect to it, and I think we can expect the saga to run. It's worth remembering that the Dutch market has previously explored the course of mandatory unbundling of the cable plant, and I wonder if this mounting debate will revive calls for such action.
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