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RIM’s Secret Weapon

The US analyst community has been holding a wake for RIM in the last few days... It's a pile-on that has driven the stock price down from the upper fifties to the mid forties in the last month. And yeah, RIM's stock price is going to suffer in the short term, not just because of these analyst reports, but because their existing software technology is long-in-the-tooth, to put it politely... I wouldn't count them out, though. RIM's secret weapon is the man I nearly bumped into last week... more

Happy Birthday Wi-Fi

This year is the twentieth anniversary of the formation of the Wi-Fi Alliance and the launch of commercial Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi has become so ubiquitous in our lives that it's hard to believe that it's only been twenty years since all broadband connections came with wires. In 1999 most people were still using dial-up, and that's the year when early adapters started buying DSL. I remember having incredibly long phone cords so that I could use my laptop at different places around the house. more

LTE: Another Way to Estimate when It Will Be Real

Hardly a week goes by without a press release touting how soon we'll be using a Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless network. Verizon has promised a major commercial launch in 2010 and a two-city trial before the end of 2009. Let me show you a little chart I put together for my 3G Tutorial and have repeatedly updated... more

5G Reality Check: February 2020

Given all the clueless, nonsensical assertions coming out of Washington these days about 5G and purported leadership, it seemed time to do another reality check. It was timely at the moment because, with the Coronavirus concerns, the massive 3GPP 5G industry collaboration engine switched to virtual meeting mode for February. Thus – with travel barriers to participation completely absent – the participation metrics represent a real litmus test for even nominal engagement in global 5G industry collaboration and technology development. more

It’s Official: Value Moving to Edge

It's official. A team of market analysts from Oppenheimer are saying [PDF] what I've been saying since 1997, that the apps are separating from the network, and this is driving a wave of "explosive innovation." more

FCC Vote Results: We the People Won

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has just voted to open up the so called TV Whitespaces for UNLICENSED use. This is incredibly good news for rural America in particular but actually for all of America. It's not as important as the election the rest of us in the US voted in today -- but this action is a very, very big deal. Just a few of the benefits... more

Mobile Consolidation - A Threat to Competition

The global financial crisis and the very rapid growth in mobile broadband, thanks to smartphones, have combined to create havoc in the mobile market. On the one hand, we see that customers, especially those in countries seriously affected by the GFC, such as Southern Europe and Ireland, have reduced their mobile use, with the result that there has been a significant drop in Average Revenue per User (ARPU). On the other hand, phenomenal growth has taken place in mobile broadband, but without a significant increase in ARPU... more

Cuba Reaches Five Million Mobile Accounts

Cubans now have 5 million mobile accounts. The five-millionth account was recently opened Guanabacoa, in the eastern part of Havana and we see here that growth slowed last year, but has resumed -- perhaps due to increased 3G availability. Most Cubans have 2G phones, which are used primarily for making calls and sending text messages that may have attached images. more

Can 5G Replace WiFi?

Verizon recently posted a webcast with investors where Ronan Dunne, EVP and CEO of the Verizon Consumer Group said that he believed that 5G hotspots using millimeter wave spectrum would eventually displace WiFi in homes. He cites major benefits of 5G over WiFi. He believes that a 5G network will be more reliable and more secure. He thinks that people will value the safety that comes from having traffic inside their home being encrypted... more

5G Dementia at the FCC

Like the Coronavirus, 5G Dementia seems to be spreading around Washington. The latest manifestation has appeared at the FCC -- which is trying its best to make U.S. 5G infrastructure as insecure and primitive as possible. But first, an explanation of how 5G Dementia begins at the top and spreads in the U.S. capitol. 5G Dementia begins with "The Genius" who lounges around White House quarters and emits spontaneous tweets on whatever motivates him at the moment. more

This COVID-19 Crisis Proves the Internet Is Indeed a Caribbean Right

The coronavirus pandemic has, in the most emphatic way, shown us all just how interconnected everything and everyone is. A worldwide race is underway to minimize human interactions in order to avoid a global catastrophe. The inescapable consequence of these initiatives is an unprecedented shut down of the local, regional and global economy. The latest cost estimate to save the global economy is now at $7 trillion and climbing. more

Sharing: The First Step to Structural Change in Mobile

The arrival of the iPhone, Android and iPad will raise the stakes higher in the mobile broadband market. The fact that iPhone alone has over 140,000 Apps over sort of open networks, not portals, shows the demand for mobile applications. This will put an enormous strain on the infrastructure of the mobile operators and will require them to build fibre networks to all mobile stations, as well as invest in more spectrum and new technologies such as LTE. At the same time the mobile subscriber markets are becoming saturated and competition is driving margins down. more

Smart Phone Sales Have Shifted From the Plateau Phase to a Decline

It looks like the smartphone party has come to an end. The slow down which began in the 2013/2014 timeframe has shifted to decline phase with fewer smartphones sold in 2017 as compared to the 2016 numbers. more

Are You Ready for the Mobile Revolution?

If there is one fundamental trend everyone can agree on in technology circles, it's the move to mobile. More and more online traffic is originating not from PCs, but from smart mobile devices. You can pick your research study to confirm -- recently I read that Tony White of Ars Logica is projecting that by next year 50% of all web traffic will be generated by mobile devices. That may be aggressive, but you get the idea. more

Another G Generation: The Promise of 5.5G

I've read several articles coming out of the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain, and one of the common threads is that there was a lot of talk about 5.5G (or 5G Advanced) - the next iteration of 5G. My first question on reading about this was to ask what new features are being discussed that were not part of the original announced promises of 5G. I went back and read a few of my blogs and other articles that were written when 5G was first announced. more