Merged “oneStore” of mobile application stores

After billions of download from iPhone app store, Android market, Nokia ovi. Operators are decoupled from the application vendors and users. It is not completely open yet, because handset vendors are locked for specific operators, it is an indirect closeness so it is semi opened. I would consider it as first step towards complete openness. Second step would be just removing the handset locking for specific operators.

This has two sides
1) Operator can specialize on their primary services instead of secondary businesses like mobile application business (Today, Application based VAS is pea nuts for operators compared to voice and SMS revenue)
2) Application developers has the freedom to develop and seamlessly transfer from semi openness to complete openness

Every mobile vendor should follow the path of application store. But it is difficulty for some vendors to build eco-system, infrastructure and dedicated team to support the application developers. So they need to join hands with some other platform to be the part of  eco-system.

Today all mobile application stores are used as selling factor for platforms and phones. In future all the mobile application stores need to be merged to single entity irrespective of platforms. Collaboration is the successor of innovation for knowledge business.

Advantages of “oneStore”
1. All handset vendors can join hands irrespective of their mobile platform
2. Gives more control to handset vendors, avoid “divide and rule” strategy by operators
3. Normalized interface and pricing for Application developers and users

I leave my thought with a question, will Amazon, ebay sell iPhone, android mobile applications in near future?

long time GAP

I am resuming back to democomm blog after long time because of diversification into web domain and other activities.  You can start watching my views about communication for mobile and web in this blog with more refinement.  GAP gave me two things 1) Business of technology 2) Web applications and web interfaces for mobile

Open Communication & Influence of Government

“Change is Permanent”

Read the introduction for information and background

I do accept the current market conditions and trends. My questions and analysis are about the CHANGE to facilitate the open Eco-system.

Government should start the process of the conversion and companies should support it. Today Internet is open but it was closed. Internet in India started with “Midnight BBS in India” 200+ web pages were cached and accessed offline between 2:00 PM and 7:00 AM, then to “VSNL shell-account”, slowly evolved to today’s open system.

Similarly , it should happen for the communication industry.

Factors required to realize the openness:
1) Government support by policies and rules
2) Long range wireless OFDM technologies like Wimax
3) Open mobile platform a) openmoko b) Android and so on
4) Web Phones
5) 10 big mobile operators Vs 1000 small W-ISPs

Technology is ready. We just need to define the system with proper business plan. Changing the existing operators mind set is difficult.

It is possible by two means
a) New operator entry with government support and huge investment. Need to come with new business plan.
b) A consortium of small and medium companies .i.e Instead of 10 big mobile operators 1000 Wireless – Internet service providers (W-ISPs).

Advantages for Government (Opening the Spectrum)
With the basis of Macro-economics
1) Small business improvement
2) Improvement in tax income and minimize subsidies
3) Government can be a partner in mobile internet services (direct return)
4) Improvement in education system and information system
5) Internet will reach more people of the country (they might be first time users)
6) Share in advertisement revenue (direct return) – Ex: If google starts a service in India and if government opens spectrum for some share in advertisement revenue then it is a permanent revenue and not a one time revenue as spectrum allocation. Infinite number of services are possible 7) User gets more options to select the services
8 ) Open system will increase service competition which in turn will minimize the price.

Advantages for mobile manufacturers
0) Need not kill technology because of operator restriction.
1) Catering the user need directly
2) Address real problems instead of operator tweaks
3) Sales independence
4) Multiplexing of technologies in Mobile, TV and Internet
5) More 3rd party support

More Technical analysis of Airtel 99Rs Unlimited Plan

This post is conclusion of the discussion in MoMo Bangalore mailing group.

Use of IMEI to determine phone make/model and thus their capabilities is fairly old technology now. “Mobile Device Management”, or “Automatic Device Detection”, used for device-specific Over-The-Air (OTA) provisioning of your devices, or even for the customer-support personnel to give your device-specific technical help. Last but not least, one final addition to the usage list is blocking the mobile user w.r.t to the tariff. So technical feasibility is very high. it is just a question, whether they are doing it or not? “misuse of technology”!!

Now we will see how and where it is blocked.

Any mobile should establish a PDP connection for connecting to the Internet. GPRS connection establishment has the following steps
1) PDP Attach with information about mobile
2) Identity response from the SGSN
3) Sending IMEI number for verification
4) ACK for IMEI check [It fails here]
5) PDP Activate (APN)
6) DNS query
7) DHCP
8 ) Dynamic IP allocation (say 10.x.x.x) [So IP address is not allocated to iPhone or any PDA for Airtel Online APN]

It is not the limitation of the phone (iPhone or any PDA) capability. After IP allocation, it can go through the proxy address, 100.1.200.99:8080 to reach any WAP / HTTP site. So iPhone supporting WAP or only HTTP is not the question. All these things are happening far before the site access.

IPhone is able to establish a PDP session and get one dynamic IP address for Airtel Live APN and able to browse any website but not to “Airtel Online” APN even though the mechanism is same. So it is not H/W or S/W limitation.

A) Phones support “Airtel Online”
N80, N72, most of Nokia phones, Sony Erisson W series and so on…

B) Phones does not support “Airtel Online”

iPhone, Nokia Communicator, O2 handsets, Dopod handsets, HP iPAQ, HTC Touch and so on..We have to understand from this, “all PDA phones not supported” . I don’t believe that it is because of the phone H/W or S/W limitation. It is clear that some network node is denying the connection.

I think we need to understand the limitation

Airtel 99Rs Unlimited GPRS plan is limited

Airtel 99Rs GPRS plan won’t work with iPhone or any PDA but works with most of the Nokia phones and medium functional devices. So this unlimited plan is for limited functionality devices. How they find out the device model and where they block the device is the beauty.

I have configured “Airtel Live” GPRS plan in my iPhone with APN: airtelfun.com by customizing the method mentioned in iPhone forums for Airtel GPRS plan. It works great, you can access any http website with your “small beauty”- iPhone or any PDA. This connection is cost per KB download so not cost effective.

If I use the same methodology for “Airtel Online” or “Net on Phone” connection with APN: airtelwap.com (99Rs unlimited plan) it is not working in iPhone. I got surprised and tried all possible combination of the hack but no use. If I revert back to airtelfun.com it is working and airtelwap.com is working with Motorola E398 (my old phone) .

Following are the facts about how they find out the mobile model and manufacturer, where they are finding out.

1) Every Phone has a unique identification number called IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) generated with information on the origin, model, and serial number of the device.

To know your device details enter your IMEI number in the following website http://www.numberingplans.com/?page=analysis⊂=imeinr

2) IMEI is basically to minimize the theft and to provide security with identity. But it is used by operators to distinguish the user to enable/disable the plan.

3) When we connect to internet mobile phone forms GPRS PDP (packet data protocol) session with the APN to get the dynamic IP address. IMEI is sent as part of the PDP request.

4) aitelwap.com (99Rs unlimited plan) Airtel APN server straight away rejects the request from the PDA phones by reading the IMEI information. (This is one of the worst usage of the IMEI number)

Above information can be verified by the details given by the Airtel GPRS Help Desk and Airtel GPRS technical person by name Rajeev working in Airtel Shop, Brand Shop Building, Indranagar 100 Feet Road, Bangalore.

1) Why 99Rs unlimited plan is working in Nokia N80 and does not work in iPhone Ans: “Airtel Online” plan is not for PDA kind of devices

2) What is the plan suitable for iPhone?

Ans: Only “Mobile Office” it starts with 399 Rs per month and this is “Phone as modem” plan (means connect to internet using phone)

3) I want only “Net on Phone” ( means browse internet from phone)

Ans: No schemes available for your phone.

4) How you are finding out the Phone device and rejecting the connection

Ans: We have a software in our server which will find out your device and reject the connection.

 

If you apply the same rules to internet then (for ex:) 500Rs broadband plan works only with HP laptop and it won’t work with Sony VAIO core duo processor. This is pathetic situation. I am wondering, why the mobile operators are worried about the user device. Tariffs should be with respect to data transmission and network resource allocation.

 

For more technical information about this Airtel plan and validation of the information, please refer this POST.

Independence of Mobile Communication

Introduction (Section 1)
We will start with two questions
“Are we really getting all the benefits of communication revolution?” and “when we will get the independence for mobile communication?”

Today, quality of life is increased because of communication revolution through advancements in Internet, Computers and Mobile phones. Mobile phone is the major contributor. Every country should take part in this communication race to better the “quality of life” of the people, which in turn increase the economy of the country drastically in multiple directions.

People who use wireless communication devices are called “End User” because who’s all options are ended (restricted) by vendors and operators. I have just analyzed “why we are restricted?” , “how we are restricted?” , “what we can do for it?” and the comparison of the Internet eco-system and Telcos eco-system. I wish to give the information with background so I have split into multiple posts and you can glance through the familiar topic.

 

All posts of “Independence of Mobile Communication” topic is under “Independence” category and divided into 4 sections. You can go through the posts in the following sequence and if you are comfortable with any section then you can skip because some sections are just to give background for the problem (Section 2)

1) Introduction (Section 1)

2) Internet open Eco-System (Section 2)

3) Telcos closed Eco-System (Section 3)

4) Solution for realizing the Open Wireless Eco-system (Section 4)

 

 

Internet open eco-system (Section 2)

We have to realize the “Power of Internet”, we can get any information available in any corner of the world. Most of the companies realized the importance of their presence in Internet. Features of Internet are

1) Plenty of information like blog, web pages, etc
2) Online Services – Single click ticket booking (Tickets are booked within 10 minutes for festivals) , bank transactions etc
3) VOIP services like skype, gtalk etc. (location independent service)
4) Online lectures and classes, MIT university class video lectures.
5) Social networking, chatting, dating and what not?
6) Email, Mailing Groups
7) Software to search these information and services. (Google, Altavista)

Here the application developer, service providers and users are very independent so lot of improvements and addition to the technology. Users are overwhelmed with the services and products. Revenue models are plenty and proved. We call this ecosystem as “Internet open eco-system”

Now the question is “How many are getting benefited?”

The effective Internet users are very less, mostly they are software engineers, bank employees, managers and other qualified people. TRAI has released September 2007 report, number of broadband users are 2.4 million, on the other hand wireless subscriber base is 210 million. It is nearly 100 times greater and it is growing drastically.

 

Telcos closed eco-system (Section 3)

We will start with two questions

1)”why not this large set of mobile users experience the features of Internet”

2)”where is the GAP?”

If we take India as example, there are very limited mobile operators, they have invested lot of money in infrastructure and government.  So they have to get back the money from users.  Will the break even happen and when user will be given more data services and VOIP services.  Stopping data and mobile Internet technology growth is not the solution. Solution is to adapt to new revenue models and business innovations.

Today,   voice calls is their primary revenue so they stick to it.  There are lot of Telcos tariffs but every tariff will have the concept of local call or STD call.  Why don’t we have the standard rate according to direct network resource usage.

Facts about mobile users are 1) they may not have seen the computers 2) they may have no idea about the Internet 3) they may not have got graduation 4) whiz kids are also part of the enthusiastic group. So this is the opportunity and also growth factor of country.

Restrictions and problems we are facing today :
1) Even though the operators use Internet backbone as the transmission medium and connect to wireless in the last mile, they charge more

2) Myth of operators: Internet quality is “Best service” and wireless quality is “Assured service”. If any part of your transmission passes through the Internet then your wireless is also “Best Service”. This is the reason, cellphone quality is always less than land line phones. So my humble question, why don’t we use Internet directly.

3) All GPRS (data connections) connections will go through a HTTP proxy of the operator to restrict the user, i cannot directly access any web page or service. It also won’t allow any other protocol.

4) Murder of Technology: Tunnelling VOIP protocol over HTTP (because of proxy restriction) won’t work because they will introduce jitter and delay in the data packet connection. This is clearly to kill the packet data voice solutions. Not allowing any new technology to grow.  Intention is not to make the Operator as looser but to innovate in business models for new revenue streams.

5) Application developer, mobile manufacturer, customer, application service provider and everyone should go through the operator, they will decide the service or application. Even for your own content you need to pay more than 60% to the operator. This is a real bottleneck for small companies with innovative content and solution.

6) Most of the mobile manufacturers are running behind the operators, actually mobiles should be developed with respect to the user and to their needs not for the operators.

7) Government is running behind the operators because of huge licensing revenue model, but if we make it open system like Internet, government can actually gain more than the current model but it need to be worked out. Country’s growth will be very high.

8 ) Without any user permission, all the user info are given for credit card companies and consultant agencies. Most affected are corporate users. Operators are selling user profile information for very high cost. No cost advantage for the user. User Information security is must. (I have experienced with my operator, from next week of SIM purchase I got junk calls).

We call this ecosystem as “Telcos closed eco-system”

Solution for realizing open wireless eco-system (Section 4)

“Internet open eco-system” and “Telcos closed eco-system” both are generating good revenue. If everything is open then lot of opportunities will raise for user, government, service providers and small companies. Entrepreneurial development is must for any developing country like India. If we are one among the first set of countries adding openness to the mobile eco-system then we are clearly having the edge. To attain this, government policies need to be changed. Rules and regulations need to be altered.

Solution to overcome this problem is long range wireless OFDM technologies like Wimax, which has the potential to bring the Internet to the mobile devices and the power of devices has got increased a lot.

Convergence of Technologies.
1) Advanced Computing and Processor technology

2) Advancement in memory and storage

3) Long range Wireless technologies

4) Networking Advancements

Now we have some gadgets like iPhone, Nokia n800 and truly open mobile platform (openmoko). We are going to have Intel’s MID kind of gadgets and Google phone. These are web enabled mobile computers so we will call it as “Web Phones“. Technology wise we have everything ready or will be bridged in couple of years, we are only stopped by the monopoly of operators. So instead of having 10 big operators, we can have 10,000 small W-ISPs (Wireless Internet service providers) and they can form a consortium for inter-operability.

Case Study: Let us assume two cities in India, (Approximate data for clarification) Chennai (40 KM diameter) and Bangalore (20 KM diameter). For enabling Bangalore with Mobile Wimax 802.16e ( Minimum Range: 3-5 KM radius and Bandwidth: 5-10 Mbps) maximum of 25 W-ISPs are required and 50 W-ISPs for Chennai. Interoperability can be achieved by forming a consortium and understanding between these set of WISPs. Thus everyone will be connected by high bandwidth internet connections and we use data or internet calls like gtalk, skype. To cover whole Indian mobile users, we might need maximum of 10,000 W-ISPs.

Advantages:

1) Good business case for small and medium companies.

2) New and open Eco-system

3) Broader revenue stream for government than just licensing and spectrum allocation.

4) Developer and application service provider independence

5) More options for user

It is very similar to cable TV operators and Internet service providers model. Just pay monthly fixed service charge make any number of calls. Distributed application service providers is the key, for example video call service can be given by many small service companies thus user gets more options. Bottom line is “Give independence to the user, charge the user for the service provided instead of resource accessed”

It is not long, paradigm will shift from “operator driven” to “user driven“. It is the success of Internet and people wants this model.

“Are we really getting all the benefit of communication revolution?” Please ask this question always to yourself and others. We should not miss this communication revolution.

Throw your comments, lets refine the idea