“congressional hearing only to accomplish grandstanding.”
I loved the title of this column from Peter Schmuck of the Baltimore Sun. Forget the substance. I just thought – welcome to our world!
This is the last dish for 2007… Wishing you all the best in the new year!
The holidays provide a great opportunity to dine at other places. Accordingly, I was catching up on Marc Andreessen’s latest posts and loved this one.
I’ve discussed my frustration with some reporting on the wireless industry in the diner. In this dish, Marc takes the time to dissect a recent piece from the Economist.
Enjoy!
rewinding 2007 – first course…
This is a two course meal… Some predictions for 2008 will follow…
It has been a great year and conversations are flowing in the diner. I am already looking forward to the new year and adding some new items to the menu in 2008.
I thought we would take a look back on 2007 and give some “Best of Awards.”
Bon Appetito!
Case Study in Excellence – Google and 700 MHz
Gphone, Android, Open Handset Alliance (you name it) the wireless industry was buzzing about Google all year long. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Google put the right ingredients (policy, politics, power & PARTICIPATION) together to modify and spur industry to a place where it was headed. Whether or not they attain spectrum in the auction is moot. Google will be good for wireless carriers and wireless broadband uptake in the United States.
Case Study in Failure – Skype
Skype was too aggressive in trying to persuade Congress and the FCC to adopt Carterfone rules. The problem for Skype – it is not 1968.
more powerful than a Washington lobbyist…
Traditional lobbying, campaign money, and power in Washington will always exist. However, with rapid advances in technology and the continued growth of social networking tools – YOU really are just as powerful as the connected K street lobbyist.
I recognized the power of the consumer at an early age. One summer I worked as an intern for Frito Lay and we worked very hard to build community through the Frito Lay challenge and other efforts in Baltimore. We learned a great deal and I know Frito Lay took our field reports seriously.
With regard to DC and advocacy, I saw the power of the consumer at AT&T Wireless. In that instance, a lawmaker from California was pushing the CPUC to initiate a wireless only number take back. The reason she was supporting it was due to area code exhaust occurring in California (they had gone from 13 area codes in 1997 to 25 around 2002). If enacted it would have required consumers to give back their current area code (they would keep their seven digit number) and get a wireless specific area code.
AT&T Wireless had a significant number of subscribers in this district and our consumers would have been the most affected by the technology specific overlay (TSO). We filed comments at the FCC and did some traditional advocacy. We were getting nowhere. It was time to directly reach out to our customers.
Collaborating with CTIA, we designed bill stuffers and our customers responded. They flooded the FCC and the California lawmaker with calls opposing this effort. The result – the lawmaker hauled us in and told us she would not continue to press the CPUC to implement the TSO.
The tools for engaging and having conversations with folks are much better now. With permission, we can learn more from our customers and work together to affect change.
If you don’t believe me — ask George Allen.
Related Note & Promotion – Seth Godin discussed the new politics the other day. It is the reason why I founded Tin Can Communications ™.
McCain adds ban on wireless taxes to campaign tax package..
Senator McCain (Arizona) continues to fight to eliminate discriminatory wireless taxes on consumers.
Some folks in the District of Communications may recall that he led this fight during last cycle’s consideration of telecommunications reform legislation. His amendment was included with bipartisan support in the final bill.
In any case, here’s the latest from the Union Leader...
don’t believe the hype – Twitter works fine on T-mo…
I was really pleased to get an email from a T-Mobile consultant who forwarded a response from T-Mobile on Twittergate…
Here’s the quote from T-Mobile Public Relations –
“Twitter users are welcome to stay connected through T-mobile service. Rumors that T-mobile blocks the service are false. T-Mobile confirmed with Twitter that there was a technical issue between the two companies’ systems that temporarily prevented some customers from utilizing the service this past weekend. That issue has since been resolved and the companies are working to prevent such incidents from re-occurring.”
While some lawmakers continue to whine about the wireless industry and still don’t understand why our glorified radios won’t work everywhere – consumers are enjoying the innovations.
This is a link to a guy utilizing a Nokia N95 to run Seesmic. It is really awesome. Seesmic, in many ways, is video twittering.
On a related note, I had the opportunity to have breakfast with Seesmic CEO Loic Le Meur – courtesy of Jim Long (w/ NBC). It was really great hearing about Seeismic and meeting Loic who was in town with his old boss French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Dish Disclosure – I have been invited to try the alpha version of Seesmic. However, I have not had a chance to make any videos yet. I’ll be sure to post one in the diner soon!
Techcrunch reports that T-mo is preventing Twittering…
I just read on twitter that Techcrunch is reporting some Twitter blocking from T-mobile.
At first glance, I can’t believe it and hope this is not true. Twitter is a fantastic social networking tool and really provides mobile social networking. The carrier also benefits tremendously in terms of increase use of mobile broadband and if the subscriber utilizes tweets to be deliverd to his / her gadget via SMS.
If YOU have T-mo, can YOU twitter?
Dish Disclosure – Tweets are working fine on my at&t blackberry curve…
mainstream media & tech & wireless – oh my!
An intersting conversation on twitter spurred this post.
This morning, one of Verizon’s bloggers (CZ) mentioned the lack of press coverage following a USA Today story on AT&T’s announcement on opening their network (he did not link the article on Twitter). I was not surprised one bit. Here’s why:
With regard to technology and policy, Mainstream media (MSM) is primarily interested in battles and watching all the hype create chaos. Here’s some examples –
RBOCs vs CLECs
Licensed vs Unlicensed
Old (Teleco’s) vs New (Tech Co’s)
Open vs Closed
Hands off the Internet vs. Save the Internet
As I mentioned in the Twitter post, these distinctions no longer matter. Rapid advances in technology have obliterated these silos.
One real disservice over the years was the constant echo from some reporters about how Wi-Fi would be the “death nail” for cellular. At my former company (AT&T Wireless), we didn’t see the technology as a threat. In fact, we embraced it and were looking to set up services in airports and hotels. We also supported and helped legislative efforts (Senator Barbara Boxer & Senator George Allen initiative – “Jumpstart Broadband Act”) to free up 255 MHz of spectrum in the 5 GHz band (which utilizes 802.11).
There were other reasons to follow this strategy. As I have mentioned previously, we were spectrum capped (Regulators had a spectrum cap on carriers – it no longer exists) and over subscribed. Accordingly, Wi-Fi would enable folks to get off the cellular network. Over half of cellular calls are fixed calls (in your apartment, at airport etc.) so it made sense to free up capacity. On a technology point, Wi-Fi has not demonstrated hand-off (at high-speed or distances) as well. Therefore, mobility will always be a core competency of the cellular network.
Unfortunately, we were never able to execute on our Wi-Fi initiatives due to being acquired by Cingular. However, a great deal of what T-mobile is doing (with UMA and Hotspots) is what AT&T envisioned.
The snow is falling and if you participate in the District of Communications, you are probably at the FCBA’s Chairman’s Dinner. I decided not to attend this year.
With regard to the dinner, I will definitely miss seeing and catching up with everyone in the telecom business. However, I will not miss Chairman Martin’s attempt at comedy this evening. Perhaps, everyone will attend late and inconvenience him as he does the hard working folks at the FCC at recent open meetings.
Here’s some additional rants from the kitchen -
Verizon & Openess – A bunch of folks are making a big deal out of Verizon’s announcement. This was not a shocker because this is part of the evolution of the industry. at&t and T-mobile have been showing signs of it with dual mode phones as well as T-mobile and Sprint supporting Android (Google’s Linux-based open handset platform). I expect at&t to join the cause too…
Sprint’s woes – Verizon’s move really hurts Sprint. As many know, Sprint has been bleeding valuable subs for many months. Verizon’s move will make it that much easier to leave.
Sprint’s got other problems too. Their 800 MHz reband effort has been a disaster. That initiative has proved to be more costly then originally estimated and is taking alot longer to execute. The company also has no CEO and they recently canned their WiMax partnership with Clearwire… With forty percent of their current subs predisposed to leave — the future is not bright.
New Venture – The name of my new business (drum roll please) — Tin Can Communications ™. It is a very exciting time and I really appreciate all of the support from the mobile dining community.
On related note, I plan on having a launch party after the holidays and all readers of the blog are invited!
This post was edited.
Subscribe to our feed