My Independence Day Post !!! Nation above all !!! Should Blackberry services Stopped due to security concern !!!

Wishing all friends a happy independence day.

My sincere tribute to all people who have sacrificed life for independence. Its time we look for another vision of being superpower in next 2-3 decades. This vision requires commitment of people and more above love for country. Over period of time we have started taking country for granted.

We need to change and start asking few questions:

1. What I am doing for my country and fellow citizens?

2. What I am doing for building image of country? What i speak about my country matters ?

3. Am I contributing to social work directly or indirectly ?

4. Am I creating values in my kids as parent and providing good citizen?

5 Do I respect asserts of my country ?

6. What means i use to achieve my goals?

I was on my flight from Amsterdam to New Delhi. At Amsterdam airport I saw Indians boarding flights in proper queue when going to destinations outside India and same Indians rushing to flight ignoring announcements when departing for India. Most of Indians were settled in USA and working in software industry. Not to critize them , we all take country for granted. Nations are build by people and not by politicians or industrialists.

I have been reading in news paper about Indian government intention to ban blackberry services as mails and messenger applications can not be decrypted . This pose security threat as it can be misused. I support Government in banning all such services , provided they disclose way to read data flowing through them. Blackberry may claim that its their unique selling point being secured and banning may impact business customers. So be it , we all should be ready to make sacrifice for protecting security of country . Only point is government should be proactive and have clear policy in place.

The core issue is we take India for granted and always ask only one question - what this nation has given us rather than asking what we have given to nation. Its time for all citizens whether living in India and abroad to respect country and take forward positive points rather than looking into negative aspects.

No other country has diversity like India and no country is so beautifull like India.

Yes we have issues in hands but fact is only country which can compete globally with might of USA, China , UK is India. Lets make India Super Power by being good citizens and above all good human being.

JAI HIND !!!

Why confuse consumer with 2G , 3 G , 4G , LTE , Wimax ? Consumer want value for money , convenience !!!

Just to give background on mobile data technology evolution as categorize by International Mobile Telecommunication (IMT):
- GPRS/Edge : 2.5G , which is offered by GSM Mobile operators in India
- IMT-2000 systems : This is known as 3G today for example UMTS and cdma2000.
- Enhanced IMT-2000 systems: The evolution of IMT-2000 system, for example HSPA, CDMA 1xEvDo. This is offered by CDMA operator and GSM mobile will offer it as part of 3G.
- IMT advance systems - systems in this category are considered to be 4G systems. LTE and WIMAX are competing in this space.

I have seen advertising of one of the CDMA operator mentioning 3G like speed. Is end user really bothered about 3G , 4G what end user need is following:
- Value for money : Cost of mobile broadband vs benefits.
- Speed of connectivity and mobility : This is perceived speed of using applications and ability to use mobile broadband on move or at any place. coverage is important.
- Quality of handset: Display , battery life , ease of use.
- Applications : Consumer segment will be dominated by social networking, music downloads, video clips. Enterprise segment will have email usage and access to enterprise applications. There is high business potential in enabling enterprise applications like inventory check, sales orders, on time delivery update etc through mobile handset. This will definitely increase productivity. Specialized segments for m-Health, m-education etc .

Mobile broadband penetration in word over has taken approx 5 years to reach to 30% penetration. It needs to be seen how fast penetration will happen in India. Rate of penetration will depend upon:
1. Tariff plans : We all know that India is the most elastic market in terms of penetration with effective cost price changes. Also whether it will be fixed , usage based or variable needs to be seen. High bandwidth consuming could be charged premium fees compared to other applications.
2. Quality of Service and Coverage: This will be the most challenging during initial phase of launch and will take time to address.
2. Cost per byte: Operator needs to spend huge money to build networks. Already cost of 3G auction has put tremendous pressure on balance sheet of operators which may force them to focus on high ARPU (Average Revenue per user) customers, thereby offering mobile broadband at high cost to start with and slowly penetrate other segments. Therefor , operator need to have low cost per byte business model the way they have been able to do for voice minutes.
3. Availability and cost of handset : 3G enabled handset and cost price for same.
4. Content providers applications : Availability of segmented application by content providers

All the four ecosystem as mentioned above need to work together to make mobile broadband a success in India.

We must also learn from undeveloped countries like Bangladesh, Nigeria etc where simple mobile applications have been helpful in enabling rural population. This will require participation of both government agencies, industry and operators to take benefits to rural.

Those who have 3G/BWA spectrum and those who have opted out will play active role in offering data services. CDMA/GSM operators who have not got spectrum can compete effectively in data service as network will evolve in terms of coverage and speed will be key in relation to perceived quality of user and contents being used.

On LTE and Wimax , looks most of mobile operator will adopt to LTE . LTE still need 3-4 yrs to mature to have all ecosystem in place. Till then Wimax and LTE deployment will coexist. Wimax will rule segmented markets like smart grids etc and may be used by mobile operator to backhaul LTE in future when LTE matures.

Broadband penetration has direct like to GDP of any country. Its a big opportunity to contribute towards GDP growth and we should ensure that Telecom policies drive broadband penetration.

Battle of SmartPhones Blackberry, iPhone, Palm, Microsoft Windows Mobile . Is Google Android threat and Microsoft loosing race?

Mobile lifestyle is driven by smartphone. Operating System battle has shifted from laptop, desktop to smartphone. Battle for dominance is between:

- Apple iPhone

- RIM Blackberry

- Goodle Android

- Microsoft Windows Mobile

To compete in such a crowded market, manufacturers need to tightly integrate hardware, user interface, and cloud and social networking services if their solutions are to appeal to users.

Just adding a qwerty keyboard will not make a device fit the communication habits of today's various customer segments.

From the data below it looks Nokia is loosing dominance in mobile handset and operating system. Microsoft is not able to put strong inroad in crowded market. Looks Apple and RIM will dominate niche market whereas early to say Google Android will be mobile operating system similar to Windows operating system in desktop , laptop market .


Below are data related to mobile handset and operating system share:

	RIM		Apple	Microsoft		Palm	Google
Sept 2009	42.6 %		24.1 %	19 %		8.3 %	2.5 %
Oct 2009	41.3 %		24.8 %	19.7 %		7.8 %	2.8 %
Nov 2009	40.8 %		25.5 %	19.1 %		7.2 %	3.8 %
Dec 2009	41.6 %		25.3 %	18 %		5.2 %	6.1 %
Jan 2010	43.0 %		25.1 %	15.7 %		5.7 %	7.1 %
Feb 2010	42.1 %		25.4 %	15.1 %		5.4 %	9.0 %
May 2010	41.7 %		24.4 %	13.2 %		4.8 %	13.0 %
Mobile Handset	2010	2009		Operating System	2010		2009
Nokia	35.0 %	36.2 %		Symbian	44.3 %		48.8 %
Samsung	20.6 %	19.1 %		RIM	19.4 %		20.6 %
LG	8.6 %	9.9 %		iPhone OS	15.4 %		10.5 %
RIM (Blackberry)	3.4 %	2.7 %		Android	9.6 %		1.6 %
Sony Ericsson	3.1 %	5.4 %		Microsoft Mobile Windows	6.8 %		10.2 %
Motorola	3.0	6.2 %
Apple	2.7 %	1.5 %

Telecommunication penetration for voice and mobile broadband key to Indian GDP growth. Is policy makers pulling it down?

Past 7 years has seen Indian economy growing at rapid pace and being rated as most stable market. Companies have taken global outlook and no company can survive being regional specific without exploiting economies of scale and efficieny by integrating global resources. Taking the lead most IT companies , TATA Motors, TATA steel, Mahindra and now telecom giant Airtel has taken giant step in being global players. Indian companies have shown they can compete globally.

Telecom sector over this period has seen massive price reduction and telephone connection has become effortable to common people . This penetration in telephone connection has been driven by widespread availability of low cost prepaid connections and mobile handset. Creadit must be given to business model of Indian operators led by Airtel in moving to outsourcing model and paying per capacity used. This low cost model in offering voice minutes has credited to deep penetration of mobile connections.

India is one of the country where cost of mobile communication is least. From user perspective there has been no demand to reduce this further but need to have customized product packages catering to their requirements.

All these factors have made telecom business very lucrative and has been envy of other industries.

There has been lots of changes in past one year which is concern as citizen of this country:

1. Too many licenses were given to new operators at low cost , leading to short term unrealistic cost of services , making business unviable for most of them . No where in the world more than 3-4 operators are permitted to operate in same region. Some of them have taken licenses and sold equity at exhorbitant rate.

2. This also led to precious spectrum being unavailable for major operator who needs it due to higher subscribers but being unutilized by new entrants as subscribers are less.

3. Price of 3G spectrum has been very high as existing operator needs spectrum to support voice in key cities where their spectrum is choked to address subscriber addition. This will have impact on data penetration.

4. Broadband wireless access (BWA) license and spectrum is virtually own by one company which is not good for consumers and country.

5, Regulatory and policies have become major risk factor in teelcom business as compared to technology becoming outdated or customer taste changing .

All the above will have following impact:

1. Operators will start refocussing where money can be generated rather than pushing for rural penetration which they have been focussing.

2. Data reachability to rural and semi urbal will be slow against anticipation and government goal for broadband penetration will suffer.

3. Opportunity to extend eHealth , eEducation and eGoverance to rural and far distance locations will have huge imapct

4. Money collected from auction of spectrun will be used for covering country fiscal deficit which is easy way to do rather then bringing effiecieny in goverment spending.

With none of the policies pro commuincation infrastructure development and exhorbitant prices of licenses will have definite imapct on overall GDP in long run and bridging urbal - rural gap.

Need is to have policies which provides low cost communication to people of this country and at same time telecom industry should be attractive to investors.

"View expressed above in this post are individual assesment"

With Wireless broadband driving penetration of data access in India , Machine to Machine Communication will have huge impact on society

MACHINE TO MACHINE COMMUNICATION

M2M is about enabling the flow of data between machines and machines and ultimately machines and people. Regardless of the type of machine or data, information usually flows in the same general way -- from a machine over a network, and then to a system where it can be reviewed and acted on.

There are four basic stages that are common to just about every M2M application. Those components are:

• 1) Collection of data
• 2) Transmission of selected data through a communication network
• 3) Assessment of the data
• 4) Response to the available information

1) Collection of Data

The intelligence of a monitored machine may be as simple as a temperature sensor,water level indicator, electricity meter reading , weather , under sea condition, traffic conditions etc.

The goal of the M2M hardware is to bridge the intelligence in the machine with the communication network.

2) Transmission of data through a communication network

There are several good options for transporting data from the remote equipment . The cellular network, telephone lines, and communication satellites are all common solutions.

In India with low penetration of telephone lines and remote areas to capture data wireless media will be key. This will be cost effective solution.

3) Assessment of the data

Data from machines usually shows up in one of two places: in an enterprise software application the company already uses, or in a standalone system designed specifically for M2M.

Still, the vast majority of opportunities for M2M center around taking data out of machines and integrating it with operational data. For example, remote monitoring data can be incorporated into customer-relationship management systems for logging service and maintenance history.

4) Response to the available information

Whether the application is standalone or part of a larger system, the common goal is to automate a business process by automating the flow of data to the people and systems that have a need to know. The technology should enable sending the right data to the right place in the right way depending on the circumstances. It should also present data to individual users based on their specific function in the business process.

Some uses of M2M communication are:

1. A modern farmer who has automated irrigation systems operating in different locations can now be constantly aware of their operation based on short messages that are relayed cell phone.

2. Electricity meter reading from households and offices by electricity supplier.

3. Monitoring water level to avoid floods.

4. Monitoring appliances like washing machine, microwave etc at home and operating them over mobile phones.

M2M is not only receiving data from machine but sending actions back to machine to act upon.

There are unlimited opportunities to harness raw data in machine and integrate them into system to enable analytical decisions and control

Mobile broadband Pricing usage based or unlimited usage. AT&T in USA changed its offering from unlimited to usage based.

With mobile internet access to contents and applications through smart phones and laptop on exponential surge, mobile operators are put to task on planning capacity.

According to stats 10% usage of traffic is to social networking sites facebook, twitter and 15 % is to Youtube downloads. Skype accounts for 5% traffic.
Applications like facebook and twitter are not bandwidth hungry whereas video downloads from Youtube consumes bandwidth. Imagine if facebook adds video and bandwidth hungry applications.

Application and mobile phone behaviour becomes important on mobile networks. Improper application and low cost handset in market are not optimized to provide effective utilzation of resources. This will be big challenge in developing market in india. Providers of mobile handset like Blackberry claim their handset provides optimized performance with effective utilization of limited resources.
Should applications and mobile handset who have optimized performance be penalized against applications and mobile handset provides who are not optimized in performance.

AT&T in USA launched unlimited plans and exlusive iPhone. iPhone provides true touch screen experience to end user in using smartphones. This created explosive growth of traffic on AT&T network. With AT&T announcement to remove unlimited plan and introduce usage based plan any indicator for future tariff plans. Sprint and T Mobile has not planned to change its plan. At the same time AT&T plan has benefit of low price.

Is exclusive iPhone with AT&T at risk and Apple strategy to offer exlusive with operators right startegy ?

Usage based tariff plans will mean educating customers on handset and application behaviour. This will be bonus for applications and mobile handset which are efficient.

Handling unlimited offers needs to be evaluated in developed market whereas developing market will start with unlimited and will mature in tariff plan as explonential growth will happen.
Other way is to provide unlimted offering on less hungry application and usage based charge on hungry applications.

Will You buy iPad or LapTop ? Who will win the battle and when to use iPad or Laptop?

iPad is planned to be launched in India and it is anticipated that it will cost around INR 35,000.

The Apple iPad is a curious device that is not quite a phone, not quite an iPod and not quite a laptop.

But can it replace your desktop or laptop computer?

The truth is that the iPad could adequately replace the computer depends upon what you want to use for. In many homes it may replace desktop , but whether or not it can replace your desktop or laptop depends entirely on how you use it.

Many people simply use their computer to look up information on the web, check their email, connect with friends on social networking sites like facebook , twitter , YouTube and play games, listen music.

Not only can the iPad do all of that, but it actually provide superior experience non comparable to laptop/desktop.

Gift it to your parents and you will realize. Ease and superior experience is non comparable.

And the iPad can do a lot more than just bringing the web to your .

The iWork suite means you can a bit of work done as well, and with office software moving online, you can simply use the Safari browser to create a new presentation or type up a letter. But with iPad you can not print.

Why wouldn't you replace your computer with an iPad?

iPad has 1 GHz customized ARM processor which is very nothing compared to lowest Atom based processors in laptop. It offers 256 MB RAM whereas 2GB is normal in laptop. Same goes with storage. Screen and keyboards for creating documents is superior in laptop.

If you want to use for creating lots of documents ,writing programmes or creating graphics iPad is not the one you are looking for. It may not replace your office laptop.

The iPad home computer: we are getting close.

As you can see, one of the big hangups with using the iPad as a true computer replacement is the inability to print. Let's face it, most of us find that ability rather handy. Beyond that, power gaming is moving from the PC to the console and the trend towards hosted applications means that more and more of the software we need will be available through a web browser.

iPad is not a replacement for a laptop or desktop computer. But for some, it very well could be the perfect choice.

Watch if your consumer of content or you create lots of content. iPad provide unmatched experience in consuming contents.

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.