Teens Prefer SMS, Hate calling

According to Nielsen report Teens prefer Texting than calling. The amount of text message teens send is unbeleivable. They send and receive on average 3,339 SMS texts a month. So looks like the most popular activity with teens are sending/receiving text messages. Infact female teens sends and recive an average of 4,050 texts per month. Compared to SMS texting, Voice usage is very low among teens. So texting activity has taken precedence over voice.


Some highlights of the news:

• 94% of teen mobile subscribers self-identify as advanced data users, turning to their cellphones for messaging, internet, multimedia, gaming, and other activities like downloads.
• While teen usage does not reach levels of activity seen by young adults, it has increased substantially versus Q2 last year, from 14 MB to 62 MB.
• This fourfold increase in data usage is the largest jump among all age groups.
• Much of this boost is led by males, who are more gadget-savvy and consume 75 MB of data, versus 17 MB in Q2 last year. Teen females use about 53 MB of data, compared to 11 MB a year ago.
• Software downloads among teen subscribers who use apps enjoyed a solid 12% increase in activity versus last year, from 26% to 38%. This includes popular apps such as Facebook, Pandora or YouTube. Usage of the mobile web has also surpassed activity on pre-installed games, ringtone downloads and instant messaging, too. Other mobile activities like mail and text alerts have also seen significant growth.

LightSquared LTE plans are gaining momentum

With the recent inflow of $850 million debt, LightSquared announced vendor partners who will provide network, chip and devices for its ambitious wholesale LTE launch . The overall LTE network will be constructed, operated and maintained by Nokia Siemens Networks. This is a huge deal for NSN. The total budget to build, operate and maintain is around $7-8 billion dollars. The overall network will consist of 40,000 base stations and cover 92 percent of the US population by 2015.

The Chipset and devices will be provided by Qualcomm and Nokia Corp respectively. With CDMA almost nearing its death, Qualcomm must be betting big on LTE chipsets. Most of the folks still don’t believe this is gone happen, and feel it’s just hogwash and will never see the light of the day. Iam cautious in my opinion. It’s an ambitious plan. Building a network from scratch is not a trivial task. For now, I will just say Kudos to the team and wish they succeed.

Verizon gearing up for iPhone launch next year

As speculated earlier, According to Wall street journal, Apple is making a CDMA version of iPhone that Verizon Wireless will sell early next year. So this means an end to the exclusivity with AT&T, and a huge blow to AT&T. Too me its no brainer decision. If Apple stays with AT&T, they are going to loose big-time to Android. This should be one of the compelling reasons why Apple should be spreading their wings across multiple operators. Launching with Verizon is going to be a big leap for Apple in terms of volume and revenue. The plan is to begin mass production of new iPhones by end of the year, and release the same in the first quarter of 2011. The new iPhone will resemble the iPhone 4 currently sold by AT&T.

Some interesting tidbits from the article:

At a press conference Wednesday, Verizon Communications Inc. President Lowell McAdam declined to comment on whether his company would soon sell an iPhone. "At some point our business interests are going to align," he said, referring to Apple. "I fully expect it, but I don't have anything to say."

A spokeswoman for Apple declined to comment. The Wall Street Journal in March reported on Apple's plans to build an iPhone that works on code division multiple access, or CDMA, technology used by carriers like Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp.

Toni Sacconaghi, a Sanford Bernstein analyst, estimates Verizon could add more than 10 million U.S. iPhone customers, adding it could help stem the rapid adoption of devices that run Android.

According to ComScore, as of August 2010, AT&T has 38% of the smartphone share while Verizon holds 26.8%. A total of 68.7% of AT&T smartphones users are iPhone. As you can see clearly, a majority of AT&T smartphone market is of iPhone. Launching iPhone on its network will give Verizon a big boost in its smartphone market and also increase the overall market share. It will be a WIN-WIN for both Verizon and Apple.

Verizon launching iPhone has been in the news for quite sometime now. There’s no Smoke without fire. Iam more than positive that this is credible news and would be surprised if Verizon doesn’t launch iPhone next year.

Android a serious threat to iPhone and RIM

This news should come as a shocker to Apple and RIM folks. According to Nielsen , Android is now the most popular operating system among people who bought a Smartphone in the past six months. Blackberry RIM and Apple iOS are fighting each other for the second spot. In the past six months ending August 10, Android accounts for 32 percent of the smart phones while iPhone accounted for 25 percent and Blackberry 26 percent.

Among all smartphone owners, RIM still rules the roost with a total market share of 31%. Apples iPhone comes second with 28% followed by Android with 19%. Surprisingly Nokia is no where in the list.

Cisco should buy Skype not Facebook

Facebook and Skype are planning a deep integration partnership, which will allow its users to communicate with each other using voice chat or sms messaging. Sounds like an audacious plan. For the most part this is definitely good news to FB users. So Facebook has started adding value to its platform by providing communication utilities to its users. The strategy of Facebook is not to reinvent the wheel and instead use one of the existing products that can cater its users. It’s a smart move. Building a communication platform for 500 million users is not a trivial task. Also, Skype is the best when it comes to Internet Telephony. So the marriage is perfect.

Skype currently has more than 560 million registered users. So with facebook counting more than 500 million users, we are talking about a total of more than billion users. Off course most of the users could be registered on both Skype and Facebook. Apart from Voice and messaging, Skype brings the video chat, which is gaining momentum. Thanks to Apples FaceTime. Both these companies are very aggressively positioning themselves as the next generation communication and messaging platform.

So does it mean Facebook should buy Skype as Om suggest? I don’t think it makes sense. The first question I would ask anyone suggesting Facebook to buy Skype is-
How many FB users currently communicate to each other using Voice Chat. We all know what happened to some of the VoIP applications on Facebook who tried the same communication game and turned out to be a disaster. Even Skype had its own Skypeme app on Facebook, which didn't do well either. Some startups even closed shop. Even if FB users use Voice Communication, the call should be delivered via SkypeOut or SkypeIn in order for Facebook to make any money. Now this is a big stretch in my opinion. If its purely a VoIP call, there is no money.

Instead of Facebook buying Skype, I would still bet big on Cisco buying Skype. I think Skype fits well in the Unified communication arena. With Cisco very aggressive in the Unified Communication space, this makes a killer combo. Also Cisco doesn’t need to fight hard to enter the communication space, with Skype acquisition; they will have instant access to 560 million users. And Skype Video will blend very well with the telepresence and other UC related Video communication.

Free VoIP calling for iPod touch users

Pinger, the company behind textfree, a very popular application for iPhone and iPod Touch is venturing into Voice area by providing Free Voice calls for iPod touch users . The company already supports ad based text messages and Users have already sent more than 4 billion text messages using pinger application. The VoIP application will work on both 3G and Wi-Fi network. Pinger provides its user a unique phone number and has distributed 1.7 million phone numbers so far. Unlike text messaging, Voice calling will have a monthly cap and user needs to buy additional credit when they run out of the monthly cap.

It looks like a good deal for iPod touch users. However what is not clear is the monthly free minutes, and the per minute charge after the monthly free minutes is exhausted. At least these guys understand that giving free unlimited minutes is not gone fly from business standpoint. Many players tried free calling model and shutdown the shop. I’m not sure why advertisement is not considered for free calling instead of charging for the extra minutes. Getting a unique number for iPod and free minutes are big pluses of this application. However, Number of free minutes, call quality and per minute charge will determine the success of this app.

MetroPCS first operator to launch LTE

Its MetroPCS and not Verizon to be the first operator to commercially launch LTE service in United States. Today they officially launched LTE service in Las Vegas. The service offers voice, text and 4G Web access starting as low as $55 per month including taxes and regulatory fees. Add another $5 for unlimited on-demand video streaming from 14 networks. Also they are offering first commercially available 4G LTE enabled handset, the Samsung Craft. Pretty impressive for a small operator to aggressively pursue LTE and launch as promised. Metro PCS is very aggressive in the prepaid market and doing pretty good in this segment.

Here are some of the highlights of the launch:
MetroPCS is introducing many new applications and features that take advantage of its 4G LTE network, including:
• MetroSTUDIOSM, powered by RealNetworks, is available on the $60 service plan. MetroSTUDIO is a new source of multimedia content, including access to full-track downloads, ringtones and ring-back tones, as well as premium video content from NBC Universal, Black Entertainment Television (BET) and Univision, available on-demand and on-the-go from one easy-to-use application.
• A new social networking and instant messaging aggregation application, which harnesses notifications, friends and content from the Facebook, MySpace and Twitter social networks and AIM, MSN and Yahoo! IM clients into a single interface that consumers can access with one click.
• Upgraded MetroNavigator® feature with the addition of voice-activated GPS and turn-by-turn directions.

MetroPCS is initially offering the Samsung Craft in Las Vegas metropolitan area stores and online for $299, after $50 instant rebate, plus tax, while supplies last. As the world’s first commercially available multi-mode 4G LTE/CDMA handset, the Samsung Craft was created with Web and multimedia content in mind, delivering a stunning visual experience.
The device offers:
• Incredible clarity and rich color for viewing crystal-clear multimedia and video images with its 3.3 inch AMOLED (Active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) screen.
• A 2GB microSD card preloaded with Paramount Pictures’ hit movie “Star Trek.”
• A combination touch screen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard and Samsung’s TouchWiz™ user interface to surf and text message with whichever input format users prefer.
• A 3.2 megapixel camera with flash and camcorder to capture images that can be shared while on the go on MetroPCS’ fast 4G network.
• Wi-Fi capability.

Wireless call quality, Verizon leads, AT&T trails

According to J.D Power and Associates Report , Verizon and Sprint lead the pack with respect to call quality. AT&T lags in most of the regions. So the issues are just piling up for AT&T. One of the biggest plus for AT&T is the exclusivity of iPhone, and iam sure AT&T will fight tooth and nail to keep it intact. Loosing exclusivity on iPhone is going to be a very bad news for AT&T. With such a bad call quality rating, it will be a hard sell for them to keep the subscribers intact loosing iPhone. Verizon on the other hand is sitting pretty with a good network, and call quality very good in most of the regions except for some. J.D Power sites that one of main reason subscriber will switch carrier is dropped calls. So with Verizon iPhone launch rumor, they can surely expect lot of disgruntled AT&T subscriber switching over to Verizon.

I think it makes sense for both Apple and Verizon. Apple needs to find new avenues to sell its flagship product. With android catching up fast, launching iPhone with more operators is the best bet for Apple.

Below is call quality rating for different regions. The call quality rating was calculated based on dropped calls, failed call connection on the first try, voice distortion, echoes; no immediate voicemail notification and no immediate text message notification.

Sears online shopping experience, fraudulent

Sorry folks this article is not about technology but it’s a personal rant about my online shopping experience with sears. It was one of my worst shopping experience and iam so disappointed by sears online shopping. I would never recommend anyone shopping online with sears. I don’t think sears understand what online shopping customer satisfaction is. In fact after dealing with them for the past three days I kind of felt that they don’t really care for their customers. Seriously sears should take lessons from Amazon or any other online vendor who value their customers. So this labor day I was looking for a good canon DSLR to fulfill my photography passion and bumped into the following link.The price of this canon( Canon EOS 5D Mark II Digital SLR Camera with Canon EF 24-105mm IS lens) was way too low and an awesome deal. Initially I was a little skeptical. So I called up sears customer service, and the lady assured me that the vendor is authentic and that sears does a lot of background check before they allow anyone to sell their product on sears website. So fine. I believed her, went ahead and ordered this camera. Though she assured me about the vendor and all that, what I didn’t realize was that she had no clue about the third party vendor. She did not even do a basic vendor check. Why? Because the contact number for seller was invalid and the company was using Gmail account. Something fishy.

So just out of curiosity I sent a mail to the vendors(The electronics limited) contact email id (mitch.petipren@gmail.com) asking him about the details of the camera and the response I got was-

The Canon EOS 5D Mark II Digital SLR is brand new and also comes with Canon EF 24-105mm IS lens, we have packaged the item already for shipment but unfortunately we were unable to proceed your specified payment method because our merchant is down. So we advise you proceed to make payment through Western union money transfer and send money to the information below.

Name: Latanyia Bennett
City: Baton Rouge
State: Louisiana
Country: USA
Zip code: 70802

Immediately after the transfer is made kindly get back to me with the following details.
Sender full name :
MTCN number
Amount sent :
Country :

We shall proceed to send out your order and get back to you with the tracking number.

Mitch

The above mail scared the shit out of me and got me thinking. I started getting a bad feeling. Googled for more info on the deal and found some other folks also going through the same shit on slickdeals forum .This is when it dawned on me that the whole thing was a SCAM!. In addition, all the folks who bought the camera got a order shipment confirmation with the same bogus tracking number for UPS(ZA7894988597890).

After I got to know it’s a SCAM. I called up sears customer service rep and the first person I talked to said iam being impatient and need to wait for couple of more days to get the camera delivered. What a bummer. So I called up again, and this time I asked for the supervisor. I explained the details to supervisor and she agreed that it seems fishy. Finally someone understood. After all this, the problem did not get resolved. All I heard is that “we will get back to you after our investigation” and nothing happened for another 24 hours. So I called up the sears customer service today and they asked me to talk to my credit card company. That’s about it.

Also what’s disgusting about this whole fiasco is that even after they knew that vendor is a fraud, the link to the product is still live on sears website, and you can purchase the camera by checking out. So as we speak there are folks who may get fooled by this offer. In fact while writing this article, I was chatting with a sears online rep and she had no clue that the product she was trying to sell me again was a SCAM.

It was such a bad experience for me. I will never ever buy anything from sears and would not recommend anyone either. In short, I feel like cheated by sears and not by “The electronics limited”. I purchased the camera based on sears customer service promise and sears brand. (BTW, sears rep who sold the camera to me would not reply to my mails even after repeated attempt.) For all the shit I went through, I would have been happy if sears had accepted that it was there fault and provided some alternatives to all customers. Alas! That never happened. Sears management should take responsibility to have let a fraud use their website to cheat customers like me.

After RIM, its Skype and Google's turn to open up

RIM averted a ban by Indian government
by providing an interim solution that India authorities will test for another 60 days before making any further decision. Earlier India Government had warned RIM of possible shutdown if they don’t provide access to encrypted email and instant messages. Not much has been disclosed about the possible solution to intercept messages. There are even reports of installing servers locally in India for Indian Authorities to have easy access. Some are skeptical about the whole fiasco and even call this as a farce between RIM and Indian Authorities .

So with the interim solution from RIM, it looks like a face saving deal for both RIM and Indian government. With a partial victory over RIM, Indian authorities are targeting Skype and Google to open up their end-to-end secure communication for lawful intercept. Now this is where it gets interesting. Iam not sure how Skype is going to support Lawful intercept of their calls and messages. One of the reasons being that Skype is a P2P protocol and there are no servers involved between users for communication. Iam not even sure if Skype supports Lawful intercept standards. They have been having problems with law enforcement agencies for years now and don’t think there is a solution. Indian government is pushing these companies to install local servers for authorities to have easy access. Nokia plans to setup servers in India by November for its enterprise email services.

For RIM, building its own Blackberry data center within the country would cost tens of millions of dollars. Not sure if this is something RIM will consider in future given that the Mobile Smartphone market in India is gone explode. Currently RIM has roughly around 1 million blackberry users and that might change in future. Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts predicts that Indian Smartphone market will grow to 40 million by the end of 2015.

It would be interesting to hear what Skype has to say now that their IPO is imminent. Will they Comply like others Or not give a rat’s ass to Indian Authorities?