The face of communication changes? Should we change our revenue strategy? Do we strongly  rely on voice to uphold our business model? I think these are popular questions  operators and their business partners ask each other.

Growth in use of new communication channels like social networking tools, microblogs and VoIP (Skype) is changing the face of the communication. Users are using those services more and more and therefore telecom becomes more data/connectivity centric and less voice centric. During this evolution, Smartphones are playing crucial role. Iphone and some other new mobile devices like iPad move this role one step forward. Besides this role, another important point is that smartphones account for 20 per cent of global handset sales.

This data centric model and rise of the smartphones bring not only new business model but also some problems. Let’s remember iPhone launch in U.S.A .and U.K. AT&T network experienced some kind of network overload/congestion, slow network speeds and dropped calls etc. From New York Times article, Customers Angered as iPhones Overload AT&T, : “It’s a data guzzler. Owners use them like minicomputers, which they are, and use them a lot. Not only do iPhone owners download applications, stream music and videos and browse the Web at higher rates than the average smartphone user, but the average iPhone owner can also use 10 times the network capacity used by the average smartphone user.“. One week later, AT&T Urged customers to use less wireless data: “AT&T is considering ways to encourage customers to use less wireless data as its network struggles to keep up with demand, a company executive said Wednesday.” (New York Times, December 10, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/technology/companies/10iphone.html)

Similar case from iPhone operator O2 in U.K. : “The head of U.K. carrier O2 apologized to London customers who faced service issues this year, due to what’s being blamed on an abundance of bandwidth-devouring iPhone users. O2 said it’s working with Nokia Siemens, Apple and also RIM to find solutions.” (Eweek, Dec 29, 2009 – O2 apologizes for boggy iPhone service in London)

According to a research from Morgan Stanley, smartphone users use more data than average mobile users. Moreover, iPhone users use more and more data than smartphone users.

Another point: In every region, the top five percent of subscribers account for 50 percent of network traffic (According to a study from Sandvine). AT&T has observed that the top three percent of its smartphone users generate 40 percent of its all data traffic. (Source: http://mobile-voip.tmcnet.com/topics/mobile-voip/articles/79523-mobile-broadband-whats-different.htm)

Most of mentioned users (top five percent and AT&T’s top three percent) have a flat-rate data plans. In developing countries, flat-rate data plans are essential to drive customer demand but the question is if this kind of pricing is sustainable in long-run as smartphones, iPhone and Android get bigger part of handset devices market and data usage grows? Can operators’ network infrastructure carry huge data traffic? From AT&T and O2 case -mentioned above-, they could not. They should expand and modernize their network. From this point on, another question arises: data traffic revenues can afford those investment?

According to many operators and consultancy companies, in 2012, data revenue can not afford yearly cost/investment (Since we don’t have numbers and financial details from the perspective of an operator, we can not predict it but my view/feeling is that the following forecast is overstated)

Based on this forecast and experienced network congestion, AT&T has recently changed its data plans and now offering tiered and usage-based service approaches. (CNET News, June 2, 2010, New AT&T data plans for iPhones, iPads, more)

If they believe and find the above forecast plausible,what can they do? (to me, above forecast is not plausible but overstated). Tiered and usage-based service approach is one of the solutions? If so, what else?

Bridgewater, a mobile personalization company, offers some methods in its study “Towards Profitable Mobile Data Business Model”

• Policy Control
• Multi-Access Data Offload
• Evolution to 4^th Generation Mobile Access
• Network Optimiztion
• New Service Models

If you are interested in mobile data from operators’ perspective, some part of it can be useful (not entire report)

All tech blogs and all mainstream media are full of news about Apple and its tablet computer called the iPad. But interesting thing, all of them are talking about price, features of and prospective demand to iPad but none of them is talking about the iPad’s DRM (Digital Rights Management / Digital Restrictions Management), which is bad for users’ freedom, and some other restrictions on iPad.

There is no doubt that iTunes transformed the music industry or iPhone transformed the cellphone. We so far can not predict whether iPad can transform tablet devices as iPhone did the cellphone. Maybe, it will but the thing is not about the transforming tech industry, but about the freedom. Apple’s innovative products always go beyond the customer expectations and raised the bar in terms of design and quality. Ipod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad. Yes, They are the state of the art products.

Apple is leading today for tomorrow, not only in meaning of innovative, state of the art products but also in meaning of restricting user’s freedom. DefectivebyDesign, is an anti-DRM campaign , says :

“Apple launched a computer that will never belong to its owner. Apple will use Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to gain total veto power over the applications you use and the media you can view.” (Campaign web site: http://www.defectivebydesign.org/ipad)

You can not read e-book If that e-book is not in Apple iBook library, you can not watch oggVorbis videos, you can not install applications if that application is not downloaded from Apple Application Store. You can not do/read/watch/listen/install anything outside the line of apple. It makes us remember 1984? Yes, It does.

Once upon a time, 26 years ago,  Apple was saying “1984 won’t be like 1984″ (1984 Apple’s Macintosh Commercial)

What an irony!

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Kaç zamandır bakınıyordum “ara sıra uğraşabileceğim, ufak kodlar yazabileceğim birşeyler yapayım” diye. Sonunda aradığımı buldum sayılır. Epey zamandır programlama ile uğraşamıyordum zaten. Sonunda üzerinde bir şeyler yazabileceğim, hem açık kaynak kodlu olan hemde ilgimi çeken bir şey buldum: Python for S60. Açık kaynak lisanslı bir proje. S60 platformu için python ile uygulama geliştirme projesi. Henüz bakınma, inceleme aşamasındayım. Kısa bir süre sonra ufaktan birşeyler yapmaya başlayacağım sanırım. Projenin SourceForge’daki internet adresi ise şöyle: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pys60

Capabilities of Python for S60:

• GUI: Menu, Forms, Listboxes, Input fields, Dialogs, Notes
• Graphics: – color, font and style attributes, – direct-screen drawing, – displaying images

• Key-down and key-up events
• Sockets: TCP/IP, Bluetooth (RFCOMM, OBEX)
• Messaging (SMS)
• Networking (HTTP, FTP, …)
• Acess to file system, file reading, XML, RSS
• Acess to camera, telephone
• Acess to calendar, contacts, sysinfo
• Location (cell-id)
• Content handler
• Python extensions can be written in C++
• Make standalone applications

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