Information on the German research project EASY-C, where the worldwide first testbeds are being developed to evaluate next generation mobile communications concepts. See www.easy-c.de for more information.

Duration : 0:5:42

Word came down late yesterday that ATT has completed negotiations with T-Mobile to purchase the latter for $39 billion dollars US. What does that mean for everyone concerned?

The big winner in the ATT buyout of T-Mobile is T-Mobile. Generally, it is anticipated that ATT will pay a huge premium for the Deutsche Telekom stock. Overseas, T-M does pretty well, given the huge amount of competition in Europe. Domestically, they’ve not done as well, even with their lower monthly pricing, due to their network not being built out as much as ATT, Verizon or Sprint.

ATT is mostly buying T-Mobile for their spectrum, and to a lesser extent, the customer base. This buyout will vault ATT back into the #1 spot in the US with approximately 130 million customers, far surpassing Verizon’s 94-95 million at #2. ATT will use the T-Mobile spectrum to alleviate network pressure in bigger cities like San Francisco and New York City, and make a true 4G network a reality nationwide.

The big loser in this ATT deal, assuming it passes regulatory scrutiny (a good bet that this was already thought of, since ATT has to pay T-Mobile a $3 billion USD ‘breakup fee’ if the deal fails to close), is the consumer. The loss of competition in the marketplace stifles innovation and won’t drive prices lower. However, given President Obama’s desire to push wireless broadband to 98% of Americans, this T-Mobile to ATT deal may well be a boon, providing a service where there was none before.

Generally speaking, this merger will almost certainly go through. ATT and T-Mobile probably did their due diligence work to make sure the regulatory questions would and could be settled as quickly as possible. ATT might be a ponderously large company, but it hasn’t survived more than 100 years by being stupid.

See how Vodafone One Net helps small and medium sized businesses like CCBS improve customer service and generate orders by integrating fixed and mobile communications.

Duration : 0:2:28

Verizon recently began offering free mobile to any other mobile calling, and Sprint has been offering it for years.

The short answer is yes – AT&T offers this sort of calling feature. It is free as long as you have the $20 unlimited messaging on at least at $39.99 450 minute calling plan, or the $30 unlimited family messaging plan on at least a 700 minute FamilyTalk plan.

How does unlimited mobile to any other mobile work?

As long as you have the appropriate messaging feature on the account, you can make and receive free calls from your AT&T cell phone to any other carrier’s cell phones, as long as the other phone is a domestic US phone number, and your cell phone is calling from within the United States.

What is the result of free mobile to any other mobile calling?

The end result is that your usage of standard calling minutes will decrease. Your anytime minutes will only be used when making calls to or from landline phones to your AT&T mobile phone.

Today’s lesson – why do iPhones cost so much???

I apologize for such a lengthy absence – a lengthy bout with pneumonia sidelined me for a while, then I had to catch up at work as well as at home. However, I am back and ready to explain the mysterious inner workings of the mobile communication industry.

When you see a fine new mobile phone advertised in the US, the biggest part of that ad is the pricing. It is not unusual to see a phone such as the iPhone 3GS advertised for $49, or the newest, bestest kid on the block, the Motorola Atrix, advertised for $199.99. A good bit of money, to be sure, but this isn’t the whole story. This price is assuming a new 2-year agreement is signed. The cell phone companies, at least in the US, subsidize the cost of a new phone at the outset of a contract. Let us take one of the more popular devices today and look at how this breaks down.

The iPhone 4 16BG device sells at both Verizon and AT&T for $199 on contract. The ACTUAL iPhone cost that Apple charges both of these companies is on the order of $629. Therefore, when you sign that new contract, or get the phone as an eligible upgrade, either VZW or AT&T eats over $400 in actual, real-life cost on this sale. They will (theoretically) make it up over the length of your 2-year agreement. This is ALSO why these companies REQUIRE a data plan with these devices – the fact that they won’t work outside of a Wi-Fi enabled area without it notwithstanding. Once upon a time, a long long time ago when I was a wage slave for Verizon, I saw a document that basically broke it down like this – the average cost to sign up a new customer, including phone subsidy (~$150), advertising (~$50), network (~$100), the sales rep’s commissions (~$15-30), electricity for the store, et cetera, was around $600. Assuming that the the customer signed up on a $40 per month plan (remember, this was in the early 2000s before text messaging and Mobile Web were fashionable),  it took 15 months before you were a profitable customer. If that customer walked in to a store 12 months into the contract and demanded a new subsidized phone… well, you can imagine why they got run out of the store. Usually a customer isn’t profitable until 75% of their contracted time is up. Granted, this was a long time ago, but the actual cost of handsets has gone up dramatically since 2000. The average smartphone sells, full-retail, for around $500 or so. Back then, the best phone Verizon sold cost around $300.

The cost of today’s smartphones is so high that the companies can’t really afford to just give you another one if you break it, lose it or just plain want another one. The full retail iPhone cost is usually over $600.

Tactical Emergency Asset Management (T.E.A.M.) Mobile Emergency Communications System. Mobile satellite internet, radio interoperability, live streaming video, integrated 12 Kw generator, four-wheel-drive, off-road capable. Full-spectrum interoperable communications at any disaster or emergency scene. Currently deployed and operational. Proven effective in emergency response situations as well as military and civilian training exercises.

Duration : 0:5:23

Michael Shiloh of OpenMoko on the Neo1973 handset, see http://www.consumingexperience.com/2007/10/openmoko-video-demo-slides-open-mobile.html (full video at http://blip.tv/file/407837) – first open source integrated mobile communications platform: free your handset!

See http://www.consumingexperience.com/2007/10/mobilecamplondon-2007-videos-girl-geek.html#videos for a write-up of, and more videos from, mobileCamp 2007.

At mobileCampLondon 2007 29-30 September 2007 http://barcamp.org/mobileCampLondon

Duration : 0:6:30

Lecture Series on Wireless Communications by Dr.Ranjan Bose, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi. For more details on NPTEL, visit http://nptel.iitm.ac.in

Duration : 0:51:12

Radar is a cool way to keep in touch with your friends: you use photos on your mobile phone. But up to now those photos have only been privately available to friends. Now you can also use Radar to post those photos to Flickr and here CEO demos it. Distributed by Tubemogul.

Duration : 8 min 25 sec

A three-minute video that shows how people who use a mobile phone or PDA while on the road can use voice control, elminating the need for dialing or “texting,” to call a central number and instantly get access to and manage their calendars, email, and contact information. Visit www.avaya.com

Duration : 0:3:7