Wirelessnorth.ca

We’re at a very interesting time for the wireless industry in Canada. We’re on the eve of new entrants into the industry but already the landscape looks a lot different and already a lot more competitive than just a few years ago. Here’s a snapshot, form our perspective [your perspective may vary] of the state of wireless in Canada. Stay tuned for where we go from here….

Originally presented at FITC Mobile 2009 in Toronto.

In the world of “mobile ubiquity,” Canada lags behind.

Mobile and wireless devices have changed our world, and as they lead the next revolution – beyond 3G and into the super-speeds of 4G networks – network access will be everywhere.

But with the exception of Research In Motion, the Vigo IP Platform, QuickPlay, Marble Media, and a host of bright young micro companies, we don’t get it. Our internal market has been too small to propel a profitable local industry, data rates have been too expensive, appetite for risk and access to Canadian carriers too limited.

Canadian companies need to move fast to be prepared to embrace the next generation of networked enterprise, educational and entertainment activity. Data rates, though they are getting more affordable, are still high compared with global standards. Mobile penetration lags, and access to capital, distribution and markets are the largest inhibitors to local growth.

Application marketplaces provided by Apple, Nokia, Google, Mozilla’s Fennec and RIM are providing some opportunities for developers of content, they are not yet the drivers of economic and innovative growth. The recent expansion of carriers, and the demands of subscribers will force increased levels of competition among all carriers, which will almost certainly put downward pressure on mobile voice and data plans.

HOW DO WE CATCH UP?…

LINK: Will Canada miss the next wireless revolution? (GlobeandMail)

Sara Diamond is president of the Ontario College of Art and Design.

In which Michele introduces the The Hammer Metric, WirelessNorth.ca’s new method for evaluating mobile devices.

The Hammer Metric is measured by the strength of one’s desire to smash any designed tool (device, machine, system, etc) with a hammer in relation to particular aspects of design, functionality or use, especially as said usage relates to feelings of epic frustration or FAIL. As such, a low rating is desired, as it reflects a minimal urge for destruction based on what could be construed as user-centric antagonization on the part of the designer/maker.

Today we’ll be aiming our hammers at the newish Nokia E71 (now available on Rogers). This is Nokia’s fastest, sleekest, priciest, contender for the title of BlackBerry killer. This is a hybrid work/play device, for both the creation and consumption of content, whither image, video, web, office, email (yes, this is content) or music. Overall we’re going to give it 3 out of 10 hammers. This is pretty good.

The biggest value of this device is that it does a LOT OF STUFF and there is SO MUCH STUFF*, and that one can personalize almost every single aspect of functionality. However, the raw capabilities of the device are minimally hampered in the carrier-bound edition of the phone. More on that later.

The Good

Crystal-clear sound – while walking down a busy urban street, the loudspeaker quality = remarkably good conversation from both sides. Also the headphone/mic adapter is v v good. (1/10 hammers)

Connectivity for the E71 is the peppy 3G GSM, as well as the great option for WLAN when available (note: the author subscribes to Rogers’ 6GB plan, and with extended media streaming + normal use, I haven’t come close to the limit). (1/10)

The battery life is incredible, even with extended use of rich media applications, data, voice, email, etc – it lasts for days. (1/10)

The E71 has a pretty substantial memory of up to 8GB with MicroSD, 110MB internal memory, and the form factor is glorious, with the exception of the keyboard (comments below). Slim, substantial, the stainless steel back and trim are bonuses for grip and style. (2/10)

QuickOffice lets you create word docs, spreadsheets and presentations on the fly, and while formatting is a bit limited it’s still pretty damn good for sketching ideas out on mobile. The PDF reader is a pretty sweet addition as well. (3/10)

The GPS works well, with Nokia’s Maps application enabling navigation, positioning, trip distance, etc. (3/10)

Media tools include: voice recorder, video/image recording with a good suite of format/style settings, 2 music players (that would be one more than necessary thanks to the pretty terrible Rogers-branded player), podcast subscriber, a barcode reader, radio players, flash player (could use improvement), etc. Media transfer is enabled via Bluetooth, infrared or USB, and is simplified via a drag&drop protocol. Also, if you’re connected to the OVI platform you can save your content to the cloud and access/sync/share to your heart’s content. (Cool but E-series apps are sparse. Ovi may be much improved when the App Store launches in May 09) (3/10)

Aaaannnd speaking of apps, there’s a wide variety available via the Download Catalog as well as various other places on the web – it takes a bit more work to find them but there is an incredibly rich array of applications and services available. (4/10)

The Meh

The UI, while effective enough to use, still feels very much like a desktop… I feel like the practicality of this device came to the forefront, and while simplicity and accessibility is the +++ for the E71, a part of me wants a bit of playful glam. Where’s my mobile experience? While I don’t feel like I need to be an engineer in order to use it (a la Blackberry), I am hoping that the next iteration of the S60 OS will be a wee bit less desktop-centric.(5/10)

The Rogers branded web platform is… not very useful, and feels like it is getting in the way of what is already a great but potentially awesome smartphone. Thankfully the personalization workarounds that Nokia has developed allow you to bypass most of this. (5/10)

Web browsing is also at times a bit kludgey, and I’ve had the darn thing crash multiple times while browsing, precipitating a total restart. (5/10)

The camera, while bumped up to 3.2 megapixels, could use a better sensor and a WAY better flash, if only to prevent your subjects from appearing like pale, crazed vampirical maniacs. Given enough light though, video shot with the device looks and sounds *great* (try that on your iphone).(6/10)

The Ugly

No connectivity to the N-Gage platform, of yet (it’s primarily for the N-series phones…) Boo! The games that are pre-loaded are shadows of what is possible. (7/10)

The keyboard is no BlackBerry – straight rows of keys makes for somewhat awkward typing, also the QAZ keys are aligned with the far left edge, and the zero is found not below the number grid (that would be the space bar) but to the right. Little quibbles, as after a few hours of use typos are almost non-existent. Wish I could say the same for my laptop. (8/10)

Also, you can not tether the E71 to your other devices to share your 3G over wifi or bluetooth (haven’t tried the infrared). The Nokia fully enables it, but the carrier has fully locked out the capability on their version of the E71 (9/10).

Full Specs: http://europe.nokia.com/A41146123
This device is a nice balance between work and play. It doesn’t have the jellybelly sweetness of the iPhone, but it holds its own based on a quality platform, powerful hardware and specs, rich media and hyper-localized personalization. 3/10 hammers!

The E71 is 99.99 from Rogers on a 3year term, $399 on no term. Full retail and unlocked $569 at ncix.com. The later is less of a bad deal than you might think. There is little in the carrier platform of the phone that adds value. Rather more the opposite… Le sigh.

^{*or other words that rhyme with stuff}

Intel has big ambitions for the wireless world. Four years ago, intel effectively conquering home and local area networks by pushing open standard wifi in every “centrino” branded laptop. It turned out that powerful (for their day) low powered cpu’s coupled with wifi was the killer app that has resulted in explosive growth of notebook sales and the popularity of wifi-equipped coffee shops everywhere.

Intel Centrino 2 platform, codename “Montevina”.

With today’s launch of the Cetrino2 brand, intel would like to duplicate that success by now revolutionizing mobile broadband as thoroughly as they revolutionized local networking. With Centrino2, Intel will be introducing several important changes focused on mobility. Intels Pentium M processors are getting physically smaller and dropping in power from 35 to 25 watts (making thin/light form factors like the macbook air soon to be more common). And most importantly, Centrino2 is (supposed to) contain Wimax built-in as well as Wifi. Intel would like wimax to be the big selling point. They would like every Centrino2 to be capable of that great dream, ubiquitous fast internet connectivity. Intel would like this to be the next killer feature in computing that sells a lot of chips.

However, as with any of us, intel would “like” a lot of things. Unfortunately, liking alone won’t always make it true. Although intel’s platform is being “released” today, the Wimax components have been delayed (again) until sometime mid-august. Next there is the little problem of what network those wimax radios will connect to. At the moment Wimax only have about 2 million subscribers worldwide (whereas mobile/celular carriers have, like, a lot more). Europe is pretty keen on GSM/HSPA/UMTS instead. The technology does looks like it could be slowly getting some traction in Asia/pacific and developing countries. In the US Sprint/Clearwire will (finally) be launching something soon [Sprint CEO touts WiMAX, calls for end of "walled gardens"].

But then, there is a final concern as to whether the technology actually works well enough. Depending on tower density and signal strength, Wimax may not be so good at penetrating indoors (if recent experience with older hardware, pre-mobile-spec psuedo-wimax etc., bell/rogers “Portable Internet” is any guide). Having to hold your laptop up to the highest window in your house to get a decent signal may not be your preferred usage scenario.

As earlier reported on WirelessNorth.ca, Canadian carriers Bell and Rogers announced at their recent earnings call that they do not have plans to invest further Wimax. They will keep their existing networks operating just in case (or so Industry Canada doesn’t take the spectrum back), but are both preferring instead to spend future capex on more carrier-friendly HSPA and/or LTE/4G technologies.

So how could we see real centrino/wimax-powerd “3rd pipe” mobile-broadband competition in Canada? Well, most all of the working wimax spectrum in Canada is owned by… you guessed it… Rogers and Bell.

As computers get ever smaller and more connected and as phones get ever smarter and more like computers, there is bound to be a collision somewhere in the middle. As with networks, big internet and computer brands (Intel, Google, Microsoft) are working hard at blasting open wireless connectivity (as free and open as possible) as all the better playground for selling their softwares, webservices and chips.

For the incumbent providers of mobile devices, it’s clear that the barbarians are the gates. It’s just an open question yet as to whether they can find the door.

Earlier on WirelessNorth.ca: Bell Pushing Cottage-Country “Wimax”

ISupply has released the results of their tear down analysis of the new 3G iphone. Apparently the component and assembly costs of the device is $179. Forgetting for a second the hundreds of millions Apple likely has and will spend on the design, development and marketing of the device… that’s pretty cheap. So want to know what the things are made of? (they’re not just full of stars apparently)

So there you have the ingredients. Though I don’t think that just the list and a trusty ikea alen key is going to help you put one together.

Anyhow, here is the real kicker:

“At a hardware BOM and manufacturing cost of $173, the new iPhone is significantly less expensive to produce than the first-generation product, despite major improvements in the product’s functionality and unique usability, due to the addition of 3G communications,” said Dr. Jagdish Rebello, director and principal analyst for iSuppli. “The original 8Gbyte iPhone carried a cost of $226 after component price reductions, giving the new product a 23 percent hardware cost reduction due to component price declines.”

Imagine, for a second, a world where great warehouses in shenzhen churn out pre-designed Android devices (which would basically the same components) or devices with the newly-free S60 OS or cheap-ish windows mobile. Then imagine the churning out of such devices a year from now 23% cheaper and with a few more features, then 23% cheaper than that another year later… all hitting the shelves of Walmart, Canadacomputers or 7eleven at nominal markup.

This (thank you Moore’s law) is another reason why the next several years are going to be a very interesting time to be in mobile.

In case you missed it (we did) Ars Technica posted a great (if a little geeky) article on RISC vs. CISC in the mobile era which is worth a read. CISC vs. RISC are two different chip architectures, and once, one of the great nerdy flame-war debates of the 80s-90s era internet. Basically CISC won.

CISC, for anyone without a computer engineering degree, is the architecture or essentially the language spoken by Intel and all PC chips. RISC was spoken by many server chips, mainframes and Apple computers (in the 604 and G4/G5 days) and by tiny embeded CPU designs like ARM.

Everyone pretty much admits that RISC was/is, in theory, more elegant than CISC, especially when considering the significantly fewer number of transistors you had to cram on to a chip to make a RISC CPU actually work. In the end though, thanks to Moore’s Law and market forces these differences became marginalized and Intel/CISC pretty much swept the market. Even Apple (wisely) switched to Intel. Except for the iPhone.

The last holdout for RISC has been mobile. In mobile and embedded applications (like the little CPU in your home router) every transistor and square millimeter of silicon counts because of cost and power requirements. You’d need a fan and 2pound battery to run your cell phone if there was an Intel pentium or centrino in there. CISC/Intel CPUs have never been able to compete in the mobile space. Until now.

Intel has just launched the Atom processor for mobile devices. The Atom is still a ways off (0.25W idle power to 4W active) in competing with ARM(Risc) cpus in power (0.01W-0.25W) but this is a lot closer than the typical maximum 9Watts to 35Watts (depending on model) required to power your laptop’s centrino chip.

RISC-speaking ARM or MIPS type chips will continue to rull the mobile market for a while, but clearly the barbarians are at the gate. In the next few years Intel has every intention of driving down the power requirements of Atom processors to compete for handsets.

But the ARM makers aren`t sitting still either. They have some pretty impressive looking designs on the not-too-distant road map. Quad-core processors in your handset anyone? Interesting times and interesting capabilities are ahead, my friends.

Significance for WirelessNorth.ca readers: What can you do with significantly more processing power in a mobile? Think better graphics and better/faster video encode/decode capabilities. Think useful voice recognition, image recognition, people/landmark recognition and other computer vision applications. Forget ordinary geolocation, with enough transistorized brains, your phone could do echolocation. heh.

We’re all for bringing on the mobile processor wars. :)

Mobile Computing may force us to rethink our operating definition of a web browser.

For a while folks have been wrestling with the debate of browsers vs native apps for mobile. Browsers are wonderful because they make few assumptions about the underlying hardware (aside from guessing at screen resolution and which browsers a handset may support).

The trouble with browsers is that they miss out on all of the rich hardware and other physical features a mobile device is capable of. What we need are common application layers/frameworks (basically an uber-browser) that can do both.

You shouldn’t blame the browsers of today, they come from a desktop world. What’s worse they come from an 80s/90s desktop world that assumes every terminal is just an immovable terminal of static screen, with few likely peripherals other than a mouse and a keyboard. Even on the desktop world we rely on extra software layers above the browser like flash and silverlight to do anything fun but hardware-dependent like capturing or streaming video and audio. To your usual xHTML standard, the hardware layer, the physical environment is completely unimportant.

The trouble with mobile is that is shatters this assumption. Almost *everything* that is uniquely interesting about a mobile platform, by default, outside the traditional document model of the browser.

The interesting thing about mobiles is that they exist and operate out in the real world. Meanwhile every year, these same devices are becoming increasingly aware and able to interact with this real world. Unlike desktops, mobiles move around, they know where they are, they’re stuffed full of sensors for orientation, movement, touch, they are capable of vision, of hearing, they can (in theory) directly sense each other and communicate through a set of radios with ranges from a few centimeters to a few kilometers.

So how will mobile web-apps avail themselves of these features? How do we build a stack that cleanly and easily interfaces physical presence with virtual. What’s needed is a consistent cross platform set of tools that enables a run-almost-anywhere webap to connect on end to the cloud with AJAX and on the other hand just as easily to the hardware features of it’s platform. Existing apps like google’s mobile maps, safari’s gesture recognition, or NFC contactless applications just feel like early signals of what should be possible.

It used to be the web browser was thought of as your machine’s exciting portal into the virtual world of cyberspace. Today’s more interesting challenge is: how to give cyberspace a portal back into the real world surrounding you and your mobile machine. Anything less is not really mobile computing at all.

There is an underlying big idea here. is that our devices should be / could be / will be, the billion mobile roofing nails that connect and anchor the virtual world to the real world. That seems like a hell of a concept. Who is out there working on it?

Sol Trujillo, CEO of Telstra, one of the largest service providers in Australia recently gave an interview on BusinessWeek, highlighting the success they have experienced with Data services, with 80% growth in data revenues! (not including SMS traffic, with 20% growth). So why should anyone in Canada be interested in an Australian network? For one reason, a number within the Rogers fold think there are many similarities between the two nations – geographic, economic and telecom fundamentals (?). So maybe there are a few lessons we need to learn and emulate to achieve similar success in data penetration and usage.

What is interesting to highlight are the reasons for the growth that Telstra has experienced:

• Infrastructure Investment in rolling out a technically superior network, with data rates reaching 14Mbps!
• Application: relevant and practical, that the consumer may actually be interested in. For instance, promoting data applications in outbacks where farmers can monitor their stock/land/crop through video riding off of the network. Given the large tracts of agricultural land with a small population, remote sensing and monitoring is a compelling application.
• Affordable rates : Is it a coincidence that the high data usage and growth being experienced are in some way stimulated by lower data rates? I would like to guess so. Compare the 5cents/Kb in Canada (Rogers) to the .025Cents/Kb offered by Telstra. And this includes “tethered” usage, currently charged at a premium by Rogers.
• Open Access : going beyind the walled-garden approach excercised by operators here to a free reign model. The motto being – give the customers the content they want and are looking for, rather then sandboxing them into content they dont. The success of the internet was not built on portals.

But the most important reasoning of all – believing that a strong business model for mobile data exists and taking the leap to provide consumer centric offerings. The right business model is certainly not an easy thing to build or come across, but it does exist as proven by Telstra. Maybe we need to send some of our folks down-under to do a study …..

The thing about notebooks is that people tend to greatly underestimate the difference a pound or two makes. Shave off a pound or two from your notebook and you’ll surprise yourself where and how often you’ll want to bring your notebook with you, especially with with wireless networking increasingly everywhere. There’s a magical point around 3lb when you can comfortably hold onto a notebook with one hand or drop it in a bag/purse and almost not notice the weight. Your average 13.3″ notebook (like a macbook) weighs between 5 and 6 pounds.

Late last year, Asus released the EeePC, a notebook missing a few things – like a proper hard disc, or CD drive, and missing half the screen size of traditional 15″ notebook (but notably less than half the weight and price). Surprising a lot of people, maybe even Asus themselves, the little things are selling like smarties. Since a lot of big name OEMs have been rushing to pile in (pictured Asus, MSI and Compaq micronotes). Most of these new breed of micronotes are close to full PCs with 7-9 inch screens, respectable resolutions, small solid-state drives and WinXP or Linux operating systems. And weighs two pounds.

Relevance for WirelessNorth.ca? If it’s not even the case already, you are going to see notebooks/pcs of all description taking over as the primary bandwidth drivers of 3-4G wireless. And the breaking wave cheap/versatile micronotes and other hybrid MID devices will accelerate the trend.

At $300 to $400, with a full keyboard, running firefox and the weight of a paperback the EeePC or any micronote is pretty tempting, even if you already have a larger notebook. When these things hit $200 with built in wimax and/or 3G modem, why wouldn’t you own one. Why wouldn’t you own a couple?

You know these things are only going to get svelter, sleeker and cheaper. (Here’s a roadmap). Beware the stampeding pittler-patter of a million twittering little rubber feet.

If/when the Apple version ever lands, your network capacity managers at your favourite carrier shalt rub hands with glee, if not break down and weep.