Instead of a typical Christmas E-Card, I think this powerpoint titled “Two Choices” that a friend send to me is more meaningful.
It also reminded me of the Last Lecture by Randy Pausch whom I quote: “I think I’m clear where I stand on the great Tigger/Eeyore debate.”
Merry Christmas!
via C|Net
Here’s the scenario: Google scoops up the 700MHz spectrum and works on it for (as most experts claim) about the next five years. During that time, the company continues to promote Android and bring more cell phone companies on board.
Next, the company will secretly tell the manufacturers that it’s working on a new platform that will allow any Wi-Fi-equipped cell phone to connect to Google’s Wi-Fi platform and make phone calls through VoIP.
After that, it’ll announce that Apple and Google have partnered to create an iPhone designed specifically for the Google spectrum, and immediately the other manufacturers will jump on board so as to not be left behind.
…My prediction: Google destroys the cell phone industry as we know it today.
I know I haven’t being blogging (very busy with work) but this article is too good to pass.
Cool Musical commentary from the RIPE meeting :-)
Phones/PDA that comes with a touchscreen usually comes with a stylus. As such, the user interface for such touchscreen devices assume you always work with a stylus. It requires at least two hand to use which means you cannot use it while walking (usually carrying a bag) or driving.
There are devices that does not require a stylus but the user interface for them aren’t much better.
Perhaps because of the past experience with touchscreen PDA, I really don’t like touchscreen devices. This is why I stick to a non-touchscreen phone, because it forces the designer to not assume you will use it with a stylus and therefore, generally more user friendly.
So iPhones comes really as a breath of fresh air when it comes to touchscreen – it is simple and easy to use.
Now the really cool thing is the multi-touch capability which you can *zomg* zoom pictures but I dont think we have fully explore the capability of multi-touch. In the next few years, we will see more ways we will use the technology.
But what I think would be really interesting comes from a friend who complained that it is pretty dangerous to use the iPhone while driving.
I like to see a screen that can form curvature on the surface so you can “feel” the button on the display.
Now, that would be really cool and useful. Anyone knows such technology?
I met up with Dewayne two weeks ago in San Jose. Part of our conversations are (somewhat) confidential so I won’t talk about it here. But two things I like to share here.
1. There is a general mis-perception that broadband is cheaper in Asia than US. ITU recently publishes the cost of broadband on a per 100kbps basis and Wired made a pretty picture.
The picture made by Wired clearly shows that broadband prices in US aren’t as bad as it perceived to be. In fact, it is one of the cheapest broadband, far cheaper than many part of Asia.
US still have one of the cheapest bandwidth wholesale rate (transit cost) in the world, as low as $15/mbps and peering cost is almost negligible. In Asia, you would be lucky to get US$100/mbps transit and local peering is non-existence except a handful of country.
Broadband is cheap in Asia despite these because of a handful of exceptional country, like Japan and Korea and China. Traffic in these country are mostly local since their users consume local content – hence, cheaper to provide high speed Internet access.
2. The debate on 700mhz auction is heating up. GigaOm has a great intro article on 700Mhz. It is extremely attractive because (1) 60Mhz is up for grab and (2) 700Mhz has great propagation property which makes it very good for wide area wireless deployment.
Beside the carriers, Google has expressed their interest to bid for 700Mhz. The min bid is US$4.6B and it is expected to go up as high as US$10B per carrier. FCC can expect to get as much as US$30b from this auction.
Google has fought for open access on the spectrum as part of the auction rule. Eventually FCC puts in a waterdown requirements on open access in the auction rules. Verizon decided to sue FCC last month on the inclusion of open access.
Okay – they are suing FCC for a rule that is so vague that you can drive a van through, for a condition that is not yet enforced, for a spectrum that has not be deployed and for an auction that has not being held. The (economic) liberal in me say “Heck, if you don’t like the rules, don’t bid!”
The question then is WHY did they sue?
The answer become clearer if one assumed that Verizon don’t expect they will win the lawsuit. With an uncertain lawsuit hanging over 700mhz, the auction is going to be difficult to proceed – FCC would hesitate to call for the auction and potential bidders would be concerned over the outcome if the auction would be invalidated by the lawsuit.
By working the legal system, Verizon could drag this lawsuit to go on for years. They already “won” the moment the file the lawsuit.
On the bright side, I rather not see this auction happens under a Republican FCC Chairman so derailing the auction isn’t that bad idea for now.
Damnit, we were just brainstorming about this same idea a few weeks ago!
High failure rates and low average returns suggest that too many people may be entering markets as entrepreneurs. Thus, anticipating how one will perform in the market is a fundamental component of the decision to start a business. Using a large sample obtained from population surveys conducted in 18 countries, we study what variables are significantly associated with the decision to start a business. We find strong evidence that subjective, and often biased, perceptions have a crucial impact on new business creation across all countries in our sample. The strongest cross-national covariate of an individual’s entrepreneurial propensity is shown to be whether the person believes herself to have the sufficient skills, knowledge and ability to start a business. In addition, we find a significant negative correlation between this reported level of entrepreneurial confidence and the approximate survival chances of nascent entrepreneurs across countries. Our results suggest that some countries exhibit relatively high rates of start-up activity because their inhabitants are more (over)confident than in other countries. link »
(Via Marc Andreesen) link »
During coffee last week, Om Malik said to me “You haven’t blog about VoIP for a while…”
We know each another when we were invited to be on the blogger panel at VON several years ago. Om, now has a blogging empire, in all business and tech (not just VoIP).
I replied him “There isn’t any interesting to blog!”
I haven’t see any innovation in VoIP for a while. Sure, there are some new VoIP gadgets, a new Skype phone, some new businesses rehashing a business model with a twist. But there aren’t any ground breaking disruptive technology or business model for the last two years.
Skype has done excellently initially but growth has slowed down since acquired by eBay. Despite doing fantastic well for the founders, I believe the acquisition is bad for the industry. Since then, Skype has not innovate much but has being focus on monetization.
There is nothing wrong with the switch from innovation to monetization – all companies need to do that at some stage – but it swing so far that Skype has stop gaining any new customers in significant numbers. In other words, it grows rapidly through the innovators, early adopters, early majority but never really got to the late majority.
We have Vonage that suppose to bring VoIP to every home. It was exciting as it is a glimpse of what the future might be. But alas, poor execution, lawsuits brings it downs to the knee. Not only the lawsuits brings Vonage down, it also setback the entire VoIP industry for at least a couple of years as investor shy away from VoIP.
Truphone (or the Singapore version Pfingo) provides an interesting twist to Vonage by bringing the concept to the mobile phone. But this won’t fly until you have seamless wifi coverage. That is an heavy investment few willing to take on.
Jajah was one of the more interesting VoIP players. It is growing rapidly but I see this as a niche technology, stuck in the hands of the innovator and early adopters until they figure out a way to make it easy for the mass consumer.
PhoneGnome is an interesting hardware play. It was an idea David and myself talks about several years ago, except he went on doing it and I didn’t. It could potentially reach every household with its simplicity. But as in all hardware play, distribution is the key and until that got sorted out, it wouldn’t move in any significant numbers. OOMA which is a very pretty version of PhoneGnome just launch and it remains to be seen how well they do.
Most of them are old companies which we see several years ago. There is nothing really new and exciting. So what’s there to blog about?
Perhaps the setback from Vonage drys up any investment into VoIP. Perhaps people really stop thinking about VoIP.
But I believe in VoIP. It is the future of voice; I cannot see us going back to SS7 and circuit switching. So I refused to believe this is the end of the VoIP innovation.
I am still eagerly waiting for someone to come along to surprise all of us.
30 hours and finally back home in Singapore. It has being a good trip and I have a lot of fun! :-)
Now unlocking the iPhones I bought back. Who wants one?
Update:
Okay, I was joking when I say “Who wants one?”. These are for friends who asked me to bring it back for them. Sorry, I am not about to start a parallel import business (nor have the time).
Incidentally, for the hackers out there, these are things you can do to make it more usable in Singapore.
1. If you have data plans (3G or GPRS) with your provider, goto Settings->General->Network->Edge and then enter these settings depending on your provider
| Operator | Access Provider Network | Account | Password |
| M1 | sunsurf | 65 | user123 |
| Singtel | internet | guest | guest |
| Starhub | shwapint | guest | guest |
2. The incoming callerID is kind of screwed when in Singapore. But luckily, you can download this hack/fix (instructions in the zip file). You need to know sftp or ssh so if you don’t know what I just said, ask your nearest geek to help you with it.
3. Call *3001#12345#* on your iPhones to access really field test menu. You can check your firmware using this too:
03.12.06_G is firmware 1.0.0
03.14.08_G is firmware 1.0.1 and 1.02
04.02.04_G is firmware 1.1.1
