Posts Tagged ‘Operators’

Welcome to Mobile Developer TV!

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Hello and welcome to Mobile Developer TV.

My name is Ewan and I’m founder and Editor.  You can find out more about me here.

After Mobile Industry Review turned subscription-only back at the end of March, I’ve been looking around for other projects to commence.  Mobile Developer TV started off as a concept in the back of my mind about 6 months ago.

Here’s the Background

I’m founder and editor of Mobile Industry Review (”MIR”), one of the world’s most influential commentators on the mobile industry.  The site published daily news and opinion for almost 3 years, reaching a core audience of 250,000 industry executives and fanatics.  MIR’s feed is integrated directly into the intranets of many mobile operators, handset manufacturers and mobile service companies.  Super reach, super influence.  Witness, for example, our ground-breaking video of the never-before-seen Nokia Test Labs in Farnborough (Over 175,000 people viewed it within days of publishing). Or take a look at the recent post I published about iPhone centric developer mindset in Silicon Valley, picked up by MocoNews, VentureBeat and the Washington Post.

I thoroughly enjoyed producing the site with a team of brilliant contributors.  In March 2009, I turned MIR subscription-only, providing the site’s on-going feed to one company.  The nature of the company’s requirement developed to the point that I was able to engage a small team of writers to deliver the on-going service.  I still retain all MIR rights and content — including the domain names and the site’s extensive reach — so I’ve been looking for another project to put these resources to good use.

Why Mobile Developer TV?

I really, really enjoy producing online video features. There’s something about ‘TV’ that you just can’t match with the written word.  It’s about seeing the person (or people), visualising their excitement and seeing just how passionate they are about their products and services. I did a lot of experimenting with the Mobile Industry Review Show — the MIR Show — and after a good few hundred hours of stress and learning, I think I’ve more or less perfected the art of brilliant online video production: Top quality HD cameras, excellent HD video hosting, super-expensive microphones — in fact, the best equipment you can buy, a bit of creativity in the editing studio (Final Cut is excellent, but iMovie, although frowned upon from the professional sector, is extremely quick).

Marry this passion for online television with my fascination with the mobile industry — and more specifically, with mobile development — and it didn’t take me long to hatch the concept.  And here it is!

The Aim

I’m going to meet the best and the brightest in mobile development — and I’m going to put them on camera.  I’m aiming to publish one TV show per week to start with.  Each show will centre on one or two people in the mobile development space.  iPhone App developers, certainly.  But I’m interested in the whole spectrum — from Blackberry’s App World, to Nokia’s Ovi, to Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace and beyond.

If you’ve ever seen any of the interviews I’ve produced in the past, you’ll know I like to keep myself out of the picture. It’s not about me, it’s about the interviewee.  In some cases I’m aiming to do a straight interview — me to the right of the camera pointing the microphone and asking questions.  In other cases, I’ll do a walk-about or a show-and-tell with the developer.

I’m interested in talking to and profiling:

  • Mobile application developers
    (Platform agnostic: iPhone/Blackberry/Nokia/J2ME/Samsung/Microsoft/Android)
  • Companies whose primary business is NOT in the mobile space — but who have developed or are developing mobile applications.
    (For instance: A travel company launching an iPhone app, dotcoms launching their own apps — eg. Lastminute’s FoneFood app)
  • Companies who supply services to/work with mobile developers
    (Example: Providers of mobile advertising, debug/testing)

Video will comprise most of the content here on Mobile Developer TV — however in my research over the past months, it’s clear that, whilst there are a lot of developers in Silicon Valley and London (my two primary locations), there’s a considerable geographic spread of developers.  Only today I was talking to developers from Ohio, Johannesburg, New Zealand, Ukraine, Paris and Scotland.  I’d like to be able to fly into meet each — that might be a bit of a challenge in the short term though.  So to supplement, I’ll aim to publish text interviews and profiles regularly.

One developer I spoke to suggested recording his own interview on video, answering my questions to camera with his own facilities — and sending it over to me to publish.  I think it’s a super suggestion and I think we’ll do that.

Can I profile you?  Contact Me!

I’m based in London and San Francisco so I’ll be producing the majority of in-person videos from those locations.  If you’d like to feature, drop me a note.  I’m ewan@mobiledeveloper.tv — this is the best way of contacting me.  But you can also phone/text me.  My mobile numbers are:

+44 7769 658104 (UK)

+1 415 200 9515 (US)

… (I’m happy to hear from PRs too.)

Don’t Be British

Please don’t be British — that is, sit at the back and hope I’ll come across you.  I really will do my best to find mobile developers and companies to profile — I’ve already got a big list from working with MIR — but I am most certainly no genius.  So I need your help in order to profile you — I need to know you exist. So please do drop me a note if you’re keen to be profiled.  At the very least I’ll aim to send you out a list of questions to answer by email that I can turn into a profile piece here on the site. (Who are you, what are you creating/have you created, what platform, why, what challenges have you had, and so on).  Ideally I’ll arrange to meet physically to interview you on-camera and perhaps produce an application walk-through.

Got News?

If you’ve got a particular topic of announcement that you think mobile developers and those working in related fields should know about, knock me over an email right-away.

Design

I’m doing a Robert Scoble at the moment — that is publishing with a default Wordpress Theme.  I’ll update it as we progress.  The content is way more important than the theme and that’s where my focus is at the moment.

Editorial Policy

As for editorial policy, I’m aiming for a macro view of mobile development.  I don’t plan on publishing code level discussions, or discussing the finer points of the Symbian operating system.  Instead, I’ll be looking at the commercial aspects of the mobile applications development sector along with the trends I’m witnessing.  The overriding focus is, of course, on profiling developers.  I’m particularly interested in talking with one-man-bands:  The chaps (and ladies) who’re single-handedly driving the massive change sweeping the industry.  That said, I’m also keen to talk to the business people — the product managers, the executive teams — about the challenges and successes in the field of mobile applications development.

This is a work in progress so I’d welcome your feedback, either below or by email.

I’ll be syndicating the output through the public feed on Mobile Industry Review so if you’re already a MIR RSS subscriber, you’ll start to get updates shortly.  You can also catch blog updates via the new Mobile Developer TV Twitter account @mobdevtv.

Standby!

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Originally published on Mobile Developer TV and automatically republished here on Mobile Industry Review. View the original post.

Operators offering SIM only data deals

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

I had an email in from a reader by the name of Mark wondering if I was aware of any vendors that do SIM only data deals.

I was initially about to start rhyming off most of the UK (and quite a few international) networks until I realised that I think almost every deal I could think off was hardware dependent. You have to buy a dongle in most cases that I can think off — even in the context of Pay As You Go.

Does anyone have any suggestions for where Mark might look — principally in the UK?

If there was one thing you could change, what would it be?

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

A thought I’ve pondered over a lot. If I had my way I would change a lot (not only in Mobile), but in the rest of the world. But let’s forget about that; let’s think purely Mobile, purely communications, and sales. What would you change?

What has to annoy me the most with mobiles, especially here in the UK, is the locking, and branding of mobiles on certain operators.

I absolutely loathe this.

Yes, mobiles are subsidised by the networks we buy them from, and hooray for that, but loading horrible, cheap, and ugly firmware onto a device I have just paid for is at the very least; highly annoying. And then plastering your network brand all over my shiny new device? No thank you!

I will use the example of my Sony W810i, it has Orange branding all over it (which I hate), and when I used to turn it on, and use the menu, It was all Orange branded. No I don’t use Orange, and I don’t want them infiltrating my phone. So I decided to get it debranded; now apart from the fact that none of the high street retailers knew of such a term, was irritating.

I ended up doing the procedure myself; which for about two hours nearly bricked my phone. I was panic stricken, and worried.

The point is one shouldn’t have to half scare themselves to death in order to use a mobile they paid for, in the way they like. And even if you don’t break your mobile yourself as my friend found out, Nokia’s which (can) come hard locked can cost around £25 to unlock.

My answer to this problem is now to ask the staff at mobile shops “What phones do you sell on PayG unlocked?” and from there, only the devices which are unlocked, unbranded and free for me to do whatever I wish, I will take into consideration. It’s a terrible truth, but I will not pay in excess of £200 or £300 for a network free phone, but nor will I pay £100/£110 for a mobile that is complete with horrible firmware.

So to you, another mobile consumer, if anything, if you had one thing to change, what would it be? Would it be something to do with the handsets, sales, operators, applications, or anything!

Meeting Russia’s Chief Marketing Officer for Mobile TeleSystems

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

We’re sending Ed Hodges to meet Cynthia Gordon, the Chief Marketing Officer of Mobile TeleSystems — otherwise known as MTS. Next week. London.

MTS are the 7th largest mobile operator with 89 million customers across Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Ed is our go-to-guy when we want a bit of analysis and perspective in the telecommunications industry. When he’s not knocking about with Howler Tech (now as their Business Development Director), he’s been providing some background and perspective to us here at MIR.

He used to run rings round the folk at Accenture in, if memory serves, their telecom practice. He’s the chap who would have to explain to an international carrier why they shouldn’t invest in X or Y. Heh. The stories he’s got.

So we’re sending him — all things being equal (I’m waiting for final confirmation) — to meet with Cynthia. I’m looking forward to his viewpoint of the lady herself and MTS. They like to personalise at MTS with a good few hundred different tariffs in operation. Think, for example, a fireman’s tariff price plan, or a postman’s price plan.

I’ve been meaning to take Unlimited Drinks to Moscow for a while now. I’ll need to put this in the diary.

Anyway if you’ve got any questions you’d like Ed to put to Cynthia, mail me or post below.

Is it official then, there’s an Orange Response CS team for online?

Monday, September 1st, 2008

It certainly looks like Orange have begun extending their Orange Response customer services assistance to the internet with comments posted like these:

Hi there,

I work for Orange and have checked this for you, and you should not be paying VAT on your final figure.

If you want to drop me an email with your contact details I will give you a call. Send the email to ‘customer.services at orange.co.uk’ with the subject ‘Jonathon Orange Response’ and your details should be passed to me.

Thanks,

Jonathon

Orange Response

This bodes well.

WiMax discourse from Mr Operator coming shortly

Monday, September 1st, 2008

We’ve a huge, huge piece on WiMax coming from Mr Operator. Suffice to say, he is not impressed.

Some highlights I plucked from his piece this morning:

  • “Over at Intel, someone else (possibly at the same long lunch) piped up and said “Great idea guys, here’s several Billion dollars, hop to it”. And lo, the WiMax hype machine was born.”
  • “But there’s a rather pesky technical fly in the WiMax salesman’s snakeoil.”
  • “Moving on to the myth that WiMax provides better ‘coverage’ than 3G systems.”
  • “And at currently allocated frequencies, you’ll be building 3-4 times the number of sites.”

We’re aiming to publish on Tuesday.

There’s gonna be fireworks.

Obama’s VP text = an extra $118m for US operators?

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

So reckons Scott M. Fulton of BetaNews.

If Sprint’s early estimates are accurate and if they’re reflective of other carriers’ traffic on the day Sen. Barack Obama announced his running mate, the resulting flow of text message traffic on the nation’s networks could theoretically have generated more than $118 million in extra revenue for the nation’s cell phone carriers.

His maths are sound — on the basis that people are being charged for their texts.? If you’re sat around on an unlimited plan then there’s limited additional revenue for the operators.

iPhone 3G goes on sale in India Tomorrow; Wide-spread Disappointment among Public

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

Two of India’s biggest mobile service providers, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone have now officially announced the availability and pricing for the iPhone, ending over 2 months of rumors and speculations. The iPhone 3G goes on sale on August 22nd, 2008 throughout the country.

India, a country of over 350 million mobile subscribers has long waited for the launch of the iPhone in India. However, everyone who was eagerly anticipating the launch was in for a rude shock when the two operators announced the pricing of the iPhone. According to the official press-releases from both the operators, the 8GB model of the iPhone 3G has been priced at Rs. 31,00 (GBP 382) while the 16GB model (both Black and White versions) have been priced at Rs. 36,100 (GBP 445). Even though the iPhone 3G is being offered without any contract in the country, it will still be locked to the respective carrier.

However, the users do not seem to have taken the pricing announcements well. They seem to left everyone in a tussle as to why a device that was touted to be ‘half the price’ actually turned out to be four times more. People from all walks of life are voicing their opinions on Twitter and other online discussion forums. As it turns out, every one was expecting the iPhone 3G to be priced at par with the price that was announced for the US market - $199.

Now, I do not blame the carriers for the pricing. The Indian telecom market behaves very distinctively, where the subsidized system or yearly contracts do not work. A majority a subscribers in the country are prepaid subscribers. A large portion of the 350 million people use handsets from the entry-level segments. This leaves only a select few people who use smartphones. Other than the Blackberry phones in the country, almost all phones sold in the country are no-contract, unlocked phones. Thus, there was no way the Indian carriers could have chosen Apple’s preferred system of subsidizing the phone.

Mobile aficionados and the elite mobile users in the country, however, would not be as surprised or as disappointed as the general public. This is because Apple products in the country are known for their flaunt value, not use. Apple is pre-dominantly known because of the range of iPods sold in the country. So popular are the iPods, that pretty-much all music players have come to be regarded as ‘iPods’, even if they are the cheap, chinese make. With all the hype surrounding the iPhone, people had comfortably set in to the fact that it would become another gadget with very high flaunt value. Thus, users looking to buy the phone for this sole purpose would buy it, no matter what price it came for. Speaking to one of the dealers in the gray-markets, I was told that the iPhone 3G was available for Rs. 65,000 (GBP 800) and he had already sold over 10 such pieces. This could well give you an indication of the craziness for the iPhone that had dwelled upon the people.

So how would the iPhone fare in the Indian Market? Not so well, if you ask me.

1. The iPhone has been launched in a market where individuals think twice before spending anything over Rs. 15,000 (GBP 185) for their handsets. Again, he does not wish to be bound in a contract by the carrier, and is free to change carriers everyday if he wishes to. It is only the elite individuals that spend upwards of Rs. 15K on their phones, though they comprise only a small portion of the total population.

2. The market is predominantly ruled by Nokia and Sony-Ericsson phones, with Samsung or Motorola not too far behind. These companies are known to add much of the high-end features into all their phone. Hence, features such as High-Megapixeled cameras, video recordings, ability to forward text messages, memory expansion slots are seen as a necessity by everyone, something that lacks in the iPhone.

3. Absence of 3G network. It may be hard to believe, but a country of 350 million mobile subscribers does not have 3G networks. This makes one of the best feature of the iPhone to be rendered useless in the country. Not just that, the GPRS and EDGE services offered my many operators are pathetic to say the least. This again makes browsing on iPhone a not-so-enjoyable task. Finding WiFi spots in the country is as easy as finding a water fountain in the desert.

4. No iTunes Store makes a lot less enjoyable. Yes, Apple did launch the iTunes Store for India and other surrounding countries, but the only things available there are the Apps from the App Store. This, again, requires the user to have a user account by signing up with a credit card, something which is not easy to find among a majority of the mobile subscribers. And the lack of media content via the iTunes Store is not acceptable either.

The iPhone competes head on with the likes of Nokia N-series and E-series phones like the N95, N82, E71 and the K and W series phones from Sony-Ericsson. To counter-attack the iPhone launch, Nokia announced the launch of the much anticipated N96 in the Indian Market, a whole month before its launch in the US. Although it will be priced around the same price as the 16GB version of iPhone 3G, it carries a much wider feature-set and a brand name that the Indians are accustomed to. Obviously, it would be the preferred choice.

Bharti Airtel has decided to have a launch event at the stroke of midnight tonight, opening the gates to three of its many stores in the country. The phones will be provided on a first come-first serve basis. However, I fail to see people lining up outside the stores for the gadget. The only people who’d turn up for the event would be news reporters and a few fanboys.


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