Google is bringing fibre to Kansas

Google has confirmed that it is ready to start building its Google Fibre network in Kansas City (Kansas) and Kansas City (Missouri).

The company states that it has now developed a comprehensive set of detailed engineering plans for the project, after sending out engineers to measure utility poles, study maps and survey neighbourhoods.

The first phase of construction will involve building the fibre backbone for the city (divided along the state line by a river), with subsequent phases to see the eventual connection of homes to the network.

The new network is expected to offer speeds of up to 1 Gbps, but it won’t come cheap: some estimates place the network’s cost at between $ 3,000 and $ 8,000 per connection.

Google launches Chrome for Android

Google has announced the availability of a beta version of its Chrome web browser for the Android platform. The browser is available on handsets and tablets running the 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS, and is downloadable via Android Market in select countries and languages.

However, this version of Chrome will not support Flash, as Adobe is no longer developing the browser plugin for mobile devices following the release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook.

The Chrome for Android browser is available on handsets and tablets running the 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS, and is downloadable via Android Market in select countries and languages. The browser is based on the Chromium open source project, and supports HTML5.

“Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and sync so you can take your personalized web browsing experience with you wherever you go, across devices,” said Sundar Pichai, SVP for Chrome and apps at Google.

However, Mark Doherty, strategic solutions manager at Adobe Systems Doherty recently told Telecoms.com that while HTML5 is certainly one path forward, it will take years to produce widely consistent web standards necessary to support everything required by the creative and publishing industries in HTML.

“Content owners just weren’t that interested in optimizing Flash content for mobile browsers, but they are keen to build applications and so Adobe is supporting that model,” said Doherty.

The Chrome for Android browser has been redesigned from the ground up for mobile devices, and Google’s Pichai said that the development team reimagined tabs so they fit just as naturally on a small-screen phone as they do on a larger screen tablet. Users can flip or swipe between an unlimited number of tabs using intuitive gestures, as if holding a deck of cards in the palm of their hands.

“One of the biggest pains of mobile browsing is selecting the correct link out of several on a small-screen device. Link Preview does away with hunting and pecking for links on a web page by automatically zooming in on links to make selecting the precise one easier,” added Pichai.

Vodafone's Peter Becker-Pennrich

As the global director for terminals marketing at the Vodafone Group, Peter Becker-Pennrich holds decision making powers over a procurement strategy that deals in serious volumes. Vodafone buys between 60 and 70 million handsets each year, spending $8bn across it’s footprint, including affiliates and partner markets.

Just eight vendors account for 98 per cent of the handsets Vodafone offers and Becker-Pennrich says he expects this number to go down. He won’t reveal how many models are in the Vodafone portfolio, saying only that it is a number similar to that targeted by Telefónica, which is looking to slash its 240-model range by more than half. He adds that he anticipates “quite a bit” of reduction in the number of models on offer during 2012.

As Telecoms.com speaks to Becker-Pennrich, late in November 2011, the handset sector is in an even greater state of flux than usual. Over the past few months Nokia and Microsoft have blasted back into the smartphone market, Apple’s talismanic leader Steve Jobs has died, RIM has continued to founder and Ericsson has announced its departure from the handset market, with Sony buying it out of the two firms’ JV Sony Ericsson.

Do you think that vendors are managing to differentiate themselves successfully in the smartphone space – particularly the competing Android vendors?

I don’t think they’re doing it very successfully in terms of impacting customer choice. If you were to compare devices from Sony Ericsson, Samsung, HTC and the rest, you would actually find quite a lot differences. But what we see from the behaviour of customers in the market is that they typically gravitate towards the large brands. It’s very hard for the smaller players to find ways to differentiate on top of what has become a very standardised design, which is a small tablet. There’s not much design innovation you can bring around tablets and on the OS side the choices are limited. So in terms of customer perception the differentiation is relatively low.

Will that change and, if so, how?

My personal theory is that, if you look at the last ten years in this industry, we’ve always gone through cycles that are driven by some form of technology innovation. So when we started Vodafone Live! we had the clamshell form factor coming into Europe, along with colour screens and cameras. That used to be a €400-plus segment but it went down in price over time.

So camera phones brought the Japanese players to Europe, who had not really been present before, while Nokia missed the boat. Later, the arrival of 3G brought the Korean players in. Another trend was for flat phones like Motorola’s Razr, and another was the slider form factor.

Now, what happens at the beginning of the innovation cycle, typically, is that whoever owns that innovation is able to capitalise on it and build a brand value.  Later on, as the innovation cycle flattens out and more players are part of it—and price goes through the floor—it’s very hard for the players who were not part of the first wave of innovation to explain to customers why they demand a premium price for their brands.

Then current trend for smartphones—started by the iPhone—has been unusually long, but it’s still just a trend. We’re at the very tail end of that trend right now and you can see that the players which led that trend initially are very hard to challenge. Vendors who can theoretically build similar products are struggling to convince consumers to take the risk and go for a lesser known brand.

So there is little differentiation right now, but I don’t think we are headed for a PC model, even though people have said that over the past ten years every time we get to the end of the innovation cycle and there’s nothing else on the horizon. I think there is always going to be something new that will change the world again.

If that’s true, what do you think that something new is going to be this time?

There are a couple of candidates. One is outside the phone space; I expect that the connected device category—by which I mean any consumer device that has a SIM but is not a phone, which is led by the tablet segment—will grow massively next year, simply because prices will come down significantly from where they are today. The number one or two reason for customers not to buy tablets today is that they are too expensive. That will be a significant growth driver for next year and our challenge is to make sure we have the right propositions and retail set up to capitalise on that.

Are you not concerned that tablets may be used principally over wifi connections, threatening the data revenue model?

That trend varies greatly across markets. I see that in the UK, but in other markets like Spain, Italy and Germany, we see almost the opposite distribution of wifi and 3G usage. Across the board in Europe it’s about 50-50. The operators are becoming more educated in how customers really want to use their tablets and are creating offers that are tailor-made to support these use cases. I would forecast that the share of 3G-enabled tablets is going up rather than down for the next year.

That said, there will always be a substantial share of people who want a “couch tablet” that they just use on their domestic wifi connection. We have offers for these too, with mifi and tethering options with smartphones. It’s not a problem, it’s a matter of offering the right way for people to connect regardless of which kind of product they have.

As I said, it’s not just tablets; look at our announcement on the Sony game player. We’ll see significant growth in the next two years for sure.

And what’s the other trend?

The second thing is that, whichever company can create a really smooth integration with the home environment—whoever gets that right first—will be able to command a premium on their products in the smartphone space. Devices will be very neatly bundled with whatever happens on TV, media centres, on home stereo and tablets etc.

I still need to find a product which really neatly works with everything I have at home. If you look at Apple or other suppliers, they are halfway there—I don’t think these guys have really cracked it yet. If they do then there will be a business model occur where someone would offer a quad-play including all the devices and all the services for a flat fee per month. That’s quite a disruptive business model for the device manufacturers. It could be good fro Samsung, Sony and Apple. But it would be harsh for other vendors. It would be hard for the likes of HTC, for example, which doesn’t have a play outside the mobile phone space.

So the vendors will be pushing to get users onto a single brand for all these devices, mobile and domestic?

I think so, because the ones that have the best potential to win in this space are the ones that already have a play in every element. So there’s a lot of sense in trying to drive people towards a single-brand home.

But what is happening on the horizon, and we just need to see how it gets commercialised, is that there are more and more standards like DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) and all sorts of streaming standards in the network and cloud storage. So there is the chance to actually offer something which is open. If someone works that out and finds a way to offer it across devices from multiple platforms, that could be a disruptive event for the entire industry.

Let’s return to the present competitive situation now. Nokia and Microsoft have made a high profile return to the smartphone space. Is Vodafone pleased to see them back with Windows Phone?

The duopoly of iOS and Android feels uncomfortable and, if you look below the surface, iOS makes it difficult for us to push our services and differentiation agenda. So competition is always good. But Android is actually much more helpful than WP at the moment if you look at the high level requirements from an operator perspective in terms of commercial flexibility, attractiveness to lots of vendors, the ability to pre-embed things and deeply root things into the OS.

Android does that quite neatly. The only problem is that if Google had a bad day and changed all its policies then there’s relatively little that the industry could do about it. That’s where a lot of the discomfort is coming from. So we need more competition in the smartphone OS space.

Windows Phone is not there yet. They are making genuine efforts for Windows Phone 8 but in Window Phone 7 there is still a lot to be wished for, especially  when it comes to offering all those things we need on the enterprise side and the overall flexibility of the OS. Having said that there is benefit in having competition and more players on the market and that’s why we welcome Nokia and Microsoft back into that space.

In the past Microsoft has been criticised for taking too PC-centric a view of the world, and struggling in the smartphone space as a result. Do you think this fair, and has it changed?

I would have said that was true for a while but if you look at what they’re doing now, the Windows Phone 8 kernel is completely changing from Windows Phone 7 to be the same as they have for Windows 8 on the PC. Just look at it technically, two or three years into the future, what exactly will be the difference between a PC which happens to be quite flat and has a touch screen compared to a tablet compared to a smaller version of that which is a smartphone?

I would agree that, architecturally,  Microsoft took a PC-centric view two or three years ago. But not now.

So do you think that Microsoft has a strong play in the smartphone space now?

Well, I continue to be confused with Microsoft’s stance. On the one hand they want to provide a fairly rigid, streamlined experience, saying they don’t want to confuse the customer. They want to have a brand recognition for their experience—they don’t want to be like Android where, in some cases, you can’t distinguish what’s underneath the skin that the vendors put on top of the OS. But in itself this is of no value for anyone in the ecosystem except for Microsoft.

On the other hand they want to appeal to as many OEMs as possible. But if they want to be restrictive with their experience and at the same time appeal to the OEMs, you just can’t square that. Why would an OEM be interested in taking the platform if they can’t differentiate on top of it?

My long term expectation is that at some point Nokia and Microsoft will become one. Not necessarily from a financial and corporate entity perspective but simply because it’s hard for the likes of Samsung and HTC to really justify any investments into Windows Phone if Nokia is benefiting from much tighter integration with Microsoft and the much bigger bet the company has made on Windows Phone.

Do you have a positive outlook on Nokia’s chances for success with its new offering?

I’m tentatively optimistic. I don’t believe that success is guaranteed but nor is it all doom and gloom which, you sometimes see in the analyst opinion pieces. Nokia stlll has one of the strongest and largest supply chains in the world. Their economies of scale are still significant. Unlike some of their competitors they do have a quite substantial presence, in all of the markets that we operate in, at least. It’s really important, if you’re a vendor, that you know how to work the channels and you’ve got enough sales structure in place.

And they do still have brand value, for sure—and a lot of brand recognition. This is a dormant asset because, if they manage to underpin that with more attractive products—and you could say the Lumia800 is an attractive product compared to what came before—then I can see how a lot of these things can be leveraged again, compared to where they were last year. There could be quite a good growth curve for Nokia in the smartphone segment in 2012. Is that going to happen for sure? I don’t know—but they have a fighting chance and therefore I’m tentatively optimistic.

Ok, so let’s go from a leader-turned-challenger to the company that effectively created the smartphone sector as we know it today; Apple. The firm lost Steve Jobs this year, and was overtaken by Samsung as the highest volume smartphone vendor, although Samsung has a far broader product range. Is Apple still a leader, and can the firm succeed without Jobs?

If we refer back to the industry paradigm about innovation cycles, then Apple were the ones that benefitted most from the latest one—and they have a lot of clout at the end of it. If the tablet is the next big thing then Apple have done a great job of also meeting that need from the start. It’s very rare in the tech industry that someone would be able to do that back to back.

So we just have to give them a lot of credit for what they’ve built. In doing so I think they did leverage their capacity for innovation. But looking into the company from my discussions with Tim Cook before he took his new role, and some of the guys that are running the iPhone and iPad business there, the whole company is completely built to execute from the top. They are so rigid on their processes—of going to market, of production, of everything you could imagine. It’s no wonder they are the most valuable tech company in the world right now because they have the best products delivered through the best processes.

The question is whether or not they will have the best product going forward. And you could argue that the iPhone 4s was a disappointment to many people. If  you forget about brand value and all these kind of things, and just genuinely compare a Galaxy Nexus, SII or HTC sensation with an iPhone you find many reasons why the iPhone wouldn’t be rated as high as the others.

So the big question will be whether they can replace the genius at the top with enough empowerment in the system and at the same time maintain the rigour in their processes. If they can’t, then you can imagine that all their marketing guidelines, which are very strict and are quite clear on what the different channels can do and cannot do, will be impossible to enforce. And you can already see that in some markets at the edge of Europe or outside [the core markets] they are starting to really struggle to maintain the level of control they used to have.

If you have processes which are not built with flexibility and your content is not absolutely dominant any more, then you can’t just instruct people to act the way you want them to and that could be very disruptive to the business model that they have built.

Finally, I’d like to hear your thoughts about Research in Motion. That firm is having a tough time. Do you expect them to come out the other side ok?

RIM reminds me right now of Nokia around the point when Nokia was selling the N97, maybe a bit later. If you have strong leaders who take credit for taking  company to where it is now, they really struggle to see that they shouldn’t be the ones who take it further forward. We’ve seen the same thing with Motorola, we’ve seen it with Nokia  and now we’re seeing it with RIM.

I’m not sure whether RIM entirely understand the magnitude of the problem that they have. I don’t think it has completely sunk in. Look at their options; should they license another OS? I think it’s quite difficult because what makes your Blackberry really valuable is not the user experience of being able to write emails and integration and all of that. It is the unbeaten ability to have push email with very decent battery life; a service that is super stable, super robust. They’ve taken a lot of flack for the outage they had but they ran so many accounts for so many years when nothing happened. That’s their strength.

The magic sauce of this thing is just about where the silicon hits the software. It’s very far down  in the software development. So it’s not easy for them to put some standard software on top of their hardware and then somehow use all the things they’ve been developing. It will be a massive effort but I think they will go for an open OS which they don’t control—which is why they made the QNX purchase.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone is the first to run on Android 4.0

Telefónica’s UK operation O2 has told Telecoms.com that it is not fulfilling orders for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone until Google and Samsung have fixed a bug that sees the phone spontaneously lose audio, affecting voice calls and audio alerts. The Galaxy Nexus is the first commercially available handset to sport version 4.0 of the Android smartphone OS, which Google has dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich.

An O2 spokesman told Telecoms.com on Monday that: “There is currently an issue with the phone’s volume that Samsung and Google are fixing. We’re currently holding back on sending new Nexus’ until this issue has been resolved. Hopefully this should be in the next few days.”

The problem came to light towards the end of last week, with both Samsung and Google releasing statements that acknowledged the problem, and claiming that a software update would fix it. Samsung’s UK operation posted the following tweet: “Regarding the Galaxy Nexus, we are aware of the volume issue and have developed a fix. We will update devices as soon as possible.”

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Netflix and Google's movie services are coming to the UK

Internet film subscription service Netflix has announced that it will launch in the UK and Ireland in early 2012. The service offers unlimited TV shows and films that can be streamed instantly to PCs, consoles, TVs and a range of mobile devices, for a monthly subscription.

The firm said that it will announce further details about the service, including pricing, content and supported devices, closer to launch.

Netflix has a customer base of 25 million members, and has been streaming to US customers since 2007. It has since expanded to Canada in 2010 and 43 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean in September 2011.

Interested consumers can sign up to receive an email alert letting them know when Netflix has launched in their country by visiting www.netflix.com.

Meanwhile, Google has also launched a new film rental service for its Android mobile operating system. UK users are now able to rent films on their Android smartphones and tablets via the Android Market. There are already 1,000 titles on offer and prices start at £2.49.

Users will need to install the Video app to watch films, and once a film is begun, it is available for 48 hours.

The firm is also building a music-download store that will be closely integrated to its new Google Plus social networking platform. Reports claim that the service could launch within the next two weeks.

Users in the US have been able to test Google’s online library, which is running under the name Music Beta.

It allows users to stream music online, from PCs or mobile devices, and recommend tracks in an online library to their friends on Google Plus. Friends would then be allowed to listen to those tracks, one time only, for free. To listen to those songs again, they would have to pay a download fee.

Kevin Lo, head of access, Google, speaking at the Broadband World Forum in Paris

The Australian shadow minister for communications and broadband, Malcolm Turnball, has criticised Google for its support of the Australian government’s NBN scheme,  which Turnball described as, ”the most expensive, most anti-competitive broadband network in the world”.

Opening his keynote speech at the Broadband World Forum, taking place today in Paris, France, Turnball said: “The advocates of super fast FTTH broadband often justify themselves by saying you cannot suspend the laws of physics citing the superior capacity of fibre. Well, in a world of scarce resources and almost endless claims on Governments’ budgets you cannot suspend the laws of economics either.”

In his keynote address, Kevin Lo, head of Google’s fibre access program, described the advertising giant’s move into fibre as prompted by innovation. “We believe that we are on the right side of history,” Lo said. “If you put a gigabit in people’s homes they will be inspired to find new ways to use it. We have no idea why you need a gigabit today, but when we all had dial up you could not possibly imagine watching video over them. It’s not about doing email faster, it’s about doing those new things that you don’t do today.”

However, speaking at a panel session after Lo’s address, Turnball challenged Google’s motivations.

“Google has got a massive interest in building these networks and that’s why they’re a supporter of the NBN,” he said. “If I was to build a 10-lane freeway all around my country and only allowed the trucking companies to use it. Then all the trucking operators would say to me, Malcolm – you are a visionary.

“I think there is a lot of technical enthusiasm and exuberance associated with the building of fibre to the home – obviously it is the ultimate solution but it comes at a such very high cost… I think the reality is that taxpayers’ money is a scare resource, and you’ve got to get the balance right,” he said.

Addressing Lo directly Turnball added, “If you can make a buck out of it, god bless you, let us all know the secret.”

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Patents are killing innovation, said Saadi

The ongoing patent disputes between Apple and Google and its Android partners is killing innovation, according to Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media.

In the US, HTC is suing Apple after acquiring technology patents from Google, while Apple has been aggressively pursuing Google’s Android hardware partners with patent lawsuits. It currently has more than ten ongoing legal cases filed against Samsung alone for Android-based devices.

HTC acquired nine patents from Google, which itself took ownership of the patents less than a year ago, with four of the patents originating from its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, three from Openwave Systems and two from Palm.

The handset vendor is now filing a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) and the US District Court of Delaware for patent infringement by Apple’s Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod product lines.

“We are taking this action against Apple to protect our intellectual property, our industry partners, and most importantly our customers that use HTC phones,” said Grace Lei, general counsel, at HTC.

And Google’s protection of its industry partners is a key factor in these ongoing patent disputes, according to Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms and Media.

“HTC’s patent portfolio is not as strong as Apple’s, but it is one of the prime partners of Google when it comes to Android, so you have to view Android as an ecosystem,” he said.

“Google’s aim is to get that ecosystem as widespread as they can, so that they can capitalise on it. Google has a business model where they are not making money from hardware but they want their software to be everywhere so that they can capitalise on that widespread presence.”

He added that Google’s acquisition of Motorola will not deter hardware partners from working with it, because it has acquired a strong patent portfolio to protect not only Motorola, but the whole Android ecosystem.

“All Android partners will, in fact, have a vested interest in welcoming Google’s acquisition of Motorola,” added Saadi.

And with Apple targeting Google’s Android partners with its own lawsuits, because they represent the strongest competitor to Apple’s mobile and portable product lines, Saadi added that these ongoing patent disputes are having a destructive impact on the tech industry.

“Initially, the goal of patenting was to protect innovation. Now, the target of patenting is to prevent innovation, because of this protectionism,” said Saadi. “That is really bad for the industry, when you see companies just buying patent rights to use them as legal battle against others – that really kills innovation.”

However, a resolution could come in the form of a bill to overhaul the operations of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which is speeding toward a conclusion. With software now driving innovation, rather than hardware, Saadi believes the proposed bill will calm the patent problem down.

“In Europe, software players don’t traditionally patent software, they have intellectual property copyright instead. In the US, software is hugely patentable. Copyright keeps negotiations open and you can create agreements to use it. But when you patent something, you don’t give anyone a chance to even explore or experiment with that type of code,” said Saadi.

“Intellectual property copyright encourages more sharing and innovation, while patenting is just becoming a legal tool and that’s the difference between Europe and the US. It’s becoming a case that these giants are trying to monopolise innovation and giving a hard time to anyone who wants to innovate their own circle.”

Chinese search engine Baidu to launch mobile OS

China’s largest search engine provider Baidu has announced that it will launch its own mobile operating system.

The platform, which will be called Baidu Yi, is based on Google’s Android OS and is a “fork” of Android; when developers take a legal copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it to create a distinct piece of software.

The company will allow third-party application developers to create apps for Baidu Yi, such as games, maps and other tools which they can distribute via a Baidu Yi app store.

The platform will also offer users 180Gb of storage space in the cloud to manage personal data such as e-mail, pictures and contacts,

Chinese research firm Analysys International reported that Baidu had 75.9 per cent of China’s market share in Q2, 2011, whereas Google China’s market share, which ranks second, recently dropped to just 18.9 per cent. Baidu’s share of the mobile search market, however, is less dominant, at just 35 per cent.

The Titan is HTC's flagship WP7 Mango handset

Taiwanese handset vendor HTC has previewed two Windows Phone 7 smartphones to consumers across Europe, ahead of the products’ commercial release in October. The Titan and Radar handsets are the first from HTC to run the latest version of WP7, dubbed Mango.

While Microsoft revamped its mobile OS programme, HTC—once a firm that was described by executives as having “Windows in our DNA”—adopted Google’s Android operating system, establishing itself as one of the leading Android players. With the Titan and Radar the firm is demonstrating an ongoing willingness to work with Microsoft, although the allegiance is not what it was.

Nonetheless, the firm praised Microsoft’s new platform, with global sales and marketing chief Jason Mackenzie saying it allowed HTC to “raise the bar with advanced photography, multimedia and social capabilities”.

Microsoft’s close partnership with Nokia, announced early this year, was felt by some observers to run the risk of alienating other vendor partners. But Nokia has yet to release a product based on WP7, and has lacked conviction when voicing its desire to deliver a handset before the end of 2011. So it may be that WP7 remains more open territory for other vendors than it appeared early this year.

For vendors that have aligned themselves closely with Android, the recent announcement from Google that it is to acquire the handset division of Motorola might well have forced a rethink for the same reasons that the Microsoft/Nokia partnership gave them cause for concern. HTC, which has established leadership in both camps as it has sought to build its consumer brand, could prove a useful bellwether.

The Google-led group wants to make the internet faster

Google is working with Open DNS and five other firms on an initiative aimed to speed up the internet. The Global Internet Speedup is a collaborative effort aimed to make online tools and web pages run faster, achieved through cooperation between recursive domain name server (DNS) services and content delivery networks (CDNs).

The collaboration is being done through an open internet engineering task force (IETF) proposed standard called “edns-client-subnet”, which helps better direct content to users, thereby decreasing latency and congestion while increasing transfer speeds and helping the internet to scale faster and further.

DNS acts like the phone book for the internet, converting human readable domains, such as www.opendns.com, to IP addresses, such as 208.69.38.160, which PCs and devices can connect to.

“But what happens when you look up a business in the phone book and there are 50 locations? You probably want the location closest to you,” the firms explained on The Global Internet Speedup website.

“When trying to reach a website that exists in 50 locations around the world, you would want the same thing to happen. You want to be sent to the closest, fastest or least congested location automatically. Figuring out which location is closest is not possible with DNS alone.”

The group went on to explain that by using OpenDNS or Google Public DNS and visiting a website or using a service provided by one of the participating networks or CDNs, a truncated version of your IP address will be added into the DNS request.

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“The internet service or CDN will use this truncated IP address to make a more informed decision regarding how it responds so that you can be connected to the most optimal server. With this more intelligent routing, customers will have a better internet experience with lower latency and faster speeds. Best of all, this integration is being done using an open standard that is available for any company to integrate into their own platform.”

The five other firms working with Google are: EdgeCast Networks, CDNetworks, BitGravity, Comodo and CloudFlare.