Voice-enabled mobile devices are busting out all over today. First, Comcast and Time Warner announced the launch of Sprint co-branded mobile telephony service in selected markets. Then, word came down that Microsoft plans to add voice capabilities to its iPod rival Zune, which will also feature —at some point — video sharing capabilities.
On top of that, Wired’s Leander Kahney devotes a considerable amount of pixels to the mythical Apple iPhone, which Kahney (like me) believes really exists, at least somewhere within Apple’s secure facilities. All of this mobile phone talk comes on the heels of Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s statements that mobile phones should be free and supported by advertising, which is right up Google’s alley although Schmidt denies that Google is planning to introduce a phone.
Mobile communications is the new frontier, there’s no denying that. What all of these developments have in common is that not one of these companies — Comcast, Time Warner, Microsoft, Apple or Google — thinks of mobile devices as single purpose platforms. The cable guys think pure mobile voice service is a commodity with razor thin margins, so they’re hoping to add a host of features (remotely programming PVRs seems to be the prime example) that enable them to distinguish their mobile voice services from the next guy’s.
Microsoft and Apple are coming from the opposite direction. They’ve got mobile devices that already offer a lot of functions (music, video, social networking, etc.), but no voice service. Apple, presumably, needs to keep upgrading the iPod to spur continued sales, while Microsoft has to keep pace with Apple.
Google’s interest in the all-purpose mobile device is pretty transparent — the search giant wants another outlet for selling advertising. This crush of interest in developing new mobile phone features is not lost on the leading mobile voice providers, of course, who already offer music, video, Internet access, text messaging and more on their handsets. That’s on top of phones capable of taking photos and recording video.
With all this jostling to capture a share of the booming hand-held and mobile device and cell phone businesses, how much consumer confusion lies ahead? Not to mention interoperability conflicts. Consumers say they want their mobile phones to serve as music players and more, but the complexity of actually using the non-voice features wears them down.
Oh well, get ready for even more complexity ahead. It’s clear that the mobile phone is the hottest piece of real estate in the media world.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 6:43 PM | Print | Comments (0)USA Today’s Leslie Cauley has this piece of news: Comcast and Time Warner will launch wireless voice service in conjunction with Sprint later this month. Comcast will launch service in Boston and Portland and Time Warner will kick it off in Austin and Raleigh, NC. (The two companies tested the wireless voice option in these markets over the summer.)
The launches are the first fruit of a consortium formed in November 2005 by Comcast, Cox, Time Warner and Advanced/Newhouse with Sprint-Nextel as the mobile carrier partner.
Cauley doesn’t offer a lot of details but it sounds like customers will have to buy the operators’ residential VoIP service to get the wireless option, as well as at least one other cable service.
Ease-of-use will be the hallmark of the new service, Garcia [John Garcia, President of the consortium/joint venture] says. “People want simplicity.” One example: A “universal” voice mail box feature alerts customers on the cell when a message has been left on their home phone (you have to subscribe to the cable operator’s home phone service).
New software will also make it easier to send and receive e-mail, he says.
Hoping to drive bundle sales, Garcia says cable companies will require customers to buy at least one other service, such as broadband or video, before they can sign up for wireless.
Some of the advanced features announced at the time of the venture’s formation — such as remote PVR programming — aren’t part of the service yet.
But, even without the bells and whistles promised when the venture launched, this is a big deal. In at least four markets, cable operators will be offering for the first time a “quadruple-play” service consisting of video, landline voice, mobile voice and high-speed data services. And with the $2.4 billion in broadband wireless spectrum the top cable companies bought this past summer, you can bet on widespread mobile voice service launches across the industry in 2007, not to mention tests of new services that extend beyond remote PVR programming.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:21 AM | Print | Comments (0)
The abundance of video over the Internet is very cool, but won’t be a really big business until that video can be viewed on a TV set. That’s the conventional wisdom of most traditional media executives and Tivo, for one, has announced it will help close the gap between the two platforms.
The reviving PVR pioneer is adding features that will allow Tivo owners to watch some Internet video on their TV sets. First, the company has persuaded some Internet video providers to convert their content to the TV standard — MPEG2 — so that the video can easily be watched via wireless connection on the TV.
More intriguingly, Tivo will introduce software, which can be purchased for $24.95, that converts traditional Internet-based MPEG4 video to MPEG2 so that this kind of video can also be viewed on the TV set via a wireless link between the PC and the Tivo receiver. Tivo will further introduce a service that allows users to upload home videos and send them to other Tivo users — but to use this service, Tivo owners have to sign up for the company’s $4/month One True Media service.
It’s a step in the right direction, but there are a lot of gaps and hassles. First, Tivo owners are restricted to Internet videos that have been converted to MPEG2 or, in the case of users who purchase the special software, MPEG4 videos. Tivo won’t allow viewers to watch Adobe Flash video, which, unfortunately, is the form of video encoding used by many, if not most, web video providers, including YouTube.
Secondly, even if the content meets the MPEG2 or software-enhanced MPEG4 criteria, if it’s copy-protected, as is the case with most web-delivered movies, it can’t be viewed. Moreover, the sharing of home movies won’t work on combined Tivo/DirecTV receivers.
Still, Tivo, like Microsoft and Apple, is doing its part to break down the boundaries between the PC and the TV. With continued developments such as this relative baby step, ten years from now, will there be any barriers between the TV and the PC?
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:36 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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