My Digital Life

Netbooks; Will the average consumer buy them?

With most PC manufacturers jumping into the netbook market; will the average consumer buy?

A netbook is defined on Wikipedia as:

"A netbook (a portmanteau of the words Internet and notebook) is a class of laptop computer designed for wireless communication and access to the Internet.^"

I always equated netbooks to sub notebooks but apparently the netbook category is more about price and network WWAN connectivity rather than size. Prices and specifications seem to be all over the map however the cellular carriers seem to think they may have an opportunity to get the consumer to buy WWAN data services by subsidizing the cost of netbooks. Several cellular carriers in Europe have started to sell netbooks including the sleek but expensive Sony VAIO P subsidized by T-Mobile DE. It is selling it for 599 Euros with a 2 year data contract.

Here in the US Verizon announced it would offer a netbook in the 3^rd quarter and AT&T is starting a pilot program in Atlanta. AT&T is offering a range of netbooks from $49.99 for the Acer Aspire One to $749.99 for the Lenovo X200 with a 2 year contract. The qualifying data plan range from $40 to $60. It is interesting to note that AT&T has chosen netbooks with screen sizes ranging from 8.9" to 12.1". They also provide plans which include WIFI and DSL connectivity options.

Even though consumers despise contracts, it will be interesting to see if the subsidy sways their purchasing decision. An important part of the decision for a consumer is the value of mobility, but for some individuals they could do without a home broadband connection making a subsidized laptop an attractive solution.

I depend too much one my home broadband connection and don't travel enough to make these current offers attractive for me, but I will be curious to see if enough individuals buy into these subsidies to make them worthwhile for the cellular carriers.

Finally the majority of US cellular carriers are moving towards one standard

Just imagine what would have happened if the FCC allowed television networks and stations decide which HDTV standard they would implement. Well that is exactly what the FCC allowed to happen with the US cellular industry. I have always considered this a mess and a detriment to the consumer; it is almost as bad as locked phones. Europe uses one standard and the coverage is significantly better than in the US because a cell phone can work with every carrier. In the US we currently have three major standards for cellular voice; iDEN (Sprint Nextel), CDMA2000 (Verizon, Sprint), GSM/UMTS (AT&T, T-Mobile). This means that even if there is cellular coverage, it does not mean that your particular cell phone can receive the signal.

We are currently in what the cellular industry calls the 3^rd generation of standards. Over the last couple of years two 4^th generation standards have emerged in the US, WIMAX primarily backed by Intel and Long Term Evolution (LTE) developed in cooperation with most telecommunication standards organizations around the world. Europe is already moving towards LTE, and in 2008 AT&T Wireless announced that it would start to deploy the technology in 2010. At the beginning of 2009 I was heartened to hear that Verizon and T-Mobile are also planning to implement LTE on their networks. Verizon even upstaged AT&T by promising limited deployment by the end of 2009. This leaves Sprint as the only large US cellular carrier using WIMAX.

Eighteen years after the first commercial GSM was introduced in Europe, the US consumer has some hope of extended coast to coast coverage using one cell phone. The downside is that it may take another 10 years to fully implement LTE, no thanks to the FCC.

LA Times reports cellular minute cost consumers an average of $3.02

With all of the cellular carriers now offering unlimited plans as low as $49.99; this weekend the Los Angeles Times reported on a study, by the San Diego based Utility Consumers' Action Network, which shows many customers pay for much more time than they use.

The Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN) averaged out the cellular minutes and costs of 700 San Diego residents to come up with the $3.02 per minute value. On the surface seems way out of band, however the LA Times wrote: "That $3-per-minute figure is skewed by the relatively small percentage of people who pay for a lot of minutes but barely use any. But even when those folk are taken out of the mix, most wireless customers still pay between 50 cents and $1 per minute, the study found." This clarification is important and although I still think $.50 to $1 is still very high, it makes more sense.

I decided to open up Excel and put my current T-Mobile Family bill to the test. I added up all of our Whenever minutes used including Weekend, HotSpot@Home, MyFaves, and T-Mobile to Mobile calls. I came up with $.04 per minute (taxes excluded) for the 2328 voice minutes we used. I felt much better that my current plans seems right for my situation. From the study's results it seems a lot of consumers don't bother analyzing their bills, all of the cellular carriers will even help you figure out the best plan for your usage pattern, so there is no excuse for paying more than you need especially in this economic environment.

Message to AT&T and international iPhone carriers; Service pricing is a big drag on iPhone sales

As evidenced in Apple's latest quarterly results, iPod sales growth outpaced the iPhone in the last quarter ending December. Apple sold 22.5 million iPods vs a consensus of 18.5 million and 4.36 million iPhone vs a consensus of 5 million. The one problem is that Apple does not break out it iPod sales across the 4 model lines (Shuffle, Nano, Classic, and Touch), but two comment by Tim Cook reported by Silicon Valley Insider were that the Touch had a excellent December and that smartphone service pricing was too expensive for many people, especially in a recession.

I agree that AT&T charge of an additional $30 a month for data over the cost of a voice plan is a steep price point for many individuals. AT&T should consider a tiered data pricing in the same way voice plans are organized. Since I mostly use WiFi, my cellular data use is under a 100MB a month, maybe they should consider pricing a 50MB, 100MB and unlimited plans.

All that said; the bottom line is that Apple still sold an amazing 13.5 million iPhone in 2008 which bests their estimate of 10 million.

AT&T decides to follow T-Mobile's innovation in providing better in home signal with different technology

Since switching to AT&T for my iPhone 3G, one the few technologically advanced features T-Mobile USA has these days that I miss is their HotSpot@Home feature. This feature allows you to make unlimited calls (for a monthly $10 fee) with a T-Mobile router and/or a HotSpot@Spot enabled cell phone using a broadband Internet connection. The technology is based on UMA which I wrote about back in 2007. The specialized cell phones incorporate WIFI with special programming which wraps a cell call into Internet compatible data packets. The downside of the technology is that it requires a special cell phone and there are very few models. T-Mobile has not even enabled the G1 with this technology, something I don't understand.

Now a new technology called Femtocells is being deployed by Sprint and is in testing with AT&T. The principle is basically the same as UMA (use the Internet to transmit cell phone calls), but it differs in one big respect, you can use an unmodified cell phone. This means I could use it with my iPhone 3G. This would be great and very exciting on two fronts. First I do get a fair amount of failed calls in my house when 3G tries to switch back to 2G and second with unlimited calling in my house I could reduce my monthly minutes. I am quite excited about using this technology and plan to call AT&T to see if I can get in on the testing (I know, good luck in making that happen), but probably worth a shot. Femtocell deployment is more problematic than UMA since the devices use the same frequencies as cell towers and the carriers need to ensure that there is no interference, however it looks like the technology is ready for prime time. Hopefully AT&T will move quickly...

iPhone - My international roaming experience with AT&T

(Updated exact costs) 

Last week, while traveling internationally (French West Indies) I wrote a couple of posts and thought it would be good to document my all findings in one post.

The basic problem with roaming is how to minimize what I consider to be the outrageous costs and still stay connected. I have used pay as you go SIM cards in Europe but the last time there I found the cost to be quite high (the Dollar value did not help) but in most circumstances it is still cheaper than paying roaming rates. To use a foreign SIM card, you need an unlocked phone, so with a locked iPhone 3G, the first step is to attempt to get it unlocked.

I called AT&T before I left to see if I could get my IPhone unlocked (don't laugh, I thought I would give it a try).

AT&T customers in good standing who are traveling internationally can get their AT&T supplied phones SIM unlocked. At first I don't think the representative realized I had an iPhone. He took my IMIE and entered it into the system. It got rejected, at that point he asked if I owned an AT&T phone, I replied I owned an iPhone. He told me that they did not have the unlock codes for the iPhone and I would need to contact Apple. And of course Apple won't give you the unlock code since they say they have a contractual obligation to AT&T (no word on exactly what that is). I guess I have to wait until July 2010 to get it officially unlocked, but nobody is quite sure how Apple will handle it. So for now there seems to only be two options for the iPhone 3G, pay the exhorbitant cell roaming charges or buy a SIM card adapter which fakes the phone into thinking you are using an AT&T approved SIM card. There several web sites which sell these adapters for $30 - $50, but I have not tested them and obviously they are not approved by AT&T or Apple.

The only option left (other than buying a SIM card adapter) is to activate AT&T international roaming. You need to be a customer in good standing for 90 days. I just made it since I bought the iPhone in mid July. AT&T in comparison to T-Mobile does have international roaming plans to ease the costs, although their per minute rates are slightly cheaper.

For voice AT&T has Affordable World Packages which reduces the per minute rate. For the French West Indies the $5.99 per month World Traveler option would reduce the per minute rate from $2.49 to $2.29. This is about an 8% savings and not worth it since $2.29 is still pricey, so I am passing on this option.

On the data side, the international data packages offered for the iPhone are much more advantageous (you need to check that the country you are traveling to is part of this program). I signed up for the 20MB plan for $24.99 per month. The only two quirks you need to watch out for is that they pro rate the quantity of data and rate based on your billing date. The other is that you must keep the plan on your account until the data charges show up. This could take 1 or 2 billing cycles according to customer service. I am not sure how legal it is, although I was told this by 2 reps. My trip crosses two billing periods. I signed in the middle of my current billing period which ends today, giving me 10MB. Tomorrow a new period starts giving me a fresh 20MB. AT&T reps do a good job of reminding you to reset your data counter under general settings/usage and turn off push email. As of right now I have used 9.4MB so I am glad the new cycle starts tomorrow. I am also using the hotel's weak WiFi signal which works ok as long as I am outside on the porch. It does not take a lot of surfing or email to use many MBs of data.

Now my only issue is how to handle voice calls. Even if you reject an incoming call while roaming you get charged for the inbound call and the oubound connection back to the voicemail system. In the French West Indies @ $2.49 a minute, that gets expensive quickly. The solution is to use visual voicemail. You forward the phone to voicemail (AT&T uses different voicemail systems across the country. To find your voicemail number you should forward to dial *#62# send) and all calls are directed there automatically without using the roaming cellular system. The voicemail is then transfered via the cellular data network using your purchased international data package (not WiFi) to your phone. You can then listen to your voicemails, respond by email or use a land line and a calling card to return the call (I purchased a 10 Euro calling card which provided 500 minutes of talk time back to the US). I had forgotten to forward my phone before I left, but was pleasantly surprised that it worked when I arrived in the French West Indies, but to be sure you should remember to forward before you leave the US. I went to settings/phones/call forwarding flipped it to on and entered the number I retrieved from using *#62# send command.

The call forwarding screen, even when the function is off it remembers the last number you forwarded to.

Once you arrive at your destination, a great feature AT&T provides is a text message telling you that you are on a provider which supports your data plan.

The international data roaming welcome SMS.

As mentioned in the SMS, it is important to track your usage, so before you leave or right after you arrive. Make sure that you reset your usage statistics (settings/general/usage Reset Statistics at bottom of screen), and if you use push email, turn it off (general/Fetch New Data set Push to off and Fetch to Manual).

 

This is a screen shot of the usage screen before I returned. I was checking my stats regularly, but at the end of my billing cycle on November 4th I forgot to reset I knew I was in bounds of the 10 MB and from a total of 30MB (10 from previous cycle + 20 of current cycle) I figured I was ok.

When I got back I got a chance to check my previous cycles bill and the data charges had already shown up (no need to wait 1 to 2 billing cycles).

From the 10MB I was allocated in my last cycle, I exceeded by 193KB which cost me a $.45 additional to the prorated monthly charge of $12.50.

On my current usage, I noticed the acds.voicemail data types which refers to Visual Voicemail. I found that they range from 10KB to 200KB. I don't know how that relates to individual voicemails.

It looks like in the end I exceeded my 20MB by 2.99MB in my current cycle which at .005KB cost me an additional $15.34. So my total roaming phone costs will end up being:

• October partial international roaming plan (10MB)     $12.50
• October overage (193KB)                                         $ 0.45
• November international roaming plan (20MB)            $24.95
• November overage (2.99MB)                                    $15.34
• Calling card (500 min)                                                $12.70 (10 euro @ $1.27)

                                                                              Total       $65.94

The cost runs $9.42 per day which is not bad to stay relatively well connected internationally. So even though this is not an ideal situation from a voice stand point, it works. It is important to note that you must keep the data roaming package option on for a full cycle to receive the full 20MB credit. On the last day of my November cycle (ends in early December), I validated that the International data details posted on my account (via the web site) and I called 611 to have them turn off the International Data Roaming option (I could have used the web site to do this but I wanted to make sure that turning off the option on the last day of the cycle would still count as a full cycle). AT&T just posted my bill with the actual cost of my 2.99MB overage. I am very impressed on how well this worked and will use this method on future International trips. Even thought the phone is locked, it really did not hobble my using it for data and from my previous local month to month SIM card purchase in Europe, I would have to say that the costs are pretty much comparable. The only downside is that if you have some local friends, having a local phone number makes it easier to communicate. AT&T needs to come up with a reasonably priced International voice option and life would be close to perfect.

iPhone - Tip of the week - Sending a call directly to voice mail

I have been asked several times how to send a call directly to voice mail without waiting for the ringing to end, I am documenting it on my blog.

When a call comes in, the iPhone wakes up, rings and/or vibrates and the caller id information is displayed (blocked, unknown, phone number or associated iPhone contact information).

You have three choices:

1. Answer the call by sliding your finger to answer.
2. Depress the power button once to silence the ring. This just silences the ring, you can still answer the call by sliding your finger. If you do not answer the call within the 25 second default timeout, the call is forwarded to voice mail.
3. Depress the power button twice. This silences the ring and forwards the call directly (no timeout) to voice mail.

T-Mobile G1 has no data roaming on/off switch

According to a post on Gizmodo, a G1 user traveling to the UK incured over $100 worth of data roaming charges while never using the device to access data. Apparently the G1 sends some type of heartbeat every 3 - 5 minutes regardless of your location. Could this be push email or just some OS feature that requires the G1 to call home. It is unbelievable that someone would design such a feature without an on/off switch. The on/off feature has been there since day one in Windows Mobile devices. In version 1 of the iPhone firmware there was some confusion about how to turn off data roaming but at least the feature was there, for the G1 the T-Mobile CSR response was to leave the device at home.

I have been a T-Mobile fan from the Voicestream days but over the 18 months their lack of any decent devices has left me less than enthusiastic, even if their pricing model is generally cheaper. I don't think the G1 is very innovative compared to the iPhone, the HotSpot@Home feature which I think is a key differentiator and a big cost saving was left out of new phones like the G1. I am sure the data roaming issue will fixed in a future update but somebody really missed the boat on this one.

On the cost front AT&T has data roaming plans which you can purchase on a month to month basis (T-Mobile does not). This helps to lessen your cost while traveling internationally if you need to use data. I wrote about my experience with the iPhone in this post.

iPhone - Tip of the week - The real signal strenght

Back in the early days of the iPhone 3G when signal strength was a big issue, the more technical forums published the code which when entered displays field diagnostic information about the GSM signal received by the phone. Of bigger interest for my use is the display of the signal strength in decibels rather than bars. It has been a well documented problem that the bars do not provide a good view of the signal's strengths. I have had failed calls when I had 4 bars, especially in my home where I seem to be at the edge (no pun intended with Edge data) of 3G with decent 2G coverage, however the phone is always trying for 3G. My assumption is that calls fails when the phone is trying to move from 3G to 2G or vice versa.

The signal bars at the top left hand corner displays relative strength up to 5 bars, however I have found this display to be less than accurate.

Keying *3001#12345#* then tapping call in the phone's keypad yields this display which contains mostly diagnostic information, however it replaces the bars in the upper left hand corner with an accurate signal strength's value. The lower the decibel value, the better. Tapping the home button with take you out of the diagnostic mode.