Author Archives: Sakis Karakitsos

Google Glass.

Posted by on April 18, 2013 No comments

Google has officially announced specs for the Glass Explorer, their eyewear device. The company sent out an e-mail today to everyone on the Glass Explorers list to say that a few of the $1,500 wearable devices had already come off the production line.

According to Google the Glass display will be the equivalent of a 25-inch HD screen about 8 feet away. It uses the slower 802.11b/g wifi, likely to save energy and works with any Bluetooth-capable phone. The battery is expected to last one full day of typical use, although features, like Hangouts and video recording, are more battery intensive.

The camera will take 5 Megapixel images or 720P video. It has 16GB of storage (12GB usable) and includes a Micro USB cable and charger.

The MyGlass companion app requires Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) or higher. MyGlass enables GPS and SMS messaging.

The Google Glass specs:

  • High-resolution display is the equivalent of a 25-inch high-definition screen from eight feet away.
  • Camera: Photos — 5 MP, Videos — 720p
  • Audio Bone conduction transducer
  • Connectivity: Wi-Fi – 802.11b/g and Bluetooth
  • Storage: 12 GB of usable memory, synced with Google cloud storage. 16 GB Flash total.
  • Battery: One full day of typical use. Some features, like Hangouts and video recording, are more battery-intensive.
  • Charger: Included Micro USB cable and charger.
  • Compatibility: Any Bluetooth-capable phone. The MyGlass companion app requires Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) or higher. MyGlass enables GPS and SMS messaging.

Glass apps will use Java and Python to write applications. Developers can use either language for a quick start project. The aim of the quick start is to create a Glass app and modify it.

Google is keeping a lid on what developers can do. For now, Google’s developer terms of service mean no advertisements in Glass clients, no data can be used for ads or data and you can’t collect payments. Google Glass apps must use official Google distribution channels.

Source: The Google Mirror API

Year 2020: 24 billion internet connected devices.

Posted by on October 13, 2011 No comments

There are 9 billion connected devices at present. Devices like smartphones, tablets, cars, TVs, photo frames you name it. By 2020, that number is going to explode to 24 billion devices, according to new statistics released by GSMA, the global mobile industry trade group. The total number of mobile connected devices will double from 6 billion today to 12 billion by 2020, according to GSMA. This explosive growth will support an addressable revenue opportunity for mobile operators of nearly $1.2 trillion by 2020, a seven fold increase from expected revenues in 2011.

GSMA: Mobile connected devices will create $1.2 trillion revenue opportunity by 2020.

More than two trillion text messages are sent each year in the United States…

Posted by on October 11, 2011 No comments

…generating more than $20 billion in revenue for the wireless industry.

Verizon Wireless alone generates as much as $7 billion a year from texting, or about a third of their operating income. It’s almost pure profit since no new spectrum or hardware is required from mobile operators.

AT&T recently started requiring new subscribers to choose between two texting plans: pay $20 a month to send unlimited text messages or pay 20 cents for each message sent and received. The company will no longer offer a plan that charged users $10 a month for 1,000 text messages. This is apparently aimed at pushing customers toward a pricier plan.

Srinivasan Keshav, a professor at the University of Waterloo who studies mobile computing, estimates it costs the carriers about a third of a penny to send text messages. Considering that the major carriers charge 10 to 20 cents to send and receive them, “it’s something like a 4,090 percent markup,” he said.

A lot of other text-like apps are available defining a close user group of texting communities but all those apps they need data plan. Only carrier can offer true Text environment to subscribers and off course they will bill accordingly.

Apple will introduce a new service called iMessage. It lets iPhone owners send messages with text, photos and video to other iPhone owners free. The service, part of an IOS-5 update, will automatically handle messages sent between iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users who have upgraded to the latest software.

Other downloadable apps like TextPlus, WhatsApp, Kik and Pinger, avoid the costly carrier fees but all of the above requires data plans. Pinger says it has 19 million members in the Unites States alone. The company says it has handled more than 15 billion text messages since it began offering its service in 2009. Facebook recently launched a messaging app, Messenger, following its earlier acquisition of group messaging company Beluga.

Carriers will likely respond to free texting services by bundling texting with data plans, analysts say. The Wireless Association says U.S. text messages rose to 1.8 billion June 2010 from 1.3 billion the year earlier.

Wireless Association: US Wireless Quick Facts.
New York Times: Free Texts pose threat to Carriers.

 

 

1:n – Cell Phones Exceed US Population

Posted by on October 11, 2011 No comments

Wireless connections topped the U.S. population for the first time, according to the Wireless Association’s latest semi-annual survey, released today.

According to the survey, there are 327.6 million connections vs. a population, including Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, of 315.5 million. That is a 9% increase from thed 300 million subs according to the mid-year 2010 survey.
That translates to a U.S. population penetration of 103.9%, which means that many people have multiple subscriptions. One person, for example, might have a smartphone, a tablet, and a wireless Internet card.

Sales of smart phones jumped dramatically, up 57% from midyear 2010′s 61 million to midyear 2011′s 95.8 million.

Text messages continue to be massively popular, with 1.138 trillion sent in the past year, up 16 percent. Wireless network data traffic was 341.2 billion megabytes, more than double from the mid-year 2010 count of 161.5 billion megabytes. The average local monthly bill was around $47.

Annual revenue from all those subs was $164.6 billion for the 12 months ending June 2011, up 6% from the previous 12-month period.

The Wireless Association’s latest semi-annual: CTIA Semi-Annual Wireless Industry Survey.

Androindcans vs iPhonecans. Pick your state.

Posted by on August 6, 2011 No comments

android iOS states

Mobile ad network Jumptap put out a report with a map showing which states have more Android activity versus iOS activity across its network that reaches 83 million mobile users.

According to Jumptap, Southern and Western states like Florida, Texas, California, and Oregon over-index for Android. Whereas the Midwest and New England states are dominated by Apple devices. Strangely, New York state is neither. It is one of the few remaining Blackberry strongholds.

Overall Android market share is 38 percent versus 33 percent for Apple’s iOS, as of June. By comparison, comScore just released market share estimates on U.S. mobile subscribers yesterday that puts Android at 40 percent and Apple at 26.6 percent. The Android numbers are close, and the large difference in iOS share could be because Jumptap is counting iPod touches while comScore is not. (Jumptap is concerned with ad impressions in mobile apps, comScore looks at smartphones only).

What is clear is that there are more Android phones in the U.S. than iPhones and RIM is still watching you from strategic enterprise states.

Source: Jumptap Mobile STAT reports maps the U.S. as Android vs iOS.

Posted by on November 8, 2010 No comments

NTTdocomo.jpg

NTT Docomo plans to launch commercial LTE service in Japan on December 24th. The Japanese mobile operator was the world’s first to launch a 3G network, back in 2001. TeliaSonera in Sweden, was the world’s first to launch LTE, in December last year.

Docomo will join TeliaSonera, MetroPCS and soon Verizon Wireless as the first commercial LTE operators. At launch Docomo’s LTE service will cover Tokyo, parts of Osaka, Nagoya and a handful of other areas near these cities. It is initially limited to only major cities. The $80 USD monthly fee covers up to 5 gigabytes of data transmission.

DoCoMo says it is testing the LTE network for speed, latency, and inter-cell handover stability. The operator wants to confirm data rates of 37.5 Mbit/s on the downlink and 12.5 Mbit/s on the uplink on 5MHz frequency channels, and later maximum data rates of 75 Mbit/s on the downlink and 25 Mbit/s on the uplink in 10-MHz channels, says Light Reading.

NTT DOCOMO serves over 56 million customers in Japan, including 49 million using i-mode, the world’s most popular mobile e-mail/Internet platform, and 54 million using FOMA, the world’s original 3G mobile service based on W-CDMA.

PC World: NTT DoCoMo to Launch LTE Service on Dec. 24.

International callers making more VoIP calls than traditional calls.

Posted by on November 8, 2010 No comments

New Harris Interactive Survey Projects 58.8 Million Americans Now Calling Abroad and Spending $23.8 Billion Annually.
36% of Hispanic Respondents Make International Calls and Spend an Average of $46/month with over 58% Willing to Pay for International Video Calling.

One in four adults in the U.S. make international calls and spend an average of $34 a month on those calls. That’s a $1.98 billion a month industry!
The majority of callers use landlines with 42 percent using traditional phone service and 12 percent using a VoIP service. Nine percent make mobile VoIP calls using an app. About 25 percent of international callers use a computer and VoIP software to make calls. Another 20 percent use calling cards.
“The international calling industry for calling from the U.S. abroad is now estimated at a $23.8 billion market,” said Andreas Bernstrom, CEO of Rebtel. “Over the next few years we believe this will shift in a dramatic way, to low cost calling solutions on mobile phones away from the landline.”
Rebtel, of course, is focusing on the mobile VoIP side of things, but looking at the data, it is exciting news for our whole industry. Add the users making calls on regular VoIP to the users taking advantage of mobile VoIP apps and computer VoIP software and you are already seeing the many variations of VoIP being used more than traditional landline.

Source: Harris Interactive Survey.

NCell: the world’s highest video call from Mount Everest!

Posted by on October 29, 2010 No comments

Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain at 29,035 feet (8,850 meters), now has 3G cellular service.

Ncell, a joint venture between local investors and TeliaSonera installed Nepal’s first 3G services at the base camp of Mount Everest. The installation could help the tens of thousands of mountain climbers and trekkers who visit the Mount Everest region in the Solukhumbu district every year.

Previously climbers have had to depend on expensive satellite phones to remain in touch. The 3G cellular service provides fast internet access, video chats and e-mails, as well as calls to friends and family back home at far cheaper rates, the company said in a statement.

Telecommunication services cover only a third of the 28 million people of Nepal, South Asia’s poorest country.
Ncell said TeliaSonera would spend over $100 million to expand its facilities in Nepal next year and ensure mobile coverage to more than 90 percent of the Himalayan nation’s population.

TeliaSonera: High speed Internet on top of the world.

WiFi Direct

Posted by on October 25, 2010 No comments

The Wi-Fi Alliance today announced it has begun certifying Wi-Fi Direct products, a technology similar to Bluetooth, for device-to-device connections.

Wi-Fi Direct makes it easy for mobile phones, cameras, printers, PCs, and gaming devices to connect to each other, transfer content and share applications, without an access point, says the Alliance.

CERTIFIED Wi-Fi Direct products define a new way for Wi-Fi devices to connect to each other. In many cases it only requires the push of a button. Connections work at typical Wi-Fi speeds and range, are protected by WPA2-certified security protocols, and including WMM Quality of Service mechanisms.
Atheros expects to have a full line of XSPAN multi-stream 11n and Align single-stream 11n products that are Direct CERTIFIED before the end of 2010. One innovative feature of Direct Connect, known as Direct Access Point, essentially turns a mobile phone into a hotspot by sharing its 3G/4G Internet connections with other devices.
Broadcom today announced their BCM43224 dual-band 802.11n 2×2 MIMO PCIe half mini card has been selected for the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Wi-Fi Direct test suit.
A camera with Wi-Fi Direct could communicate via Wi-Fi to a digital picture frame or printer, uploading picture data over the same range of existing Wi-Fi of about 200 yards at speeds of up to 250 Mbps, according to Wi-Fi Alliance CEO Edgar Figueroa. Only one device in a pair of devices needs to have Wi-Fi Direct software installed, and the peer-to-peer sharing can be initiated with the press of a button or input of a personal identification number (PIN), Figueroa said.
The Wi-Fi Alliance claims it delivers a better user experience than Bluetooth. Moreover, Wi-Fi is already widely included in handsets, consumer electronics, and other devices, so there is no need for an additional radio. Wi-Fi has the speed, range, and security features, while easily working in traditional Wi-Fi networks as well.

cnet: Wi-Fi Alliance now certifies Wi-Fi direct products.

DSL is moving on: 100Mbps DSL is here, 800 Mbps is Around the Corner.

Posted by on October 25, 2010 No comments

New generation DSL technologies is staying competitive with fiber and cable broadband. Today, a new breakthrough shows that it will only be a matter of time before DSL broadband crosses the 800 Mbps threshold. And while we wait for that massive speed bump, we are beginning to see the commercial availability of DSL that can deliver 100 Mbps.

These recent upgrades in the DSL speeds are coming at a handy time – DSL has started to lose market momentum, and carriers are looking for ways to balance their exploding capital expenditure requirements. While fiber networks are better in the long run, most phone companies need to squeeze out more from their copper networks without losing too much ground to cable broadband rivals. Why? Because they have to shift their capital expenditure dollars to beefing up wireless networks, which themselves are growing through an explosive growth.

Ikanos, a maker of broadband chips today introduced a new technology, NodeScale Vectoring, DSL access technology that allows connections at 100 Mbps and higher, something which has not been possible on many of the phone company networks. According to the chipmaker, the cost of deploying this technology is about a tenth of the cost of building a fiber to the home network.

Today, Nokia Siemens Networks took that even further, announcing that it has tested a technology that could boost the data-carrying capacity of standard copper wires to 825 Mbps over a distance of 400 meters of bonded copper lines and 750 Mbps over a distance of 500 meters. If it is made commercial, it would allow the carriers to eek out more from their copper infrastructure.

Ikanos: Ikanos Unveils NodeScale™ Vectoring to Deliver Broadband at 100 Mbps and Beyond for One-Tenth the Cost of Fiber.

NSN: Nokia Siemens Networks achieves world record copper DSL speeds.