Meraki, the Google and Sequoia-backed startup that focuses on citywide Wi-Fi networks, hasn’t let the demise of municipal Wi-Fi halt its efforts to make money or make the wireless network technology available in more places. It has scaled back considerably on its visions of open source, low-cost Wi-Fi for municipalities, instead focusing on Wi-Fi for apartment buildings, city squares and environments where someone is willing to pay to provide the service. Instead of connecting the world, Meraki wants to connect with paying customers. And that’s a good thing.

Today the company announced a Wi-Fi access point that plugs into a wall, and on Dec. 4 will release a lighter solar-powered access point to go places where power doesn’t. In a briefing about the products, it’s clear that Meraki still holds onto its altruistic views, with CEO Sanjit Biswas trumpeting the growth of Wi-Fi networks in Africa and small Chilean fishing villages. However, he’s quick to point out that hotels and apartment buildings can use the new Meraki products to rapidly install Wi-Fi networks that will cover a complex all the way from the pool to inside bedrooms.

In the last year, the startup has changed its business model several times, from trumpeting cheap hardware and charging a fee to access a dashboard, to tripling the price of its hardware and pushing ads. Such shifting hasn’t sat well with some citywide Wi-Fi network proponents, but the bottom line for many cities and customers is that Meraki’s Wi-Fi networks are still cheaper than those from vendors such as Cisco or Juniper. As Wi-Fi becomes more important, Meraki’s capitalizing on its cheaper gear with new packages that offer to unwire a city street for $10,000, or today’s launch of a residential package designed for apartments and hotels that costs less than $5,000.

Wi-Fi is of growing interest for both consumers and ISPs. Earlier this year, Quentanna, a Wi-Fi chipmaker hoping to build a plug-in home access point to boost wireless signals, launched with a few ISP customers on board. A few weeks ago AT&T purchased hot-spot provider, Wayport for $275 million. If Meraki can figure out a way to spread Wi-Fi and make money, it could be in a good position as ubiquitous access to the Internet becomes more important for gadget-toting consumers. Wi-Fi is one of the most common gateways to the web, and even in a down economy Meraki thinks it can make money on the tools to build those gateways rather than by managing them. Meraki has realized that instead of saving the world, it needed to save its business.

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Quantance, a San Mateo, Calif.-based chip firm, has raised a $12 million second round of funding to build a component part that will improve cell phone data reception by boosting the signal the phone sends to the base station. The funding, led by the TD Fund, with DoCoMO Capital, Granite Ventures and InterWest Partners also participating, supports Quantance’s efforts to manufacture and market its analog chip. The involvement of DOCOMO Capital, the venture arm of the Japanese cell phone giant, could help boost Quantance’s acceptance in the handset market if NTT DOCOMO pushes the chip for its own handsets.

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Nothing like a deep recession to get a company’s management to focus. Carphone Warehouse, a major retail chain in Europe, is going to de-couple its broadband (telecom) business from its retail operations, according to various press reports. In the UK, spin-offs are called “de-mergers.” Funny how a downturn prompts companies to change their tune from “free broadband forever” to “get me outta here.” Some analysts estimate that Carphone’s Talk Talk telecom business is worth around $2 billion. It is the second largest broadband provider in Britain. Carphone’s decision, however, shows that the entire mobile phone ecosystem is very prone to the economic downturn.

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The recession won’t cut too deeply into wireless data spending in the U.S. for now, according to data sent over last night by Chetan Sharma of Chetan Sharma Consulting. In his third-quarter wireless data report, Sharma concludes that the rise in the number of consumer smartphones over the last few quarters means that data spending by consumers will likely offset cuts in revenue caused by the loss of jobs and employer-subsidized data subscriptions.

Data is continuing to offset the loss in voice ARPU (average revenue per user), and is still rising as a percentage of wireless revenue, to stand at more than 23 percent for U.S. carriers as of the end of the third quarter. A year ago, the percentage contribution stood at 17.7 percent. Sharma estimates that in the U.S., that number is likely to exceed the 25-percent mark in the final quarter of 2008. Verizon leads the pack, with data ARPU of $13.58. T-Mobile, which is only now rolling out its 3G network, has a scant $9 in data ARPU from customers.

However, economic uncertainly and rising data penetration (more than 35 percent of the U.S. now has a data plan), means that there may be some pressure on pricing. Sharma also notes that after the holidays, if times don’t improve, the industry might see declines in data toward the end of the second quarter of 2009.

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[qi:___wifi] Normally I don’t pay much attention to product announcements, but a news release from Proxim Wireless caught my eye. They are announcing a new device, that uses dual 802.11n radios to wirelessly transmit data at speeds in excess of 300 Mbps. A single radio version can hit speeds of 170 Mbps. These speeds would make them almost seven times faster than current wireless networks. Many believe that we are headed to Gigabit Wireless Networks soon. The 802.11n standard is still in “draft” and is expected to be finalized by November 2009.

Proxim claims that by using a distributed wireless architecture that eliminates the need for a centralized wireless controller and it makes it easy for them to overcome the bottlenecks associated with the centralized controller architecture that is used by most WiFi gear makers. The company is using a Freescale processor and latest Atheros 802.11n chipset.

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With both VoiceCon and Under The Radar events in the Bay Area last week, there were lots of announcements in the Voice 2.0 communications space; I wrote up some GigaOm and Web Worker Daily Posts to cover a few of them:On Tuesday Voxbone announced the l…

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iPhone apps might some day be the gold mine for advertising.  In the meanwhile, we are seeing the emergence of a new trend: iPhone apps as ads. Hollywood studios are the first ones to react and using free applications to promote its movies. We are totally loving the new app for the latest Bond flick, Quantum of Solace. 

More than just a micro-site, the Bond application lets you watch the movie trailers and read up about the movie. It also pushes you out to the iTunes music store if you want to you want to purchase Jack White’s throbbing theme song from the film. Of course others have more immersive apps. The Dark Knight, for example has come up with a way to add some Joker-style graffiti to photos of your friends. Use the touch screen to drag and rotate elements and then save and send them as you like. Bolt, Disney’s forthcoming animated canine adventure has released an app which is essentially a free stripped down Super Monkey game for a very subtle hand.

All three apps, however, lack the seemingly most obvious feature - the ability to actually purchase tickets for the movie. That much imagination would be too much to ask from Hollywood, but we are happy that they are thinking about ways to promote their movies on screens that matter.

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As ‘typo’ is for writing, ??? is for a call made in error. I often launch a conference call or dial a contact accidentally, or get called by someone who clicked the wrong button. We furtively apologize but lack a simple word to describe our error. No…

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As the world moves to fourth generation wireless networks, lawyers for chip firms, handset makers and other technology firms are moving into their bargaining positions on patents related to the technology that enables the WiMAX and LTE networks. When deploying an in-depth technology protocol, such as WiAMX and LTE, many firms will own the intellectual property needed to create a network, from the silicon to the handsets. Those IP owners want to get paid, but the more patent holders charge, the more expensive the end devices and network components can become.

Over at Fierce Broadband Wireless, they have a story noting that in-building wireless firm ADC thinks it has a several key patents related to deploying LTE and WiMAX. ADC says it’s willing to license those patents at a “fair and reasonable rate,” which is basically an invite to bring people to the negotiating table. Is ADC trying to be the next Qualcomm, which has aggravated the industry by controlling key patents and charging high royalty rates?

A group of handset makers has banded together to create a patent framework for LTE, but other key players, notably the silicon vendors are absent. ADC adds another player to that mix. Because ADC doesn’t make hardware such as handsets, it doesn’t have an incentive to trade its patents for the use of other patents needed for an LTE device to work. It also isn’t a member of a standards organization, which WOULD limit the royalties ADC could charge. We’ll see if the industry players attempt to deal with ADC or move straight to litigation. The results could mean pricier LTE handsets or even the halt of LTE- and WiMAX-enabled devices, should litigation go poorly.

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[qi:076] Japanese telecom giant, NTT DoCoMo has acquired 26% of Tata Teleservices for $2.7 billion, which is actually higher than the largest CDMA carrier in India, Reliance Communications. The premium is a sign that the Japanese covet the Indian market and more importantly the ethics of the Tata Group. Tata’s wireless and fixed wireless business is sold under the brand, Tata Indicom. The new money will allow Tata to expand into offering GSM based services and compete more effectively against the likes of Bharti Airtel and Reliance. A large number of international players have made a beeline to the Indian market in recent months with DoCoMo being the latest.

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Over the years we have seen the gradual separation of phone numbers from geographical location. To date Skype’s SkypeIn service has been the best demonstration of this trend; even though I live and work just outside Toronto, Canada, I have a Palo Alto, Calif., SkypeIn number for historical family reasons, and I recently acquired a San Francisco number for Truphone. The same separation can apply to most VoIP-based voice services.

Over the past couple of years Belgian-based Voxbone has also developed an international numbering service which offers its clients a “local” phone numbers in any of 5,000 cities in 45 countries. OnState has used Voxbone’s “local” numbers as access points to its virtual call center service; its clients’ businesses can offer customer service and support centers with worldwide “local” access. However, it would be even more convenient for businesses selling into multiple countries if they could simply offer one universal number worldwide. Now, they can.

Yesterday, three months after the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) made available the +883 “global” country code, Voxbone announced the launch of its country-agnostic iNum service. I first learned of Voxbone at last spring’s eComm 2008 where Voxbone CEO Rod Ullens first mentioned the iNum concept. This announcement starts to realize his vision of enabling low cost conversations with worldwide access by taking advantage of the technology around IP-based communications:

“iNum is a new kind of phone number for a new kind of world — a world with a new geography that’s about local presence and global relationships, not about distance or national borders,” said Rodrigue Ullens, CEO and co-founder of Voxbone. “We believe the new geography is defined by the markets, customers and vendors that businesses need to connect with most. We need ‘local’ communication with these people — whether calls originate on public-switched or VoIP networks, whether they are truly local or ‘virtually’ local.”

In practice, that means a Voxbone iNum Service Provider Partner will supply a customer, whether an individual or a business, with a number that has an 883 country code. Once the service is fully rolled out to Voxbone’s 5,000 local points of presence worldwide, that iNum number will be accessible for, at most, the cost of a “local” phone call from any PSTN or VoIP service.

“At most,” because fundamental to Voxbone’s services is that they are IP-based and therefore calls amongst iNum Partners’ services are free. Currently Voxbone has 10 iNum Service Provider Partners, including Truphone, Mobivox and Voxeo, who either have made iNum numbers available today or will do so in the next few weeks. (For those callers who don’t use an iNum partner’s service, iNum numbers can be called through 55 “local” access points in 45 countries for the cost of a call to these access points.) Ullens, in a SquawkBox conference call yesterday, said that Voxbone will be negotiating with carriers and service providers worldwide to build out their service to become universally available.

Voxeo has set up a demonstration iNum service example; call +883 510 001 800 024, give their virtual operator a U.S. postal code and you will get local weather reports. This call can be made via the iNum Partners’ services today; it will become available via the local access points as they are set up over the next week. Another example: iotum’s Callflower Conference Call service will be using iNum numbers in a few days.

Jim Courtney is an Associate Editor of Skype Journal.

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I was playing Texas Hold’em on the iPhone the other day when it struck me: If Apple allowed one-touch financial transactions inside apps — in the case of Texas Hold’em, for example, to buy $1,000 of poker chips for $1 — the consequences could be huge. Social networks like Facebook and MySpace, games, location-based services and pure-play commerce apps could see instant windfalls with the right functionality.

Apple is in the catbird seat to dominate micropayments. Their “batch and bill” implementation in iTunes, which boasts perhaps the smoothest online purchasing UI ever, now serves as a foundation for the App Store, creating a whole new genre of software that I call “impulseware” — cheap enough and easy enough to buy on a whim. I’ve already spent a total of $22.99 on apps for the iPhone — some useful, some not — since the App Store launched in the summer. Just getting people to spend on software is a feat; I, for one, haven’t spent money on software anywhere else.

I would be spending a lot more if Apple extended the API to allow for the ability to transact within apps. It would give real viability to virtual gifts, currencies and goods across the myriad of apps out there by allowing pennies and dollars to change hands in a frictionless way. As both a developer and a consumer, that is exciting.

There is potentially a lot at stake here. As we shift toward the mobile web, we are seeing a repudiation of the browser as the single, über app. Apple has already re-inspired (and perhaps revitalized) the vibrant shareware industry; it now has a chance to legitimize new online business models. Such a move would allow those of us in the tech industry to move away from our uncomfortable dependence on the “media model” that has informed web development for the last 15 years or so. And by offering new options for generating revenue, Apple would get a leg up on Android in the battle for developer mindshare.

The carriers have had ample opportunity to spread their own payment platform, but instead their various handsets and typically unfriendly strategies toward developers have opened the door for Apple. The company, after upstaging the music industry titans, stands poised to extend their revolution of content delivery to that of application delivery — and in the process, to sell even more devices.

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They say good things come in small packages. That certainly is true of the new INQ Social Mobile phone from INQ, a subsidiary of Hutchinson Whampoa, a global wireless company that runs 3G networks in eight countries around the world, including the UK and Australia. INQ’s new triband-with-3G phone is diminutive — 110 g (3.9 oz) — but it packs a powerful punch. It is smaller than a bar of Baby Ruth chocolate and is likely to cost about $50 a pop. INQ’s new phone will make a debut on the 3 network in the UK later this week, and it should raise some eyebrows and impress many.

Hutchinson’s 3 network caused a sensation last year when it released a phone that was designed around Skype and Skype’s communication abilities. The phone proved to be a commercial and critical success. Encouraged by its success, Hutchinson decided to spin out its handset operations into a standalone company to sell phones to carriers other than 3.

The result is a new phone — the first of many — that is chasing what is going to be the biggest trend in the mobile industry: application-specific mobile phones. Frank Meehan, CEO of INQ, last month said that while “iPhone and BlackBerry Storm are sensational devices,” the fact remains that carriers need more lower cost devices with great UI. “INQ isn’t meant to compete with those top end devices, but instead is designed to get the core Internet comms services easy to use for the mass market,” Meehan said. I agree, and after using the phone for less than a day on a slower EDGE network, I can only imagine how good a device it will be on faster networks. And its sole purpose is to keep the data usage growing on the mobile networks so that carriers can recoup the money they spent building their 3G networks.

The phone is based on Qualcomm’s 6260 chipset and uses the Brew OS. The device’s whole experience is optimized for a few web applications — Skype (obviously), Facebook, Google, instant messaging and other apps like Last.fm. All the apps show up at the bottom of screen, reminiscent of Apple’s App Dock, which makes it easy to navigate through many apps. (I wonder when Nokia will buy some clues and make navigating through apps easy.)

The apps themselves have been optimized for the tiny screen experience, and worked flawlessly over a T-Mobile 2.5G EDGE connection. The Facebook app, for instance, was easy to use: I could snap pictures with the 3.2 megapixel camera and post them to Facebook with relative ease. I was suitably impressed with the way INQ has integrated Skype, Facebook and IM into the phone’s address book and developed a next generation communication experience. The phone has a decent browser (Netfront 3.4) that can handle Flash, and the screen, while tiny at 2.2 inches, is good enough to use the web applications effectively.

I wish I could have tested the phone on a 3G network and not been limited by the slower EDGE connection.  Being on a slow connection, I couldn’t really use Skype effectively, and I find doing messaging (IM) or replying to emails using a 12-key dialpad impossible. But I am sure there are folks who are not challenged by big thumbs and advancing years.

Now, this device isn’t going to work in the U.S. — which is a shame because I really love this tiny-yet-simple device. It is like the Toyota Scion of the mobile world — well designed, cool, functional and inexpensive.

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Internet Explorer 6 Mobile browser is close to release, with the Windows Mobile Team Blog announcing the availability of emulator images of Windows Mobile 6.1.4 containing the updated browser. Even though Microsoft is finalizing IE 8 for PCs, it’s only up to version IE 6 for its mobile platform, though IE8’s javascript engine is backported to IE6 Mobile.

Check out the features in Pocket Internet Explorer 6 Mobile (PIE6):

• Improved fidelity (support for full fidelity desktop rendering)
• Layout fixes to accommodate a mobile screen (text wrap)
• Enhanced Script and AJAX support (Jscript v5.7 from Internet Explorer 8)
• Improved multimedia experience (Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 for Adobe Flash content)
• Deeper integration with search
• Enhanced cursor navigation model
• Touch and gesture support - pan support
• Multiple zoom levels
• Easy switching between mobile / desktop versions of sites by specifying UA strings.

The question is, is this too little, too late? Several browsers have surpassed Pocket Internet Explorer to become the mobile browser of choice, including Opera Mini, which just released Opera Mini 4.2 yesterday, but also Opera Mobile 9.5, and Skyfire, which handles video streaming Flash sites such Youtube. And let’s not forget the forthcoming mobile Fennec browser by Mozilla. Still, the touch and gesture support in PIE6 is a welcome addition and no doubt in response to the popularity of the Apple iPhone web browser.

You can download the emulator images from Microsoft here. If you’re really good, you can pull out the emulator code, convert it to a .cab and install the browser on your Windows Mobile.

Tags: browser, Fennec, ie6 mobile, internet, Internet Explorer 6 Mobile, Opera Mini 4.2, PIE6, Skyfire, windows mobile

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For last couple of days I have been playing around with what could arguably be the best Windows Mobile phone in business – Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1. From the packaging to the diminutive USB-charger to the sleek finish of the device itself, the whole X1 experience is flawless. It is a well-designed smartphone that is very well-engineered. It is no different than Sony VAIO laptops or Bravia TVs - and it is no surprise it is expesnive: $799. The device is going to be available in the US starting November 25, 2008 on Sony’s website, Sony Style.

It comes with a very comfortable slider keyboard, great connectivity options (WiFi, 3G, Quad-band GSM etc.) and is a multimedia powerhouse. The phone comes with a 3-inch WVGA display with resolution of up to 800 X 480 pixels screen. The phone can play back videos in almost DVD quality and makes it easy to play 3D mobile games. I love the photos taken by the 3.2 megapixel camera and the music playback is solid and clear.

X1 has a pretty decent battery life — and yes, it beats the pants off the iPhone 3G battery. It got about 8 hours on AT&T’s 3G network, ahead of my iPhone but lagged the Android G1. However, it had better GSM standby and talk times. But again - battery usage differs from person to person. One thing I hate about the device is that it lacks built in memory but good news is that it can take up to 32 GB of memory card.

What will surprise you the most is that this phone is powered by Windows Mobile 6.1. Despite the torturous Windows Mobile interface, I found myself liking this device which shows that with some creativity and lots of imagination, even Windows Mobile can stand up to assaults from Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s Blackberry and Google’s Android. Of course Windows Mobile means that the phone syncs with Microsoft Exchange over the air. It can read documents, spreadsheets and presentations natively.

I was surprised by how nimble the phone feels — I am yet to use another Windows Mobile phone that comes close to X1. The device gives you many ways to interact with the contact touch, full QWERTY keyboard, 4-way key and optical joystick navigation and panels. It is the panels which are awesome and function almost like how the applications are accessed on the iPhone.

Bottomline: If your company insists that you need a Windows Mobile phone, then Xperia X1 is an obvious (and perhaps the only) choice.

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Yesterday, Ion Media, a broadcaster behind an effort to create a new way to deliver over-the-air broadcast television to mobile phones, announced a successful test of a new mobile digital television standard. Because when you have a laughably small number of mobile television viewers, you may as well try a different standard in hopes that it will succeed where others have failed. The standard, created by the Advanced Television Systems Committee, has succeeded in trials at easily delivering broadcast television to mobile phones, using existing spectrum. However, the content won’t be linked back to the Internet — this version of mobile TV turns your phone or other portable devices into a mini-TV.

The ATSC standard will compete with Qualcomm’s MediaFLO technology that AT&T and Verizon use to deliver mobile television to subscribers, but unlike MediaFLO, it doesn’t require a separate network to broadcast the shows. A group of broadcast networks, LG Electronics and Samsung are part of a coalition called the Open Mobile Video Coalition working with the ATSC to create a single standard for delivering mobile television to cell phones and other devices by 2009, when the switch to digital television is complete.

The ATSC plans to formally approve its mobile TV standard later this month. Chips and systems will be available before the end of 2009. Initial offerings are likely to appear in the automotive space. I have tons of questions about this service that I’m trying to get answered and will update y’all if any of the parties gets back to me.

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The troubles in telecom continue as Nokia Siemens Networks plans to cut an additional 1,300 employees in Finland and Germany as part of an overall restructuring. According to today’s Wall Street Journal, the telecommunications equipment maker has cut about 6,000 workers and plans to lay off a total of about 9,000 before the restructuring is complete. NSN is a joint venture between Nokia Corp. and Siemens AG. Laid-off NSN employees won’t be alone, as workers throughout the communications value chain watch their jobs disappear — from those working at Freescale and ST-NXP Wireless to those at Nokia and Motorola. The industry and its employees have weathered downturns before, but it’s hard to watch it happen all over again.

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As consumers use more data on their mobile phones, carriers want to know more about what consumers are doing with that data access. While the revenue from wireless data plans is rising to about a fifth or a fourth of carrier’s wireless sales overall, a survey released today, and conducted on behalf of Nokia Siemens Networks, indicates that carriers have bigger plans for data. Taking a page from web firms such as Google or Facebook, they want to know — in detail — how their subscribers are using wireless broadband, in order to make more money.

The survey, developed by Loudhouse Research, a UK-based company, included interviews with 100 senior executives at mobile operators and mobile Internet portals. More than half of the respondents — 53 percent — said existing customer data infrastructure doesn’t enable analysis of customer behavior, and 46 percent complained that data is not being analyzed quickly enough.

If carriers are going to move beyond their fear of becoming dumb pipes, they’re going to have to have a better idea of what their subscribers do with their data plans. As more people surf the Internet from a carrier’s wireless network, the carrier’s desire for information may run up against consumers’ desire for privacy — a debate highlighted this summer when ISPs tried to serve ads based upon users’ surfing habits. Nokia Siemens Networks research forecasts that the amount of data transmitted over mobile networks will increase 800 percent, to 13.5 million terabytes, over the next four years.

This makes the idea of network managment tools for wireless networks more relevant, which is good for companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Procera Networks or Continuous Computing, which are pushing equipment or software that see deep into wireless network traffic. As carriers follow Google, which keeps and mines all sorts of data, consumers need to be on their guard.

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Apple’s 3G iPhone was the best-selling handset in the U.S. during the third quarter of 2008, according to data compiled by The NPD Group. Apple had previously reported that it sold about 6.89 million iPhones (3G) in the quarter. The research group identifies Apple’s new device “as the leading handset purchased by adult consumers in the U.S.”

It beat out Motorola’s RZR V3 (all models), RIM’s Blackberry Curve, the LG Rumor and the LG enV2, the Port Washington, N.Y.-based research group said. RAZR was ranked as the top seller for past 12 quarters. That is bad news for Motorola, which is already on the mat after being pummeled with losses and declining market share. Funnily enough, phones with a QWERTY keyboard were in high demand — 30 percent of the handsets sold in this quarter had keyboards, versus just 11 percent the year prior. According to NPD Group, the domestic handset purchases by adult consumers declined 15 percent year over year in third quarter to 32 million units. Consumer handset sales revenue fell 10 percent to $2.9 billion.

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[qi:___wifi] Boingo Networks, a Wi-Fi hotspot network, said today that it bought Opti-Fi Networks from Parsons Transportation Group and ARINC for an undisclosed amount. Opti-Fi builds and manages Wi-Fi networks for 25 North American airports. The deal means Boingo now operates 55 Wi-Fi networks in North American airports, and it follows last week’s $275 million buy of Wayport and its 10,000 Wi-Fi hotspots by AT&T.

AT&T’s buy highlighted the importance of Wi-Fi on consumer phones and laptops, and helped offload data from the carrier’s cellular network. This deal proves how the inclusion of  Wi-Fi on mobile phones and demand for ubiquitous broadband is making Wi-Fi networks a valuable asset. Seven years after being created by EarthLink founder Sky Dayton, Boingo may be seeing its worth bounce.

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[qi:083] Unlike the many consumers facing unsympathetic lenders, when you’re a money-losing telecommunications firm with a $9.39 billion market cap, you can still renegotiate your debt. Today, after reporting a third-quarter loss of $326 million and the defection of 1.3 million customers, Sprint said it had done just that. Under the terms of its new credit facility, the troubled telecom has less money available to it, but has the ability to take on a greater debt load relative to its earnings without breaking its loan covenants and risking a technical default.

The renegotiated debt gives Sprint some breathing room while it tries to stem the loss of its customers. Of those that left the carrier in the most recent quarter, 1.1 million were high-value, post-paid customers that pay monthly as part of a contract with the carrier. Sprint also said it expected ”continued pressure on post-paid subscribers” in the fourth quarter — a sign that could doom its turnaround efforts.

When it reported second-quarter results in August, Sprint said it expected customer defections to ease in the last few months of 2008. They appear to be accelerating. In the first quarter, the company lost 1.1 million subscribers, 1.07 million of whom were post-paid. During the second quarter, Sprint lost another 901,000 subscribers, 776,000 of whom were post-paid. Renegotiating debt will help, but Sprint has to figure out how to keep its customers on board.

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Ericsson is predicting the future mobile device by 2012. Ericsson predicts mobile devices with 12-to 20-megapixel cameras, support for full HD video shooting capabilities, 1Ghz processors that don’t suck your battery dry, 1024×768 XGA resolution, and high-speed Internet access using “HSPA evolution”. HSPA evolution is the successor to HSPA, and “LTE (long term evolution)” with speeds of more than 100Mbps.

I still can’t over the fact that the iPhone, supposedly the “bleeding edge” of mobile devices is only 2 megapixels. In any event, it’s hard to predict the future, but I’ll take a 20-megapixel camera, 100Mbps mobile device sooner rather than later thank you very much.

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Tags: 2012, Ericsson, HD video, HSPA, iphone, LTE, LTE Advanced, mobile broadband, mobile phone

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Five years ago, the promise of a new networking technology known as Ultra-wideband was a living room without wires, where DVD players, set-top boxes and video accessories could connect with TVs over the air. Ultra-wideband (UWB) is a wireless personal area networking technology that can transmit large amounts of data for short distances using very little power. Over time, its promise expanded from the living room to the home office, as backers used Ultra-wideband as the basis for Wireless USB and the WiMedia standard.

So far, this dream hasn’t materialized, and the technology has failed to find a mass market. Today, we still have wires in both the office and living room, and a host of competing standards have whittled away UWB’s opportunity. In the last week, we’ve seen players exit the UWB business, and Intel announced that it has halted research on the technology. For venture firms who have invested nearly $400 million in the space, the fate of Ultra-wideband offers a cautionary tale about the perils of betting on semiconductor standards.

On Oct. 31, five-year-old UWB chipmaker WiQuest shut its doors when it was unable to raise more money or find a buyer for its technology. That led to heralds of doom for Ultra-wideband, with analysts and media blaming long-delayed product launches, expensive chips and a hostile regulatory environment. This week, Intel said it had discontinued its UWB efforts, saying the market wasn’t worth its R&D efforts. If the technology somehow manages to revive, Intel says it could buy up one of the six remaining startups in the space.

The plan makes sense for Intel because UWB, like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and WiMAX, is a standardized technology. That means any UWB chipmaker will have the basic set of characteristics Intel needs to play in the market. Standards are a double-edged sword for venture investors. On one hand they are good for consumers and electronics makers because they enable multiple devices from different vendors to work together. Any Wi-Fi router should talk to any Wi-Fi chip in a computer, phone or camera. This helps drive consumer adoption and can lead to the creation of a huge market. Venture capital firms love this, because if a standard takes off it can build a company like Broadcom or Atheros that can generate rapid returns in a relatively short amount of time.

The other edge of that sword is that chipmakers who adhere to the standard can do little to differentiate their chips, which makes it easy to switch vendors and effectively commoditizes the product. This happened for the Wi-Fi standard back in 2000-2002, when venture firms put more than $2 billion into more than 40 Wi-Fi companies, only to see a few rise to the top. There is also the risk, inherent in all technologies, that the market won’t adopt it. This seems to be what’s happening for UWB.

Instead of seeing the technology completely die out, Eric Broockman, CEO of UWB chipmaker Alereon, argues that Intel’s retreat from the technology and WiQuest’s failure mean a shakeup similar to that experienced by the Wi-Fi market is happening with UWB. “Typically in this type of semiconductor investing there is a win-place-show mentality,” Broockman says. “One wins big, one gets acquired for a good price, one gets acquired for a not-so-good price, and everyone else goes away. That process in UWB is being accelerated by the current economic downturn.”

There were at least seven UWB chipset companies formed in the 2003 time frame. Now, many appear close to failure. WiQuest, which raised about $54 million, was one. Two others, Artimi and Staccato Communications, are both rumored to be running out of cash. Artimi has raised $31.5 million and couldn’t be reached for comment for this story. Intel Capital invested in Staccato when it was pushing UWB. That could position Staccato to end up being the company in the show category, because Intel might buy it for its intellectual property at a cheap price down the road. 

Fighting for the win and place spots are Alereon, which has raised more than $70 million with a small amount coming earlier this year from SKTelecom; TZero, which raised $18 million in March led by CID Group; and Wisair, which raised $24 million in February led by Susquehanna Growth Equity. Radiospire is another player in the UWB market, but it appears to be shifting gears — or at least hedging its bets — by also making chips for transferring wireless HD video using a different standard.

Competeing standards are one of the reasons UWB is having such a hard time finding a toehold. For desktop personal area networking, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are becoming more prominent — and have the benefit of cheaper chips. In video, UWB has conceded to Wi-Fi and specialized standards such as Wireless HD and WHDI. Those left on the playing field are quick to point out that UWB still has legs — and it might, if it finds the type of killer application that can drive adoption rates and increase chip sales to the point where they cost less to embed. But the shakeup happening here proves that chip investment isn’t for the faint of heart.

This article was also published at BusinessWeek.com

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Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, should just stay away from predicting the success of consumer-focused products. He was wrong about iPod and was even more wrong about Apple’s iPhone. And now he is dismissing Google’s Android Operating System and the devices (including phones) that are likely to use that OS. “I don’t really understand their strategy. Maybe somebody else does,” he quipped at a meeting down in Australia.

What’s there to understand, Steve? It is simple. It is free, and it is meant to eat Windows Mobile for lunch. And, somewhere down the line, Google is praying hard that enough people use the devices to use Google search and rake in even more ad dollars — hurting Microsoft in the process. Priceless!

Microsoft has a hard time responding to free and/or iconic products, so you hear head-in-the-sand statements like what Ballmer told people Down Under. It is why they are frozen by Apple iPhone and Google Android. Like I said, Windows Mobile is starting to resemble a proverbial white elephant.

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The FCC decision on Tuesday that opened up a huge chunk of spectrum for broadband services is a decided victory for its proponents, but there are still many details left to figure out, including what kind of radios will be used to “tune” into the Internet. Today, at an event, Larry Page of Google said any such chips used in these devices should cost less than $5.

One way to do that is to put multiple radios on the chip, tuned to the variety of available spectrum, and let them use the existing WiMAX or Wi-Fi protocols, rather than coming up with something new. Wi-Fi chips are cheap, and WiMAX prices should come down as more networks are deployed. Jeff Thompson, CEO of Towerstream, a provider of