Keith Willetts' Blog - All Comments

FCC takes on Apple. Cause for celebration? Maybe not.

Keith Willetts' Blog — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:46:12 GMT

I see that the FCC reads our blogs! A couple of weeks ago I bemoaned the naked commercial tactics of

re: Living in a 4G World

Keith Willetts — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:03:05 GMT

Hi Chris,

Totally agree - regulators not only regulate by looking backward, they all swap ideas and even good ideas end up being missing the point because of significant differences in culture, geography and so on. Not sure I did quote the report about the US being behind but I take your point entirely.

From over here in Europe, I'm confused by the contrast bewteen socialising heathcare and socialising the internet!

re: Living in a 4G World

Chris Oliver — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:12:32 GMT

Rational discussion about the future of the internet? How refreshing.

The most important point for me is that regulation looks behind and markets look ahead.

And please...no more citing the report that the US ranks so far behind other developed nations as some sort of sad fact. This only shows a complete lack of understanding for population densities and network infrastructure economics. Having lived in Japan..yes, the internet is fast and cheap. Nearly the entire population lives on 15% of a country roughly the size of California.

re: Living in a 4G World

Keith Willetts — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:21:39 GMT

Hi Terence, take your point entirely but I really worry when governments step in to ‘help’ markets along – it usually goes badly wrong. Take for example widely copied legislation to force access networks open (loop unbundling etc at regulated prices) – that’s stripped any profitability out of access networks so now taxpayers around the world have to pick up the tab to roll out fiber. Much better to have left market economics to do the job.

Similarly, I’m concerned that net neutrality will choke off any ability for service providers to provide different levels of service at different prices. We have customer choice in everything else, so why not in communications – it seems very odd especially in the US that we are considering a Soviet era approach to the digital revolution of the 21st century.

re: Living in a 4G World

TerenceEden — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:58:01 GMT

Net neutrality is very simple.

Imagine a large ISP, say, AOL.

Imagine a large Internet player, say, Google.

Without neutrality, AOL can turn round to Google and say "If you want our customers to be able to access your site - that will be $x per user. If not, we'll slow down access or prevent them reaching you entirely."

Now, maybe that's ok for giants who can afford to pay - but it's not ok for start-ups or smaller sites. What if your ISP *only* let you buy from Amazon, not from a small independent book seller?

All bits on the Internet are equal. A customer pays for their bandwidth, whether they are a client or a server. There is no need for a middle-man to put up artificial barriers.

That's what neutrality is about - *artificial* barriers. Nothing more.

Terence

(Disclaimer, I work for Vodafone who are involved in LTE roll out. I do not speak on their behalf)

re: Living in a 4G World

Keith Willetts — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:41:40 GMT

Hi Ashish,

Thanks for your comments. I agree that Wi-Fi is agame changer ( I do the most interesting things on my iPhone when I'm Wi-fi connected not 3G - especially when roaming as the costs are a killer).

Not totally sure what will be the winner 4G technology but just the sheer size of the 2g/£3g infrastruture globally (now covering 4bn people) says to me that LTE has huge economies of scale to leverage. But multi-protocol, multi frequency devices are now so commonplace that it could easily be a hybrid LTE/Wi-fi world.

re: Living in a 4G World

Ashish Banerjee — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:05:30 GMT

Keith,

Well written Blog. Google is leading the way with the 4G agenda. While, the Wimax slugs it out with LTE, its little brother WiFI is changing the dynamics. From Mountain View, California to Gangatic belt in rural India are quietly being Wifi enabled.

Wifi may steal the show!! (with a little help from Mobile IPv6)

Regards.

re: Arrgghhh - why do service providers cling to ARPU as a meaningful measure?

James Warner — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:54:04 GMT

Where o where to start. Suffice to say I agree x10. But I think the problem runs deeper. If it wasn't ARPU it would be some other metric that gives them a bum steer.

The fact of the matter is - very few telecom operators 'get it.' They just don't have the consumer mindset that's necessary in a marketplace that has more in common with fashion goods than connecting calls.

As an industry we remain stuck in the dark ages (despite the fact we truly have delivered some of the most astounding advances on the planet). People love what we do - they are in awe of the technology we make available - they just can't stand dealing with us. We rate a hairs breathe above lawyers.

It starts with thinking our customers love us and all we have to do is roll out a new services bundle or 2 each year and they'll be ours forever. Excuse me. Have you ever been at a party or social gathering where someone raved about their "phone service" like they might about their new LCD TV, car or lawn tractor ? No.

At a personal level ; 1-1, mano-a-mano, the telecom industry is seen as blind, arrogant and fossilized. And it's not because we have blind, arrogant and comatose people working. I truly believe most people who work for telecom operators care. And I also believe the people running these companies are intelligent.

But somehow - instead of the sum of the parts being greater, we have a situation where the whole thing breaks down. I don't know if it's an aversion to risk or a tunnel mentality or what.

But I can say with certainty that if we don't quickly wise up and "get it" we face a future that places us in the same category as the water & sewer companies. Necessary but best forgotten about except when something breaks.

re: Size doesn’t matter, quality does

Keith Willetts — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:44:32 GMT

Thanks Ed. Essentailly the whole of the Forum is now held together by Skype and now that its available on the iphone its even better - you can see when people are 'in' and ping them a quick IM before you call them to see if they are free - saves endless voicemail ping-pongs. Now that Skype are being IPO'd they will have some capital to do interesting new things - one to watch.

re: Size doesn’t matter, quality does

Ed Pinnes — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:01:30 GMT

Great article, Keith.

Speaking of Skype, they have accomplished one more thing for which don't always get the proper credit: the first voice service with a rational dialing plan! If I am calling +44-whatever, Skype - or more specifically the "Skype Out" service - lets me dial +44-whatever, no matter where I may be sitting. The endless complications that have frustrstated so many travelers for years (in this city drop the zero but in that one you need it; from that country prepend 001 or maybe it is 011 so it knows you are dialling internationally, behind the Centrex prepend 9, etc, etc) are gone. It is a big step ahead of what traditional carriers could ever seem to manage.