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LTE experience – It’s getting better!
On January 20 we posted a short entry describing our first experience with LTE, being one of the lucky first to try the commericalised version of this technology in real life. In short, the posting was a positive capture of the ground-breaking steps of the next big thing in our industry as seen from a user’s point of view. Indeed, we grumbled a bit about the fact that we reached “only” 12 Mbps instead of the “promised” 50 Mbps or so, but made it clear that this was from an indoor location using not too scientific methods and so on, but overall our impression was very positive and promising for the future.
Yesterday we noticed that other bloggers and news writers had picked up on our story and triggered a wildfire spread across cyberspace, but we noticed to our surprise that some of those referrals interpreted our experience as a negative proof that LTE is not up to par with expectations. We have continued our live testing of LTE over the weekend and today, and we have tried it on buses and in cars and in other places in the city, indoor and outdoor, and we’re happy to say that we experience data rates above 25 Mbps more often than below, and we’ve reached 45 Mpbs downlink on some occasions. Maybe our blog posting made an impact after all.. :) So to conclude, we would like to emphasise that we do not claim that our test methods are very scientific. Our results should preferably not be interpreted as such either. That time will come, and rest assured we will be there, but for now we’re just trying out the service as “simple users” and we’re impressed it works, encouraged by the bitrates we are now measuring and convinced that in due course early flaws will be corrected. We intend to continue our trials throughout the week and onwards, and will regularly report on our experiences and findings, all for the good of the industry’s strive to keep on improving!
25 Jan 2010 | Northstream
Good things come to those who wait (a little bit longer…)
And so it is here! I’m glad to announce that this blog post is uploaded using state-of-the-art LTE technology!
Those of you who read our blog post of December 16 know that Northstream was among the first to sign up for Telia’s LTE service, and was placed on the waiting list to receive an exclusive handmade LTE modem from Samsung. Today we collected our prize! Was it worth waiting for? Well, they say that good things come to those who wait, and while we found that to be true we also sense that better things may come to those who wait longer. We decided to be adventurous, and politely declined Telia’s offer to help us install the new modem on our laptop. It turned out to be less of an adventure than we hoped for; to no big surprise both connection manager software and modem firmware required an immediate upgrade, but who needs support when everything runs automatic? Well done! After a routine re-boot (after all, it’s Microsoft…) we were ready to go LTE! We quickly found out that the signal strength indicator, showing zero in one end of our office building made out of massive stone, peaked to full strength at the window sill of one of our conference rooms. And, alas! One click and we could consider ourselves early LTE adopters! Our immediate reaction is that the browsing experience was rather good, probably thanks to the low latency compared to 3G networks. But the throughput measurements were sort of a disappointment as we after countless tests*, of which many were performed outdoors to eliminate any problems related to indoor coverage, never exceeded 12 Mbps in downlink. More impressive in that case was the 5 Mbps uplink. But what really reminded us of the early days we’re still in were the rather frequent drops in service, even at locations where the signal strength indicators were maxed out just a second earlier. But considering that Rome wasn’t built in a day, our first LTE experience is a very positive one. It works, and that’s respectable. Ok, we don’t have indoor coverage in the office, and even outdoors with full signal strength the service comes and goes, but admittedly we were skeptical to the chance of getting a commercial grade service from day 1. In any case, we conclude that the industry still has several challenges ahead, but Telia indeed contribute to speed up overcoming these by being the first operator to run a large scale LTE trial (our term). And while this first touch & feel encourages us to jump on the next upgrade as soon as it comes, we’re quite happy as well to fall back on the complimentary HSPA modem that was included in the LTE deal; it actually provides similar peak rates as LTE but without the drops, and that’s quite impressing too! *) We used the unbiased Swedish throughput measurement service www.bredbandskollen.se for testing the throughput rates
20 Jan 2010 | Northstream
So, are smartphones all there is to it?
There they were, gadget nerds, early adopters and US tech bloggers, eagerly awaiting yet another mobile device manufacturer announcing a cool smartphone soon to appear. Instead, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia, gave them a lecture on how to do good and do good business, at the same time.
Nokia used its CES 2010 keynote presentation to try to cool down high tech hype and warm up the interest in the large(r) business potential of providing basic mobile services to the masses of developing countries. By emphasising the truly global reach of basic mobile phones and how sms-based simple ”life tools” bring huge value to tens of millions of people around the world Nokia tried to wet the developer and investor appetite for these markets. Small revenues multipled by giant numbers would result in major businesses! Unfortunately, the Las Vegas audience seemed incapable of following Kallasvuo into a world of opportunity. Disappointed, bloggers asked ”Was that it?” and generally dismissed the presentation as ”talk”. Not even Nokia’s ”democratization of the smartphone” and their stated 300,000 Symbian developers in China alone (!) created much of a stir. This audience simply wanted a product announcement for the US market. Still, the strategic implications of this presentation are huge. Could it be that Nokia is foresaking the petty smartphone numbers of the high end early adopters in the select developed markets to the competitors’ fight? Has Nokia given up on its Ovi content ambitions? Don’t think so! Nokia has never played to the extreme early adopter share of the market. The company has steadfastly built a large smartphone market share by reaching to the ”late” early adopters and parts of the mass market. What we are witnessing, Northstream believes, is a powerful continuation of both Nokia’s smartphone efforts and its total domination of the device market in developing countries. Nokia is definitely set to be THE enabler of widescale communication and information services to billions (!) of users. Based on audience and media reactions, we can conclude that a) there is plenty of opportunity awaiting tech developers who can widen their perspectives beyond the gadget shows and quick-buck- applications b) competition for addressing these opportunities does not seem overwhelming, and c) the old golden rule of knowing your audience when giving a presentation still applies... Innovators who take Nokia’s call are not only in line for a direct Nokia investment and for a potential multi-million dollar business. If they listened carefully they have realised that there are third world solutions that can turn into first world business opportunities.
15 Jan 2010 | Northstream
The Google phone – friend or foe?
Google has finally launched what was expected since the Android rumours started in 2005 – its first own-branded phone. This is not a surprising move – these days, there is a wide choice of device vendors designing, branding, manufacturing and shipping smartphones built-to-order. Although Google claims that it just intends to further improve mobile access to its services and push its ad-based business model - the profits expected in the smartphone business are too promising to be left to the big handset players, and Google’s effort to test the attractiveness of its consumer brand on a physical product is a logical step.
But what comes next for the company that is slowly entering more and more areas of our lives? First, selling the new device through more channels, and to additional target groups. Channels: More operators and distributors, high street retailers and online shops. Target groups: Business and enterprise users with special software and integration, and consumers beyond the early adopters, attracted by the comfort of accessing all their Google services (search, email, videos, photos, maps etc.) on the go. Then, launching additional own-branded devices (low-end smartphone, tablet PC, e-book reader etc.) should Google find out that this helps them reaching new segments compared to the option of leaving device sales to partner companies. Furthermore, having opened its own online store opens up possibilities to also charge consumers for Google services, possibly coupled with wireless access procured through mobile operator data wholesale arrangements. Mobile operators will continue partnering with Google, but they have to balance the short-term data ARPU advantages with other considerations. In addition to Google, there are often other online service providers available for partnerships, including smaller, national players that are dominant in their market. Secondly, Google’s public perception is changing, and operators need to avoid misalignment with their own brand image. Thirdly, potential conflicts in areas such as device portfolios, user data management and CRM must be managed – or operators may end up partnering with a company that knows more about their users than they, the operators, do.
13 Jan 2010 | Northstream
First things first…
You’ve all seen it, slick smartphones, floods of applications and new 4G 100Mbit/s mobile broadband networks. These developments offer a promising outlook and reasons to be excited. But how about making a plain old phone call or sending an SMS, judging from my Christmas experience it’s not always that easy.
Entering a new decade the industry buzz promises us sky high network capacity offering endless and limitless connectivity wherever we go. There is no doubt that soon we will access the internet and information abundance more regularly with mobile devices than through any other device. And an endless line of widgets and ingenious applications will ease our everyday living. According to the operators and PTS in Sweden, 99.98% of the population is covered by mobile broadband. But to our surprise, and disappointment, this is not the case in Skåne (or Scania). In one of the most densely populated areas in Sweden, and with no hills or mountains to block the radio waves, there are still white spots on wireless coverage! Relentless attempts over the Christmas holiday (including climbing the roof of our holiday house) to call and send Christmas greetings to family and friends all failed. Judging by the sad faces of my beloved ones, not getting their season’s greetings, such poor quality of service is not acceptable a decade into the century. To the operators of the world (or at least to those in Sweden): Please make it your New Year resolution to fix the road we’re on before overwhelming yourselves by plowing for the new ones. Yes, we all want super capacious and fast mobile internet, and we want it now, but not if we’re deprived of plain old vanilla phone calls in our holiday homes.
08 Jan 2010 | Northstream
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