2012: Year of the Universal Mobile Charger. Mobile manufacturers agree to universal charger to harmonise chargers in a bid to reduce waste.

The days of drawers full of chargers for mobile phones you no longer use could soon be over after manufacturers agreed to use a universal model.

Currently, when consumers buy a mobile phone they are provided with a new charger even if the old one still works.

Not only will the proposed Micro-USB chargers help reduce waste, but, according to the agreement they’ll also consume (up to 50 percent) less power and provide much greater convenience (and subsequently, less headaches) for consumers. Imagine being able to leave your charger behind, knowing that most anywhere you travel you can find a compatible charger, be it a friend’s place or a random hotel on the other side of the world.

The primary goal of this new agreement is to cut down on the environmental impact created by trashing old chargers.

User will be able to charge mobile phones anywhere from the new common charger. This also means considerably less electronic waste because people will no longer have to throw away chargers when buying new phones.

This is a sensible solution to an everyday gripe for mobile phone users, which will reduce frustration and confusion for consumers as well as cutting down on waste products.

So far, 17 companies have agreed to the pact including 3 Group, AT&T, KTF, LG, mobilkom austria, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone.

The new charger will only work with data enabled phones but the commission said it expected most phones bought from 2010 will be compatible.

Why FMC is called Fixed Mobile Convergence and not Wireline Wireless Convergence? Is it convergence or substitition?

Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) has been talk of the town in most telecom operators. Each operator has its strategy for FMC.
Why its called Fixed , Mobile convergence and not Wireline, Wireless convergence?
Lets understand the terms carefully:
1. Fixed : This means ones inability to move around and use services. Being nomadic at one place . Maintain its physical location relatively constant.
2. Mobile : This means ones ability to move around and use services. Move from one geographical area to another.
3. Wireline: This means type of communication requiring propagation of signals over solid media like copper , fiber.
4. Wireless: This refers to type of communication that is conducted untethered media such as air for cellular or vaccum in space for satellite.
A Fixed communication service is also provided over wireless media for example point to point microwave, fixed flavor of WIMAX, even WiFi at airports, hotel rooms can be considered Fixed although media is wireless.

It is clear that Fixed and Mobile are service attributes whereas wireline and wireless are technology attributes. Both wireline and wireless technology can be used to deliver fixed or mobile services.

Is it convergence or substitution?
Convegence means use of same services seamlessly over fixed and mobile. Which means a user making video conferencing call over cellular network when coming from office to home switches to WiFi or DSL seamlessly maintaining same state.
But who needs fixed services if all can be delivered over mobile. So is substitution is the right word as bulk of communicaton is shifting form one communication method to another. Mobile connections has been growing at high rate whereas fixed connections are either substituted.This trend is mainly applicable to voice communication.
While mobile data is is on rise with 3G, WIMAX , LTE but is nowwhere close to fixed broadband DSL and Cable.
The decision to use Fixed or Mobile is tradeoff between cost, functionality and convenience.

Mobile as Lifestyle. Trends on mobile users usage of Mobile handset .

Mobile started as device for making voice call followed by SMS. Earlier mobiles were bulky and have black & White graphics.With advances on chip technology mobile size and cost was reduces along with Prepaid options , mobile penetrated deep into masses.
Mobile usage have been going change in last 2 years with introduction of colorful graphics, radio, camera , bluetooth, WIFI etc. Most of mid range mobile offers above features. Smartphone has revolutionized use experience on mobile devices with soft touch display and bigger display . Major focus of mobile device manufacturers has been not on size but screen which makes end user comfortable to browse and veiw photos, videos.
Competition is happening on Mobile device from 3 fronts:
1. Hardware Chips : ARM and Intel are competing. ARM has been build for mobile devices is facing competition from Intel which is taking destop x86 design into mobile. This also provides desktop application moving to mobile devices.
2. Operating Systems : Symbian , Android , Window Mobile and Linux are competing for share.
3. Applications: Web 2.0 has already revolutionized how contents are shared. Its not market where few are creators of contents and many are receivers. With blogs, social networking , Podcasting, Media sharing , WIKI is changing content creation and distribution. Any one can create content and any one can consume. So its not few to many but many to many

Users usage of mobile phone is changing over time:
1. Earlier 80% mobile was used for voice and 20% SMS.
2. Now this trend is changing :
- 40 % used for Voice
- 10 % SMS
- 10% EMAIL
- 15 % Social networking (facebook , twitter, you tube)
- 10 % clicking photos.videos and sharing real time moments
- 10 % music listening
- 5 % search , maps , mobile banking and others

Mobile has become part of our lifestyle. Users in developed countries use mobile for voice 20% time and its the last this they use mobile for.

Companies of future will be those which can integrate Social networking into business process and models

World has seen three stages on technology evolution namely Mainframe computing , desktop computing , Internet. All successful organization who have taken jump leap over competition have been early adopter to them.
- Mainframe provided fast processing and was exploited during times by airlines and banks in faster processing of information for better serving customers and decision making. IBM emerged from mainframe era.
- Desktop computing with client server allowed organization to integrate themselves across geographies through better work flow integration and business automation. Use of lotus spreadsheet and Microsoft Word replaced typewriters. Microsoft emerged from PC era.
- Internet/WWW provided new business models of connecting to customers , partners. Companies like amazon , Dell and e-bay exploited this model of business transactions on web.

With processing , connectivity and access to information from any place possible next wave is to harness people connectivity established through social sites like facebook, twitter , linkedin into business. Future companies will be those which can harness people networking into business. Some examples are:
- Recruitment Process : integrated with linkedIn for referrals , job search and recommendations.
- Integrating CRM: Facebook and twitter to know customer preferences better and stay in touch beyond buisness interactions. Customer preferences and dislikes.
- Sales process: Using LinkedIn to understand customer organization people dynamics and history of person experience. Ex Selling Unix to a person who has experience on Windows.
- Social Marketing : Targeted product advertisements based on interest , hobbies etc. Recommendation on products and referrals.

Organization which can exploit social networking with business processes and integrate with business model will the one which will be leader in future

How will Sprint's WiMAX/3G smartphone match up to the new iPhone?

Sprint is set to release its first WiMAX/3G phone, the HTC Evo 4G, on June 4, 2010.It's got set of advanced capabilities but it also comes with a hefty price tag if you want to take advantage of all it has to offer.
The Evo has a 4.3-inch touch screen display, an 8-megapixel camera on the back, a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front, HD video capture, Android 2.1, HTC's Sense UI, and a hotspot capability whereby it can broadcast a WiFi signal for up to eight devices.
The problem is WiMAX still has a ways to go for a solid footprint and coverage to be seamlessly available.
One has to pay $200 with a two-year contract and the standard $100 rebate. Device will require an Everything Data Plan, which begins at $70 per month, along with a $10 "Premium Data Add-on" for WiMAX, regardless of whether you live in an area where WiMAX is available. The idea is for subscribers to take advantage of WiMAX if they happen to travel to a WiMAX market. In all, you would pay at a minimum of $110 per month if you also opt for the hotspot capability that costs another $30 per month.
Sprint believes that the Evo 4G can hold its own against the updated version of the iPhone, which is expected to be introduced in June.
Will subscribers balk at paying an extra $10 month if they aren't going to use WiMAX?
This should be an interesting test for other operators looking to roll out 3G/4G devices when 4G coverage isn't so optimal.