Fredric Morris
Editor-In-Chief
Connect-World

Content rules? Rules for ads, Big Brother and nerds

Content is king - or so they say. Still, notes here and there in the international press, blogs, newsletters and chats with friends make one wonder where content’s kingdom is - in the UK or Nepal. I would bet on Nepal.

I have long had doubts about the revenues most content can generate. The problem is not content; it is the willingness, the ability, of enough people to pay for it on a regular basis.

There is enough content produced to drown in, but much of it - look at YouTube - is free. It’s hard to compete with free; the price is right and it sets a mark that all other content competes with. Content costs money and consumers don’t like to pay.

There is a time-tested remedy for situations such as these - advertising. Advertisers are learning to love audiences they can target precisely - and that is what online service providers can offer.

To target ads, advertisers accumulate data about visits made to the sites of third-party advertising network members, and correlate consumers’ surfing habits with their personal product tastes and the likelihood that certain types of advertising will appeal to them. The same data, though, can also let advertisers draw conclusions about a wide range of personal behaviours that many consumers would not like others to know about - conclusions that can be embarrassing, erroneous, dead wrong, or even dangerous. Data gatherers are often guilty - intentionally or not - of outrageous invasion of privacy.

What are advertisers to do? What are the ethical ramifications? What do advertisers know about you that you wish they didn’t? What if this information is misused or falls into the wrong hands?

A press release last week from the NAI speaks to these issues. From a different point of view, these are some of the same issues I spoke of in my eLetter at the end of March - about some of the risks inherent in the growth of Internet access and the Information Society.

The NAI addresses the problem of dealing with the sensitive personal data that Web sites and advertising networks gather by tracking visitors to their sites.

The NAI, the Network Advertising Initiative, which counts Google’s DoubleClick, Yahoo’s BlueLithium, AOL’s Advertising.com and Tacoda among its members, is a “cooperative of online marketing and analytics companies committed to building consumer awareness and establishing responsible business and data management practices and standards”. They published a draft (open for public comment until June 12 - http://www.networkadvertising.org/networks/NAI_Principles_2008_Draft_for_Public.pdf) of a “Self-Regulatory Code of Conduct for Online Behavioral Advertising“. The draft is the NAI’s response to proposals made by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s last year.

The NAI’s aims to protect the consumer’s privacy, to control the abuse of OBA (Third-Party Online Behavioural Advertising), provide consumers with safeguards that inform them when OBA is being used, and allow them to opt out - to deny permission for its use.

Few people that are not involved in online marketing are aware of the systems in place for third-party online behavioural advertising. The systems come in a variety of flavours, but the principles are the same. Online advertisers often take part in advertising networks. The networks maintain databases of all the users that visit the sites of any of their members. They use cookies and other technologies that let them identify Web surfers that have visited any of the sites of a given network’s members.

Typically, when users visit the site of a member of a third-party marketing network they are automatically linked to a third-party ad server site. The ad server identifies the visiting computer and sends it a ‘cookie’ - a bit of text that is saved by the computer in a cookie file. The ad server then records the user’s access in its database. Every time a consumer accesses the site of one of the advertising network’s members, the ad server records the visit. In time, ad servers can collect a sizeable amount of data concerning the consumer’s habits, so whenever the ad server detects one of its own cookies in a visiting computer, it will check its files and send back banner adds most likely to be of interest to the consumer. The advertising network site currently visited by the consumer will then display the banner.

It all sounds very innocent and, in truth, most often is - advertisers can narrowly target their ads at the consumers most likely to be interested. On the other hand, when the information that is gathered goes beyond normal marketing needs it invades the consumer’s privacy. The NAI’s proposed guidelines sets forth an ethical framework for dealing with information gathered from members of, as they call them, ‘restricted’ and ‘sensitive’ consumer segments.

The NAI prohibits members from targeting online behavioural advertising to sensitive consumer segments and to children less than 13 years of age. “Restricted and Sensitive Consumer Segments” include, but are not limited to:
1. Certain medical/health conditions–
A. HIV/ AIDS status
B. Sexually-related conditions (e.g., sexually transmitted diseases, erectile dysfunction)
C. Psychiatric conditions
D. Cancer status
E. Abortion-related

2. Certain personal life information–
A. Sexual behaviour/orientation/identity (i.e., Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender)
B. Criminal victim status (e.g., rape victim status)

There is another list of “potentially restricted” consumers. These are not automatically excluded, but NAI members are expected to evaluate this data within the context it will be used. This category includes - but, once again, is not limited to data regarding: age /birth date, addictions (e.g., drugs, alcohol, gambling), alien status or nationality, criminal history, death, disability, ethnic affiliation, marital status, philosophical beliefs, political affiliation or opinions, pregnancy, racial identification, religious affiliation or lack thereof and trade union membership.

This is an explosive list of personal characteristics, but it is far from exhaustive. It is great as far as it goes, but it only goes as far as a handful of NAI members - and I am certain there is a longer list of equally explosive characteristics that can be data mined that are not even covered.

Some of NAI’s members are gigantic; even so, they cover only a small percentage of the consumers on the Web. Then too, the rules depend upon a great deal of case-by-case judgement by the members and the temptation to interpret the rules leniently, loosely, is as great as the potential rewards for doing so. Some of these ‘sensitive’ markets - racial groups, sexual preference groups - are enormous and highly lucrative.

I suspect that, at best, the NAI rules will prevent only the crassest misuse of data - its greatest strength will come from the consumer ‘opt-out’ and the disclosure procedures to which members must adhere. I am certain that much of the online behavioural advertising will just skim the line between the ordinarily tasteless and downright bad taste - sanctimoniously defended by their rigid adherence to the most liberal possible interpretations of the rules.

The NAI rules are a step in the right direction, but without legally enforced adherence by all online behavioural advertisers to a comprehensive set of broadly debated rules, Big Brother is an ad agency nerd fondling a database.

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Our next Connect-World Europe Issue will be published later this month. This edition of Connect-World will be widely distributed to our reader base and, as well, at shows where we are one of the main media sponsors such as: Sviaz / Expo Comm (14-18 May, Moscow), FT Mobile Media Conference (15-16 May, London), Wimax World Europe (29-31 May, Vienna), and Von Europe (11-14 June, Stockholm).

The theme for this issue will be, The evolving ‘Net’ - Rising to the challenge of rising use.

When speaking of networks, conventional wisdom and traditional business models no longer work as they did. The lines are blurring in the fixed, mobile and even broadcasting markets. Wired networks now handle traffic once thought suitable only for wireless and wireless is substituting wired in a broad range of applications. Seamless handoffs between wired and wireless networks –and, indeed, mergers, partnerships and consolidations bringing together networks and players of all sorts – further confuse the once prettily organised networking landscape.

This issue will examine what these changes in technologies and the market mean for the sector. How can the residential and business consumer best be served? What does the future hold for network operators of all types?

Europe II 2008 Media Pack; Click here

Fredric Morris
Editor-In-Chief
Connect-World

WWW (World Wide Web) and WWA (World Wide Auction)

Going! Going! Growing! Growing! - Groan!

The Web is becoming an auction arena and I am not talking about eBay - it is the World Wide Auction. The rise of international collaboration, of outsourcing and insourcing has created a global auction for services and products. The global auction, let’s call it the WWA, is squeezing the slack and inefficiencies out of markets, raising the competitive ante, dropping costs and prices for services, pumping up economies that never had much of a chance before and forcing ever-larger scale dislocations in the developed economies of the world.

Digitally supercharged collaboration is the driver. The rise of search engines that lets one find services and products the world over, the rise of digital communications superhighways and low-cost almost cost-free data communications has given a boost to developing economies such as India.

The philosophy of digital collaboration is simple, work (collaborate) with whoever does the job best and most cheaply, wherever you find them. By collaborating with other companies throughout the world, new companies can jumpstart their operations without a long and costly start-up effort. Existing companies can outsource many of their needs to cut costs and remain competitive in the global market. You don’t need to be big to have a big infrastructure, just outsource - or insource - what you need from specialists. Want to look big to impress your clients? Just hire an out-sized, outsourced, shadow operation.

Companies looking for ways to reduce their costs need only search the Web to easily find a product they need or a service provider with an abundant supply of highly educated, low cost talent who can provide any sort of service - even if it requires a PhD. The secret - the magic sauce that really makes collaboration cook - is Google.

This has had a powerful levelling effect upon the global economy. Work once restricted to certain developed countries is now exported to wherever the service can be had with the best quality at the lowest price. Economists from Adam Smith and Ricardo to Marx all have noted and applauded the efficient workings of free markets (Marx, considered capitalist free markets to be the most efficient way to break down national and institutional barriers in preparation for the eventual victory of labour). One of the consequences of such markets is the flow of work and value towards the producer with the best cost-benefit ratio.

Given the speed with which the digital market place works, and the ruthlessly efficient functioning of market forces, many jobs are quickly shifting around the world and many other jobs are not created in their traditional homes. The juice or the fat is being squeezed out of markets throughout the world. We are seeing the development of an international Wal-Mart model for collaborative business arrangements. Prices are falling and jobs are shifting - often to developing regions of the world.

Historically, these shifts are hard on labour and jobs in the short-term, but the developing nations that cut into traditional markets soon become big customers of and, paradoxically, big creators of other sorts of jobs in the very same developed countries they took jobs from. The key to survival in these times is constant re-training, lifelong education, and a flexibility regarding career choices.

Working together - collaboration - is not what it used to be. Once, not so very long ago, it meant sitting down with a colleague in the same room and working together on the same project. Collaboration is now a worldwide, digitally assisted, phenomenon; it is old style working together raised to the n^th degree and ‘n’ is the number of nodes, collaborators, information sources - what have you - available on the Internet. Collaboration is big business, for some it is their only business, for others it provides a lifeline, a way to survive in the global economy.

Collaboration, digital collaboration, comes in many flavours. It may be some sort of internal collaboration software that lets people in your company, in a variety of locations, share documents and ideas in real time to coordinate their efforts, plan a project, build a new device or solve a problem that just occurred. More sophisticated versions of this sort of workflow software let engineers in the United States, Western Europe, Russia, China, and any number of other countries keep the work going 24 hours per day, they pass the tasks along; if the sun goes down at one office it is coming up in another. They design cars, airplanes and chips, do back office tasks and just about anything else you can imagine; it is a long list and the tasks higher-level and more sophisticated every day.

Connectivity - the Internet - is the main enabler, but managing the flow of work, goods, time, cash and going with the flow, is the key concept. Managing the flow, more than managing it - working through it - is collaboration; it is the future.

I thought of this while watching a TV report about the inauguration and operational meltdown of the new Heathrow terminal - T5. It got me thinking about the collaboration needed to make this and similar tremendously complex operations function.

The automated baggage handling systems - it will take a while, but they will get it right - reminded me of some of the stories I have read during the last few years about RFID, radio frequency identification tags, that many companies, Wal-Mart especially, expect will greatly simplify important parts of their supply chain management systems. Supply chaining is the über-logistics management, the über-collaboration, that gets goods from all over the world and distributes them at the lowest cost, with the smallest delays, the fewest errors and the lowest inventory levels possible. A smooth running supply-chain calls for vastly complicated collaboration between the buyers - retailers like Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Target, Zara, manufactures like Boeing, Honda, Dell, Nokia - their suppliers, transport companies, designers, engineers all moderated by a constant flow of information, feedback, from the market.

Some of this has been possible for several years, but as time goes by, as connectivity improves and the electronics and systems get better, collaboration gets exponentially better. The growth of collaboration is somewhat like the growth of a child; as its brain and nervous system develop, its muscles get stronger and its communications - language - matures its control over its life and its environment grow in leaps and bounds. And this child has been growing.

Collaboration is the guiding principle in both the widely reported outsourcing phenomenon and the less well known, but increasingly important, insourcing services.

Insourcing has several definitions. In one sense, it is the opposite of outsourcing - it involves transferring internal production, functions and processes to a specialised outside company that performs the same tasks - but within the contracting enterprise.

The first experience with insourcing I remember goes back to the early 1980s. Of course, I immediately - only a quarter of a century later while writing this - recognised it for the collaborative breakthrough it was and understood its significance. A client of mine, a rather large multinational, used to take care of my travel arrangements whenever I visited one of their installations; their internal travel department negotiated with the airlines, car rental companies, hotel chains and the like. One day, though, I went to the travel office and, instead of a company department, I found a rather well-known travel agency. The people working there were mostly the same ones I had always dealt with, but now they worked for the agency that had convinced my client they could spend less and get better service by insourcing - if, indeed, the term existed then - their department.

Insourcing and outsourcing are two sides of the same coin - it all depends upon which side of the deal you are on. Insourcers also use outsourcers - its part of the game.

Collaboration takes many other forms, even instant messaging is a form of collaboration. The open source software development community relies upon the collaboration of its widespread participants. Conferencing tools such as Live Meeting, the Internet itself, Wikipedia, BitTorrent and services based upon peer-to-peer networking in general, Facebook, YouTube and social networking are all, each in its own way, as much a part of the collaboration phenomenon as insourcing and outsourcing.

Whatever the form collaboration takes, it is shaping up into a real revolution. The Industrial revolution became the Information Revolution; it might be the next revolution will centre upon the changes that collaboration is bringing. The Digital Collaboration Revolution does not sound terribly exciting - sorry, it’s the best I can do at the moment. A self-respecting revolution needs a far better name than that; it will certainly get one someday soon.

Collaboration and the WWA (World Wide Auction) is on the move and growing - it will, like all past revolutions, displace much we hold dear. Businesses and job categories will rise and fall - the harness makers will give way to automotive workers of the new age - and cultures will merge and change. As with all major social revolutions, in the short and medium term the WWA will bring both progress and pain. Going! Going! Growing! Growing! - Groan!

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Our next Connect-World Europe Issue will be published later this month. This edition of Connect-World will be widely distributed to our reader base and, as well, at shows where we are one of the main media sponsors such as: Sviaz / Expo Comm (14-18 May, Moscow), FT Mobile Media Conference (15-16 May, London), Wimax World Europe (29-31 May, Vienna), and Von Europe (11-14 June, Stockholm).

The theme for this issue will be, The evolving ‘Net’ - Rising to the challenge of rising use.

When speaking of networks, conventional wisdom and traditional business models no longer work as they did. The lines are blurring in the fixed, mobile and even broadcasting markets. Wired networks now handle traffic once thought suitable only for wireless and wireless is substituting wired in a broad range of applications. Seamless handoffs between wired and wireless networks –and,  indeed, mergers, partnerships and consolidations bringing together networks and players of all sorts – further confuse the once prettily organised networking landscape.

This issue will examine what these changes in technologies and the market mean for the sector. How can the residential and business consumer best be served? What does the future hold for network operators of all types?

Europe II 2008 Media Pack; Click here

Fredric Morris
Editor-In-Chief
Connect-World

This is the first in a series of eLetters that will - from time to time - explore some of the issues and risks inherent in the growth of Internet access and the Information Society. The use of such powerful new tools as data mining to analyse personal data collected on the Web, for example, has significant social and personal implications that call for international regulatory action. Most of you, my readers, are involved in some way with ICTs - many, perhaps with the questions raised by this letter.

How do you feel about these questions? What needs to be done to take proper advantage of the technologies while containing the risks?  What sort of regulatory action, what sort of international action is called for? Write to me, I would like to include your thoughts and opinions in future eLetters. fredric.morris@connect.world.com

Correlated beyond all recognition, advertising, and the death of privacy 

Once upon a time advertising was just a way to send a company’s message to a consumer. It was a one-way street. Today we are moving in a different, disturbing, direction.

I am not against advertising; it is an important driving force in our economy. It helps us make choices. It informs us of many things we really want to know or are not aware of, but should know about. I think some ads are truly sensational, but then, I even like catalogues. Advertising supports all the broadcast programming we see on free TV, makes magazines and newspapers affordable and one day soon will be bringing the same sort of benefits to your mobile phone.

Targeted advertising, or ‘addressable advertising’ as it is now called, is the goal of today’s advertisers and, by extension, all advertising vehicles. The idea is to address ads targeted to match each individual consumer’s profile. Understanding the consumer’s profile, their interests, needs, wants and desires can - in principle - let advertisers address highly specific messages to each individual. The difference between principle and practice is, in this case, far from trivial. Although this may seem innocent, many of the implications are not.

The data to learn about customer preferences is available. There is a staggering amount of collectable data flowing over the world’s networks. It can be, and is, collected in a great number of ways at a great number of locations, by a wide variety of interested organizations and individuals.

Websites, governments, cable company set-top boxes, mobile phone platforms, suppliers, and location-based services among others, all gather information about us - their citizens, users and buyers. The data and information they gather, properly analyzed, tell them much more about us than we suspect. Governments use the information they gather to profile people and find terrorists, tax-evaders, criminals, track epidemics and much else. Advertisers want to understand how to reach and sell to customers, so that is how they use the data.

The main search engines save data about every search we make, they know if we are concerned about a medical problem, visit porn sites, dating sites, care about model trains, have a police record, buy books about history and like lingerie - Sorry! Is that your wife? Perhaps not? Do you have a mortgage, a credit rating?

It is amazing the sort of things a search engine knows about you. But it is not only the search engine you use, it is the sites you visit, the social networks you use, it is Facebook and YouTube - in fact it could be any site you try to access and some you don’t, you just get re-directed there by an innocent looking link.

What is more amazing are the sorts of things today’s best data mining systems can piece together from the odds and ends. Data mining software and banks of computers can cull facts and correlations from otherwise intractable masses of data. Some of the more innocent uses can be found on the Microsoft AdCenter Labs website. The Labs’ software can predict a user’s age, gender, readiness to buy or sell, or interest to engage in another sort of transaction based upon the user’s recent search history. It can also funnel and analyse search patterns and keyword usage in a wide variety of other ways.

It gives me a creepy feeling to think about the data mining done to target consumers and for other less innocent reasons. We are being relentlessly stalked every time we buy something with a credit card, when we watch a show on cable TV, search for something - really everything and anything - on the Web. Anytime we do anything on the Web, we are subject to the scrutiny of all kinds of data snoops. The high gods of consumerdom know things about us we even we do not know ourselves - and they are getting better at it every day. The world’s governments might know even more and what less savoury groups, including those with criminal intent, might know is frightening.

Yahoo according to one report, and I am certain Google as well, can predict ad response rates and even the time of day the ads will work best. Yahoo, like Microsoft, can analyse the online behaviour on its network, and spot potential buyers at various stages of their on-line search. The depth of analysis and correlation that the best data mining software can perform is awesome. They might for example, based on where you live, the searches you do and the diverse interests you have be able to predict which films you like and which automobiles will interest you. In addition, data miners can analyse the sort of politics you are likely to believe in, what new products you will love and hate, what - if any - books, magazines and newspapers you might like to read.

There is so much data that there is no way to analyse it properly without powerful computers and sophisticated software. There is also no way to act upon the information and devise an appropriate return without, again, powerful computers and sophisticated software. Assuming we can analyse the data and frame a response, the need remains to get the message to the target at the right time and place, but current platforms are designed with just this sort of interactivity in mind.

IBM recently announced a new project called Kittyhawk, to build a worldwide, distributed, supercomputer. The Kittyhawk platform will, they expect, be able to run the Internet, - the entire Internet - alone, as a single application, and replace the current fairly random assortment of interconnected computer networks. The migration of the Internet to one platform, should it ever happen, combined with Kittyhawk’s massive computing power (16,384 racks with up to of 67.1 million cores and 32 petabytes of memory) will increase the power of data mining power to unimaginable levels. Some of the Kittyhawk speculation sounds more like science fiction than fact.

Many of the potential dangers of uncontrolled data mining are obvious, but there is a more subtle, little understood danger that resides in the very nature of data mining: the knowledge discovery methodology employed, the algorithms used to spot patterns and trends and the correlations encountered between the data elements. The process sifts through vast amounts of data searching for patterns not easily seen or found by simpler forms of analysis as they are hidden by the volume and complexity of the data. Neural networks and a variety of mathematical tools are used to spot patterns and calculate the degree of correlation between different types of data. So far, so good, there is no problem with the process; there is a problem, though with way people understand the results.

There is an old saying, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics”. I always attributed it to my father - he repeated it often, but according to the Wikipedia, Benjamin Disraeli said it first and Mark Twain later popularized it in the U.S. We need to remember this well whenever we analyse correlations and other sorts of statistical analysis; the numbers may be right, but interpretations often lie.

Correlations are among the most misunderstood mathematical tools. When data is strongly correlated, we tend to assume they are interrelated or even that one of the items causes the other. Gasoline, beachwear and ice cream sales may be strongly correlated - they all go up in the summer - but one is hardly the cause of the other. Genes that produce supermodels might correlate with wealth, fame, newspaper scandals and the garment industry, but the genes are hardly the direct, sufficient, cause of any of these.

In extreme cases, the searches of serious scholars using the Web might be correlated with serial murderers, perverts, tax evaders, terrorists or in some way with whatever else they may be researching.

These cases might be exaggerated, but the guilt by implication - or correlation - and the invasion of privacy that data mining implies are real issues. Data mining results in the wrong hands can destroy credibility, put jobs at risk, destroy families, and create opportunities for blackmail.

The risks might not be obvious, but today’s Big Brother is a computer programme linked to the Web. We, and our lives, might be correlated beyond all recognition, and I see little serious government action anywhere to contain the danger.

Our next Connect-World Europe Issue will be published later this month. This edition of Connect-World will be widely distributed to our reader base and, as well, at shows where we are one of the main media sponsors such as: Sviaz / Expo Comm (14-18 May, Moscow), FT Mobile Media Conference (15-16 May, London), Wimax World Europe (29-31 May, Vienna), and Von Europe (11-14 June, Stockholm).

The theme for this issue will be, The evolving ‘Net’ - Rising to the challenge of rising use.

When speaking of networks, conventional wisdom and traditional business models no longer work as they did. The lines are blurring in the fixed, mobile and even broadcasting markets. Wired networks now handle traffic once thought suitable only for wireless and wireless is substituting wired in a broad range of applications. Seamless handoffs between wired and wireless networks –and,  indeed, mergers, partnerships and consolidations bringing together networks and players of all sorts – further confuse the once prettily organised networking landscape.

This issue will examine what these changes in technologies and the market mean for the sector. How can the residential and business consumer best be served? What does the future hold for network operators of all types?

Europe II 2008 Media Pack; Click here

Fredric Morris
Editor-In-Chief
Connect-World

State of the ‘Union’ - seamless or stitched together? Simple systems for simple people

The oft cited vision of seamless communications just isn’t happening. Not yet anyway, and it looks like it will take time to weave all the pieces into a whole, seamless, cloth. No doubt it will come to pass, but the vision sold by operators and equipment vendors is still something of a mirage. Comments by research and consulting groups, notes in industry publications and newspapers and talk at shows all seem to confirm that the glowing forecasts of transparent, automatic, digital union between digital devices and services were premature. Seamless connectivity is growing, but like any child, it is growing in fits and starts and subject to whims and tantrums. It is still far more stitched than seamless.

The technology exists, or at least many pieces of it in the hands of several vendors, but each company has its own idea of what ‘seamless’ means and how to deliver the dreamed of ‘zipless’ telecom experience. Things were simpler in the days of black-only telephones and manual plug-in switchboards.

Today, in addition to the traditional tied-to-the wall desk phone - plain, keyset, feature phones and the like - we’ve got mobile phones, PCs with Skype, instant messaging and email, conferencing with virtual presence, video, PDAs with WiFi and, shortly, WiMAX as well. This should make life simpler, but like so many advances that make life easier, they only make it easier to do more things at once - especially at work - and making it all work is anything but simple. At work? Where’s that? Well, today, at least in theory, it could be just about anywhere, but anyone who travels a lot know that it doesn’t always work that way, especially when time and resources are in short supply.

Have you heard about seamless connectivity? You are at home watching TV. A call comes in, it flashes on the TV screen, you pick up the handset next to you - that happens to be your cellphone linked via WiFi to your landline and your daughter appears on the TV screen. She has locked the keys inside her car. You continue talking on your phone as you go out the door to help her and the line seamlessly switches to your mobile operator’s network. After you find out where she is located, on the way to meet her, you check the Internet using an available WiFi or, soon, WiMAX network. You find a 24/7 automotive locksmith, click on the telephone number and call automatically via the mobile network. On the way back home, a colleague calls from abroad, many time zones away, on Skype; ‘we need some numbers for a meeting in an hour…’

I can go on for quite a while building ever more complicated scenarios. There are an infinite number of ways to link services, devices and application with others, intertwining personal with business uses. The connections, the uses, the possibilities, are almost limitless and I didn’t even include the role mobile video and TV will play or that of NFC (Near Field Communications) including RFIDs. It’s a great picture, a story to warm the heart of any techno-freak, equipment supplier, applications developer, operator or business. Just one problem - that’s not the way it works, at least not yet, in the real world. Despite the hype about seamless connectivity, too many pieces of the puzzle are still missing and some - such as open connectivity via interconnection and clearing hubs between operators and service providers instead of separate one-to-one agreements for roaming, SMS interchange and the like - are still in the works.

We all know how frustrating and counterproductive it is when you can’t reach the right family member, friend or business associate to resolve a problem, to organize an encounter or just to pass on a bit of news that can’t wait or when you can’t access services or information - then and there - when you need it. At home this might cause stress, problems, missed opportunities and misunderstandings. At work, this can cost big bucks. It happens all the time; since there is not much we can do about it today we just chalk it up to experience or overhead. Seamless communications promises to resolve these types of problems.

At the moment, businesses are leading the march through the minefields towards unified communications. Most really big companies will find it takes vision, faith, courage and lots of cash and time to unify a multitude of legacy systems which often do not speak with one another. Seamless, unified communications, in most instances, will call for centralised - and, needless to say, expensive - infrastructure and standardisation of much of the equipment in the field, scattered in offices and installations around the globe and even in the hands and homes of their staff members. It is no wonder that many companies, although they recognise the benefits, are dragging their feet and waiting before committing the resources needed for such an arduous transition. The costs will certainly come down over the next few years, and by planning the normal evolution of internal systems and the normal, programmed, replacement of equipment in the field with seamless connectivity in mind, companies will be able to migrate somewhat more gently into unified communications.

IP-driven systems, especially Voice over IP (VoIP), and the sort of context-based services that only truly large-scale systems can provide mean more than just cheaper communications. Existing systems inflexibly map each service, each user and device to a specific number and a highly specific access scheme. In the future, employees will take a unique system-wide access number with them wherever they are. With this number, they will be accessible, by anyone, wherever they are and conversely will have access to whatever services and information they need, or are authorised to access from any company facility throughout the world. This sort of two-way access to people and resources will tend to further accelerate the trend towards decentralisation, reduce traffic and increase the percentage of home-based workers.

Given their vast experience, infrastructures and technical competence, not to mention their spider-like position at the centre of the communications web, it is no wonder that the large international carriers are all looking at the seamless communications market. Local operators, especially mobile operators, are developing options for the home and SME (small and medium enterprise) markets. A number of the largest network suppliers are planning to offer network management services to support operator and enterprise seamless connectivity programmes.

I wonder, given the number of systems, services, applications and devices - and developers’ unstoppable urge to keep adding bells and whistles - how many of these wonderful seamless features and services we are going to use? I don’t know anyone who uses or knows of all, or even most, of the features on their cell phones or their MS Office applications. Despite dealing with ICTs and complex systems all my life, when it comes to applications I am a simple person. I like sophisticated solutions, but I like them simple. I like solutions that do everything, but hide their complexity behind slick and simple to use interfaces. I know everyone talks about how easy seamless connectivity will be, but based on past experience with mindlessly complex ‘simple’ systems, I am wary. Will the systems be truly seamless, truly super-simple to use systems or will they be overblown, over-hyped, stitched together crazy-quilts with everything you never wanted to use?

Connect-World: Africa & the Middle East (200 will be published next month. This edition of Connect-World will be widely distributed to our reader base and, as well, at shows where we are media sponsors such as: ITU Telecom Africa (12-15 May, Cairo), Tunisia Telecom, (Tunisia, 22-25 October), and GSM ME Gulf and North Africa (UAE, 2-3 December).

In addition to our normal global mailing, this issue will also be distributed to a select list of world leaders, to the ranking executives of the world’s largest companies including the Fortune 1000, to government authorities, and to international institutions. This issue will also be available on our website to all other interested readers throughout the world.

The theme of Connect-World: Africa & the Middle East (2008), our coming edition, will be Convergence and data - pushing the limits of the network, pushing the limits of economic and social development.

The growth in data transmission, together with the exponential rise in video and images in general, and the tendency to funnel more through fewer, converged, networks are largely fuelling the need for greater broadband capacity and speed. Not so long ago, we looked to universal telephony as a goal all nations should strive for to meet the needs of their citizens. Today, the growth of the Information Society has raised the bar; universal access to broadband is now the goal - indeed the necessary pre-condition – for digital, economic and social inclusion. This has stretched the resources of governments, service providers, equipment suppliers, businesses and all others involved in the provision and use of broadband.

The need is evident, but there is much to do not only to rollout broadband access and pay for it, but also to make the best use of it to contribute to economic growth and the personal well-being of urban and rural users alike. What should we all be doing, what can be done, not just to provide broadband, but also to use it productively?

Africa and the Middle East 2008 Media Pack; Click here

Fredric Morris
Editor-In-Chief
Connect-World

Mobile in Barcelona -

Mobile broadband, cheap smartphones, operating systems, software and the killer around the bend

The Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona used to be called the 3GSM Congress. The name is new, but its importance and the spirit of anticipation remains. Each year, basic shifts in the mobile sector are signalled by the keynote speakers and the new products and services announced at the MWC.

This year’s show, as expected, was all about the promise of broadband, broadband-based services and applications, and the standards and devices needed to deliver on the promise. In his keynote address, Vodafone’s CEO Arun Sarin best summed up where the sector is going and where it should be going. He focussed upon two subjects, the proliferation of mobile operating system software products and the competition between LTE (Long Term Evolution) and WiMAX 4G broadband standards. His call to simplify the mobile world’s development through further standardisation resonated strongly with operators - and many manufacturers and applications developers as well. There are now some 30 or 40 mobile operating systems in use today. Mr Sarin would like to see that reduced, at most, to four or five and let the market decide which systems best meet their needs.

Most of today’s handsets use the manufacturer’s proprietary operating system, so when Google announced its Android ‘open’ mobile operating system it upset everyone – from Nokia and Motorola to Microsoft and the Linux fans. Mr Sarin’s plea is a needed call for sanity and standards in an increasingly software dominated sector.

Mr Sarin also suggested that integrating WiMAX with LTE may be the best way to move forward, perhaps by incorporating LTE and WiMAX within common TDD-based standards.

TDD? Time Division Duplex - TDD - is an increasingly popular way to provide simultaneous two-way broadband for mobile. FDD - Frequency Division Duplex - a more commonly used technology slices the available bandwidth into time slots and proportionately allocates them to the incoming and outgoing traffic, imperceptibly interleaving them on the same channel. FDD needs two channels - one outgoing, another incoming. Since traffic in each direction is segregated by channel, excess capacity in one direction cannot be used to handle peaks in the other direction. TDD, given the same total bandwidth as TDD, efficiently utilises whatever capacity is available for traffic in any direction; it provides much greater effective, useable, bandwidth than FDD. Mr Sarin called for a combined TDD-based WiMAX/LTE standard to end the counterproductive wrangling between existing 4G standards.

Generally speaking, the Mobile World Congress was a showcase for the sardine-can school of mobile design - let’s see how many functions, features and gadgets we can cram into a mobile phone the size of a sardine can. Equipment suppliers and operators alike seem to think super/hyper loading handsets with features is the way to go, the way to catch and keep subscribers, so super-stuffed devices with features nobody uses are quite popular. Nevertheless, several recently announced products counter the Swiss Army knife - do it all in one box - trend and move in the other direction by radically simplifying handset features. Most of the simple designs are low-cost efforts aimed at emerging markets. Apple’s wildly popular iPhone takes the middle course; it maintains the complexity, but simplifies the interface so people can actually use more of the features. It is no wonder that it has set the standard to beat.

Two announcements, in particular, delighted me. First, it was heartening to see ZTE announce the first commercial SDR (software defined radio) base station. In my second eLetter in January I predicted that SDR would be coming to the market shortly; I just didn’t expect it so soon. I also didn’t expect SDR base stations would come sooner than handsets. It makes sense though - just ‘add new software and serve’ when you wish to transmit a new standard, use a different frequency or adopt a different modulation scheme. The base station, which initially supports GSM and WCDMA simultaneously, uses software instead of application-specific hardware to process the signals. In the future, according to ZTE’s news release, the platform will also be able to support CDMA and WiMAX.

As a first step towards an SDR world, the base station makes sense. It is a lot easier, considering how new and demanding the technology is, to try it out first in a big box instead of a handset. It also makes great sense to offer operators a platform that can, at least in principle, handle whatever new technology arises in any bit of spectrum that the regulators allow, with little more to do than install new software. I was looking forward to SDR handsets, but this is still a great first step.

The next bit of news that truly pleased me was the ultra low cost Smart Entry Phone (SEP) aimed at emerging markets. It would have pleased me even more had the price been announced, but the Mobile ULC2 Alliance - consisting of Infineon Technologies, Jurong Technologies Industrial Corp. Ltd, TJAT Systems Ltd. and Brightstar, has been careful not to release any price data, although they do claim it is the world’s lowest cost smartphone. Talk, speculation really, at the MWC puts the price at under US$100, even at below US$50. The phone, targeted at emerging markets throughout the world, will provide access to the Web, email, location-based services and IM (instant messaging). According to the press release, the SEP combines “exceptionally low operational costs with no requirement for additional infrastructure purchases”. It has been apparent for some time - and numerous studies support this - that given the developed world’s saturated markets, most new mobile subscribers will come from the developing economies. Indeed, ABI Research believes that by 2011, one of every four handsets sold globally will be ultra low cost handsets.

I have written several times before that ultra low cost ‘smart’ handsets were bound to come. A variety of such devices are sure to reach the market in the near future. The astounding size of the market at the bottom of the pyramid will inexorably drive growth, competition and the development of better, cheaper, devices. Low cost smartphones will likely become the world’s dominant form of Internet access within the next few years. Smartphone will bring far more than email, games and messaging - they will be vital business tools, sources of education and of a still unimaginable variety of services.

The show, above all, demonstrated the growing dominance of software. From Software Defined radios and software-driven smartphones to operating systems, software - always strong - is growing yet stronger in mobile communications. Network management, operational support systems, business support systems, diagnostics, security and marketing - the operators’ entire operating structure, content and user applications all depend entirely upon software. The newer the product, the newer the service, the more it depends upon software.

Okay, you’re impressed with the stranglehold software has on the industry - so am I. The show, though, never lets one forget that software without hardware has nowhere to go. And the hardware is getting slicker and slicker; some of it is downright mouth watering. There’s the iPhone, of course, and a growing number of iPhone ‘wanabees’- some great feature-rich phones. There’s no iPhone killer yet, but given the hot and heavy innovation seen at the MWC, Apple needs to run fast, there’s a killer just around the bend.

Connect-World: Africa & the Middle East (200 will be published next month. This edition of Connect-World will be widely distributed to our reader base and, as well, at shows where we are media sponsors such as: ITU Telecom Africa (12-15 May, Cairo), Tunisia Telecom, (Tunisia, 22-25 October), and GSM ME Gulf and North Africa (UAE, 2-3 December).

In addition to our normal global mailing, this issue will also be distributed to a select list of world leaders, to the ranking executives of the world’s largest companies including the Fortune 1000, to government authorities, and to international institutions. This issue will also be available on our website to all other interested readers throughout the world.

The theme of Connect-World: Africa & the Middle East (2008), our coming edition, will be Convergence and data - pushing the limits of the network, pushing the limits of economic and social development.

The growth in data transmission, together with the exponential rise in video and images in general, and the tendency to funnel more through fewer, converged, networks are largely fuelling the need for greater broadband capacity and speed. Not so long ago, we looked to universal telephony as a goal all nations should strive for to meet the needs of their citizens. Today, the growth of the Information Society has raised the bar; universal access to broadband is now the goal - indeed the necessary pre-condition – for digital, economic and social inclusion. This has stretched the resources of governments, service providers, equipment suppliers, businesses and all others involved in the provision and use of broadband.

The need is evident, but there is much to do not only to rollout broadband access and pay for it, but also to make the best use of it to contribute to economic growth and the personal well-being of urban and rural users alike. What should we all be doing, what can be done, not just to provide broadband, but also to use it productively?

Africa and the Middle East 2008 Media Pack; Click here

Fredric Morris
Editor-In-Chief
Connect-World

Results … 8,440,000 for mobile trends 2008 (0.03 seconds)

Since the Mobile World Congress (ex 3GSM) in Barcelona is coming, I thought I would write about mobile trends. I have always been something of a trend watcher, but a bit of research never hurt, so I called Google to the rescue. Google’s response - in three hundredths of a second - is above. I tried and tried, but could only skim the first million results. One thing I didn’t find was a trend towards better, more intelligent response to search queries, mobile or otherwise. Sure, there are efforts to better the search engine responses, to provide quality instead of quantity. It’s far from being a trend yet, but that is a trend I would truly like to see.

Surprise! The growth in cellular telephony will continue and developing countries will show high growth rates. Surprise! Handsets will get cheaper and have more functions stuffed in. Surprise! More people will use their mobiles to access the Internet. Obvious? Obviously! Enough surprises.

A few trends are worth examining. Trends are long-term phenomena not flash fads. Many of the trends I see are just starting , are still toddling, but they all promise to grow steadily and run strongly in the coming years.

Broadband, not voice, is shaping up as the real driver of both mobile innovation and operators’ dreams of higher ARPUs (average revenue per user). WiMAX / LTE /4G will certainly grow strongly. It might seem that WiMAX and LTE (long-term evolution - a third generation approach to high speed GSM broadband) will be shooting it out on main street at high noon, but early reports show clear and separate tendencies for each technology - LTE is the technology of choice for operators with big investments in existing networks and WiMAX will tend to be the choice of greenfield operators. The CDMA camp has a third option, UMB, but it is far behind in the race and may not finish. Still, no one really has a clear idea of how or even exactly when major network rollouts will take place.

Unlike previous mobile rollouts, handsets will not provide the initial thrust needed. Packing the needed circuitry into the handsets - see my last eLetter - will increase the complexity, size, cost and power consumption of both WiMAX and LTE handsets. Since most of today’s HSPA (high speed packet access) broadband networks are still mostly under utilised, many in the industry expect the new technologies will take several years to ramp up and achieve commercial success.

Wireless modems for laptops and even fixed access points for broadband Internet access in remote or hard to reach regions are among the real early drivers of wireless broadband. Wireless broadband will be a godsend in regions where there is little copper, but enough public or private money for broadband. Parts of Asia, Eastern Europe, Russia, and Latin America are likely to be early large-scale adopters.

Obviously, mobile applications, entertainment and the like will push wireless broadband adoption, but for the next few years, the time it will take to get an affordable and technologically attractive handset to the market , growth will be limited to users - likely business users - who must have broadband access and are not put off by power, size or cost restrictions.

Many of the trends building up a head of steam are building upon broadband. IP-based mobile video is one of these trends. It is already gaining an avid following in some parts of the world, but until the costs of both the handsets and the service come down it will grow, but not explode in the market. Mobile IP telephony, a sort of Skype on wheels, should take off once unblocked broadband becomes common; this worries some operators greatly, and they will fight a battle they know they will lose just to stretch the revenue stream from their current technologies. As mobile broadband grows, so will IP-based services and SMS will tend to wither away.

Mobile operators will recuperate part, perhaps all, of the revenues lost to IP telephony through mobile advertising which will subsidise a great many services much as advertising does today with broadcast radio and television. Some of the advertising supported services will be available only to viewers who actively agree to receive advertising material, but others such as broadcast mobile television will probably follow the old tried and true commercial broadcast model. Since social networkers, virtual world participants and MMOG (massively multiplayer online games) players, given the enormous amount of time they tend to spend online, are sure to become targets of choice for many advertisers, they are likely to benefit from a great number of advertising supported services.

As 3G mobile broadband brings down the cost of always-on connectivity, mobile social networks will grow and become an integral part of the lives and lifestyles of people as they move about during the day. Video blogging and all other forms of online personal/public interaction will inexorably grow in step with mobile broadband.

Network operators throughout the world are beginning to recognise there are costs associated with trying to hold back the inevitable coming of open networks. The mobile operator’s Frankenstein Monster, Google’s Android and its Open Handset Alliance, is just the latest of a long list of challenges operators face trying to control the services their subscribers use. It is only a matter of time, but the trend towards open networks and unblocked devices will not be stopped. Like it or not, it won’t be many years before mobile operators will have to put up with just about any handset, any device, any use, media, content or application their subscribers wish. DRM (digital rights management) as we know it today is dying; it may take a while, but the handwriting is on the wall.

Mobile commerce, mobile shopping and mobile financial services will grow to the point they threaten traditional (even on-line-traditional) services. The growth in the use of mobile phones as credit/debit card devices, the growth (finally) of location based services, the availability of highly sophisticated mobile search services, and the fact that mobile phones are always with the user, will all push the mobile commerce phenomenon to greater heights.

The trend towards using mobile devices as a means of payment will grow. I expect mobile phones will largely replace cash and credit cards within the next 10 to 15 years. Mobile phones equipped with circuitry for near field communications are already being used to pay for public transportation and vending machine purchases in some parts of the world. The security and speed of electronic payments and the low cost per transaction (it is cheaper to process an electronic transaction than to handle, control and account for cash) will foster the growth of mobile payment systems. It seems obvious that both financial institutions and mobile service providers will both want to control this market, so competition between these sectors as well as financial services/telecommunications services mergers and acquisitions will become increasingly common.

I don’t know if I will see it yet at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, but during the next few years we should begin to see the ‘Internet of Things’ and the mobile world join forces as RFID readers are incorporated into mobile handsets.

What we are certain to see at Barcelona is a frontal attack on the iPhone; big touch screens with sexy applications are sure to abound and the ghost of Android, Google’s open source operating system, will be hovering about.

There are a good number of other interesting trends, and we’ll get to them when I have more space, time and inspiration.

____________________________________________________

Our next Connect-World Europe issue will be published later this month. The issue will be widely distributed to our reader base and, as well, at shows where we are one of the main media sponsors such as: Mobile World Congress (ex-3GSM), Barcelona (11-14 February), CeBit, London, (March 4-9), IPTV World Forum, London (12-14 March), and SOFNET, London (21-24 April).

The theme of this issue of Connect-World Europe will be - From broadcast to broadband - it’s show time!

Distinctions among traditional services providers are increasingly blurred. Not so long ago, the last-mile technology service providers used essentially defined what they were and gave them control over their users - they ‘owned’ the subscribers to their services. Today, IP-based converged networks mean traditional voice, data or video service providers can - all of them - economically deliver any and all of the services offered by any other type of player. Nowadays, service providers may no longer own their customers; indeed - heresy of heresies - they may not even own their own networks. Skype, Google TV, MySpace and YouTube did not even exist a decade ago, yet they are a mighty threat to ICT sector business as usual.

Telcos offer IPTV and data, cablecos offer phone service and data and ISPs offer whatever service they can, and all are poaching upon territory that once belonged exclusively to the broadcasters. The competition is growing, although in many cases the income still isn’t - the traditional companies with the experience and the customers have an edge - but that is changing and so are the business models.

The profound changes IP networks bring to the sector are, perhaps, most clearly seen in the planning by nearly all service providers to provide entertainment, and in the rapid proliferation of entertainment delivery platforms. The impact upon the broadcast sector cannot easily be calculated, but everyone involved in delivering entertainment - content providers, the advertising industry, telcos, cablecos, ISPs and equipment manufacturers among others - is affected. As the sector ramps up to meet the demand for the new services, regulators, lawyers, manufacturers, carriers, service providers and the consumer will all have significant changes to deal with and difficult decisions to make.

The issue will examine the changes the sector - exemplified by, but not limited to, IPTV - as seen through the eyes of the regulators, service providers, manufacturers, indeed, all those struggling to make the transition to new models. The game is changing; it’s a new show.

Europe I 2008 Media Pack; Click here

Fredric Morris
Editor-In-Chief
Connect-World

Radios, slipsticks, mobile devices, antennas and computers - marching to the beat from superhetrodyne to software, from sardines and porcupines to fashion shows

Once upon a time, many years ago, in the age of the vacuum tube radio receiver, stone-age cool called for blithe references to superheterodyning. You didn’t really have to know what it meant, it just sounded good - something like quoting a philosopher you never read to support a specious argument. It sounded cool. Nerd cool in those days meant you had a slide rule hanging from your belt and had a plastic protector jammed with pens of all colours in your shirt pocket. You never saw a slide rule? Well there were no computers or even electronic calculators, but a slipstick wizard could calculate all sorts of amazing things - even satellite orbits - with one of those.

Slide rules died when the Hewlett-Packard HP 35 hit the market in the early 1970s. I bought the HP as soon as soon as I could afford it and brought it to work. I remember clearly being told the damn thing would never fly - you just couldn’t get enough buttons on anything that small to equal the glorious flexibility of a K&E Log-Log Duplex Decitrig slide rule - with an ‘F’ scale instead of a ‘K’ scale if you were into designing radios. But who cared? Slide rules had no decimal points - you just had to know where to stick them, but the HP had ten significant digits and a decimal point in the right place. In no time at all, calculators had so many buttons for hard to calculate functions that evolution started selecting for engineers with skinny fingers that didn’t hit two buttons at a time (the sons of these same engineers now design mobile phone keyboards). Faster than you could say, ‘Log-Log Duplex Decitrig with Vector Hyperbolic Functions’, the slide rule died; there were no ceremonies or flowers and few mourners.

Back to the radios, heterodyne means to mix two frequencies together to produce a ‘beat’ frequency, namely the difference between the two. Superheterodyning, originally supersonic heterodyning, creates a beat frequency lower than the original signal; this solves a series of radio design problems and reduces amplifier power requirements.

Radios are marching to a different beat nowadays!

I was reading reports of the CES show in Las Vegas earlier this month. There were a great number of product announcements for cell phones, GPS, mobile TV, WiMAX, WiFi and the like and the fact that so many of them were being put into the same devices. I started thinking about the difficulties of stuffing so many radio technologies and so many frequencies into the same sardine can.

Think about them (in alphabetical order, please): Bluetooth (2.4 GHz), FM radio 87.5 - 108.0 MHz; GPS (1.1 – 1.6GHz); GSM (GPRS, EDGE -900MHz, 1800MHz); Mobile TV (MediaFLO, DVB, DMB - 200 – 800MHz); NFC (Near Field Communications -13.56 MHz); UMTS (WCDMA, HSPA, LTE - 2100MHz); UWB (Ultra-wideband - 3.1 -10.6GHz); Wi-Fi (2.4GHz, 5.8GHz); WiMAX (2.5GHz, 3.5GHz). I think I’ve got them all - at least ten basic categories, 16 or so technologies and, no matter how you count them, a whole lot of frequencies. If we put each of these into separate boxes, the size of the first superheterodyne radios, we would need a horse-drawn cart to carry them.

It seems we are moving inevitably towards the day when all of these technologies will have to share space in the same handheld device with cameras, screens, speakers, microphones, videos, music players, agendas, calculators and a long list of other components and applications.

Handset manufacturers are doing an incredible job of packing new functions into thinner and thinner, smaller and smaller devices, but there are limits. Since everything is implemented in hardware, physical and cost limits will soon be reached. Each new device and circuit adds cost, complexity and size.

What chip designers have done so far is amazing. The ASICs (application specific integrated circuits) that have been built to incorporate multi-band, multi-function circuitry are amazing, and there is a strong tendency to stick with these tried and true, thoroughly understood technologies. Nevertheless, the writing is on the wall.

One day soon, I expect the sardine-can design trend will grind to a halt and, faster than you can type a ‘UR kewl’ SMS, someone will come out with a commercial software defined radio device (SDR) mobile telephone and today’s technology will be deader than the slide rule. It’s simple; the manufacturing economies, smaller devices and increased flexibility of the new devices - once the bugs are worked out - will be unbeatable.

The software defined radio can, in principle, function in any frequency band and handle any signal modulation scheme by using software to process the signals. The earliest versions, some 15 years ago, were developed by the U.S. military to consolidate a variety of field communications devices into a single easily carried and maintained piece of equipment. The capabilities of these devices were far from those we would expect today to handle the sophisticated mobile communications we have become accustomed to, but they worked. There have been amateur, quite limited, versions of the SDR running on PCs with soundboards that can send and receive different radio signals using special software.

The proponents of SDR often see it as a first step towards the development of a cognitive radio, a radio that is sufficiently ‘intelligent’ to verify the available radio spectrum, compare it to the user’s communications needs, and dynamically configure and reconfigure cost/quality/frequency optimised communications sessions.

We can’t do it all yet, at least outside the lab, the processing speeds for the higher frequencies are just too fast for today’s processors to handle directly, power requirements for SDR radio frequency front-ends are still quite high and antennas that can efficiently handle such a wide range of frequencies are hard to design. Still, if I had to guess, I would say that in five years or less SDR will conquer as much as ten per cent of the market.

Oddly enough, the first problem, limited processing speeds for high frequency signals, has an old solution - superheterodyning. Remember? ‘Superhet’, to its close friends, works by lowering RF (radio frequencies) to the IF (intermediate frequency) range under 40 MHz. This relic from the early days of radio is still a mainstay of modern design.

The power problems are serious, but I expect they will yield in short order to advances in manufacturing and signal processing technologies. The antenna worries me more. Although great strides have been made in smart antenna design, the variety of technologies that must be accommodated is daunting. Mobile TV, LTE, UWB and GPS, for example, each pose separate, difficult, technically diverse problems for antenna designers.

Fortunately, as in the case of the sardine model for stuffing multiple mobile devices in the same can, nature has given us models for a new solution - porcupines and hedgehogs. It will be difficult to slip an antenna covered, bristly, device into your pocket or into a protective case, but as fashion shows have proved year after year, there is no shortage of weird designs to examine or weirder designers to work on the case.

____________________________________________________

Our next Connect-World Europe issue will be published later this month. The issue will be widely distributed to our reader base and, as well, at shows where we are one of the main media sponsors such as: GSM World Congress (Mobility World Congress), Barcelona, Spain (11-14 February), CeBit, London (4-9 March), IPTV World Forum, London, UK (12-14 March) and SOFNET, London, UK (21-24 April).

The theme of this issue of Connect-World Europe will be - From broadcast to broadband - it’s show time!

Distinctions among traditional services providers are increasingly blurred. Not so long ago, the last-mile technology service providers used essentially defined what they were and gave them control over their users – they ‘owned’ the subscribers to their services. Today, IP-based converged networks mean traditional voice, data or video service providers can – all of them - economically deliver any and all of the services offered by any other type of player. Nowadays, service providers may no longer own their customers; indeed - heresy of heresies - they may not even own their own networks. Skype, Google TV, MySpace and YouTube did not even exist a decade ago, yet they are a mighty threat to ICT sector business as usual.

Telcos offer IPTV and data, cablecos offer phone service and data and ISPs offer whatever service they can, and all are poaching upon territory that once belonged exclusively to the broadcasters. The competition is growing, although in many cases the income still isn’t - the traditional companies with the experience and the customers have an edge – but that is changing and so are the business models.

The profound changes IP networks bring to the sector are, perhaps, most clearly seen in the planning by nearly all service providers to provide entertainment, and in the rapid proliferation of entertainment delivery platforms. The impact upon the broadcast sector cannot easily be calculated, but everyone involved in delivering entertainment - content providers, the advertising industry, telcos, cablecos, ISPs and equipment manufacturers among others – is affected. As the sector ramps up to meet the demand for the new services, regulators, lawyers, manufacturers, carriers, service providers and the consumer will all have significant changes to deal with and difficult decisions to make.

The issue will examine the changes the sector - exemplified by, but not limited to, IPTV - as seen through the eyes of the regulators, service providers, manufacturers, indeed, all those struggling to make the transition to new models. The game is changing; it’s a new show.

Europe I 2008 Media Pack; Click here

Fredric Morris
Editor-In-Chief
Connect-World

eHolidays - shopping, traffic, third place and dropping notes

Traffic, crowded parking lots, difficulties with routine purchases, and a computer that died, started me thinking about year-end shopping, on-line help, changing markets and changing habits.

In many parts of the world Christmas shopping, the frantic rush to get presents for family and friends, starts in November. In the United States the Christmas shopping season unofficially begins on Black Friday. On Black Friday, the day after the Thanksgiving holiday - always celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, most Americans do not work. Each year on this day stores reduce prices on a wide variety of merchandise; this draws great numbers of shoppers.

In recent years the advent of eCommerce has given people the option of shopping online. This has reduced the traffic on the roads and reduced some of the traffic at the stores, but not enough to alert a casual observer. Still, the Nielsen Online site reported that the 120 online retailers it tracked on Black Friday saw e-shopping growth of ten per cent this year - some 21.2 million unique visitors this year compared to 19.2 million last year. Web traffic for consumer electronics rose 235 per cent from Friday the week before. In second place, traffic for computer hardware and software grew 121 per cent. I sort of expected that; nowadays it isn’t Christmas if you can’t plug it in.

What surprised me was the growth of shopping comparison portals, in third place, registering a 95 per cent growth in traffic.

Several hours before Christmas Eve, I drove to a nearby supermarket to buy light bulbs and a few odds and ends. Normally a very quick drive, it took more than half an hour of creeping along in intense traffic; last minute shoppers clogged the major roads and slowed traffic even in my quiet neighborhood.

Back home, I ran into traffic once again, this time on the Internet, checking shopping comparison sites looking for a laptop to replace one that recently died in service - it bit off more Connect-World than it could chew.

I am not much of a holiday shopper - any kind of a shopper for that matter, except when in need. When I do shop, I like to see what I am buying. I pick up laptop after laptop, feel the weight, check the keyboard, hinges and screen and go from store to store to check the prices. At least that’s how I used to do it. Nowadays, instead of ‘hitting the street’, I surf the Net. Holidays or peak hours I still run into traffic, but it’s on the Internet; I find what I am looking for sitting at my desk. I might run to a store for a final check, but only after I have compared the specs, the reviews and prices on the Internet and am 99 per cent sure of what I want.

People are slow to change, but the advantages of comparing and buying online are so evident that even creatures of habit, and I am one, now prefer the Web - especially when the specific items and brands are well-known or when the decision is predominantly rational - based upon objective considerations (technology, price…) as opposed to personal preferences, style and taste.

The Internet really helps shoppers; the mobile Net with time will help more. We have all called someone for advice when we can’t find an item we are trying to buy. Mobile phones and a number of new sites make this even easier. A quick search of the Internet for mobile services turned up a wide variety of mobile shopping comparison sites for house hunters, electronics, books (even a Japanese language version of Amazon.com) among many others. There is even a mobile site (MizPee) serving several U.S. cities, which quickly finds public restrooms while one is out shopping and in need.

Needless to say, both Google and Yahoo have their own mobile comparison shopping sites. Not to be left behind, some operators let their subscribers compare prices, browse and buy items from their phones - Verizon Mobile Web 2.0’s mShopper site is an example. One can purchase items seen on mobile shopping sites using credit cards. Visa (no doubt others as well) offers pre-paid card vouchers that let people without credit cards shop online.

The comparison shopping scene is quite innovative and promises to become even more so. If an item you are looking at has a barcode, you can phone, text or access Frucall on the mobile Web with your smartphone or PDA to check prices and alternatives. If someone hasn’t already done it, I am sure that one day soon there will be a service that, when you point your cell phone’s camera at a barcode, will check your position using the phone’s built-in GPS system and find the best price in the neighborhood for the item you are looking at.

Raymond S.T. Lee of the Department of Computing at Hong Kong Polytechnic University has proposed the use of intelligent, “mobile agent-based systems”. The systems use “fuzzy-neuro agent” technology and provide “intelligent mobile web shopping” on any WAP-ready mobile device. As far as I can tell, this service is not yet available, but it is interesting to see the sort of thought and effort going into mobile shopping.

‘Contextual’ online shopping will let one ‘click and buy’ products that appear, for example, on mobile TV, and there are services that let you hold your cell phone to a radio or TV, automatically identify the music playing, download it to your phone and charge your credit card.

Today, one can select holiday greeting cards and send them online to family and friends. When you remember to send a card to someone while on the street, you can send it - then and there - via your cell phone.

The number of ‘real’ holiday greeting cards I receive keeps dropping year by year - as do handwritten notes and letters. Although this might not please greeting card companies, it does help save the world’s forests.

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Our next Connect-World Europe issue will be published later this month. The issue will be widely distributed to our reader base and, as well, at shows where we are one of the main media sponsors such as: GSM World Congress (Mobility World Congress), Barcelona, Spain (11-14 February), CeBit, Hanover, Germany (4-9 March), IPTV World Forum, London, UK (12-14 March) and SOFNET, London, UK (21-24 April).

Distinctions among traditional services providers are increasingly blurred. Not so long ago, the last-mile technology service providers used essentially defined what they were and gave them control over their users – they ‘owned’ the subscribers to their services. Today, IP-based converged networks mean traditional voice, data or video service providers can – all of them - economically deliver any and all of the services offered by any other type of player. Nowadays, service providers may no longer own their customers; indeed - heresy of heresies - they may not even own their own networks. Skype, Google TV, MySpace and YouTube did not even exist a decade ago, yet they are a mighty threat to ICT sector business as usual.

Telcos offer IPTV and data, cablecos offer phone service and data and ISPs offer whatever service they can, and all are poaching upon territory that once belonged exclusively to the broadcasters. The competition is growing, although in many cases the income still isn’t - the traditional companies with the experience and the customers have an edge – but that is changing and so are the business models.

The profound changes IP networks bring to the sector are, perhaps, most clearly seen in the planning by nearly all service providers to provide entertainment, and in the rapid proliferation of entertainment delivery platforms. The impact upon the broadcast sector cannot easily be calculated, but everyone involved in delivering entertainment - content providers, the advertising industry, telcos, cablecos, ISPs and equipment manufacturers among others – is affected. As the sector ramps up to meet the demand for the new services, regulators, lawyers, manufacturers, carriers, service providers and the consumer will all have significant changes to deal with and difficult decisions to make.

Europe I 2008 Media Pack; Click here

Fredric Morris
Editor-In-Chief
Connect-World

“Comes the storm…”- winning or losing the cyber-security battle

Trying to keep track of the cyber-security question is a bit like watching a ball game where no one, even the players, knows the score. The security companies all huff and puff about the difficult battle they are winning, but the bad guys just don’t seem to stay down - they get flattened into pancakes by the steamroller, get up, and keep coming. It’s Looney Tunes all over again.

Surfing the web, I came across some predictions by Symantec’s Director of Emerging technologies, Oliver Friedrichs, concerning the biggest security problems for the coming year. The scary list includes:

* Bot evolution - decentralised, peer-to-peer hacker networks built from co-opted PCs exemplified by the so-far undefeated Stormbot network;

* Web threats: known trusted websites infected with malware - malicious code that attacks site visitors;

* Mobile threats - Hackers and crackers will certainly target mobile threats. The Apple iPhone, Google’s ‘GPhone’ Android software, Microsoft Windows Mobile and other platforms that offer kits to applications developers will be hit. Financial services, such as online banking, auctions and funds transfer applications will certainly be among the targets;

* Virtual Worlds, especially those with virtual property that can be sold for real money and sites where personal information can be obtained from unwary users will be especially sought out by hackers;

* Presidential elections - According to Mr Freidrichs, during the last US presidential elections, there were phishing attacks and denial of service attacks aimed at certain candidate’s sites. This election, according to statements on the Web, he expects a number of ‘typo-domain sites’ will mimic the candidate’s sites. If someone mistypes the official site address they might accidentally open a false, look-alike, site. Some will donate money to the campaign through the false sites, so, “when contributions come in, they’re either pocketed or contributed to someone else’s campaign.”

The director of antivirus research for F-Secure, Mikko Hypponen, according to ZDNet UK, claims that the database of malicious code it has built over the last 20 years has doubled since the beginning of this year. That is an astounding number; I am sure they have not been sleeping for 20 years.

Spending an hour checking security-related sites on the Web is enough to convince one that the crooks are getting bolder, more sophisticated, stronger, richer and harder to find. Companies and individuals alike are being taken in, used and abused.

What happened to the nerds who hacked for fun and prestige and the geeks who cared only about their technical prowess and their membership in the elite hacker community?

The malware industry is more daring, audacious and commercial than ever. Those that know where to look can buy enough malware software and services online to go into business for themselves. Some hacker software is sold as legitimate tools, to find vulnerabilities and check the security of a user’s own system - and some people actually use them for this purpose; many others, though, use these tools as weapons for less innocent ends. Really nasty stuff, I’m told - I didn’t find, or at least recognize, any of this myself - is also available online.

A lot of effort goes into hiding the traces of illegal activity, so the hacker/cracker and malware sector of the economy is not easily measurable, but it seems obvious that it is growing by leaps and bounds and is siphoning significant amounts of cash into its coffers.

The site of the CSI Computer Crime & Security Survey for 2007, states: “The average annual loss reported more than doubled, from US$168,000 in last year’s report to US$350,424 in this year’s survey. Reported losses have not been this high in the last five years. Financial fraud overtook virus attacks as the source of the greatest financial loss. Virus losses, which had been the leading cause of loss for seven straight years, fell to second place. Of respondents who experienced security incidents, almost one-fifth said they’d suffered a ‘targeted attack’, i.e. a malware attack aimed exclusively at a specific organization or targeted group.”

An acquaintance of mine who claims to be an old-time ‘do it for the glory’ hacker who has even tipped off software manufacturers about vulnerabilities in their systems, says that “virus and Trojan kits” often come from the developing regions of the world. He assures me that, despite their dubious origin, some even sell technical assistance contracts for their products. Much of this business is conducted via Internet relay chats (IRCs) and forums where boasts abound. Spammers are a big market for the hackers’ services. They need all the help they can get to sneak past the increasingly sophisticated anti-spam defences deployed in recent years.

Spammers can buy or even rent, so I’m told, a wide variety of sophisticated software to torment us all. The Internet-based malware supermarket has a variety of services and tools for botnets, phishing, denial of service attacks, Trojans, worms, anti-detection software and much else besides. Indeed, you can find just about anything you need to intrude, take-over, borrow, trick, or steal can be found, bought or hired on the Net or through the IRCs. Russians hackers are said to be the scourge of the Net; they offer everything, often at very low prices. There is also an open market in stolen credit card details. Credit card details, according to several Web reports about the ‘industry’, cost very little - less than one dollar per card in bulk quantities. Enough information to get away with identity theft costs less than US$100.

Organised crime, it is said, is often involved in online schemes; it can be more profitable and less risky than traditional crime.

Of all the threats in hacker/crackerdom, the ‘Stormbot’ is possibly the most nefarious. Named after the subject of the email it was first sent out with, “230 dead as storm batters Europe“, thousands of variations of the same ‘bot’ have been sent out since it was first launched in the beginning of 2007.

A Botnet is a network of sorts comprised of software robots - the ‘bots’, which are bits of software that travel automatically through the Internet carrying out their own programmes. Hackers normally use groups of ‘Zombie’ computers to disseminate the bots. The Zombies have been taken over, without their owners’ knowledge, by malware programmes call Trojan Horses, backdoors, worms and such, and can be remotely controlled by the hacker to spread and control a great variety of viruses, spam and bots. The use of Zombie computers makes the source of the attacks they spread devilishly difficult to spot.

The Storm botnet supposedly consist of more than one million co-opted computers tied together in dynamically changing configurations. Since the servers that control ‘Storm’ constantly change their names and location within the botnet’s peer-to-peer network, they are exceedingly difficult to find and stop. The botnet’s commanders have launched denial of service attacks against security experts that have tried to find and neutralise (kill) the bot’s control centres.

The bot’s controllers are very sophisticated - some of the communications with the bots use encryption and they can generate hundreds of functionally different versions per day. Security vendors and law enforcement agencies have not yet been able to get a fix on the ‘Storm’.

While writing about the ‘Storm’ just now, I recalled one of my professors dramatically quoting a line from an anonymous Anglo-Celtic poem. I checked the only words I remembered - “When comes the storm”, on Google and found it at once. The poem is bad, even worse than I had remembered, but - when comes a Stormbot - it can be far worse.

Still, the complete line from which the words I remembered came is strangely prophetic: “When comes the storm of rain, and gusty air / your secrets close are scattered everywhere.”

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Our next Connect-World Asia Pacific issue will be published later this month. The issue will be widely distributed to our reader base and, as well, at shows where we are one of the main media sponsors such as: PTC, Hawaii, USA, 13-16 January 2008 and Carriers World, Hong Kong, 11-13 March 2008.

The theme of this issue of Connect-Word Asia Pacific will be: Broadband - network strategy for core and access.

Broadband is the game, the future of telecommunications – wired and wireless alike. What are the today’s best growth strategies? How do you pay for the buildout? How do you fill the pipes later? How do equipment manufacturers, the software developers, content providers, regulators and, yes, the users, fit into the new environment?

Asia-Pacific I 2008 Media Pack; Click here

Fredric Morris
Editor-In-Chief
Connect-World

Mobile telephony, open platforms and telegraphy - Google that!

The Mobile Web is the World Wide Web accessed via a mobile phone or PDA instead of a computer. The screen is small, but it is always with you when you need it. It is spawning a great number of new services such as SMS, entertainment, cell phone payment and fund transfer systems, location-based services and the like - it’s a very long list.

The Mobile Web even has its own sponsored, ICANN sanctioned, top-level domain name - .mobi, dedicated to mobile phone sites. Not impressed? Well, its financial backers (Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, Ericsson, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Telefónica Móviles, Telecom Italia Mobile, Orascom Telecom, GSM Association, Hutchison Whampoa, Syniverse Technologies, and VISA) are.

A lot of thought and effort is going into new and better services. The goal of the W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative, for example, is to develop Mobile Web-related best practices and technologies to make mobile Web browsing easier and more reliable. A good idea, but I suspect that Google’s recently announced ‘Android’ platform will do more to promote mobile Web use than any other recent initiative.

Google, through the Open Handset Alliance, allied itself with 33 other companies - including many giants in the sector such as Sprint-Nextel, eBay, Motorola and Intel - that will integrate the Android with their own software and hardware and with third party applications to guarantee Android’s impact and staying power.

Although some major telephone operators around the world are part of the Alliance - China Mobile, KDDI, NTT DoCoMo, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefónica - not all major operators agree with Google’s forays into the wireless market. Verizon, which either cripples or replaces the software bundled with mobile handsets to limit and lock features to control its customers, did not join the Android alliance and AT&T executives have been openly disdainful of Google’s plans to enter the bidding for 700MHz wireless spectrum in the USA.

Google is so convinced that wireless is the way to go that it has vowed to commit at least US$ 4.6 billion to the auction - enough money to scare away some players and enough to make the incumbent wireless players nervous. The Google war chest stuffed with billions upon billions of idle dollars and their promise to put up ‘at least’ US$ 4.6 billion of their hoard must be sending shivers up and down a number of corporate spines as they wonder how to get a few extra billions to increase their bids.

Reports of the Android announcement quote Google CEO Eric Schmidt - responding to questions about how their bid for the 700 MHz spectrum is related to their plans for Android - as saying: “We think the 700 MHz network auctions are a matter of public policy and for public benefit, but Android will run well on it.” How nice, such a marvelous coincidence!

Android, states Google, is an open, ‘comprehensive’, mobile platform with a set of tools that make it easy for any programmer to develop applications for mobile devices. The Open Handset Alliance’s effort resulted in a completely open, Linux-based, operating system for mobile devices. All the current operating systems are closed, proprietary, platforms. Google is engaged in an effort to change the mobile world’s technological ecology and turn wireless into an open environment similar to the Internet itself. Android is the opening round of a revolutionary battle.

Phones that use Android will be truly open; operators, for example, will no longer be able to block functions such as WiFi reception - a truly frightening thought for companies such as Verizon and AT&T that have inherited all of the Bell Telephone monopoly genes. Android will, no doubt, run a full set of the growing list of free Google applications including a browser, email (sorry, Gmail), Google Earth and Google maps (complete with its location-based advertising opportunities and social network-like comments function). In short, Android’s starts the game with a handful of cards a poker player could die for.

Other companies such as Apple, Palm, RIM, Symbian, even Microsoft with its Windows Mobile, already have a stake in mobile software and all are threatened by Android’s open platform. Early reports indicate that Android’s code - until the inevitable software bloat sets in - is relatively compact and efficient. This is especially promising for the low-end phone market. There are many more cell phones in the world than computers and, especially in developing economies, many more low-end than high-end handsets. Android, if it lives up to its promise, will make it possible to deliver a satisfactory Internet experience even with low-cost mobile devices. This could lead to explosive growth in Internet access by people in developing regions.

The arrival of a new, heavily backed, free, open, low operating overhead, mobile platform is a truly significant event for many reasons. Competing platform developers are digging in for a do-or-die battle, but the biggest battle will be elsewhere!

Traditional operators must quake at the thought of fully open, unblocked, phones using Google controlled spectrum, with free - or really inexpensive - access based upon an advertising-financed business model. Should Google win the bidding, a nationwide wireless network in the USA will add to its ad revenues and, inevitably steal a significant number of subscribers from the likes of Verizon and AT&T. We may be seeing the end of an era controlled by the heirs of the Bell system in the USA - and incumbents everywhere - and the beginning of a new one, controlled by the leading Internet powers.

The incumbent operators will be tough to fight. Their existing customer base is enormous, they already have spectrum and are willing to fight to the end in courts and legislative hallways. They have weapons and will use them.

We can count on Verizon and AT&T, for instance, to do everything in their power to keep Google from getting a piece of the spectrum and to keep Android-powered ‘Gphones’ off their networks. Nevertheless, Android is an open platform, and someone is bound to develop software that will let Android access just about any network, Even so, Google might have trouble competing against the operator-subsidised handsets that account for most of the sales in many markets.

Google, on the other hand, has cash, a powerful list of allies to match its powerful list of enemies and, perhaps most important, it may have history on its side. The Internet has spawned an open culture, an expectation of free access, that has great social and economic momentum on its own. The idea of essentially free, ad-driven, communications will resonate far beyond the boarders of the USA where the first great battles of this high-tech Armageddon are likely to be fought.

Whatever happens in the opening skirmishes the sector will never be the same. In the end all technologies and business models have their day and go the way of the telegraph.

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Our Connect-World Global Visionaries 2007 issue will be published later this month. The issue will be widely distributed to our reader base and, as well, at shows where we are one of the main media sponsors such as: International CES (7-10 January 2008, Las Vegas), CTIA Wireless 2008 (April 1-3, 2008, Las Vegas), and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) event (April 11-17, 2008, Las Vegas).

The theme of this issue of Connect-World Global Visionaries 2007 will be - The world’s on a string - using ICT to tie it together.

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are powerful tools, they are changing the way we work and the way we play. The global economy and the lives of many people have changed dramatically as a result of ICTs, and there is a broad consensus – almost faith – in the ability of ICT to solve many, if not all of the world’s problems. The United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) concentrated upon the use of ICTs to create an information society and move forward to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Not a day passes without some new notion about how ICT will create a better world.

What is lacking in much of this talk is a hard-headed notion of some of the practical steps we must take to actually have some impact upon the major challenges that humanity faces.

We have all heard the old saying, “a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”. I suspect mankind’s journey to solve the major global challenges needs thousands, if not millions, of small, practical, steps. There is an old saying that, ‘every complex problem has a simple answer, but it is probably wrong!’ Complex problems need many simple answers.

We have asked leading decision makers from around the globe to give us a few of their own answers.