And you are here why?

at #ErlangFactory via Jay Nelson

You know you've got it bad when SNL is skewering your advertisements. Witness the awesomeness as Hader & Arminsen take down Verizon's 4G LTE Ads.

Stephanie Rieger writes about Mobile Users , and largely debunks some of the most obvious arguments about what to put in (or not put in) your mobile app.  The article is well worth the reading, but to summarize Mobile users are not always on the go .  Just because its called a "mobile" phone doesn't mean that its only used when you are mobile! Think about how you use your phone - in fact I bet that you are reading this either on your phone, or as you read this on your computer, your phone is sitting right there next to it .  It is not now, and arguably never has been, only a " I'm in a hurry " device. KISS everywhere :  Given the form factors, it behooves you to design your mobile apps so that they are simple, easy, elegant, blah, blah, bah.  But then again, you should do the same for your desktop apps! Complexity isn't going away : Yes, there are some things that are just too complicated to be done easily and simply.  Thats ok, life is like th...

Karl Bode gets cheesed off at people claiming a spectrum capacity crisis Anybody who warns of an unavoidable capacity crisis on wireline or wireless networks is lying in order to sell you something. That may be a blunt assessment to some, but it's the only conclusion you can draw as we see time and time again that claims about a looming network apocalypse (remember   the Exaflood ?) violently overestimate future traffic loads and underestimate the ingenuity of modern network engineers. Fear sells. Drink orange juice or you'll die of cancer. Get more insurance or you're a bad family man. Vote for me or lose your job and see your grandma deported. Pay $2.50 per gigabyte or face   Internet brown outs . Be afraid. [...] As usual though, actually bothering to listen to and look at the data tells a different story. Nobody argues that spectrum is infinite, but buried below industry histrionics is data noting that there really isn't a spectrum   crisis   as much as a...

John Wilson writes on GigaOm (mostly reproduced below) that carriers should Have 5 years contracts Allow customers to get phones for free every year  Me, I think there is a much better model out there - what they currently have in Europe/Rest-Of-The-World, Carriers have contracts These contracts do not include phones Customer bring their own phones The monthly bill is vastly lower Decouple the Phone market from the Plan market. Customers that want new phones every year can get their own phones every year - and e-bay is always there to sell their old phones. They are 'auto-subsidized' - the plans are significantly cheaper (hello competition!) This *could* happen - it already exists as a model, and phone companies are notoriously bad at tryign somethign that has not been tried before... What do consumers get? Carriers need to rethink the current model of phone ownership. It’s not working for them or consumers. So let’s propose a new one: phone leas...

From BGR, regarding Sprint's release of their version of the Galaxy Nexus Pricing and availability details haven’t been made available beyond confirmation of a launch in the first half, but check out our hands-on photos in the gallery below while we all wait for more details. Seriously, "confirmation of a launch in the first half " ?? This is a phone that has already been out in Europe for a few months? I know, I know, CDMA/GSM, etc. etc., but still, first half ? The mobile phone market - android domain - is one of the most vibrant sectors around, with new phones being released virtually every day, except in the US .  I suspect the answer is in the marketing - they need to come up with those really catch names - I mean, it probably takes forever to come up with Rezound , Droid 4 , etc...

GigaOm and Verge are running stories on Free.fr - a remarkably disruptive broadband service in France which, for ~$40/month provides a 30MB broadband connection, IPTV (w/ set-top box), wi-fi, and free calling to a passel of countries. ( There is a good description of Free.fr here , for those who care ) Free.fr has been singly responsible for a dramatic reduction in cost ( and improvement in services!) for all triple-play services in France.  Their main competition has been the recent surge in quad -play - mobile, along with the triple-play of broadband, voice and video, and they've just announced their response in this space.  For 19.99 € they will provide, well, Unlimited everything (text, mms, calling, internet, etc.). Their approach is somewhat the same as what T-Mobile, Republic, and others are doing in the U.S., viz. leveraging wi-fi connectivity to route calls/data over the internet whenever possible.  In this vein, one huge advantage they have is th...

There are (essentially) two types of mobile phone networks out there in the world GSM, and CDMA.  For the purposes of this note, CDMA is Verizon and Sprint , while GSM is Everyone Else In The World, or at least, The Parts That dieswaytoofast Cares About Right Now . As you might guess, I'm going to ignore Verizon and Sprint ... Within GSM, we have both " 3G" and " 4G" services.  Again, lets ignore the point that what everyone claims to be " 4G " service is actually not 4G service (theoretically), but what the heck, its faster than "3G" , and thats good enough, right?  Basically, from now on, "3G" means "slower speed", and "4G" means "higher speed". Anyhow, all these services run on frequencies that are all across the board. To over simplify this, we have the following (all frequencies in MHz) 3G Service North America ( Canada, Mexico, USA ) - 850 & 1900 Most of Central & ...

Ericsson has a new report out which obsessively details the growth of Mobile Data and Traffic.  You can go read the whole thing (hey, I did!), but there are some highlights which are quite relevant 1) People use less than 5GB/month.   If you eliminate file-sharing and video, this is pretty much a guarantee.  And yes, the 5GB includes online media. 2) Hogs watch videos .  On the other hand, people that use more than 5GB/month are almost certainly going over by watching videos.  Which also makes sense - after all, its tough  to suck up data without streaming video! 3) Metro areas are growing . The largest growth in subscriber base is going to be in Metro areas.  Given the already high density in these areas, and the crappy existing quality, it pretty much guarantees that we're going to see more wi-fi/femto-cell implementations a-la Republic wireless 4) No Videos during dinner .  Mobile PCs (?laptops on the road?) are lar...