Was Google wrong-footed with the NexusOne and subsequent Nexus S Or did it achieve its intended target, just not the one called mass-market success that most of us presumed?
I bought my NexusOne early on and had it personalised and engraved. At the time, the NexusOne was so far ahead of the other phones be it its 800x480 AMOLED screen, 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU (and associated graphics acceleration) and camera. It pushed the boundaries of what we expected from a phone and was an icon for others to aspire too.
The NexusOne also shipped with plain-vanilla Eclair Android (2.1). There was no personalisation of the user interface the way most manufacturers had done. To make the phones unique and have a branded experience, each had customised the UI and colours to differing degrees. Samsung's TouchWiz colours were particular garish. Acer tastefully kept most of the stock Android experience but with a few widgets thrown in. Sony-Ericsson's X10 and X10 mini totally lost the plot and its heavy Timescape customisations mean that even today, they are still stuck on ancient versions of Android that nobody bothers with anymore.
The NexusOne was an ideal, not a product for the masses. It was to show that stock Android could be made good enough that heavy, messy customisations were not needed. It was a beacon for developers, both hardware and software to aspire to, a beacon to unite the Android UI before it got too fragmented.
And it worked. Depsite being pulled from sale, most early Android developers got one free and everyone in the IT industry seemed to be carrying one.
The first NexusOne I saw belonged to John Stefanac, big boss of Qualcomm for the region. Fitting as it was powered by a Qualcomm chip. But as time went on, half the journalists (and most of the geekier ones) all had NexusOnes. A year after its launch, I found myself at a dinner table in Taiwan with three NexusOnes and one HTC Desire HD. It was that prevalent.
We three Nexus One owners also pointed out that the Desire HD had an LCD screen, which was painfully obvious on our small, dark dinner table.
But with the Nexus S, many have said Google has lost it. Launched late last year, it sports a spec of yesteryear with a 1 GHz CPU and incremental improvements here and there, hardly better than a NexusOne. Plus, at the time of its launch, dual-core nVidia Tegra 2 phones were just around the corner, making its CPU look feeble in comparison.
Yes, it was the first phone to come with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but that was about it and besides, who runs stock ROMs these days anyway? I was on an unofficial Gingerbread within a couple of weeks of its launch on my NexusOne.
Well, three months into 2011 I think the latest version of Gingerbread, 2.3.3, has again shown what Google was aiming for with the Nexus S. It was not about unifying the UI or creating a reference platform for power and features again, the NexusOne already did that, rather, it was all about NFC.
Near Field Communications, the technology used in contactless smart cards is poised to change the way mobile payments are made (and Google has Google Checkout too, one must not foret). It is poised to change the way indoor navigation works (as indoors, you cannot see the GPS satellites in the sky).
With 2.3.3 the world went hoo-hah about two things. First was a colour correction (which was boring and only shows that not just Apple fanatics read between the liens) and the next was the ability to write, not just read compatible NFC tags.
Passive NFC tags are useful for transport tokens and access. Software based ones are better as it can be turned on and off and parameters can be changed. But just think of the possibilities of a phone that can write, not just read tags.
Offline tag? Cookie crumbs in places with no 3G (or, in the almost unique case of Thailand now, 2G) connectivity? Who cares about an extra core and more MHz when you can play with RFID tags to your heart's content and create the next big thing?
The Nexus S was launched only in the US and Europe, areas with well developed NFC infrastructure and acceptance. The hype around NFC has been said far and wide and now, with the Nexus S, Google is delivering the tools to address that hype to real-world developers.
Today I am still happy with my NexusOne running Gingerbread (without the NFC module though). But if I were to buy a new phone, would I go for faster and more of the same with Tegra 2 phones such as the LG Optimus Two or try the Galaxy S II with its dual-core Samsung chip? Or would I want to stay true to Google's vision and see what the hype about NFC is about as the apps start to hit the Android Market? Do I stay on the bleeding edge of software development or choose a slightly more powerful phone platform? Yes, the Galaxy S II might have NFC, but when will it receive the latest OS upgrade to enable it?
The Nexus S might have last year's CPU, but it is still at the bleeding edge of innovation. The paradigm of progress has shifted.
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Qualcomm strikes back at MWC.
Qualcomm's Snapdragon was the first mobile phone CPU to hit the emotionally significant 1 GHz mark and in 2010 it was definitely king of the mobile hill. From its first appearance in the Sony TG 01 WinMo device to the Google NexusOne and its cousin, the HTC Desire, it introduced many to a new level of performance. Many other CPUs followed, probably most significantly the Samsung Hummingbird as used in the Galaxy S and Apple's own A4 SOC (system on a chip) in the iPhone 4 and iPad by PA Semi.
But while it hit the magical 1 GHz mark, one could be forgiven if Qualcomm has lost its momentum lately. Regional boss John Stefanac promised a dual-core Snapdragon in the second half of 2011, but that was all he mentioned in terms of chips.
Meanwhile, the rest of the industry was quickly playing catch-up and by January in the Consumer Electronics Show Nvidia's dual-core Tegra chipset was hogging the limelight with Tegra everywhere. Many tablets such as the Motorola Xoom using a dual-core Tegra or Samsung Galaxy S 2's dual-core Orion at 1.2 GHz, the Snapdragon was suddenly last year's handbag. Chic at the time but suddenly looking so out of date (and way too power hungry in my own NexusOne).
But all of that was forgiven come Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Qualcomm was back with a list of chips and acronyms that spanned multiple pages.
First the Snapdragon. While the competition offered dual-core chips with incremental performance, how does quad-core and up to 2.5 GHz sound? Yummy. Of course, announcing and being able to buy is a bit different and sifting through the fine print the quad-core chips are due in early 2012, a full year from now.
Still, the single core and dual-core chips that are due imminently now come with an integrated 3G/LTE modem (for those lucky to have LTE - Not Thailand) and much better graphics (and 3D) power consumption (yes!) and, to please the movie studios, on-chip DRM facilities for secure streaming. New dual-core tablets and phones from Acer, ASUS, Compal Communications Inc. and Hewlett-Packard were demonstrated at Barcelona.
Beyond Snapdragon Qualcomm had a whole list of acronyms and fancy names to lay down. My own favourites are FlashLinq (which seems to be an alternative to ZigBee, though I may be wrong), and the focus on automotive networking, not just getting cars connected and online, but how insurance companies can use that information. Big brother or just making the reckless pay? Two sides of the same coin.
Interestingly, the only thing not demonstrated at MWC seemed to be the "long range bluetooth-like technology" that Stefanac once mentioned. I wonder what happened to that. The short-range one was formally named FlashLinq.
An excerpt from the press release follows.
Suffice it to say that Qualcom is back to take the thunder away from Nvidia's Tegra. It will be fun to see what country manager Khun Kaneungjit will be telling my former fellow journalists at the press conference this week.
Oh, well.
It is with events like MWC or Computex that I really miss being a journalist. It is one thing to sift through press releases and dig information out of them, quite another to fly somewhere and grill an executive on the finer points of the whys and wherefores and more importantly the relevance of it all in a local context. Enthusiasm is one thing that is so hard to convey through a press release.
But while it hit the magical 1 GHz mark, one could be forgiven if Qualcomm has lost its momentum lately. Regional boss John Stefanac promised a dual-core Snapdragon in the second half of 2011, but that was all he mentioned in terms of chips.
Meanwhile, the rest of the industry was quickly playing catch-up and by January in the Consumer Electronics Show Nvidia's dual-core Tegra chipset was hogging the limelight with Tegra everywhere. Many tablets such as the Motorola Xoom using a dual-core Tegra or Samsung Galaxy S 2's dual-core Orion at 1.2 GHz, the Snapdragon was suddenly last year's handbag. Chic at the time but suddenly looking so out of date (and way too power hungry in my own NexusOne).
But all of that was forgiven come Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Qualcomm was back with a list of chips and acronyms that spanned multiple pages.
First the Snapdragon. While the competition offered dual-core chips with incremental performance, how does quad-core and up to 2.5 GHz sound? Yummy. Of course, announcing and being able to buy is a bit different and sifting through the fine print the quad-core chips are due in early 2012, a full year from now.
Still, the single core and dual-core chips that are due imminently now come with an integrated 3G/LTE modem (for those lucky to have LTE - Not Thailand) and much better graphics (and 3D) power consumption (yes!) and, to please the movie studios, on-chip DRM facilities for secure streaming. New dual-core tablets and phones from Acer, ASUS, Compal Communications Inc. and Hewlett-Packard were demonstrated at Barcelona.
Beyond Snapdragon Qualcomm had a whole list of acronyms and fancy names to lay down. My own favourites are FlashLinq (which seems to be an alternative to ZigBee, though I may be wrong), and the focus on automotive networking, not just getting cars connected and online, but how insurance companies can use that information. Big brother or just making the reckless pay? Two sides of the same coin.
Interestingly, the only thing not demonstrated at MWC seemed to be the "long range bluetooth-like technology" that Stefanac once mentioned. I wonder what happened to that. The short-range one was formally named FlashLinq.
An excerpt from the press release follows.
- HDOn: Latest high-definition wideband technology gives operators an opportunity to offer high-quality voice to mobile users on their circuit switched 2G/3G, and even 4G networks with minimal investment to upgrade
- Xiam: Recommendation technology and new Haystack end user application aimed at recommending mobile apps and content based on user preferences
- 3G femtocells: A highlight of femtocell products and enhancements in interference management techniques
- Augmented reality: Exhibiting a variety of new vision-based augmented reality applications, blending a 3D experience with a view of the real world
- FlashLinq: A new radio interface that enables efficient proximate discovery and communications, allowing continuous awareness of relevant device services
- Demonstrating commercial devices with 3G IEM design
- RaptorQ: A state-of-the-art, software based forward error correction (FEC) technology allowing error-free data transfer over unreliable connections
- Showcasing a variety of Snapdragon-enabled devices
- Gaming and entertainment ecosystem
- WiPower: Exhibit will allow show attendees to wirelessly charge their consumer electronic devices
- Hughes Telematics: Demonstrating a variety of “connected services” for consumers in their vehicles
- Peiker: Showcasing the automotive grade Network Access Device (NAD)
- Demonstrating how the optimised integration of hardware, software and smart data services can be combined for enhanced personalised user experiences
- mirasol® displays: Latest in low-power display technology
- Wireless health: Showcasing a variety of different wireless health solutions integrating wireless and 3G technologies from Telcare, Zephyr, Great Connection, Lifecomm and Independa
- Wireless Reach™: Demonstrating how wireless technology can empower underserved communities around the world
- Skifta™: Exhibiting the first DLNA Certified® software/service for turning Android phones into global remote controls
- Demonstrating Pay-How-You-Drive and driver safety end-to-end solutions and services for the car insurance market and transport and logistics industry
Suffice it to say that Qualcom is back to take the thunder away from Nvidia's Tegra. It will be fun to see what country manager Khun Kaneungjit will be telling my former fellow journalists at the press conference this week.
Oh, well.
It is with events like MWC or Computex that I really miss being a journalist. It is one thing to sift through press releases and dig information out of them, quite another to fly somewhere and grill an executive on the finer points of the whys and wherefores and more importantly the relevance of it all in a local context. Enthusiasm is one thing that is so hard to convey through a press release.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
AIS post Valentine's Day numbers
Number one telco AIS has definitely felt the love from its subscribers this Valentine's day with a continued rise in SMS, MMS and data services.
Some of the data points on 14 February 2011 are:
In 2009 there were 12 million SMS and 800,000 MMS. In 2010, Valentine's day coincided with the Chinese new year and 16.4 million SMS and 0.97 million MMS were sent. Put in context, this year's Chinese New Year saw 5 million SMS and 300,000 MMS sent.
Normal traffic is 4 million SMS and 180,000 MMS per day.
Some of the data points on 14 February 2011 are:
- GPRS data was 20 percent higher than average.
- 15 million SMS messages were sent.
- 1 million MMS messages were sent.
- Music Messaging (*855) increased five-fold.
- Over 200,000 free downloads, such as Valentine-themed icons or ringtones were downloaded, a three-fold increase over last year.
In 2009 there were 12 million SMS and 800,000 MMS. In 2010, Valentine's day coincided with the Chinese new year and 16.4 million SMS and 0.97 million MMS were sent. Put in context, this year's Chinese New Year saw 5 million SMS and 300,000 MMS sent.
Normal traffic is 4 million SMS and 180,000 MMS per day.
Friday, 11 February 2011
The making of Turtle Soup
TOT’s 3G project raises a number of questions that people of conscience should consider. How much does a nationwide 3G network cost? 16 billion? 20 billion? 29 billion? How should it be financed? It also raises the question of privatisation, the separation of state domain assets and also a matter of sufficiency - when is enough, enough?
TOT got its 3G spectrum through its acquisition of Thai Mobile, a new state enterprise set up in the Chuan era with an eye to do 3G. It was originally owned 50:50 with CAT before TOT bought it out. As a stopgap measure it ran a GSM 1900 network (the top part of GSM 1900 and the bottom part of 2100 GHz 3G overlapping if one looks at the actual frequencies involved), Thai Mobile, that never got anywhere.
Things got interesting when towards the middle of the Thaksin era, then ICT Ministry Permanent Secretary and chairman of the three boards - CAT, TOT and ThaiMobile, was removed. The media focused only on her removal as head of CAT and TOT but Khunying Dhipavadee herself said quietly, after the fact, that the main reason was the other board she was chairing.
The cost of the network started around 17 billion back when it was first discussed. Then, with each change of government, the cost nudged up and up and up, peaking at 29 billion during the Ranongrak era.
In the words of one former acting CEO of TOT I had a conversation with in Islamabad, he said that the specifications had not changed much over the years but the price kept going up.
So, did the Juti team do a good job in bringing the price down from 29 back down to 17? Well, yes and no. Yes, they probably saved upwards of ten billion compared to if the project had gone through earlier, but at the same time the cost of technology has gotten a lot cheaper as it has been delayed so much so the savings as a percentage are questionable.
But it was the way the project is going ahead that has raised eyebrows. It has been rushed through with giants such as Ericsson and ZTE being thrown out, one for not including a brochure on antennas, the other for offering too much capacity. Since when does offering too much prior to a bid result in disqualification?
Long before the auction even took place, whispers in the corridors of power said that it was a done deal with sponsorship of a football team being the sweetener for the deal, badly needed sponsorship in the run-up to the elections.
On another level, the question is why is the government doing - at great cost - something that the private sector is not just willing to invest in, but pay handsomely to be able to do so? What is the role of corporatised TOT? It is still a tax-collector (and user), a de-facto regulator, hoarder of spectrum and not a particularly effective operator.
When is enough enough? Everyone says that TOT and CAT will fail without government support. But is the answer giving them even more resources to sub-contract out and plunder? Or should something be done at a more fundamental level to get them working efficiently?
Long ago, telephone lines (well, telegraphs) were provided directly from the Post and Telegraph Department (PTD - which became the regulator under MICT and transformed into the National Telecommunications Commission and again, more recently, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission). The PTD could not cope with the red tape and sub-contracted the rights to CAT and TOT. But after a while, the two again could not cope with its own red tape to sub-sub contract it to AIS, Dtac and True.
Rewind back to the TOT project that is happening today. If TOT is technically incapable of developing its own 3G network as one year of operations has proved (for instance, quality of service was never implemented on the network; billing was a joke and 9 months into its 12 month contract, one MVNO had to install a new billing system) and have to sub-let to Samart and co, what value does TOT add to the value chain? To the country as a whole? Nothing. It is a rent collector and not a particularly efficient one at that.
On a side note, the AIS-TOT case is also interesting. TOT wants 74 billion from AIS as a result of the change in contract due to the revenue share changes and excise tax. While Dtac might have a larger headline number, as of mid last year at least, most there were quite confident with the situation. The reason is quite simple.
When a private entity signs a deal with a government agency in good faith, it is not up to the them (the telco) to check if their concession holder (CAT) has dotted the I’s and crossed the T’s properly and is authorised to sign on behalf of the government, well, not unless they influenced the policy making.
During the Thaksin era, the concessions were changed. Yes, Dtac and True benefited from the changes, as did AIS. The changes in excise tax in particular were aimed at the industry as a whole, but obviously the market leader would have benefited the most. The noose that is now loosely around AIS’ neck was the fact that it was owned by the wife, son, cook and driver of the Prime Minister at that time who was responsible for the changes. Unlike the others, they cannot say they only followed the concession holder’s whims as they were both concessionaire and policy maker at the same time.
One wonders if Temasek bothered with due diligence before paying 73 billion for the company. Or perhaps their diligence was of a different kind.
Also on Amitiae http://www.amitiae.com/?p=576
TOT got its 3G spectrum through its acquisition of Thai Mobile, a new state enterprise set up in the Chuan era with an eye to do 3G. It was originally owned 50:50 with CAT before TOT bought it out. As a stopgap measure it ran a GSM 1900 network (the top part of GSM 1900 and the bottom part of 2100 GHz 3G overlapping if one looks at the actual frequencies involved), Thai Mobile, that never got anywhere.
Things got interesting when towards the middle of the Thaksin era, then ICT Ministry Permanent Secretary and chairman of the three boards - CAT, TOT and ThaiMobile, was removed. The media focused only on her removal as head of CAT and TOT but Khunying Dhipavadee herself said quietly, after the fact, that the main reason was the other board she was chairing.
The cost of the network started around 17 billion back when it was first discussed. Then, with each change of government, the cost nudged up and up and up, peaking at 29 billion during the Ranongrak era.
In the words of one former acting CEO of TOT I had a conversation with in Islamabad, he said that the specifications had not changed much over the years but the price kept going up.
So, did the Juti team do a good job in bringing the price down from 29 back down to 17? Well, yes and no. Yes, they probably saved upwards of ten billion compared to if the project had gone through earlier, but at the same time the cost of technology has gotten a lot cheaper as it has been delayed so much so the savings as a percentage are questionable.
But it was the way the project is going ahead that has raised eyebrows. It has been rushed through with giants such as Ericsson and ZTE being thrown out, one for not including a brochure on antennas, the other for offering too much capacity. Since when does offering too much prior to a bid result in disqualification?
Long before the auction even took place, whispers in the corridors of power said that it was a done deal with sponsorship of a football team being the sweetener for the deal, badly needed sponsorship in the run-up to the elections.
On another level, the question is why is the government doing - at great cost - something that the private sector is not just willing to invest in, but pay handsomely to be able to do so? What is the role of corporatised TOT? It is still a tax-collector (and user), a de-facto regulator, hoarder of spectrum and not a particularly effective operator.
When is enough enough? Everyone says that TOT and CAT will fail without government support. But is the answer giving them even more resources to sub-contract out and plunder? Or should something be done at a more fundamental level to get them working efficiently?
Long ago, telephone lines (well, telegraphs) were provided directly from the Post and Telegraph Department (PTD - which became the regulator under MICT and transformed into the National Telecommunications Commission and again, more recently, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission). The PTD could not cope with the red tape and sub-contracted the rights to CAT and TOT. But after a while, the two again could not cope with its own red tape to sub-sub contract it to AIS, Dtac and True.
Rewind back to the TOT project that is happening today. If TOT is technically incapable of developing its own 3G network as one year of operations has proved (for instance, quality of service was never implemented on the network; billing was a joke and 9 months into its 12 month contract, one MVNO had to install a new billing system) and have to sub-let to Samart and co, what value does TOT add to the value chain? To the country as a whole? Nothing. It is a rent collector and not a particularly efficient one at that.
On a side note, the AIS-TOT case is also interesting. TOT wants 74 billion from AIS as a result of the change in contract due to the revenue share changes and excise tax. While Dtac might have a larger headline number, as of mid last year at least, most there were quite confident with the situation. The reason is quite simple.
When a private entity signs a deal with a government agency in good faith, it is not up to the them (the telco) to check if their concession holder (CAT) has dotted the I’s and crossed the T’s properly and is authorised to sign on behalf of the government, well, not unless they influenced the policy making.
During the Thaksin era, the concessions were changed. Yes, Dtac and True benefited from the changes, as did AIS. The changes in excise tax in particular were aimed at the industry as a whole, but obviously the market leader would have benefited the most. The noose that is now loosely around AIS’ neck was the fact that it was owned by the wife, son, cook and driver of the Prime Minister at that time who was responsible for the changes. Unlike the others, they cannot say they only followed the concession holder’s whims as they were both concessionaire and policy maker at the same time.
One wonders if Temasek bothered with due diligence before paying 73 billion for the company. Or perhaps their diligence was of a different kind.
Also on Amitiae http://www.amitiae.com/?p=576
Why True? Why Now?
Why 850, American-style 3G? Why now? Why True? Blame it on the new Frequency Allocation Act and its failure to separate the state owned enterprises (CAT and TOT) from the revenue share drug that has keeping them alive.
The day the Frequency Allocation Act was ratified by parliament, the order books for 850 MHz 3G equipment went through the roof according to one domestic telecommunications equipment manufacturer. Everyone was hovering around 850 3G but nobody was committing themselves as they wanted a proper licence at a much lower cost. Why pay 30 percent to CAT when a telco can pay 6 percent to the National Telecommunications Commission? Only when it was clear that the NTC’s auction was not happening any time soon, did things get into gear on 850.
The original draft frequency allocation act had, as part of its article 78, a one year transition from the status quo, where the state enterprises take between 20 to 25 (soon to be 30) percent of revenue (and use it up on nebulous projects and give the spare change to the exchequer) as part of the concession’s revenue share agreement. The version that was handed down by the senate had significant changes.
As I wrote back in early December
Years of negotiations centred around article 84 (was 78 in the drafts). Namely, the de-coupling of revenue share (a state domain asset) from the state owned enterprises, CAT and TOT. The draft that the house passed did that and called for the 2G revenue share to be severed from the SOEs and directed to the Ministry of Finance. However, at the senate level, the one year’s grace period (for accounting purposes) was not only extended to three years, but worse, a provision was added that allowed SOEs to withhold “costs” and USO projects thereafter.
With the concession revenue share continuing, effectively forever, this means that CAT and TOT will have an interest in seeing commercial 3G licencing delayed as much as possible. It also opens up Thailand to the prospect of retaliatory tariffs by governments under the WTO framework.
So what has happened is that True has realised that for the next three years CAT and TOT will do everything in its power to lobby to stop commercial 2.1 GHz 3G licensing so that it can hold on to the juicy revenue share money. Instead of aiming for a licence (which has a 6 percent licence fee, much less than the 30 percent revenue share) True decided to go with CAT today. Since they are unlikely to get a licence anytime soon, might as well dance with the devil and get a head start on everyone else.
As they say, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Or in this case, an oddball 3G spectrum in the hand is worth more than a standard 3G slice that will not be available for at least a couple of years.
All this would be fine if it were not for article 305 of the 2007 constitution which prohibits any new allocation of frequency until the new governing body (the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission) is up and running.
The reason is that there are clauses in the latter articles of the frequency allocation act that say that anyone with a legal licence on the day the act comes into force is implicitly granted a licence. It also says that any frequencies not under concession or licence will be given an arbitrary date by the NBTC and thereafter treated as if it were under concession which would end at that date.
Here is where it gets messy and fun.
So Cat wants to stake a claim for the next 15 or 25 years on its 800 MHz spectrum by using it and licencing it out to True / Real. But in doing so, the problem is that it highlights the duplicity of Cat’s own decision making process and probably breaks article 305.
Dtac was the first to tell Cat it was going to upgrade its 1G AMPS network to 3G HSPA back in 2007. Four years later, Cat has still not decided whether or not to allow it. It has not said no, but it has not said yes and only recently has it agreed to let Dtac do non-commercial testing on the band.
This is spectrum Dtac has had and has been using since the dawn of time. Spectrum for those clunky thermos-bottle sized 1G AMPS phones.
But the same Cat seems to think that allowing True to buy out Hutch and switching from CDMA (and CDMA EV-DO 3G in some areas) is fine. Buying out Hutch adds one extra step to the decision process and it defies logic that one decision can take more than four years while the other, even more complicated decision (as it involves the takeover of a company) can be deemed an upgrade in a matter of months.
Cat’s definition of fairness aside, the other problem is that it goes against 305. No new frequency is to be allocated and that it to give the new NBTC authority to regulate the industry as it sees fit. By re-allocating frequency now, Cat is pre-empting the frequency master plan. Perhaps the plan will say that we should go European and use 900 for 3G and 800 for LTE 4G? By doing what they are doing now, the Cat and its master is pre-empting, nay, usurping, the NBTC and sowing the seeds for a frequency allocation roadmap string ball that will make today’s 3G drama seem like an interlude by comparison.
It highlights again, not that we need more highlighting, the fact that the Cat is playing god, is playing regulator.
Is it better than nothing? In the short term, perhaps. In the long term, not only will it tangle up the frequency map of Thailand worse than the other border dispute we are having, it will shake investor confidence in the economy and ultimately mean bad service and high prices for the consumer.
As for TOT? Oh, that is even more fun. More next week.
First published on that website with a difficult to remember name http://www.amitiae.com/?p=486
The day the Frequency Allocation Act was ratified by parliament, the order books for 850 MHz 3G equipment went through the roof according to one domestic telecommunications equipment manufacturer. Everyone was hovering around 850 3G but nobody was committing themselves as they wanted a proper licence at a much lower cost. Why pay 30 percent to CAT when a telco can pay 6 percent to the National Telecommunications Commission? Only when it was clear that the NTC’s auction was not happening any time soon, did things get into gear on 850.
The original draft frequency allocation act had, as part of its article 78, a one year transition from the status quo, where the state enterprises take between 20 to 25 (soon to be 30) percent of revenue (and use it up on nebulous projects and give the spare change to the exchequer) as part of the concession’s revenue share agreement. The version that was handed down by the senate had significant changes.
As I wrote back in early December
Years of negotiations centred around article 84 (was 78 in the drafts). Namely, the de-coupling of revenue share (a state domain asset) from the state owned enterprises, CAT and TOT. The draft that the house passed did that and called for the 2G revenue share to be severed from the SOEs and directed to the Ministry of Finance. However, at the senate level, the one year’s grace period (for accounting purposes) was not only extended to three years, but worse, a provision was added that allowed SOEs to withhold “costs” and USO projects thereafter.
With the concession revenue share continuing, effectively forever, this means that CAT and TOT will have an interest in seeing commercial 3G licencing delayed as much as possible. It also opens up Thailand to the prospect of retaliatory tariffs by governments under the WTO framework.
So what has happened is that True has realised that for the next three years CAT and TOT will do everything in its power to lobby to stop commercial 2.1 GHz 3G licensing so that it can hold on to the juicy revenue share money. Instead of aiming for a licence (which has a 6 percent licence fee, much less than the 30 percent revenue share) True decided to go with CAT today. Since they are unlikely to get a licence anytime soon, might as well dance with the devil and get a head start on everyone else.
As they say, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Or in this case, an oddball 3G spectrum in the hand is worth more than a standard 3G slice that will not be available for at least a couple of years.
All this would be fine if it were not for article 305 of the 2007 constitution which prohibits any new allocation of frequency until the new governing body (the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission) is up and running.
The reason is that there are clauses in the latter articles of the frequency allocation act that say that anyone with a legal licence on the day the act comes into force is implicitly granted a licence. It also says that any frequencies not under concession or licence will be given an arbitrary date by the NBTC and thereafter treated as if it were under concession which would end at that date.
Here is where it gets messy and fun.
So Cat wants to stake a claim for the next 15 or 25 years on its 800 MHz spectrum by using it and licencing it out to True / Real. But in doing so, the problem is that it highlights the duplicity of Cat’s own decision making process and probably breaks article 305.
Dtac was the first to tell Cat it was going to upgrade its 1G AMPS network to 3G HSPA back in 2007. Four years later, Cat has still not decided whether or not to allow it. It has not said no, but it has not said yes and only recently has it agreed to let Dtac do non-commercial testing on the band.
This is spectrum Dtac has had and has been using since the dawn of time. Spectrum for those clunky thermos-bottle sized 1G AMPS phones.
But the same Cat seems to think that allowing True to buy out Hutch and switching from CDMA (and CDMA EV-DO 3G in some areas) is fine. Buying out Hutch adds one extra step to the decision process and it defies logic that one decision can take more than four years while the other, even more complicated decision (as it involves the takeover of a company) can be deemed an upgrade in a matter of months.
Cat’s definition of fairness aside, the other problem is that it goes against 305. No new frequency is to be allocated and that it to give the new NBTC authority to regulate the industry as it sees fit. By re-allocating frequency now, Cat is pre-empting the frequency master plan. Perhaps the plan will say that we should go European and use 900 for 3G and 800 for LTE 4G? By doing what they are doing now, the Cat and its master is pre-empting, nay, usurping, the NBTC and sowing the seeds for a frequency allocation roadmap string ball that will make today’s 3G drama seem like an interlude by comparison.
It highlights again, not that we need more highlighting, the fact that the Cat is playing god, is playing regulator.
Is it better than nothing? In the short term, perhaps. In the long term, not only will it tangle up the frequency map of Thailand worse than the other border dispute we are having, it will shake investor confidence in the economy and ultimately mean bad service and high prices for the consumer.
As for TOT? Oh, that is even more fun. More next week.
First published on that website with a difficult to remember name http://www.amitiae.com/?p=486
Friday, 28 January 2011
Why we need to put the Cat and Turtle to sleep
The headlines today are proof, if ever we needed, that if Thailand is to move forward and joined the developed world in telecommunications, the Cat and the Turtle should be put to sleep, once and for all.
Firstly, the Turtle. TOT had a bid for its proper 2.1 GHz 3G project, ZTE and Ericsson were excluded. ZTE for offering too much core network capacity and Ericsson for not having its own antenna equipment brochures in the bid pack.
Sweden cried foul, that this would not reflect well on Thailand's transparency, but to no avail. No court injunction was granted and the bid will proceed as planned. Literally.
Not having a brochure in a bid pack and offering too much does not make much sense, but then again, when does anything have to make sense in the land of bureaucracy. And bureaucracy it is. TOT, despite being corporatised, it very much a government bureaucracy in its thinking and operations, and, as we all know, government organs do not move unless they have been ordered to for obvious reasons.
That said, how TOT wastes its money is it's own business, or is it? On the one hand it is still 100 percent owned by the Ministry of Finance and thus the taxpayer, on the other, it currently acts as a gatekeeper, taking revenue share from AIS and using it all up before it returns the spare change to the exchequer.
If it were to give up the revenue share, perhaps the taxpayer could let this bit of incompetence go, but it does collect revenue share, and it does managed to use it almost all up. As a tax collector, it is not particularly efficient.
As for the Cat, the story is that Cat Telecom (often mis-represented as Cattlecom for subliminal reasons) has helped TrueMove buy out Hutch and True, now Real (the names are lovely and confidence-inspiring) will use the 850 MHz frequency currently used by Hutch for CDMA 2000 and CDMA EV-DO to offer 3G services on 3G HSPA+.
This is called in-band migration.
What should irk the people here is the double standards used to make the Real 850 3G network real.
In 2007 Dtac told, not asked, told CAT that it would be conducting in-band migration from its 850 1G AMPS network (of which it had 12.5 MHz) to 3G HSPA. Fast forward almost four years and CAT has still not decided whether this constitutes a new network or an upgrade and only has just recently allowed for a non-commercial trial network to be built out.
The point here is that Dtac had the frequency. It was not re-allocation. They just wanted to change its use from AMPS to HSPA and yet, four years later, Cat, the concession holder and de-facto regulator, cannot decide whether to allow it or not.
Yet, in much less than four years, it has decided that True can take over another company and switch from one 3G technology (State-side style CDMA EV-DO) to HSPA. True (or Real) never had frequency, it had to buy another entity to get it. This would seems like re-allocation to everyone but the bureaucrats at CAT, while at the same time, they have denied Dtac the right to use their own frequency.
At the very least, the actions of CAT are not in keeping with a fair and level playing field. Indeed, they are probably illegal on so many counts, the moratorium on frequency allocation as per article 305 of the 2007 constitution, and section 22 of the public-private joint venture act (which is what stopped the Dtac deal as it would have had to go to the cabinet if deemed a new network, which the True / Real deal was decided not to be).
And what of the NBTC? Article 305 prohibits new frequency allocation so as not to pre-empt the NBTC's frequency master plan. Somewhere in the NBTC Act, if I recall correctly, any ongoing, legal concessions are granted a licence when the NBTC comes into force. What would the NBTC do to the Real network then? Not doing anything would mean that the state owned enterprise is indeed the de-facto regulator (that I have long argued it is).
Why is this a big deal? Because 850 is prime 4G LTE frequency, but in order to do LTE effectively, you need big chunks - 20 MHz or even larger chunks of spectrum. HSPA operates on 5 MHz (or in some, very, very rare cases, 10 MHz). Allowing True / Real to continue would mean fragmentation of spectrum that will hurt Thailand's move to 4G when the time comes.
Not that anyone cares, of course. This is Thailand.
Everyone is focused on the status quo, on the near term kick-backs and money for the upcoming elections to look at a 4G future. The myopia of the government will hurt Thailand in the long run.
Concession conversion, or as Dtac supremo Tore Johnsen puts it, concession termination needs to happen and it needs to happen at the same time for all three players if Thailand is to move forward properly.
First published at http://www.amitiae.com/?p=412
Firstly, the Turtle. TOT had a bid for its proper 2.1 GHz 3G project, ZTE and Ericsson were excluded. ZTE for offering too much core network capacity and Ericsson for not having its own antenna equipment brochures in the bid pack.
Sweden cried foul, that this would not reflect well on Thailand's transparency, but to no avail. No court injunction was granted and the bid will proceed as planned. Literally.
Not having a brochure in a bid pack and offering too much does not make much sense, but then again, when does anything have to make sense in the land of bureaucracy. And bureaucracy it is. TOT, despite being corporatised, it very much a government bureaucracy in its thinking and operations, and, as we all know, government organs do not move unless they have been ordered to for obvious reasons.
That said, how TOT wastes its money is it's own business, or is it? On the one hand it is still 100 percent owned by the Ministry of Finance and thus the taxpayer, on the other, it currently acts as a gatekeeper, taking revenue share from AIS and using it all up before it returns the spare change to the exchequer.
If it were to give up the revenue share, perhaps the taxpayer could let this bit of incompetence go, but it does collect revenue share, and it does managed to use it almost all up. As a tax collector, it is not particularly efficient.
As for the Cat, the story is that Cat Telecom (often mis-represented as Cattlecom for subliminal reasons) has helped TrueMove buy out Hutch and True, now Real (the names are lovely and confidence-inspiring) will use the 850 MHz frequency currently used by Hutch for CDMA 2000 and CDMA EV-DO to offer 3G services on 3G HSPA+.
This is called in-band migration.
What should irk the people here is the double standards used to make the Real 850 3G network real.
In 2007 Dtac told, not asked, told CAT that it would be conducting in-band migration from its 850 1G AMPS network (of which it had 12.5 MHz) to 3G HSPA. Fast forward almost four years and CAT has still not decided whether this constitutes a new network or an upgrade and only has just recently allowed for a non-commercial trial network to be built out.
The point here is that Dtac had the frequency. It was not re-allocation. They just wanted to change its use from AMPS to HSPA and yet, four years later, Cat, the concession holder and de-facto regulator, cannot decide whether to allow it or not.
Yet, in much less than four years, it has decided that True can take over another company and switch from one 3G technology (State-side style CDMA EV-DO) to HSPA. True (or Real) never had frequency, it had to buy another entity to get it. This would seems like re-allocation to everyone but the bureaucrats at CAT, while at the same time, they have denied Dtac the right to use their own frequency.
At the very least, the actions of CAT are not in keeping with a fair and level playing field. Indeed, they are probably illegal on so many counts, the moratorium on frequency allocation as per article 305 of the 2007 constitution, and section 22 of the public-private joint venture act (which is what stopped the Dtac deal as it would have had to go to the cabinet if deemed a new network, which the True / Real deal was decided not to be).
And what of the NBTC? Article 305 prohibits new frequency allocation so as not to pre-empt the NBTC's frequency master plan. Somewhere in the NBTC Act, if I recall correctly, any ongoing, legal concessions are granted a licence when the NBTC comes into force. What would the NBTC do to the Real network then? Not doing anything would mean that the state owned enterprise is indeed the de-facto regulator (that I have long argued it is).
Why is this a big deal? Because 850 is prime 4G LTE frequency, but in order to do LTE effectively, you need big chunks - 20 MHz or even larger chunks of spectrum. HSPA operates on 5 MHz (or in some, very, very rare cases, 10 MHz). Allowing True / Real to continue would mean fragmentation of spectrum that will hurt Thailand's move to 4G when the time comes.
Not that anyone cares, of course. This is Thailand.
Everyone is focused on the status quo, on the near term kick-backs and money for the upcoming elections to look at a 4G future. The myopia of the government will hurt Thailand in the long run.
Concession conversion, or as Dtac supremo Tore Johnsen puts it, concession termination needs to happen and it needs to happen at the same time for all three players if Thailand is to move forward properly.
First published at http://www.amitiae.com/?p=412
Thursday, 27 January 2011
The End
It has been a month since I last wrote anything of substance. I thought I would need time to reflect, time to think of what has transpired, time to take stock of what I have gained during my seven years writing for the Bangkok Post.
I must say that the parting was not quite amicable.
It all started with a reasonable idea, that the weekly sections - Database, Education, Horizons, Motoring, et al, should be rationalised and combined. The problem was that Database would not fit into the new lifestyle section, now known creatively as Life, given our enterprise IT stance. So we were given a chance to go to business.
However, the conditions of going to business were that there were to be no guaranteed space (as per Nation's Byteline) and that every story had to be pitched to the editor first, in other words, relegation to being a mere reporter rather than the quasi-editorial role I had at Database (even though technically I was just a reporter).
To go to Life, wow, that was worse than death. The suggestions we had from Life's editor was to do low-brow (my words, not her's) stuff (I choose that word intentionally) that appeals to the masses. I tried for a while but it felt bad. So I stopped trying and was slapped with a reprimand for insubordination in my final review because of that.
Well, to be perfectly clear, I was told that my editor was ordered not to get more than a 3 out of 5 on my annual review because of insubordination. Normally I am "outstanding", and to suddenly be relegated to average, that sucks.
Quite how insubordination can bring down my quality of writing is beyond me, but that is the way how evaluations at the Post work. You are told to be marked down and the points are given to get at that mark, not from the quality of work.
Faced with dumbing down or being relegated to a stringer, I quit. I was ready to be editor, to lead, to give a focus and direction and I did not want to take a step backwards and start all over again.
In the end, the only person who wanted me to stay was Khun Jim, the former Business Editor. I always used to think he hated my guts, but after all that had happened, it was too little, too late.
Where next? I have no idea. I thought of the Nation, but Byteline "weren't interested" with my proposal according to Khun Asina (Tulsatit and Suthichai did not even have the courtesy to reply to my email personally). I toyed with the idea of going into Thai media but it soon dawned on me that having bad Thai outweighs good English in this industry. Regionally there are lots of opportunities, but why bother? I was never in this for the money and I was in it for the readers in Thailand. If I go regional, I might as well become a public relations consultant.
I'm enjoying retirement and the pace it brings with it too much to think of a next step. Being a journalist is, contrary to what it seems on the outside, hard work. One's brain is always thinking, always active, always scheming. It is almost like meditation, like a trance. Taken too far, it leads to paranoia and a feeling of always on the edge. I am still enjoying being a normal person, away from the edge. For now, at least.
I must say that the parting was not quite amicable.
It all started with a reasonable idea, that the weekly sections - Database, Education, Horizons, Motoring, et al, should be rationalised and combined. The problem was that Database would not fit into the new lifestyle section, now known creatively as Life, given our enterprise IT stance. So we were given a chance to go to business.
However, the conditions of going to business were that there were to be no guaranteed space (as per Nation's Byteline) and that every story had to be pitched to the editor first, in other words, relegation to being a mere reporter rather than the quasi-editorial role I had at Database (even though technically I was just a reporter).
To go to Life, wow, that was worse than death. The suggestions we had from Life's editor was to do low-brow (my words, not her's) stuff (I choose that word intentionally) that appeals to the masses. I tried for a while but it felt bad. So I stopped trying and was slapped with a reprimand for insubordination in my final review because of that.
Well, to be perfectly clear, I was told that my editor was ordered not to get more than a 3 out of 5 on my annual review because of insubordination. Normally I am "outstanding", and to suddenly be relegated to average, that sucks.
Quite how insubordination can bring down my quality of writing is beyond me, but that is the way how evaluations at the Post work. You are told to be marked down and the points are given to get at that mark, not from the quality of work.
Faced with dumbing down or being relegated to a stringer, I quit. I was ready to be editor, to lead, to give a focus and direction and I did not want to take a step backwards and start all over again.
In the end, the only person who wanted me to stay was Khun Jim, the former Business Editor. I always used to think he hated my guts, but after all that had happened, it was too little, too late.
Where next? I have no idea. I thought of the Nation, but Byteline "weren't interested" with my proposal according to Khun Asina (Tulsatit and Suthichai did not even have the courtesy to reply to my email personally). I toyed with the idea of going into Thai media but it soon dawned on me that having bad Thai outweighs good English in this industry. Regionally there are lots of opportunities, but why bother? I was never in this for the money and I was in it for the readers in Thailand. If I go regional, I might as well become a public relations consultant.
I'm enjoying retirement and the pace it brings with it too much to think of a next step. Being a journalist is, contrary to what it seems on the outside, hard work. One's brain is always thinking, always active, always scheming. It is almost like meditation, like a trance. Taken too far, it leads to paranoia and a feeling of always on the edge. I am still enjoying being a normal person, away from the edge. For now, at least.
Thursday, 9 December 2010
An Internet Kill Switch?
Does Cablegate justify the Internet kill switch mulled by Obama?
Just a random thought off the top of my head, but Wikileaks Cablegate could be seen as a mass attack on the US. Would this not be the perfect time to use the kill switch to stop more damage being done before the US can arrest all the Wikileaks teams on charges of rape and traffic violations?
No, because as far reaching and damaging as the attacks are, shutting down the Internet would be far more damaging. In fact, it would be hard to think of any scenario where shutting down the Internet would be justifiable as the damage from the act of shutting it down would far outweigh the damage caused by the attack itself.
So why all this debate about the kill switch? Or is it just a modern day version of a nuclear deterrent that nicely uses up the tax revenues (for countries who have them) and are a nice way to keep people the world over on their toes, afraid and obedient?
Just a random thought off the top of my head, but Wikileaks Cablegate could be seen as a mass attack on the US. Would this not be the perfect time to use the kill switch to stop more damage being done before the US can arrest all the Wikileaks teams on charges of rape and traffic violations?
No, because as far reaching and damaging as the attacks are, shutting down the Internet would be far more damaging. In fact, it would be hard to think of any scenario where shutting down the Internet would be justifiable as the damage from the act of shutting it down would far outweigh the damage caused by the attack itself.
So why all this debate about the kill switch? Or is it just a modern day version of a nuclear deterrent that nicely uses up the tax revenues (for countries who have them) and are a nice way to keep people the world over on their toes, afraid and obedient?
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