Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Mike Barry - Vecima Networks and WiMax

On this week's podcast, I spoke with Mike Barry about the current state of WiMax, and what his company is doing to move it forward. Mike is the CFO of Saskatchewan-based Vecima Networks, one of the few publicly-traded Canadian IP communications vendors. It was nice to talk about a TSX-listed company now, given how Espial just went public there last week. I'm working on them for an upcoming podcast, so stay tuned.

Mike and I talked about where fixed WiMax is today, including issues around standards, in-building coverage, what's driving adoption and what types of operators are embracing it. Mike also commented about emerging trends and applications, especially around video. He also touched on elements that make Saskatchewan a good place for their company to be based.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Mike Barry.


Technorati tags: Vecima Networks, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, WiMax

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Stephane Marceau - Mobivox and Mobile Skype

This week, my guest was Stephane Marceau, who was returning for a second time on my podcast series. Stephane is the CEO of Montreal-based Mobivox - formally known as Voxlib. Mobivox is a pretty interesting company that enables Skype on any mobile phone - so, no downloads are needed. They also have a strong voice recognition component, so you can use Mobivox hands-free to see who's available on Skype, and then to initiate a call to any endpoint that's in your Skype directory.

That's enough about Mobivox. Aside from this, Stephane and I talked about the bigger picture market around mobile VoIP, and why Skype is such an attractive audience for applications such theirs. Stephane talked further about how mobile phones are the preferred mode now for how many people communicate, and all the ways that VoIP and presence can make for a better user experience. In particular, he cited the convenience of continuing a mobile conversation on a landline connection without having to drop the call and dial back in. Another example was initiating a group call with multiple parties while on a mobile call - something you can't do with regular wireless service.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Stephane.








Technorati tags: Mobivox, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Stephane Marceau, mobile Skype

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Oz Communications and Mobile Messaging

My guest this week was Hilmar Gunnarsson, the EVP of Sales and Marketing for Oz Communications. Oz is a Montreal-based company doing a lot of good things in the mobile messaging space, and I've been wanting to do a podcast with them for some time. They got some healthy funding a few months back, and continue to announce deals with major wireless carriers. Late last month, they made an interesting acquisition of Thumbspeed, which helps push them beyond SMS and into the realm of mobile social networking.

Hilmar provided some background on the popularity of mobile messaging in Europe, and some thoughts as to why it's been slower to gain acceptance here in North America. From there, we discussed the value proposition around mobile messaging for both subscribers and carriers, and then broadened the discussion to how mobile messaging is evolving towards being a social networking platform. Oz is certainly a company to watch in this space, so if you're following mobile messaging, I think you'll enjoy our conversation.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Hilmar.



Technorati tags: Oz Communications, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, mobile messaging

Nokia N95 - Not What the Wireless Carriers Had in Mind

It's been a Vonage-centric week for me, and I increasingly seem to be the go-to guy for the media when they make news (as you can see from my most recent media citings listed on the right side of this blog page).

Between that and project work, I'm a bit behind on other stuff, but wanted to comment on an item from yesterday that caught my eye.

Being part of the Nokia N Series blogger relations program, I get to trial some pretty cool phones. The latest is the N95, which I don't have yet, but others do. That said, I don't have to have the phone in hand to understand what N95 users are rightfully complaining about.

Andy Abramson posted yesterday about what's going on. The N95 has a lot of great features, with WiFi and Internet telephony being key. Well, it looks like some European mobile operators are disabling the N95's capabilities to make VoIP calls. Just basic self-interest at play here, of course. Why divert profitable minutes off your 3G networks to providers who are basically enabling free mobile calls?

So, just because you can do that, does it mean you should? That's the bigger question, and the one we really have be wary of. Oligopolies often behave in a manner that serves their interests first, and they do it because they can. With WiFi networks springing up like mushrooms, it's only a matter of time before mobile VoIP goes mainstream, and if you alienate the early adopter, you'll surely lose them when everyone is doing this. It's really no different from what the landline operators have gone through, and they're paying big time now that the cable operators have come to market with great VoIP and attractive bundles. History is going to repeat itself with wireless VoIP, and the incumbents can only put things off for so long.

Until that time comes, subscribers will be shortchanged, and downright angry when they lay out good money for breakthrough phones like the N95, only to find out the operators don't want them using some of the best features. Truphone is one of the mobile VoIP operators being affected by this, and there's a nice video on their blog that explains this in more detail.

Looks like this is a case where it doesn't pay to be ahead of the market, and maybe the N95 is here too soon. I would say the opposite, actually. WiFi is here today, and the sooner handset vendors bring these types of devices to market, the more consumers will realize that carriers aren't playing fair ball. It will take more than a few early adopters from the blogosphere to get the carriers to cry Uncle, so the sooner the better, I'd say.

Speaking of the Nokia N95, colleague Alec Saunders posted his review earlier today. He's a tecchie par excellence, and his review is really great, covering all the cool things you'd want to know about this fabulous phone. Can't wait to get mine, and will share my thoughts ASAP.




Technorati tags: Nokia N95, Jon Arnold, Andy Abramson, Alec Saunders

Wireless Number Portability - the Pursuit of Happyness

In Canada, the big day for wireless watchers is Wed this week. That's the day WNP - Wireless Number Portability - takes effect. This topic is getting almost as much attention right now as the shift to Daylight Savings Time this weekend! It sure is great to look out the window at 7pm and still see daylight. Plus, the weather has really warmed up, and hey, it's just starting to feel good all over. Our winters are long here, so forgive me for rambling....

Not surprisingly, WNP is getting heavy play in the media, and this weekend, the Globe & Mail kicked off the first of a series of features on what the fuss is all about. As the title of my post implies, the name of the game is customer satisfaction.

We have just a handful of wireless carriers here, so it's all about keeping the customer happy and not giving him/her a reason to switch. This article focuses on how Telus claims to have the highest satisfaction among its subscribers, and is being challenged by Virgin Mobile for this distinction. Since all the wireless operators are offering similar services, there isn't much differentiation happening. Also, since the market is basically an oligopoly, you're not going to see the carriers get into a price war. So, they're going to compete on customer service and satisfaction, which are good things to be doing, but I'm not sure it's going make much difference.

Frankly, I think this is largely a zero sum game where the deck just gets shuffled a bit, but at the end of the game, there are still 52 cards. WNP might help nudge overall adoption of wireless up a bit, as there will be some who are ready to cut their landline. But for the majority, it's about switching from one wireless carrier to another, and I don't think there will be any huge swings once it's all said and done. Win one, lose one....

The Globe article presented some very interesting data about how the market shares vary wildly from province to province. Their data is from 2005, so it's not entirely accurate, but I don't think the overall picture has changed that dramatically. Basically, Telus leads in the 2 main Western provinces (their home base) - B.C. and Alberta. Bell owns the Atlantic region and has a strong hold on Quebec. Rogers is the leader in Ontario, but Bell is not far behind. And then there's Saskatchewan and Manitoba, both of which are practically monopolies, where the provincial wireless operators hold most of the subscribers. Very interesting mix, especially considering that while Rogers may be the #1 wireless operator in Canada, in 2005, they were the market leader in only one province - Ontario. I'll stop there, as I get a bit nervous reading much more into data from 2005.

Numbers aside, I think we can expect to see Bell aggressively go after Telus's stronghold out West. After all, wireless is the reason why Telus has been such a stock market darling, and the inverse has largely been true for Bell. Telus, of course, will try to do the same out East, as this is has been by far the market they've had the most success penetrating. They aren't in the residential landline business here, and they've had limited success in the business market. So, they have a lot riding on wireless for their growth plans out East.

And then there's Rogers. They've had the hot hand lately, adding more subs than anyone, and have the most interesting mix of services that can be bundled. I know first hand, since I'm a Rogers customer. I've been getting constant calls and mailers from them about how I can upgrade my wireless plan. So, Rogers will be a target for both Bell and Telus, making this a three-way race. It will be fascinating to watch how this plays out, especially by region, and when the scorecard comes my way, I'll be posting.

UPDATE - I held off posting so I could read today's WNP feature in the Globe & Mail, and that's a good thing. Today's story raised some very interesting points that only reinforce my view that WNP may not be that big a deal in the end.

1. When you port your number, guess what? You have to get a new phone. Ughh. In the voice-only days, that wasn't such a big deal. But with today's Swiss Army Knife phones, people's whole lives are stored on their mobile phones, so now there's more work involved to transfer all your directories, MP3s, videos, photos, etc. to another phone. Presuming you can find a phone that you like. To me, that can be a significant switching cost in terms the effort involved.

On that count, WNP may well favor those who have the coolest phones. In my books, that's gotta be Rogers, mainly because they're on GSM. That means the Blackbery Pearl. And... big drum roll...if you can wait until summer... the iPhone. The jury is still out - at least for me - as to whether the iPhone will re-invent mobility, but I'd much rather have that product in my stable than in someone else's.

For those of you who have read this far along, you may notice that there's no mention of this point in the article I just referred to. Correct. It was mentioned in a sidebar that ran the print edition, but not online. So, you don't get all the good stuff online - but you do the reader comments, which I just love.

2. Contracts. Unlike the VoIP world, wireless is all about the contracts. It's not always so easy to just up and go to another carrier. I know I'm in the middle of 3 year terms for both my cell phone and my Blackberry, and it's going to be expensive if I decide to switch carriers. I think it's a pretty safe bet that our wireless carriers won't be waving these penalties come Wednesday. So, another switching factor to consider.

3. Did you know...."When a customer moves their number to another carrier, for example, that data will be transferred via a hub in Tampa operated by Syniverse Technologies Inc." ???

I had no idea, and this point is kind of buried in the article. Syniverse Technologies may be well known in the wireless community, but they're hardly a household world among consumers. I don't think it's a stretch to say that some Canadians would be uncomfortable if they knew that their efforts to port over to a new carrier would entail sending personal data down to the U.S.

This subtlety was not lost on readers of this article, and a quick scan of the comments confirms my suspicions - at least from a few readers. This may well be one of those things that's no big deal, but the fact that WNP is not a complete made-in-Canada handoff, will not sit well with everyone. In my books, that's going to be another reason for some people to just stay put.



Technorati tags: Bell Mobility, Jon Arnold, Rogers Wireless, Wireless Number Portability, Telus

WNP Making Canadian Wireless Market Interesting - Did Bell Make a Good Deal?

Wireless Number Portability - WNP - is a big deal in Canada right now, as it's been a long time coming, and is just around the corner now. We have 3 major wireless carriers here, and they're all gearing up for this since they're all going to be making frenzied pitches to steal landline subscribers away from each other. Bell certainly has the most to lose here since they have the largest base of wireline subscribers.

Not surprisingly, late yesterday, Bell announced a new plan for unlimited local calling between all Bell wireline and wireless numbers. They have special "Bell to Bell" plans for new subscribers, and existing subscribers can add this service "for as little as $10 a month".

While this sounds like a good plan, it comes at a cost. So it's an interesting twist where the subscriber is actually paying more money to stay with Bell. Of course, they're getting the benefit of free Bell-to-Bell calling, and if it works, Bell wins at both ends. They get higher ARPU - something impatient shareholders are dying to see - and they keep their customers from running to Rogers or Telus or... ummm... oh - possibly Virgin or Amp'd. We don't really have many choices in the first place, and that's what makes WNP so interesting.

Wireless competition in Canada is another topic unto itself, and I'm just trying to draw attention to how the major mobile operators are responding to changing market conditions.

So, back to my question - is this a good plan for Bell subscribers? As Howie would say, "let's open the last case and see just how good a deal you really made". Well, a few days ago, Rogers came out with their WNP salvo - My Home Connections. Guess what - it includes domestic long distance calling between Rogers wireline/wireless subscribers - and there's no charge. Gee, I think I know what Howie would say. Stacey, open the case...

Quick sidebar - interestingly, no news from Telus on this front. Of course they jumped the gun offering adult content to differentiate themselves, but that's not happening now, and perhaps they're taking a more cautious approach this time around. Good idea.

Fellow Canadian bloggers Mark Evans and Mark Goldberg have been posting about this as well if you want further reading. The latter post is particularly worthwhile as Mark raises some important questions about the government's role in promoting competition where we basically have a oligopoly.



Technorati tags: Bell Mobility, Jon Arnold, Rogers Wireless, Wireless Number Portability

Telus and Mobile Porn - the Pushback Begins

Last week I posted about Telus and their news about offering adult content to mobile subscribers. Well, this indeed is a North American first, and the expected "scorn for porn" fallout has begun.

Today's Globe & Mail had a piece about this, and I'm sure it won't be the last. Not surprisingly, the voice of dissent is coming from the Roman Catholic Church, and no doubt others who object to this on moral grounds will soon follow. As I noted previously, this will be a moral issue for some, and a commerce issue for others. Ultimately, the market will decide, and then we'll really know whether Telus is taking the high road or the low road.


Technorati tags: Globe & Mail, Jon Arnold, Telus

Telus Offering Mobile Porn - The Future Is Friendly, Indeed!

Well, as they say, "only in Canada...pity."

We've had a good run recently of firsts from our carriers, if not Canada, for North America.

Two weeks ago, Rogers announced its entry into the business IP telephony market along with Mitel and Natural Convergence. Not only is this a first for a cableco to go after this market, but this particular cableco happens to be Canada's leading wireless operator. This creates two additional new opportunities, actually. First, Rogers can offer both wireline and wireless services to SMBs, so this market should be worth watching for some early FMC applications. We'll see. Secondly, because Rogers is a national wireless operator, they have the ability to offer SMBs IP telephony beyond their traditional cable footprint. That may be a ways off yet, but the potential is there.

Last week, Videotron announced its plans to offer 100 mbps broadband to its subscribers. That's certainly a first in North America. While it remains to be seen if the market will support this much speed, they're definitely pushing the envelope, and giving Bell more things to worry about.

And now, Telus. Today we get news of their plans to include adult content in their mobile offerings.

Well, all I'll say is that the Telus branding phrase is "the future is friendly", which I've always liked. Somehow, I don't think this is what they had in mind, but it's certainly not out of character for a company that doesn't just dare to be different, but needs to be different to take on Bell.

I don't know how far U.S. mobile operators have gone with adult content, so I'm not sure if this is a first on a North American level. Probably not - but it's a big story up here. And as the article points out, mobile porn is big in Europe, which is more relaxed about these sorts of things. On the other hand, gay marriage and pot are basically ok up here, so who are we to throw stones at Telus?

There's a lot of editorializing and moralizing you can do around this, but I'm not going to get into that now. We all know that the adult market is huge, and is at the forefront of adopting new technologies, so if looked at in a vacuum, going wireless makes a lot of sense. One the one hand, porn is legal, so it's really a matter of taste. Just like people pay to get satellite radio so they can listen to uncensored programs like Howard Stern - if they're willing to pay, then there will always be a provider, so long as the regulators don't step in.

On the other hand, cell phones aren't the best endpoints for watching this stuff. And while Telus may derive some new revenue streams from this, and even gain some new customers just for the service, I suspect they will lose a number of female subscribers on principal, and this will probably give a high schools another reason to ban cell phone use onsite.

All told, if it works for Telus, you'd have to think that Virgin Mobile - just for the name alone - won't be far behind. Only problem there is that they use Bell's network, and Bell doesn't currently offer adult content. At least for now...

Speaking of Bell, with all these intriguing carrier stories, it's interesting that we haven't been hearing anything disruptive from them lately. Is this a concern, folks?

So, it may be REALLY cold in Canada these days, but things are really hopping with the carriers, and no doubt, there's more to come.


Technorati tags: Globe & Mail, Jon Arnold, Telus

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - James Wanless and Talkster's Enterprise Mobility Solution

On this week's podcast, I spoke with James Wanless, the President/COO of Toronto-based Talkster. This is a pretty interesting startup that's come up with a very interesting solution for enterprises to better manage both the cost of mobile telephony and the management of all these accounts. Lots of startups are chasing the "cheaper LD calling" market, but that's a commodity game, and doesn't really help the business market.

That's where Talkster is focused, and John gave a good overview of the nature of these problems and how he's trying to address them now. He also provided his perspective on how the Canadian and U.S. wireless markets are different, and why their service makes more sense in Canada.

Turns out our timing was good for this podcast. Today was Talkster's beta launch, so James has been working overtime to get it right, and you can read more about it here. Small world - I just saw James - he and I were on the same flight yesterday to San Francisco, and I'm in San Jose now, waiting for the Cisco analyst conference to start tomorrow. Can you guess what I'll be blogging about next?

Another item of note - fellow blogger Ken Camp included Talkster in his "Magnificent Seven" posting - which has been getting a lot of attention. His post is noted on Talkster's home page, which makes me feel good. This is one company that "gets it" with bloggers.

To download our podcast, click here. At this link you can also read more about James.


Technorati tags: Talkster, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, James Wanless

WiFi-Cellular Convergence Conference Hilights

I was in Dallas this week, and Chaired the first day of Informa's Wi-Fi/Cellular Convergence conference. It was a pretty small event, but the content was very good, the audience was a good mix of carriers and vendors, and everyone got to know each other pretty well. Since everything took place in one room, I don't have much to show you. However, the venue was very upscale and quite photogenic. It took place at the Hotel Crescent Court, which is not a place I would normally hang out, but it sure was nice.

In terms of the content, the presentations covered the full range of topics. The first day focused on the business case and business issues around why carriers would want to put cellular and WiFi together. Day 2 covered the technical issues and challenges - lots of IMS, SIP, FMC, UMA, QoS and security there. I was not able to stay for the third day, which was dedicated to dual mode handsets, but from all accounts looked to be quite interesting.

All told, I came away with a clearer understanding as to why cellular and WiFi are coming together, and there was a consistent message that this is an important step along the way to FMC. On their own, cellular and WiFi can each address specific needs, but there is a lot of synergy that will come from integrating the two. Most speakers were pretty certain about where WiFi is going, but less so about WiMax. It was generally seen as a wildcard, but one that will have a significant impact, especially on cellular. But no one is quite sure just how or when. No surprise there, but it was good to hear it from so many people.

One of the highlights for me came from Nokia's presentation, which was given by Vipul Mehrotra. He gave a great overview about how Nokia's phones are evolving to support dual mode services, and multimedia communications with great ease of use. At one point he talked about how that day, Nokia had announced support for Gizmo, a SIP-based service that is similar to Skype.

This was the only time I heard any Voice 2.0-type vendors mentioned, and I warmed up to him right away. One of my mantras during the conference was that the applications developers stand to become big winners in this space, as once this level of convergence becomes reality, there will be unlimited opportunities for cool, innovative services that carriers will be able to offer for virtually any niche market. I think my message was well received!

Gizmo will be very familiar to any reader of Andy Abramson's blog, and I mention this for a reason. Later that day when I got back online, I saw that Andy had already posted about this news release, and was very pleased to see that Nokia was supporting Gizmo so strongly. Well, Andy may have had the online scoop, but I think I have the visual scoop. One of the photos below is from Vipul's slide that mentions support for Gizmo. Given that the news came out that day, I suspect our group was one of the first to learn about it via a slide presentation from Nokia. Right place, right time!

Aside from a brief recap of the conference, this post also marks the debut of my N93 photos. In recent posts I've mentioned how my son Max has been using the Nokia N93 for a while, and he recently posted his review about it. Well, it's finally my turn to use the phone, and I'm putting the N90 aside for now.

If you've seen my N90 photos on various other posts, I think you'll notice a marked improvement in the photo quality here. The Crescent Court is very Euro and caters to a well heeled clientele, and the setting is very dramatic. Great for taking photos, and I've included some examples below to demonstrate how well the N93 captures detail, color and depth of field. I couldn't get results like this with the N90, and you can expect to see more of the same in upcoming posts. Enjoy.


First, here's my view of the audience from the podium






Nokia presentation - Vipul's slide about the Gizmo announcement - you saw it first here!






The courtyard just outside the venue. Incredibly, it snowed the next day!














Technorati tags: WiFi, Jon Arnold, Informa

Oz Raises $34 Million - More Good News From Canada

Montreal-based Oz Communications looks poised to make some moves in the mobile messaging market, where they already have done some impressive things. They've got deals going with A-list Tier 1s like Cingular, T Mobile, AOL, Telfonica, Bell Mobility and Telus, plus all the major handset vendors.

Today they announced a second round raise of $34 million, which is quite large for a Canadian vendor. Mind you, I said the same thing last week about Natural Convergence, and that was only a $10 million funding, so in my books, this one definitely merits some attention.

Interestingly, 2 of the 3 lead investors were Quebec-based, which tells me some of the major fund managers see good potential here, and it's a good vote of confidence to support a homegrown company. I say this because Canadian money managers tend to be more conserative than in the U.S., and by local standards, this level of funding is a pretty hefty bet.

As the press release notes, they are not planning an IPO any time soon, but that time will surely come if they stay the course. With this kind of funding to support their strong momentum, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them make some acquisitions to further establish themselves as a global player.

I've posted about Oz before, and am planning to do a podcast with them quite soon, so stay tuned as I continue to follow their progress.



Technorati tags: Oz Communications, Jon Arnold, mobile messaging

Next Stop - Dallas - WiFi/Cellular Convergence

It's been a busy season for me attending conferences, which I always find to be the best way to meet companies first hand to learn about their business, and of course to network.

On Tuesday, I'm off to Dallas for Informa's WiFi/Convergence conference, where I'll be Conference Chair for the first day on Wednesday. Am quite looking forward to hearing about the latest in FMC, dual mode handsets, and the business case for mobile network convergence.


Technorati tags: WiFi, Jon Arnold, dual mode handsets, Informa

Wireless in Canada - It's Different Here

Just a quick post inspired by a 2 part series that ran in the Globe & Mail the past 2 days. Catherine McLean did a nice assessment of the state of wireless in Canada, and raised some valid questions as to why wireless penetration lags most other countries, as well as why we pay more up here. I've touched on these themes a number of times before, and it's just nice to see these ideas validated elsewhere.

Anyone who spends time with me at conferences in the U.S. knows that I only use my cell phone as a last resort. It's really hard for Americans to understand this, as it's very common to have long distance included in your plans, even for Canada. So, you don't think twice about making mobile calls to anywhere in the U.S. and often elsewhere. It's simply not the case for Canadians, unless you live on your cell phone and have a special plan that covers roaming and LD outside Canada. Simply put, I'm not a power user with my cell phone, and just don't use it enough to warrant having one of these high end plans.

Anyhow, back to the story in the Globe. The main thrust is to eaxplain that cell phone service is more expensive here, and there's a nice comparison of various plans, both in Canada and the U.S. Throughout the article, various points are raised to help explain why, namely:

- It's less competitive here. We only have 3 major carriers, and maybe 20 overall. Conversely, the article states that the U.S. has some 180 mobile offerings to choose from. Is it any wonder why prices are higher here? The majors - Bell Mobility, Rogers and Telus - make much healthier margins than their U.S. counterparts, and don't have a whole lot of pricing pressure from competitors.

- Our carriers can justify a higher pricing regime because the cost of building out their networks is more than the U.S. As the article says, they must cover a comparable geographic footprint to U.S. carriers, but with 1/10th of the customer base. There is some truth to that, at least in terms of building east to west. However, 90% of our population lives within 100 miles of the U.S. border, so it's not quite apples to apples. But still, it's a valid point.

- Our major wireless carriers are also our major wireline carriers - Bell and Telus. It's not quite like that in the U.S., but all these carriers face the same market realities. Wireline is declining, while wireless is a go-go business. So, both Telus and Bell rely heavily on the profits from wireless to offset their losses in wireline. In that light, it's a simple business decision to support higher pricing for wireless service.

- Wireless penetration is lower here. We're not as addicted to wireless - at least yet. There's a whole body of work devoted to explaining why wireless is less ubiquitous here, and I'm not going to address that now. The main point is that wireless still has lots of room to grow here - all the more reason for the majors to keep it a small club and to maintain high margins as long as possible. The article also notes that historically, our wireless carriers have been money losers, and it's pretty much taken until now for them to finally start making some profitable returns on the all infrastructure they've been building the last 20 years. So, following that logic, it's finally payday for them, and they deserve to recoup some of the investment.

- Another reason wireless isn't as prevalent here is the lack of LNP - local number portability. We haven't had nearly the amount of wireless substitution that's happening in the U.S. - largely for this reason. That's going to change early next year, and that's a key reason why all the mobile carriers are lining themselves up now for what looks to be an explosive year ahead for growth. I suspect you will see some price cutting next year once LNP comes into play, and the wireless operators will mount aggressive campaigns to wean people off their landlines once and for all - especially from operators who don't have a PSTN wireline business, like Videotron, Rogers, Shaw, Virgin Mobile or Amp'd.

- Foreign ownership restrictions make for a cozy three-way among Bell, Telus and Rogers. We do have other mobile carriers here, but they're pretty small or regional. If these restrictions were lifted or eased, that would open the door for U.S. operators or multinationals like BT or T Mobile. They could either acquire controlling interest in a domestic operator, or invest in one to build out their networks and acquire more spectrum. There are many possibilities here that could shake up the market big time, but I don't see this happening so soon.

I'm just touching on some of the big themes here, but there's certainly more to the story. The Globe pieces are both a good read, and as usual, the online versions are the most interesting because they have tons of reader comments submitted online.

So, once you've read this, hopefully you'll know where I'm coming from when I tell you I hardly use my cell phone when I travel.


Technorati tags: Wireless, Jon Arnold, Catherine McLean

Max's N93 Review on Nokia's Blog Page

I've noted previously how Andy Abramson runs the first-rate blogger program for the Nokia N Series phones. For everything you could ever want to know about any of these phones, this is the place to go. Each N Series model has its own blog page, and the all the reviews for that model are posted in one place for all to see. For the market researcher in me, this is a motherlode for qualitative research - it's really great.

Just a quick post to say that Max's N93 review from earlier today has now been posted to the N93 blog page. Keep spreading the word, Andy - thanks!


Technorati tags: Nokia N93, Jon Arnold, Andy Abramson, Nokia blog, Max Arnold

TalkPlus - Friend or Foe for Skype?

Very interesting post today from colleague Phil Wolff at Skype Journal.

If you're a fan of either TalkPlus or Skype, you'll want to read this, and more importantly check out the video clip. Phil has posted a raw clip of TalkPlus CEO Jeff Black doing a live demo of him calling into Skype's echo123 number on the fly using TalkPlus.

The details are better left to Skype-o-philes like Phil to explain, but basically, Jeff demonstrates how TalkPlus subscribers can access Skype and make SkypeOut calls from their mobile phone. Remember, you don't dial phone numbers to call other Skype users. With TalkPlus, Jeff shows how a 10 digit phone number is generated on the fly, allowing you to make this call on your cell phone.

Jeff has talked about how TalkPlus has reverse engineered Skype, and if this allows TalkPlus subscribers to access the Skype network directly, without going through as a Skype subscriber, then you really don't need a SkypeIn number. You just use your existing number and interface with Skype via TalkPlus.

Am still getting my head around this a bit, but if it all holds water - and if it scales - this could put a crimp in Skype's revenue model. I don't that's what Jeff has in mind, unless there's another form of reverse engineering going on - such as becoming an acquisition target for Skype/eBay. Or how about the other big fish, like Google, Yahoo, etc.? Lots of scenarios to speculate about there.

So, kudos to Phil Wolff for this great post, but now for the hard question. Phil - you taped this clip 2 weeks ago, and TalkPlus is just getting their story ramped up this week. Why post today and not 2 weeks ago, unless you were under embargo? It's not clear to me from your post - under the Skype Journal mantle -if this is welcome news or not. Your post is totally objective - 100% neutral, and I just can't tell. What's your take? I'd say it's the former...

Quick hat tip to Alec Saunders, who posted on this earlier today.


Technorati tags: TalkPlus, Jon Arnold, Skype, Skype Journal, Phil Wolff

TalkPlus Gets the TV Treatment

I recently posted about TalkPlus and how they're a very Voice 2.0 kind of offering. If you read about them and liked what you saw, now you can see for yourself on TV. Bay area KTVU TV just did a nice 2 minute segment on TalkPlus, including a fair bit of interview footage with their President, Jeff Black. They do a nice job of explaining what TalkPlus is all about in plain English, and anyone who uses their cell phones a lot will get it right away.

As mentioned during the interview, you can sign up now for a free Beta trial - just go to the website - it's all there. Cool!

Hat tip to Andy Abramson for the heads up on this.


Technorati tags: TalkPlus, Jon Arnold, Andy Abramson

TalkPlus - What Voice 2.0 is all About

Today was the day for Jeff Black and his company's official coming out of stealth mode. TalkPlus is a great story, and before I get to them, I want to shine some light on Andy Abramson, their PR/marketing guru, who has done a great job of keeping them on the radar of analysts and bloggers to this point. Andy's agency - Communicano - is almost an incubator of sorts - he's got a great knack for taking on clients who are very much at the leading edge of all things IP.

I had my briefing with Jeff Black this morning, but today I was overcome by a perfect storm of home office tech problems that have kept me offline until now. So, I'm late to the party, and if you haven't read all the news by now, I'll save you some time by steering you to blogging colleague Ken Camp. His post went live earlier tonight, and if you want an extended analysis, especially from an end-user's perspective, that's what you gotta read. Additionally, Ken's post saves you time, as he's cited many of the other blog posts from earlier today, and that will fill you in on all the details of what TalkPlus is, how it works, what makes the company so special, who's backing them, etc.

It's late, and I'm just going to add my take, which so far, I haven't seen anywhere else. While Ken has focused on the subscriber angle, what really spoke to me about TalkPlus is the carrier angle, and why I think they have a far better chance of long term success than the growing army of mobile VoIP plays, some of which Andy refers to as "minutes stealers".

So, speaking with Jeff about this, the big takeaway for me is simply this - as a startup, you can choose to go with the carriers or go against them. Geez, for my money, I'd say your chances of success are a lot better when you're serving their interests along with your own. Of course, you can say, well, that may work for a while, but then the carriers will figure it out and do it themselves, leaving you with nothing. Maybe so, but as some other bloggers have echoed Jeff's comments, TalkPlus has a strong clutch of pending patents that will at minimum give them first mover advantage.

Secondly, TalkPlus does something that no single mobile carrier can do, and that is terminate calls anywhere in the world with their own numbers. In the U.S., regulations make sure that domestic mobile carriers can only serve the U.S. market. They cannot issue you mobile numbers for other markets. TalkPlus can. I think that matters.

Enough high level stuff. Let's look at the business model. TalkPlus is not a play to reduce your roaming or LD costs. It really isn't even VoIP. Carriers love it because it's NOT diverting calls off their networks to the public Internet. TalkPlus may use VoIP on the back end, but it's not about VoIP.

I'll back up just bit in case you don't know what TalkPlus does. Basically, the subscriber gets to add more cellular numbers that ring on his/her mobile phone. There are a host of cool/practical scenarios where having these extra numbers makes a lot of sense, with dating, professionals and eBay users being no brainer examples. There's a lot more to it, of course, and this has been covered to death in the earlier posts.

In short, there are 3 really good reasons why mobile operators would want to do business with TalkPlus.

1. As mentioned, TalkPlus keeps the voice minutes on their networks, and not taking them elsewhere.

2. It's new money for them. They get a share of the monthly subscriber fee from TalkPlus, which will be in the $10 range.

3. TalkPlus drives usage of their data plans. The revenues won't be substantial since the data files needed to enable TalkPlus are very small. However, subscribers will need to add a data plan to use TalkPlus, so that's also new business. Much like Blackberry, with tiered pricing plans, most subscribers will take the cheapest data plan, which runs about $7/month. Otherwise, they can just be billed as they go, but on this basis they pay a much higher rate per bit, so if they use it regularly, they're much better off using a low end fixed price plan.

I think on this basis alone, TalkPlus is a winner. They are under NDA with 18 mobile operators globally, so it looks like the interest is there. But there's more to the story that I think makes the case even stronger, esp when you look at how all the other mobile VoIP apps work.

- Because the calls are basically cellular - and not VoIP - there's no voice compression. So, there are no voice quality/degradation issues that are common with VoIP-based mobile calls. Of course, we're still talking about cell phones here, so it's not exactly the PSTN. Jeff, in fact noted, that there are cases when TalkPlus voice quality can be better than everyday cellular.

- TalkPlus is very carrier friendly. Jeff describes it as the world's first "narrowband VoIP" application. The apps are very Voice 2.0 - that is, new services you can't do with existing applications. But there's not a lot of VoIP going on here. So, carriers get the best of both worlds - new services, but pretty much within their existing networks.

What does Jeff mean by "narrowband VoIP"? As he explains, the call set up is done over the data channel (that's the VoIP part), but the call itself takes place on the voice channel. This is a crucial difference between TalkPlus and the mobile VoIP apps for a few reasons.

First, by routing the call over the voice channel, quality stays high.

Second, the calls are CALEA and E911 compliant. Carriers really like that. As Jeff noted, this is why Skype is not being allowed in countries like India. When encrypted voice runs in the data channel, it can't be monitored, which makes Skype a no-go in markets that want tighter control over voice communications.

Third, TalkPlus can be used by most existing handsets, so long as they are WAP or Java-enabled. I'm a big advocate of ease of use, and applications that require little or no behavior change have a pretty good chance of survival.


All told, I think TalkPlus has got the right approach. Jeff says it best - "we work the way carriers want to work". Call it the path of least resistance, but I call it the path to success.

Jeff and I also talked about the risks of making it too attractive for the carriers to duplicate it for themselves. It could happen, but he's confident their technology lead will keep them well ahead of whatever the carriers try to do. Also, they really do have higher priorities, and have very little expertise in the marketing that will be needed to reach the target subscriber for this service.

That's where a lot of the $5.5 million TalkPlus has raised will be going. They'll be doing a mix of direct marketing as well as affiliate programs, no doubt with all the major dating websites, etc. And best of all, we're only at the very beginning of where this can go.

Think about all those people who have given up their landlines and live 24/7 on their mobiles. You don't think these people will find all kinds of neat ways to use TalkPlus? And we're just starting with basic voice apps. There's more in the pipeline coming, so this is definitely a story to watch. Look for the service to launch in January.



Technorati tags: TalkPlus, Jon Arnold, Ken Camp, Andy Abramson

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Fredericton's Free Muni WiFi

Anyone following muni WiFi will want to give this week's podcast a listen. My guest was Don Fitzgerald, Executive Director of Team Fredericton - you gotta like that title! Don is really the public face and evangelist for Fredericton, New Brunswick's muni WiFi service, which is Canada's first free WiFi offering, and has been running since 2003.

They have a lot of experience over just about any other North American muni WiFi deployment, and if you listen in, you'll hear why Don believes free is the way to go, lessons learned along the way, as well as some of the creative applications they are bringing along to facilitate closer communitiy ties between municipal government and the citizens of Fredericton. Teaser - one of these has to do with hockey - are you surprised?

This podcast is actually the sequel to a blog posting I recently did after inteviewing Don at length about this topic. You can download the podcast here, and learn more about Don's role and background.

NOTE - due to upcoming travel plans, I'll be taking a 2 week podcasting hiatus. My next scheduled podcast is w/o October 23, when I'll be speaking with Ross McLeod. He's one of the driving forces behind the Voice 2.0 conference being put on by OCRI in Ottawa the week before. I had to pass on speaking there due to a conflict with another conference. That's too bad, as this looks to be a terrific show. So, I'll be looking forward myself to hearing first hand what I missed.





Technorati tags: Municipal WiFi, Jon Arnold, Fredericton, VoIP podcasts

Nokia N90 Blog Site - VON Highlights on my Phone

I've cited the Nokia blogger program a number of times before. It's a great initiative that Andy Abramson has put together for them, and I'm one of the beneficiaries who gets to try out these really cool phones.

I'm not a gadget guy, and there are endless posts on the N90 blog site about all the features, so I really don't have anything to add on that count. However, the N90 is my everyday phone, and clumsy as it is to carry around, I really use it more as my camera and camcorder. It allows me great freedom to be spontaneous and capture a moment on the fly, and I find myself using it as much for in-the-street shots/videos, as I do for more formal settings. Of course, the photo quality is wildly uneven, but being digital, it's so easy just to delete the duds and keep the good ones.

On that note, I recently posted my visual highlights of Fall VON here, and the post was picked up on the Nokia N90 blog a few days ago. I'm a bit late getting around to this, but it's still worth citing here. For those of you who want to dive deep into what this phone is all about, this blog is the place to go.

FYI, there is a separate blog page for the Nokia N91, and other blogs are coming for the next wave of Nokias. The N91 is a sleeker version of the N90, and followers of this blog may know that my 13 year old son, Max, uses this as his everyday phone. How many 13 year olds can top that? His review of the N91 was recently posted to the Nokia blog.


Technorati tags: Nokia N90, Jon Arnold, Andy Abramson, Nokia blog

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - NewStep and FMC

This week's podcast was with Kevin McCracken, NewStep Networks's Director of Product Management. NewStep is based here in Toronto, and is a Bell Canada spinoff, now making their mark in the FMC space. Kevin and I talked about the current trends in FMC, and how it is gaining good traction in a pre-IMS environment. We also compared market conditions between U.S. and Canadian wireless opeators and how that impacts their FMC plans.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Kevin and NewStep Networks.

FYI - I'll be at Fall VON next week, and my regular podcasts will resume the week after, with Vonage Canada being my scheduled guest. I'm hoping to do a podcast or two from the show floor at VON, so I should have something in the podcast bin next week for those need their weekly podfix.


Technorati tags: FMC, Jon Arnold, NewStep Networks, VoIP Podcasts