Will "iPhone" be used as general slang for "smartphone"?

Patrick Smith (whose new blog SMS is the New Black has got a plethora of thought-provoking posts) has written about an interesting phenomenon: the use of the term iPhone as a generic word instead of "smartphone".

It makes a lot of sense to me - I don't really hear "normal" people ever talking about smartphones. They certainly don't care about technical distinction like open operating systems. Frankly, the term "smartphone" is pretty geeky, and almost guaranteed to turn off a sizeable part of the potential market.

No doubt that Apple's lawyers and branding mavens will hate this as much as their peers at Nokia, RIM and others. But I can certainly imagine it happening, especially in Europe where technical jargonese often tends to be viewed as deeply uncool.

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Nokia gets HSUPA.... blurring the featurephone/smartphone divide

Thanks to the anonymous commenter on this earlier post of mine, who draws attention to the new 6260 Slide, which is due for release in early 2009 at around €299 unlocked.

The interesting thing is that this is technically a featurephone, as it's based on Nokia's proprietary S40 platform rather than its open smartphone S60/Symbian OS. Although with a 5MP camera, 320x480 screen, GPS and maps, WiFi and presumably a full-spec browser, it's really a smartphone in all but name and "native" openness.

It's devices like this that really blur the line between smart and non-smart. The iPhone has already shown that full multi-tasking and background applications aren't really necessary if the device is fast enough. And this phone should be capable of running some pretty decent apps in the browser, Flash Lite or Java.

Sure, something like the similar (but more expensive) N85 has Symbian if you really want to download complex native software, but in the absence of a Nokia equivalent of the AppStore, I'd guess that most customers will go for the better radio and screen of the 6260.

The new phone's full spec is here.

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When is UMA not UMA? Part 2

I mentioned last week that I'd been confused by T-Mobile US, which was using "UMA" as its network name for inbound roamers to the US, irrespective of whether they had WiFi in their phones.

Since then, I've also met a couple of (generally knowledgeable) industry folk who are starting to use "UMA" as a generic term for any dual-mode WiFi/cellular solution. I even heard it used in the context of enterprise-centric solutions.

I suspect that this is purely a US thing, as T-Mobile's Hotspot@Home is probably the highest-profile dual-mode service in the market at present, and is often compared against the Sprint Airave femtocell service.

Other non-carrier dual-mode solution providers (Cisco, Divitas, fring, Truphone et al), should perhaps start deploying some marketing firepower to correct this misapprehension.

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Assorted interesting tidbits & observations

I liked the Nokia presentation at the Open Mobile Summit, which talked about using aggregated data from embedded sensors in phones. They're doing one experiment that uses GPS from 10,000 handsets to show traffic delays in realtime, and they also talked about possibilities of using motion sensors as seismometers to track earthquakes, or temperature sensors to watch the pattern of influenza epidemics. Cool stuff - and which could yield new Telco 2.0-style revenue streams from Government rather than end-users.


I went to the enormous new Westfield shopping centre in West London yesterday. I was surprised at how poor indoor wireless coverage way, given that it's a state-of-the-art facility that I would have assumed had a state-of-the-art distributed antennas or other coverage solutions. Both O2 and T-Mobile were very spotty, especially for 3G.

There's a fascinating comment at MobileBurn about the possibility of Nokia starting its own MVNO in Japan, as a way of driving uptake of its handsets without relying on the existing incumbent operators. If this is true, it also makes me wonder whether it would ever try something similar in its other under-strength major market, the US.

There's a good post on the uneasy mix of VoIP and LTE at 3G4G Wireless . This issue is something I identified a year ago with my VoIPo3G report - what happens to voice telephony when we move to an all-IP network? The easy option is to just use 2G/3G circuit connections in parallel - although that means having two radios working simultaneously, which could impact battery life. The other options include

• using a UMA-like approach to tunnelling "circuit voice over IP"
• using IMS as a VoIP platform - albeit without having a standardised IMS VoIP application defined at the moment, so probably having to use a "standard" NGN VoIP SIP server instead
• using NGN VoIP without IMS, which would need a lot of work on both handset and core network, possibly proprietary
• using proprietary VoIP solutions like Skype or fring, with lots of work needed in interoperability, numbering etc
• assume everyone with an LTE device will also have a normal cellphone, and forget out the problem entirely.

BT's recently-acquired web telephone company Ribbit has just announced its "Bring Your Own Network" strategy, along with its developer platform. Along with some femtocells and the Vodafone Facebook SMS app from a couple of months ago, this represents the first signs of incumbent operators selling their own-brand services over other operators' access. I'm waiting to see BT or Vodafone or H3G or Verizon applications running on iPhones and T-Mobile G1's....

My local branch of Carphone Warehouse was today advertising a promotion along the lines of "Buy a Nokia XXXX handset and get a free Asus eeePC netbook". (Sorry, can't remember which Nokia it was, or the contract details).

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Thoughts on white space spectrum

One of the panels I moderated yesterday at the Open Mobile Summit was focused on US regulatory trends around open access, focusing on this year's 700MHz auctions, and also recent moves to free up spare spectrum in what are known as "white spaces". One of the speakers was from the FCC, so I got a pretty definitive view on what's going on and why.


For those people not familiar with the US White Space phenomenon, I thought I'd give a quick round-up of what it's all about:


- In the US, there are many areas that have spare (unused) channels among the TV broadcast spectrum. Because of the regional nature of the US TV industry, there's a geographic patchwork of "white space" frequencies that could be used .
- Some of these channels are already used by wireless microphones, eg at conferences or sporting events
- There is a strong push by some organisations to exploit the spare spectrum, especially by Internet players like Google and Microsoft, for purposes like mobile broadband, or perhaps a wide-area equivalent to unlicenced WiFi
- There has been push-back against the concept by incumbent network operators (particularly those like T-Mobile that worry about interference), and special interest groups like microphone users (a constituency notably championed by Dolly Parton!)
- The FCC has been broadly supportive of the concept, on the basis that "wasted" spectrum is undesirable, although so is interference. It has tested a variety of prototype devices from assorted manufacturers, which have demonstrated that avoidance of conflict with other users of those bands is possible, albeit with mixed initial results
- After lots of testing and lobbying, the FCC has essentially now given a green light to the general principle of white space utilisation, with a lot of caveats about using a combination of geolocation and databases of used channels, plus device-based monitoring, to avoid interference with TV broadcasts or wireless microphones
- there are various proposed rules that will limit how (eg fixed vs mobile, different power levels) and where (eg not around microphone-laden sports venues or theatre districts like Broadway), the spectrum might be used.

Various companies have already professed huge enthusiasm for the move, hailing it as a new era in WiFi-type business models.

My take?

Well, yes, sort of. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, my initial opinion is that utilising white spaces in a meaningful way is "a great idea in principle, but not as easy as it looks in practice".

There is clearly going to be a lot of necessary work first - not the least of which is going from several proprietary radio types to something which is at least roughly standardised. In particular, the location look-up / sensing approach will need a lot of work, especially for fully-mobile devices. (It should be easier for fixed devices which can be registered / activated centrally). The location accuracy won't need to be as good as GPS for emergency E-911, though.

At the moment, it's not even clear what the radio candidates are, of who is promoting them. It would be incredibly unusual to see just a single united approach, so we'll probably be in something of a battle to get to market. It will presumably also be necessary to ensure that white space devices don't interfere with each other, as well as with TV and microphone signals - which could be a challenge if there are two or more radio technologies involved.

I'd expect the main initial beneficiaries of white space to be people living in rural parts of the US - there are large areas without 3G or WiMAX coverage, or decent fixed broadband. Next may be inclusion of white space capability in large devices like laptops (Dell has already made positive noises). But given all the variables involved, I wouldn't expect to see massmarket urban users touting white-space handsets any time soon.

On a side note, I reckon this trend towards sharing little-used spectrum will become increasingly important on a more general basis in the next few years. It sort of fits with the moves by Ofcom in the UK to get access to swathes of frequencies used by the Ministry of Defence, Civil Aviation Authority and the like. To use a specific example - some bands are mostly used for maritime radar, such as the coastguards, pointing out to sea. In theory, that spectrum should be re-usable for commercial broadband for users who are inland.

A lot of this also fits in with general moves towards software-defined or "agile" radio technology, which is still at very early stages of maturity. But given the likely congestion of established mobile bands in coming years, it's good to see moves like White Spaces as smart ways to squeeze more from a limited resource.

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Every time I see the Android pitch, I like it less and less

I've seen various pitches from Google about mobile. In particular, I've seen several Android presentations over the last year.

Each one looks less convincing than the last. I've just been watching Rich Miner speaking at the Open Mobile Summit, and although the developer story looks fairly well-articulated, I just think that some of the wider back-story about mobile looks tired, and the assumptions and world-view seem too simplisitic.

One slide seemed to suggest that hardware cost as a % of handset bill-of-materials is falling, making the software cost more important as a way of driving down overall costs. Really? That was the prevailing thinking four years ago, but since then we've entered a world of QWERTY keypads, 480x800 touchscreens, 16GB of memory, 8MP cameras and multiple radios.

Another slide trotted out the usual tired array of irrelevant statistics about 3bn mobile users vs 1bn PCs, and the stereotypical myth about people in developing markets only accessing the Internet on a phone.

It's possible that Google really does know how the industry works (Google Maps on mobile is fantastic, after all), but for some reason has not updated its messaging, and tries to paint too primitive a picture for reasons best known to its communications department.

Having played with the T-Mobile G1 a bit, and canvassed opinion from a few knowledgeable users, it seems to be what I'd class as a 7-out-10 device. Not bad, but nothing like the leap forward of the iPhone. A bit clunky, and although the network speed was impressive on HSUPA, I felt the user experience was quite frustrating and counter-intuitive. And certainly not what you'd call a sexy device - sitting in a bar playing with it a few days after launch, there certainly wasn't anyone coming over and going "Oh wow, is that the new Google phone? Can I see it".

It will also be interesting to see how it fares for T-Mo and other operators in terms of support costs, because of the branding and lack of direct consumer support from Google. One theme coming out of this conference has been the worry among US market players that they will end up wearing the costs of supporting users, when they download random applications to their phones and they don't work. (Or even if the built-in functions are poorly performing).

Yesterday, an AT&T representative said that they'd not experienced people calling their customer support hotlines about iPhone software questions - because it was clear to users that the software (and AppStore) was Apple's. But Rich Miner essentially took the opposite stance, and said that any problems with Android phones or user experience fall to the carrier or OEM to fix.

It will be interesting to see the relative costs - AT&T subsidy on iPhone, vs T-Mobile support costs on the G1.

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GSMA trying to force adoption of NFC in phones

The other day, I wrote a post about the need for some form of forum representing end-users of mobile phones, which could define true requirements for handset manufacturers . I contrasted this with the current, highly-biased requirements-setting bodies, whose demands are derived from the desires of the mobile operators, rather than the actual preferences and best interests of real customers.

The GSMA has kindly illustrated my point for me, pronouncing its views on the "need" for handset manufacturers to hurry up with putting NFC into phones - based on a model which would see the SIM card playing a pivotal role.

As far as I can see, the handset-buying public neither needs nor wants NFC. Ignore the inevitable sponsored survey results in the press releases, which are clearly designed to prove a point rather than be dispassionate analyses of real requirements. NFC is a mildly interesting but fairly unimportant innovation, beloved only by large system integrators and the type of blinkered "mobile convergence-ist" who likes to spout nonsense about the phone absorbing the function of your wallet. Most of the NFC applications are "solutions looking for problems", especially the ones around mobile payments.

If the GSMA really wanted to help the manufacturers by "potentially boosting sales at a time when forecasts of device sales are looking significantly down" it would have told them to stop wasting time and money on things like NFC, and instead make sure they prioritise put decent web browsers into handsets, or GPS, or memory card slots, or xenon flashes for the cameras.

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