Telecom « Florian's Blog

Archive for the ‘Telecom’ Category

True mess, wrong phone.

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Jeremie Berrebi wanted me to read Getting Real by 37Signals. I highly recommend it to anyone planning to launch a startup. Their caveats, disclaimers, and other preemptive strikes says it all:

“… the ideas in this book won’t apply to every project under
the sun. If you are building a weapons system, a nuclear control
plant, a banking system for millions of customers, or some other
life/ﬁnance-critical system, you’re going to balk at some of our
laissez-faire attitude.
Don’t get huffy if you read some of our advice and it reminds
you of something you read about already on so and so’s weblog
or in some book published 20 years ago. It’s deﬁnitely possible.”

Some precious advice found in the book came back to me after reading Truphone’s blog earlier today. Truphone is a VOIP – Voice Over Internet- provider. Their mission is to offer “free and low-cost international calls”. Every attempt to bring down price of telecommunication is a good one as long as you remember to Keep It Simple Stupid – KISS.

Here is basically what Truphone came up with: get a Truphone account online, buy an iPod Touch, get a contract with a carrier for an always-on portable device (MiFi type), add a 24 months contract, buy a headset with microphone built-in, add funds to your Truphone account and you are good to go for low cost telecommunication of the 21^st century.
This is the most ridiculous telecom offer I’ve ever seem.
Subscribers are ready to pay additional dollars for convenience i.e. they are not ready to sacrifice simplicity to save 2 cts on a telephone call.

“Conventional wisdom says that to beat your competitors you need to one-up them. If they have four features, you need ﬁve (or 15, or 25). If they’re spending x, you need to spend xx. If they have 20, you need 30.
This sort of one-upping Cold War mentality is a dead-end. It’s an expensive, defensive, and paranoid way of building products.
Defensive, paranoid companies can’t think ahead,
they can only think behind. They don’t lead, they follow.
So what to do then? The answer is less. Do less than your
competitors to beat them. Solve the simple problems
and leave the hairy, difficult, nasty problems to
everyone else. Instead of one-upping, try one-downing.
Instead of outdoing, try underdoing.”

There will be 3 kinds of comments after this post, some saying I don’t understand nothing about innovation, some saying I’m an ass for trashing a competitor and certainly a bunch of comments for Viagra and male enhancement. So here comes the natural disclaimer: I have a lot of respect for competition and doers. Truphone does great things and I have used their service several times. They are not a competitor of my core business Global Roaming. Never was. At Global Roaming we do one thing and one only: providing a hassle-free SIM card for travelers.

There is an ongoing temptation to start ‘innovating’ in a wrong way by adding a bunch of useless features just to prove we can do it. Think market adoption, simplicity, sales pitch and PR before you sign off on a R&D project.

“The secret to building half a product instead of a half-ass
product is saying no.
Each time you say yes to a feature, you’re adopting a child. You
have to take your baby through a whole chain of events (e.g.
design, implementation, testing, etc.). And once that feature’s
out there, you’re stuck with it. Just try to take a released feature
away from customers and see how pissed off they get.”

Bottom line Truphone has used heavy dollars to develop a feature that has zero need. What’s next – turn my watch into a Truphone capable device?

Tags: complex, failure, global roaming, ipod, marketing, mifi, simcard, Telecom, truphone, voip
Posted in Apple, Geek, Technology, Telecom, iPhone | 3 Comments »

Is Square a sham or the next big thing?

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Seems everyone is falling for this but me. I had to look at the TechCrunch video presentation of Square few times and I still do not understand what Square is up to.

Is it a clearing house, a merchant provider, payment gateway, a mobile POS – read Point Of Sale , a technology platform or all the above? I don’t have the answer and my guess is Square is exploring all possibilities.

Whatever is shown on that short video presentation is not an easy form of payment process. It took a couple of minutes to pay for a coffee as it takes less than 10 seconds to do the same at any Starbucks. What happens during rush hour when 60 people need to pay for coffee? Expect a 120 minute wait to process payment!

What’s the point of a $200 iPhone PoS (Point of Sale – don’t want any confusion here) when you can process credit/debit payment on a virtual terminal at $0 additional cost?

I read somewhere it’s a huge opportunity for pop and mom kind of business, eBay sellers, Craigslists transactions, farmers and so on.

First I believe they could all accept credit cards today if they wanted to. There is a gazillion solution out there for them.

Second do you think those really want to be exposed to chargeback, fraud, IRS, sales tax and potential liability for identity theft?

Third – credit/debit card sales is not CASH in da pocket. Often I shop at Coconut Grove Organic Farmers Market and let me tell you – they don’t like/want your plastic. Cash allow them to live. They already struggle, take it away from them and they die.

So what am I missing? Should I buy the concept because Jack Dorsey – Twitter co-founder- is behind it? Enlighten me.

Tags: dorsey, iPhone, mobile payment, payment, square, transaction, virtual
Posted in Apple, Economy, Entrepreneur, Geek, Telecom, USA, iPhone | 10 Comments »

Droid Must Have Applications

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

It has been 2 weeks since Droid invaded my life. Let me be clear – it’s not a perfect device. Verizon and Motorola rushed to get this phone out and I think they did the right thing.

Verizon announced an update for December 11th. Google updated their official website for its mobile operating system. Going by history, Android.com has always been updated before an update is released for the Android operating system. This could mean that Android 2.1 is near, and might arrive on December 11th. To add fuel to the fire, Google recently updated their Android market terms of service which go into effect on Dec 11, 2009. According the rumors going around Dec 11 update should bring the following

New Android Market with carrier billing support
Android 2.1 update for select devices
OTA updates for the Verizon Droid and Droid Eris
Desktop client for Android Market

Nothing regarding much wanted features: pinch-to-zoom, Sense UI, Mobile Chrome Browser, screen capture and tethering.

Therefor I decided to put up a list of applications to make the Droid a much better device .

List of must have applications as of December 1st:

Better Keyboard – $2.99

Better Keyboard provides some options like three different keyboard layouts and slightly larger keys. You can type letters and numbers without having to swap keyboards. Improves overall typing experience.

Astro File Manager – FREE

Astro should be in all Android phones. It’s basically a file manager to browse SD card, system files but also a utility to kill running processes, optimize RAM and create/rename/edit folders.

DockRunner – FREE

Developed by Active Frequency this app will simulate Multimedia Dock mode. Very handy at night to keep your phone on a night table displaying time. Saves you $30 on an accessory you will barely use.

Dolphin Browser – FREE

Motorola Droid has some core features disabled such as Pinch To Zoom -certainly to avoid potential lawsuit with Apple. Dolphin Browser brings pinch-to-zoom to Droid. It’s fast and powerful. You can set Dolphin as a default browser and avoid the hassle of using built-in browser.

Beautiful Widgets – $1.50

Droid landing is kind of empty compared to HTC Sense UI. Beautiful Widgets adds weather and flip clock to your home page. Personally I love it and recommend it.

dXTop: Home Alternative – $2.99

I’m not a big fan of themes, backgrounds and ringtones but dXTop is more than just a cosmetic lift. It adds one more screen to the home, dual drawers and screen capture. Unfortunately screen capture feature is working for home page only but it proves its doable. I’m surprised we have no screenshot application for Droid so far. dXTop can run with Beautiful Widgets.

Imagine Multi-Touch – $0.99

Droid does not offer multi-touch but it does work! Imagine Multi-Touch is an Android Image Gallery application that supports multi-touch on all Android handsets for $1. Combining Dolphin Browser with IMT makes the Droid so much better.

Market offers much more applications to suit your need. The above applications are specific to Droid in order to improve user experience. I’m taking the opportunity to show some respect to those developers who spend hours, days and weeks to develop an application for a particular need knowing next OS update might make their efforts obsolete. Thank you!

Posted in Geek, Telecom, android, google | 1 Comment »

Droid for Dummies

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

One thing I noticed while purchasing a Droid at my local BestBuy -was the lack of basic knowledge from potential buyers.

Fortunately most will learn fast and adopt geeky habits but some will return their new phones very disappointed Droid did not meet their expectations.

So here is a little tutorial on how to make the best out of your new phone.

First steps to properly use the Droid:

- Remove gently protection sticker on the battery cover BEFORE inserting the battery. Failure to do so will make the battery door irremovable. Been there, done that.

- You need a Gmail or Google Mail App account to operate an Android phone. If you don’t have one you need to create one. Technically you can use an Android phone without a Gmail address but you’ll be missing 80% of core features. I suggest you sign up for a Gmail and add your other email accounts. Gmail account will just be used to sync your contacts, Latitude, Market, etc.

- To configure your phone, you will need to access “settings”. Unlike the iPhone, “settings” icon is not showing on home page. To access the “settings” press the central lower tray to pop up all applications. They are sorted from A to Z. Get to “settings” and start configuring.

- If – like me- you like to keep your phone protected you will need to set it up. By default Droid does not offer protection i.e. PIN code. Android 2.0 introduces a new form of screen lock called “pattern”. Press on central tray, scroll to “settings”, go to “location and security settings”, check mark “Require pattern”. The rest is very intuitive.

- Once your phone is protected from curious, very likely they will try to input pattern. After 5 attempts, phone is locked 30 seconds. Every wrong attempt after 30 seconds will re-lock your phone for 30 seconds. If you forgot your pattern, you can still log on to your phone using your Gmail username and password.

- Market is the application store for Android powered phones. To access Market you need to have a valid credit card on file via Google Check Out [Google Merchant account a la Paypal].

- Downloaded applications are assigned to your Gmail account. Whenever you change phone you simply need to logon using your Gmail credentials and all your apps will be available for download again at no cost.

- For now – Droid offers only 3 home screens. You can add shortcuts, widgets or folders by keeping your finger pressed on an empty spot. A menu will pop up offering several options.

- Background image format covers all 3 panels. Screen definition is a bit odd 960X854 pixels. Check Droid Forum Gallery for cool wallpapers.

- I strongly suggest you install “power control” widget on your central panel. You will be able to toggle Wifi on/off, Bluetooth on/off, GPS on/off, and brightness with a single touch. Very useful.

- To use the camera you need to press on the gold button located on the lower right side of the phone. You cannot use the camera without unlocking your screen first. Keep finger pressed a couple of seconds to launch camera. For now, camera is slow and auto-focus needs an urgent firmware update.

- On most applications you can use the search function. Easy access to search needs a single pressure on the magnifier icon located on the right inside of lower toolbar. Very handy to search applications in Market, contacts, emails, etc.

- To optimize battery I suggest, you set “screen time out” (located under Settings/Sounds and Display) to 15 seconds. By default it’s 1 minute. Also under Sounds and Display, adjust brightness to low. Also in Sounds and Display, set Animations Off. Do not keep Wifi on all the time, mostly on Verizon where network is faster than most Wifi connection. Remember to turn Bluetooth off if you don’t use it. No need to keep GPS on in the house J

- You cannot remove pre-installed applications. To uninstall applications you downloaded and no longer want to have go to “settings/applications/manage applications. A short way to remove an application is to keep your finger pressed on the application icon and use the pop up menu to uninstall it. Very smart.

Here I will stop as I believe further steps are not for beginners.

Let me know if you have additional tips or tricks and I will add it to the post.

Happy Droiding.

Tags: android, bestbuy, droid, dummies, eclair, power control, settings, tutorial, verizon, vzw
Posted in Geek, Technology, Telecom, android, google, iPhone | 13 Comments »

Google Voice Missed Robbery Attempt

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

Difficult to read online news and not bump into one of those anti-carriers posts regarding the Google Voice vs. AT&T case.

Being involved in Telecom I’m often asked to give my opinion on the matter. After long and boring passionate discussions with friends it became clear no one as a clue of what’s going on. The need for an explanatory post came naturally after a brainstorming session with my friend and partner Pat Phelan.

What is Google Voice?

The service provisions a U.S. phone number, chosen by the user from available numbers in selected area codes, free of charge to each user account. Inbound calls to this number are forwarded to other phone numbers of the subscriber. Outbound calls may be placed to domestic and international destinations from any of a user’s configured telephones, or from a web-based application.Inbound and domestic outbound calls (including calls to Canada) are free of charge, while international calls are billed according to a schedule posted on the Google Voice website. [wikipedia definition].
In simple words, Google Voice is an alternative telecom carrier offering a FREE US number, unlimited free calls within US and Canada and unlimited inbound calls.

Google Voice strong “selling” feature in the Gmail like dashboard offering call logs, SMS history, sync with contact book, visual voicemail.

Ok but how does it work?

Until recently Google Voice was a web application. You needed to go to your web browser in order to place a call. Last summer Google released mobile applications to run on Android, BlackBerry and iPhone.
Simply install the application, pop up the virtual dialer and start making free calls using your mobile carrier a termination point only. Google Voice in an application layer on top of your current service.

iPhone version was removed from App store on july 27, 2009.

If it’s the same as my phone service why would I use Google Voice?

That’s the most interesting question. You still need a host carrier to run Google Voice, minutes you are using on Google Voice are accounted on your plan, so here are benefits:

-       Your Google Voice number is yours for life. No fear to lose your number ever.
-       you can call Canada at no extra cost
-       some carriers plan restrict out-of-state calls. You won’t have this problem with GV.
-       you get advanced voicemail for free (carriers usually charge $5/mo)
-       you get unconditional call forwarding free. You can decide to forward GV calls to your office, country house
-       Advanced call forwarding (simultaneous rings e.g. office, cell and home)
-       Cheap international calls
-       Unlimited free SMS, send and receive
-       Visual Voicemail
-       Call screening, call recording, etc.

Most important is your independence to carrier. You can change operator and never loose a voicemail, or sms or call log. Forget long term commitment to AT&T.

Why did Apple and ATT rejected the iPhone application?

Michael Arrington was prompt to trash Apple thinking they are the bad guys. He even gave his iPhone up and moved to an Android powered device to protest against Cupertino firm [I also dumped iPhone for an HTC Hero but for different motivations].

It was obvious Apple had little to do in the decision to block Google Voice application. It’s a direct order coming from AT&T saying to Google: No, you won’t pimp us!

As much as I hate carrier, their mafia cartels and market domination I disagree with Mike argument that we live in a free world and AT&T should not block Google.

Let’s put it this way – can Mashable post their articles on Techcrunch comments because comments are a backdoor to posting on TechCrunch?

Arrington will be the first one to take those posts out and call for an embargo on Mashable.

Can you publish an ad with a Bing search box on Google sponsored links? I won’t live long enough to see Microsoft trying to do this.

But no you can’t.

You shouldn’t be able to use carriers pipes to steal their traffic, take away their subscribers and build a business just because you can afford to dump prices.

This is the second underlying problem of Google Voice. They are dumping prices. Obviously Google is paying to purchase numbers from CLEC, paying for US and Canada termination, paying for their online management and giving it all for free is unfair trading.

I’m surprised AT&T, Verizon, Sprint didn’t file an antidumping petition under the regulations determined by the United States Department of Commerce, which determines “less than fair value” and the International Trade Commission, which determines “injury”. True dumping is generally used in International Trading. But if Google isn’t international then who is?

I didn’t include TMobile in list of potential plaintiffs against Google as Google and Tmobile are working together on promoting a line of devices, Android OS and other services.

I know the Google Voice team quite well and have lots of respect for Craig Walker co-founder of GrandCentral and Group Product Manager for the Real Time Communications group at Google.

But Google can’t have it both ways. You want to become a Telco carrier then break your piggy bank and invest in infrastructure, build your network, acquire your HLRs and switches, start offering customer support, sign roaming agreements…and play fair competition.

If your offer is good I will be the first customer to sign up.

Tags: Apple, arrington, att, dumping, google, google voice, grandcentral, iPhone, walker
Posted in Apple, Blackberry, Gmail, TechCrunch, Technology, Telecom, google, iPhone | 13 Comments »

Mobile industry : Evolution vs. Revolution

Friday, September 11th, 2009

We must give Apple credit for the mobile application raison d’être. Mobile apps have been around for at least two decades and never seemed to be anything else but a gimmick. Cupertino firm re-invented mobile phone distribution and created a viable content delivery model. For years – manufacturers and carriers tried to increase subscriber’s data usage but ultimately failed to find innovative concepts. Motorola and Nokia were dominating telecom market copying each other on small technology evolutions for more than 20 years. Apple started from scratch with one motivation: offer the best possible customer experience on a win-win-win basis (Apple, carrier, subscriber).

apple

Palm – the missed opportunity

Palm – founded in 1992- was very close to monetize the industry back in 1996 but they thought selling devices was more lucrative. I remember my first Handspring Visor during Comdex 1999. Jeff Hawkins was praising a revolution in mobile devices…we know the story.

Palm wanted a basic handled – in my experience, basic users tend toward basic devices. Palm executives underestimated our capabilities to adapt and kept Treo/Palm a digital agenda.

Realizing that everyone didn’t want to play movies/music on the go was certainly their biggest failure.

It took 10 years for Palm to copycat Apple innovate and launch App Catalog – a marketplace for WebOS mobile applications. So far figures are kept secret and Palm Pre failed to reached its commercial targets. A new device was announced today Palm Pixi with supposedly better capabilities. Let’s hope the hosting carrier will not be Sprint.

Nokia – Double failure

The Finnish phone manufacturer had 3 out of 4 ingredients to make it happen. Firstly they have the audience. Around 1.24 billion phones worldwide. Then they had the carriers – over 700 of them all around the planet. Third they had one of most innovative mobile OS – Symbian. But they had NO vision, NO strategy to sell content.

Symbian was the best thing Nokia did to make their handsets ‘smart’. I must mention Symbian was an independent company backed up by the phone giant. Nokia had the ambition to promote Symbian OS to competitors and make money thru licensing the platform. They believed other device manufacturers would not integrate Symbian if Nokia was the sole owner.

Double mistake – everyone knew Nokia was behind Symbian although Ericsson (15.6%), Sony Ericsson (13.1%), Panasonic (10.5%), and Samsung (4.5%).were partners.

Biggest Nokia’s failure was to understand money was not to be made on the container but on the content.

Unfortunately it took Nokia 10 years to understand their mistakes and decided only last December to acquire Symbian.

Google – The Challenger

I remember when we first heard of a Google Phone most experts were skeptical Google – the service company- could risk it all entering in a hardware world.

Basically Google never manufactured any phone. They made a deal with HTC and Tmobile.

The only reason they worked this way around was to overcome mobile carrier’s cartel. Google executives understood Telco operators would not open their doors easily. This is maybe the major difference between Google and Apple. Apple is first of all a top hardware manufacturer. Google is only a search engine a service technology provider specialized in content delivery.

Android – Google’s OS- is promising not only for mobile but also for tablets and PCs. I was lucky to try the new Archos Internet Media Tablet running Android – true convergence between Mobile and PC. Future laptops, tablets are going to be ‘always connected’.

Admittedly Apple has a serious lead over Google but there is no short time strategy here. I strongly believe Google is the strongest contender in the game today.

BlackBerry – Productivity at best

Research In Motion has been a market leader in many ways. Firstly as a money maker with the best free idea of all times: EMAILS.

Trying to sell a free concept for a fee is definitely a challenge. Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie started in 1984 with Pagers. In 1998 they launched their first Qwerty device launched and only early 2000 did we see the first BlackBerry. [note: BlackBerry website still displays older devices and press releases from their early days.]

RIM business model is simple. Pay to get your emails on the go. They spent 100’s of millions litigating patenting their technology. Today they totally own the market of corporate emails.

3 sources of revenue for BlackBerry:

- The Device

- Email access BlackBerry Internet Service [BIS] or BlackBerry Entreprise Server [BES]

- Revenue sharing with carriers

With over 55 Millions devices sold BlackBerry is now grabbing the Application momentum.

RIM had a closed platform for 15 years and refused to open to mobile applications. This is a big change for the Canadian giant. Creating a friendly development platform on the worse possible OS.

Despite all critics BlackBerry has now an App World store selling highly priced mobile applications. RIM has not yet disclosed figures but I believe

BlackBerry has recently launched a touch-screen device – Storm- and faced huge criticism due to lack of basic features iPhone is offering. We can’t blame users for comparing.

BlackBerry Messenger is the most popular feature among young adults. Another tour-de-force for RIM. Cashing in on a free concept: instant messaging.

I believe BlackBerry is in a hit or miss situation. A lot will depend on their new OS and new devices to be launched. Their current strategy of multiplying similar handsets is certainly not the way to go.

Deliberately I left Motorola out the scope of this post. Despite various rumors of a soon to be announced comeback I think Motorola gave up on R&D and innovation and will exclusively produce Android based handsets. At least for now…

No mention of the already obsolete Windows Mobile OS. The raise and death of WM deserves a post for itself J.

It took Apple one shot to conquer the world with a real smartphone. Best of all – their range of phone is ONE device. They transported the iPod/Music model to the phone, created an industry for mobile applications recycling thousand of jobless developers into entrepreneurs. Telco giants spending billions of dollars in R&D could not achieve it. They can’t even copycat it. We are going to see a vertical renewal of the entire mobile industry. From carriers to phone manufacturers.

But Apple taught us a lesson. No matter how much you spend, how long you have been around and how tricky you are in those carriers contracts– there is no market retention. Customers will go to the best device no matter what.

Tags: android, Apple, Blackberry, google, iPhone, mobile, motorola, nokia, palm, phones, telco, webos, windows
Posted in Apple, Blackberry, Geek, Technology, Telecom, iPhone | No Comments »

Update on New BlackBerry Messenger and Download Links

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Here is a complete updated list of downloads found on the net. All downloads are OTA (Over The Air). If you don’t know what it means – just don’t try installing on your device

Here is what BBM 5.0 will add to your phone:

SMS support — You wanted threaded SMS? Well you’re finally going to be getting it!
PIN barcode scanning — Too lazy to add your friend to Messenger by entering in their PIN? Just have them click the Barcode option on their devices and, you guessed it, a barcode will show up letting the other party scan it with their BlackBerry camera and immediately add that contact to your list.
Backup/Restore Messenger list to microSD card.

Install at your own risk and enjoy!

Tags: bbm, beta apps, Blackberry, bold, javelin, pin, rim, storm, tour
Posted in Blackberry, Technology, Telecom | No Comments »

Skype Beta for BlackBerry

Friday, May 29th, 2009

I just got my hands on Skype official Beta for BlackBerry Storm.
It looks more like an Alpha then a Beta. First the app is not OTA and not packaged JAD. There are 2 files a .COD and an .ALX.
Both files are available for download here: DOWNLOAD INSTALL AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Once loaded through BlackBerry Desktop Manager you can add the application on your BlackBerry. I have tested with a Storm 9530 Verizon.
The icon is slick. Typical Skype logo.
To run the application you must disable compatibility mode in Options–>Advanced Options–>Applications–>Skype–>Menu [disable Compatibility Mode].
Say no: press P when prompted for update.

To navigate through options after you launch the application use:
O or Q to accept
P to decline
Space to open
You can scroll through touch screen but do not click and simply press A to option field.
Signin is quick. Contacts load rapidly.
Chat works perfectly and calling a contact using your Skype credit is flawless.
I didn’t succeed to call a phone number yet because keyboard mapping is obviously not Storm ready.

Update: I have also tested on Bold running 4.6 and it works much better.

Here are the screenshots: