NetworkIP Blog

T-Mobile announced that they are increasing their text messaging fee from 15¢ to 20¢ a text message. The rate increase will go into effect on August 29th & will only affect those consumers who do not have a text messaging plan in place. T-Mobile is simply joining ranks with the likes of AT&T, Verizon Wireless, & Sprint who already have increased their text messaging rates to 20¢ a text message.

It was only a year ago when these same providers increased their rates from 10¢ to 15¢, While any price hike should frustrate consumers; what’s frustrates me most about this increase is that as services become mainstream they usually go down in price, not up. The providers have been raking the consumers over the coals for years now on text messaging fees. I can remember when text messaging was 5¢ for sending a message & incoming messages were free. Now it costs me 40¢ to message someone to tell them I’m running ahead of schedule & for them to acknowledge my text.

This price increase by T-Mobile will inevitably force those users who haven’t already signed up for prepaid text messaging plans to do so now. Domestic only text messaging plans offered by T-Mobile include $4.99 per month for 400 messages, $9.99 for 10,000 messages, & $14.99 for unlimited messages. Of course these plans offer a much better rate assuming the user actually sends this many text messages. Many consumers will simply sign up for one of these plans just because they’d prefer to know what they will be charged at the end of the month versus worrying about how much 20¢ a text message will add up to. Regardless, the service providers stand to make a hefty profit on text messaging & will continue doing so until Smartphones become more ubiquitous & chat applications are introduced.

In a previous post I commented on how the open-source development community responded negatively to comments made by Dr. Ari Jaaksi, VP of Software & Head of Open-Source Operations for Nokia. Dr. Jaaksi suggested that the open-source community needed to learn a thing or two about the mobile space & that the community needed to change their current approach for developing software applications due to the out-of-date business rules that are still enforced by the mobile industry.

Two days ago Nokia, the world’s largest mobile phone maker, made a very different statement when they made a move to buy up the remaining ownership in the smartphone software maker Symbian. If the $410 million deal goes through, Nokia will retain 47.9% majority ownership of Symbian. This move by Nokia indicates concern for those lower-cost mobile phone operating systems from Google Android & the LiMo Foundation.

With the mobile market heating up & businesses moving quickly to develop mobile applications it is key for Nokia to be running an OS which is widely accepted by the development community. Today, Symbian is used in two-thirds of smartphones being sold. Symbian’s closest rival is Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS, which has just 13% of the market. Of course, both Apple & Google plan to gain a piece of this market very quickly. Apple has been making a lot of noise with its new software release for the 3G iPhone & although rumored to be behind Google is sure to gain a significant piece of this market when its Android software is released.

The good news for application developers & businesses is that we’ll have options when deciding which devices & operating systems we want to develop applications for. Because of the increased competition in this market both device & OS manufactures will be more likely to bend & do more to ensure we are using their solution & not their competitors.

It was recently announced that InnoTech will return to Austin for its 5th annual conference starting October 16th. This is a fun & exciting event for all those involved in the IT industry in Austin. It is the one IT event that that doesn’t require us IT Austinites to travel to the Bay Area too.

The event organizers are still in the planning phase & have yet to release the full schedule of events & sessions. However, from what I can find it appears that there will be a number of sessions & topics covering the mobile market space. Every where we turn the talk is about mobile. With Apple recently making its SDK available & Google announcing the release of Android it’s no wonder that the development community is getting excited about the mobile space.

Businesses are excited too because we’ve recognized the potential & never ending possibilities for the mobile space. Until recently the handset manufacturers didn’t provide us access & the mobile networks were often to slow to develop any applications of significant value. With open devices on the market & increased network bandwidth there are no more excuses & businesses are moving quickly to own a piece of this market.

We are looking forward to the mobile discussion that will take place at this year’s InnoTech conference & we look to play a significant role in this emerging market space.

Last week at the Handsets World conference in Berlin, Dr. Ari Jaaksi who is the VP of Software & Head of Open-Source Operations for Nokia may have gone to far when making an address to the Linux open-source development community. Jaaksi suggested that open-source developers need to obey certain business rules that apply in the mobile industry such as DRM, IPR, SIM locks, & subsidised business models. Jaaksi suggested that that the open-source community needed to be ‘educated’ on how the mobile industry works since this industry has not moved beyond the old business models.

Jaaksi made some valid points about code forking that if not well managed can result in code fragmentation. However valid his points about code fragmentation, the open-source community did not respond well to his approach on ‘educating’ them.

Nokia’s N800-series tablet devices are running Maemo, a Linux-based operating system. If Nokia wants the community to accept this device & continue developing applications, enhancements, for it then Nokia needs to embrace the community & the philosophy that the open-source group is charted by.

When our subsidiary, Jaduka, made its first API available for use they were very in tune with the open-source community & what that community demanded. By embracing this community, rather than trying to change the community’s approach to sotfware development, we believe our approach helped contribute to the success of that first API & the many APIs Jaduka has since released.

It’s my opinion that companies doing business today must embrace the open-source community. Companies must understand that the primary focus of the open-source community is to improve quality, reliability, make things more flexibile, lower costs, & put an end to vendor lock-in. Many of the comments by Mr. Jaaksi this past week were completely opposite of this philosphy & if not careful Nokia stands to loose the many benefits of having such a large & powerful community supporting their devices.

Today’s mobile phones aren’t just phones. Even the most basic mobile phone includes a camera, video games, texting interface, calendar, clock, etc. I bought my grandmother, who just turned 86, her first mobile phone a few weeks ago. It was impossible to find a phone that met my grandmother’s criteria which was simply to have keys with big numbers & a large screen so she could see what she was typing. Who knows, maybe my grandmother will be texting & downloading ring tones soon.

For some consumers, the mobile phone is seen as a status symbol. This is especially true for the youth market that purchases phones. For many others though, the mobile phone has become an essential part of life & is how many of us conduct our daily business. It’s important for a stock investor to have Internet access so s/he has realtime stock updates when not in front of a computer. It’s important for many software engineers to have text messaging as a way of being alerted of something not working correctly. It’s key for a sales person that is on the road to have access to e-mail. Because network speeds & bandwidths are increasing we are seeing more & more applications being developed for the mobile phone. As these applications become more available, consumers who aren’t already will begin to use their mobile phones for functions other just making phone calls.

How about this approach to using a mobile phone? In London, the mobile phones of teenagers & young adults who are undergoing chemotherapy are being used as notification agents to the patient’s doctor. These teenagers & young adults record data about their symptoms into their mobile phones & when specific symptoms were recorded the mobile phone will immediately alert the hospital & the patient will then then be contacted from staff at the hospital.

As the baby boomer population continues to age & require more medical attention I foresee more mobile-medical friendly applications presenting themselves.

Just as Apple is making noise & consumers are getting excited about the new 3G iPhone, Sprint Nextel & Clearwire announced a deal last month where they would be combining network assets to build a new network using 4G technology which is both faster & provides larger bandwidths than today’s 3G network.

Under the agreement Sprint Nextel & Clearwire will create a new company that has already received investment dollars totalling $14.5 billion from cable operators Comcast, Time Warner Cable, & Bright House Networks, as well as tech giants Intel & Google.

For Sprint Nextel & Clearwire this is a win-win deal. Sprint has steadily been loosing market share after its merger with Nextel in 2005 & Clearwire hasn’t been profitable since they went public over a year ago. The goal for both companies is to get their 4G network up & running prior to the bigger wireless operators, such as AT&T & Sprint completing their newer & faster networks using a Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology.

With all the excitement from companies about the iPhone applications & technologies that they can now offer consumers because of the faster 3G network just imagine what type of applications companies can build for consumers with the even faster 4G network. Without a doubt, the mobile phone is quickly becoming the platform that consumers will use for the majority of their transactions.