Telecom Research Codec

What mobile application users will pay for

2009-11-20T09:31:00.000-06:00

Mobile phone applications that are addictive (games), persistent (social networking apps) or lengthy and easy to sample (books) are the best performing paid applications, according to new research from Distimo. The company looked at free and paid applications available from the iTunes App Store, the Android Market and the BlackBerry App World.

According to Distimo's rankings, the six best-performing application categories (with similar-ranked categories noted on one line) are:

Games
Social Networking
Books, entertainment
Navigation, productivity
Education, lifestyle, utilities
Business, finance, music, news, photography, reference, sports

The company also compared the average prices for the top 100 mobile applications in all three stores. The average price in the iTunes App Store was $3.42, followed by Android at $4.30 and BlackBerry at $5.61.

Telecom operators not innovating enough to compete, beat rivals

2009-11-19T17:28:00.002-06:00

A recent Accenture report finds that telecom service providers are losing what it calls "the innovation battle" due to flaws in how they think about and formally pursue innovation within their companies.

The report is a compendium of several Accenture surveys with business executives across the globe and across a broad range of industries. Click here for a good summary of the findings, and access the complete findings and Accenture's summary here.

Accenture says that telecom service providers are focusing on small, incremental changes at the expense of radical innovation that will help them better compete with a larger and growing suite of competitors. Among telecom operators, the report says that 42% focus on small changes like price points versus breakthrough products or business models.

According to an Accenture analyst: "The [telecom] industry is dialing in too extreme a fashion toward incremental, tactical and cost cutting improvements rather than having a more balanced mix of more breakthrough, new business model, new product category type of innovation.... “It is helping them ride out the recession but not preparing them to compete."

The report pinpointed three main problems:

Companies aren't managing innovation as a process, with dedicated tools, oversight and budgets;
Innovation is too often stuck in departmental silos with little input from outside the company (peers, customers and complementary organizations like large research universities);
Innovation goals focus only on minor changes and fixes.

Other really interesting findings include:

To explain new product or service launch failures, responding companies cite their inability to meet customer needs (57%), being late to market (54%), incorrect pricing (52%), lack of a new or unique value proposition (50%), supply chain issues (44%) and incorrect forecasting (43%);
50% of high-tech executives said they spent less on innovation during the current recession whereas several other industries increased or maintained their innovation spending.

Very good stuff, especially in an industry where technology breakthroughs (LTE, WiMAX, femtocells, FMC, UC...) should hold the promise for breakthrough applications and revenue streams versus me-too products sold mainly on price.

Where the opportunity is; household spending is up for entertainment services

2009-11-19T17:18:00.000-06:00

Recession be dashed.... American consumers' spending on subscription media services are up 7% from a year ago to an average of $115 per month per household.

Spending on these services, tracked by research company NPD in its "Entertainment Trends in America" study, includes monthly expenditures for television, mobile phone data (but not voice), Internet access, Netflix and similar video services and online gaming.

"Despite concerns that the recession would cause consumers to reduce spending on entertainment subscription services, most forms of subscription entertainment are doing just fine," says an NPD analyst.

Mobile phone data plan expenditures are one of the big growth areas; 9% of U.S. households subscribe to a data plan compared to 6% a year ago. By comparison, Netflix-type DVD subscriptions are in 14% of U.S. households, up from 12% a year ago.

Other penetration rates from NPD's data, most of which will filter into forecasting work I'll be doing over the next few months:

81% of U.S. households subscribe to a TV service (basic/premium cable, telco TV or satellite);
76% have Internet access:
17% subscribe to an online music service or satellite radio;
14% subscribe to online gaming.

Hungry? Opted in? Have I got a slice for you...

2009-11-19T16:56:00.001-06:00

A new survey by Juniper Research says that consumers are redeeming mobile phone coupons at six times the rates typical for traditional paper coupons.

Redemption rates for paper coupons is typically 1% or less, according to Juniper. The company's survey of mobile users in the U.K. identified more than 3 million mobile users who redeemed coupons sent to them via their mobile phones, which worked out to a redemption rate of more than 6%.

According to a Juniper analyst, "This means that retailers and brands have the opportunity to exploit the mobile channel via personalized coupon offers direct to the ultimate personal device - the mobile phone."

The survey also showed that more than 75% of the mobile users questioned were aware of mobile coupons and that once having received them "there was a strong chance that they will redeem them rather than merely ignore them."

Read more about the survey results here. When coupled with mobile location-based services, you get the oft-salivated-over pinnacle of personalized marketing, the mobile 20%-off pizza coupon sent to a phone just as the hungry, opt-in user walks by Sal's Pizzeria at noon....

Sometimes it's hard to decide, but we go online when we need some help

2009-11-19T16:43:00.000-06:00

A newly released survey of business execs shows the growing influence of online social networks in executives' business decisions. Three-quarters of respondents say they rely on professional online networks to support their business decisions.

The survey of 356 business professionals was conducted in collaboration with the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) and had these objectives:

Is social media typically seen as a trusted source of information for business professionals?
Does social media offer effective tools to access information and advice and to enable professional collaboration?
How do these tools compare with those available with traditional off-line networking?
What tools and sources of social media do business professionals rely on when they make decisions?
Will social media change the business and practice of enterprise-level operations?

For more information on the study and its results please click here.

The study's authors point to six key findings from their work:

We've entered the era of social media peer groups -- professional decision making is becoming more social. Business professionals want online collaboration as they make decisions, but they don't want to be marketed or sold to while doing so.
The average professional belongs to 3-5 online social networks, with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter leading the pack.
These professional networks are emerging as decision-support tools, not just personal branding and selling tools.
Professionals trust online information almost as much as information from in-person sources; 92% say they strongly/somewhat trust offline sources, and 83% say they strongly/somewhat trust online sources.
The reliance on web-based professional networks and online communities has grown significantly over the past three years.
Social media use patterns cut across age and organizational categories. Younger (age 20-35) and older (age 55-plus) professionals are more active users than middle-aged business professionals. And, there are more people collaborating via web-based communities than by company-sponsored intranets.

Smartphones, video are growing trends in mobile web access

2009-11-19T15:53:00.003-06:00

Touchscreen mobile smartphone users are browsing the web an average of 38 minutes each day, more than half the duration for laptop PC users, according to a mobile metrics study just released by Bytemobile.

Video is quickly dominating mobile web traffic, accounting for 39% of mobile network volume; one mobile video surfer, notes the report, consumes the same amount of data as 10 to 15 web surfers.

Other facts and figures from the Bytemobile report -- important if you're planning mobile network capacity, honing mobile network marketing plans for 2010 or looking at ad placement opportunities -- include:

Laptop PCs still account for 94% of mobile network data traffic;
The average mobile web video was 5 minutes long, but half were played for under 1 minute, with most users viewing only 10-30 seconds (so place those ad early...);
About one-third of video use today is on YouTube; another third is adult content, and the rest is lumped into the "other" category.

Read more on Bytemobile's mobile analytics here.

Top fix for mobile retailers: improve customer experience

2009-10-26T14:08:00.003-05:00

A survey of more than 4,000 consumers who had recently visited a mobile operator's retail store indicates that one in four interested customers leave without making a purchase -- making improved in-store experiences and better integrated back-office systems the top recommendations for helping mobile operators become more competitive.

The survey was commissioned by Amdocs, which sells retail mobile operator software platforms, and conducted by JD Power (read more about the survey here). Specific survey results include:

60% of customers who visit a retail mobile operator store said they planned to buy a new phone and service plan;
25% of those customers left without making a purchase, citing poor a customer experience;
A smartphone sale can take up to 15% longer than a traditional mobile phone purchase, adding complexity and more "exit points" for confused or unhappy customers.

Tech sales message not loud and clear

2009-10-26T00:14:00.002-05:00

Tech product and service sales pitches are laden with technical jargon and acronyms that only confuse potential customers and can delay or stop buying decisions, according to a recent survey cited by BusinessBrief.com (click here for the full article).

Only 3% of the prospects surveyed said they fully understood most of the terms used in tech product and service sales presentations. Aside from basic befuddlement, the confusion led prospects to believe that the products or services would be hard to install and maintain.

The article has some common-sense advice for acronym-happy salespeople -- don't rely on sales literature to build your presentations; test your pitches on customers with a range of technical backgrounds; speak about your products and services in the same ways your customers do; and watch for furrowed brows, wandering (or closed) eyes and other body language that says your message isn't being received.

Don't leave 'TV everywhere' money on the table

2009-10-26T00:03:00.003-05:00

About 23% of web video viewers would be willing to pay an extra $10 to $15 per month for "TV everywhere" services that offers access to cable TV programming on PCs or mobile devices, with 77% uninterested or noncommittal about paying.

These results were part of a survey of 1,300 U.S. Internet users in late August 2009 commissioned by Digitalsmiths, a provider of media analysis and video publishing services. According to an article in Multichannel News, these results were similar to those from a January survey where about 28% of broadband users said they would be willing to pay at least $10 per month for a service that ports linear pay TV to PCs.

U.S. MSOs like Time Warner and Comcast are exploring "TV everywhere" services that would be included at no charge as part of monthly cable TV subscriptions.

For more on the survey see the Multichannel News article here.

Consumers say they want mobile health care apps

2009-10-25T23:46:00.002-05:00

Results from a CTIA-sponsored mobile health consumer survey released in early October 2009 show that 40% of U.S. consumers would embrace mobile health care products and services that complement their health provider visits, and 23% said they would turn to mobile health care applications if they would help reduce or eliminate doctor visits.

The consumer segments most responsive to the potential benefits of mobile health care applications were caregivers, the 30-44 age bracket, Hispanics and African Americans.

The survey indicated that 19% of consumers would upgrade their current mobile data plans to use mobile health access and applications, and 14% would upgrade their mobile devices. The appeal of mobile health care is in the following areas:

To enable more home-based treatment (68% of respondents said this area is why mobile health care would be appealing);
For patient monitoring (57%);
Improved patient safety (57%);
To help simplify health care (51%).

Rural consumers said they would benefit most from mobile health care.

For more on the CTIA survey's results, click here to see the article in Fierce Wireless.

Selling to CIOs? Help yourself by helping them

2009-10-25T23:17:00.005-05:00

As you're lining up that next corporate CIO for your sales call, do you know what matters to him or her most? IBM thinks it does (and it's just published a report that shares some of what it's learned).

IBM just wrapped up a survey of 2,598 CIOs from around the world, conducting in-depth, one-hour surveys from January to April of this year. Some of IBM's findings, which should help us better communicate our own marketing messages to CIOs, include:

CIOs are being recognized more as corporate strategizers and innovators than back-office techies; 55% of their day is spent on activities that spur innovation versus 45% on traditional IT management;
CIOs in high-growth companies are less-focused on IT management as their core job than their counterparts in low-growth firms (IBM attributes much of this to the shift toward cloud computing and outsourcing in more forward-thinking companies);
CIOs are under lots of pressure to increase the spread of collaboration technologies across corporate silos with flat or reduced budgets. That means that cost-cutting ideas like virtualization and self-service portals are appealing solutions.

With their emerging broad-based corporate management roles, IBM also asked what CIOs are doing to boost corporate competitiveness. Their top 10 responses (and the top 10 areas your product or service should complement, if you want to really catch a CIO's ear) were:

Business intelligence and marketing analytics (83% of CIOs indicated this was a top priority);
Virtualization (76%);
Risk management and compliance (71%);
Customer and partner collaboration (68%);
Mobility solutions (68%);
Self-service portals (66%);
Application harmonization (64%);
Business process management (64%);
Service-oriented architecture/web services (61%);
Unified communications (60%).

For more results from IBM's survey, see the summary in Forbes and the press release from IBM.

Enterprise telecom services may buck downward IT spending curve

2009-10-25T23:04:00.003-05:00

A mid-2009 survey by Network World shows recession-driven decreases for most enterprise IT spending -- except for telecommunications services, the IT area most likely to see increased budget allocations.

IT spending areas deemed by survey respondents to show stable budgets include staff salaries and local conference attendance. Overall, respondents report that the overall importance of IT and the desire for new IT capabilities will increase but that increased funding will not materialize.

For more on the survey results see the Network World article here.

Targeting early adopter social networking users?

2009-10-25T22:38:00.002-05:00

Recent Pew Internet Project research indicates that 19% of U.S. Internet users use the social networking service Twitter (or another status update service) on a regular basis.

If you're targeting these high-web use early adopters for your product or service (mobile VoIP, consumer femtocell or the latest mobile location-based service, for example), here's who you're looking for:

Women (21% of online female adults use these services, versus 17% of online male adults);
African Americans (26% of online African Americans versus 18% of online Hispanics and 19% of online whites);
Ages 18-29 (33% of online adults in this age group versus 22% of age 30-49, 9% of age 50-64 and 4% of age 65-plus);
College educated (21% of online college graduates and of online "some college," versus 18% of online adults with less than high school and 17% of online adults who are high school graduates);
Mobile Internet users (25% of online adults with wireless Internet access versus 8% of online adults with wired connections);
Gadget users (39% of online adults with four or more Internet devices versus 10% with one device).

These results are based on completed phone interviews with 2,253 persons aged 18 and older between mid-August and mid-September 2009. For more results or to download the full report click here.

Enterprises slowing IP-PBX adoption; managed & hosted VoIP growing

2009-04-07T09:24:00.003-05:00

A recent In-Stat survey says about one-third of U.S. enterprises blame the economic downturn for slowing their VoIP deployments.

On the carrier side, the same In-Stat survey points to growth for carrier-based business VoIP solutions, with total 2008 revenues of $1.1 billion. Hosted IP Centrex solutions gathered $857 million in U.S. revenues last year. Other fun In-Stat survey results (click here for the press release):

13% of U.S. businesses use both carrier-based and premises-based VoIP solutions;
Enterprises prefer mixed VoIP-TDM deployments with SOHOs more likely to go pure IP.

Skype is international LD-minute leader

2009-04-07T08:35:00.002-05:00

Skype is now the global leader in providing international phone calls with an estimated 9% market share.

The research firm Telegeography, which tracks and reports on such things, estimates that Skype's cross-border phone traffic increased to 33 billion minutes in 2008, up more than 40% from 2007. Of those billions of minutes, 75% come from free "Skype-to-Skype" traffic that never hits the PSTN. The other 25% are paid "Skype Out" calls going from a user's PC to PSTN-connected phones.

Over the last decade, Telegeography says international call volume has increased from 71.7 billion minutes in 1997 to 343 billion in 2007, a CAGR of almost 17%. The firm says that cheap international calling rates from companies like Skype and free user-to-user voice and video calls are to blame for the lack of international calling revenue growth even in the face of strong demand.

Click here for more info on Skype's phone traffic growth.

Broadband as the enabling Trojan horse

2009-04-07T08:04:00.003-05:00

An annual survey of the U.S. bundled services market predicts that telcos will shrink to half their '09 subscriber size and will be increasingly dominated by the broadband bundle.

Brahm Eiley, an analyst with study author Convergence Consulting quoted in Telephony, says: "Over the next couple of years, these companies will be born again in terms of upgrading their networks.... Verizon is almost done, AT&T still has a way to go, but once they finish this process, they will be much stronger companies. But they will be half the size they were at the early part of the decade. Looking at the amount of residential wireline loss, from the end of 2005 to the start of 2011, AT&T will be half its size in terms of residential telephone customers - so will Verizon and so will Qwest. It’s quite radical what is happening to this industry."

For a very good Telephony article on this research and its implications click here.

The research points out that cable television operators have done a better job of selling broadband data to their base customers than have telcos. That enables cable companies to be better at upselling pay TV customers to telephony than telcos are at upselling their broadband customers to television:

61% of U.S. cable company subscribers also have broadband service;
U.S. cable companies now have 23% of the total residential phone market;
33% of residential telco customers have a broadband/TV bundle, a number expected to grow to 54% by 2011.

Overall, Convergence predicts U.S. telcos will capture 5.6% of all U.S. television subscribers by the end of this year and 10% in 2011.

Traditional TV still drives almost all revenue

2009-04-07T07:44:00.005-05:00

As research quoted here and elsewhere confirms, more people are watching television online. Ad revenue, though, still rests in the lap of the traditional couch TV viewer.

New research from Convergence Consulting Group puts U.S. ad revenue from traditional TV advertising at $66 billion ($46 billion from broadcast advertising) with $32 billion generated in pay TV (mainly cable) programming fees. That's a big incentive not to let viewers drift to free online video content.

Convergence's survey results include:

Online TV advertising represents just 2.4% of total '08 TV advertising, growing to 4.6% by 2011;
15% of an average weekly viewing audience also watched a full program episode on a broadcast company's or cable network's web site. That number should hit 19% for '09, 22% for '10 and 24% for '11;
Even quickly growing online video services generate very tiny (in percentage terms) revenues. Apple's '08 per-view video revenue grew 20% over 2007 but only reached $180 million -- about 0.5% of total pay TV programming fees.

Get more TV research data from Convergence here.

Wi-Fi has a soft, fudgy interior and makes people happy

2009-04-07T07:30:00.005-05:00

"Wi-Fi is like chocolate," sayeth an official with the Wi-Fi Alliance (quoted here), or at least something warm and soft with a creamy nougat filling. And newly released survey data from ABI, which solicited the above caramel-ly exchange, seem to confirm it.

According to ABI's numbers,

44% of mobile smartphones now have Wi-Fi;
By 2014 90% of smartphones will be Wi-Fi equipped;
The number of Wi-Fi-enabled traditional mobile phones shipped will hit 141 million this year and 520 million by '14;
Users of Wi-Fi phones say they like their phones twice as much as non-Wi-Fi users.

For more survey results please follow the link cited above.

Economy hasn't dented high-growth mobile advertising

2009-04-07T07:20:00.002-05:00

The global economic crisis hasn't taken much steam from the mobile advertising market, according to new research from mobile web developer BuzzCity. The company's Mobile Advertising Index tracks mobile Internet advertising on its sites in more than 200 countries.

During the first quarter of this year, mobile banner ad views were up 11% versus the previous three months, with the highest percentage growth from China (67% quarter-on-quarter increase), the U.K. (54%) and the U.S. (38%).

In terms of total banner ad views, BuzzCity's biggest market is Indonesia, up 23% at 4.4 billion banner views, more than 8 times the U.S. volume.

Click here for more info on BuzzCity and its recent survey results.

Who runs home-based businesses, and the online software apps they need

2009-03-24T20:54:00.005-05:00

A new report and survey by AMI says the home-based business (HBB) market is a healthy and growing target for sellers of online software services.

AMI says accounting/finance applications, online data storage/backup and contact management are already well used by home-based companies with online applications for project management, payroll, travel/expense management and conferencing/document sharing gaining popularity. Not to mention really good and inexpensive blogging software....

The company says the current penetration of online apps (or SaaS) is about 15%, with another 13% of home-based businesses planning to adopt one or more apps.

Click here for more results from AMI's survey, which included 529 primary business decision makers or owners of PC-owning HBBs. According to the survey data, a current profile of HBBs (which don't include telecommuters, regular work-at-home corporate employees or after-hours corporate work) for your sales targeting pleasure:

58% are sole proprietors;
Nearly 75% work full time;
More than 67% are male;
Most are in retail (23%), professional business services (20%) and "other" services (27%);
The average revenue is $108,000, with the median falling in the $25,000 to $49,999 category;
The top reasons for launching their own businesses are entrepreneurial mindset/freedom to run one's own business (30%), more work-life balance (19%), greater financial opportunity (16%), passionate about the new business (12%), becoming independent from corporate bureaucracy (12) -- and just 5% who were displaced from corporate jobs.

Don't be linear; get customized

2009-03-24T12:17:00.004-05:00

With companies like ZillionTV, Apple, Roku, TiVo and Hulu pushing movies and TV programming on demand, it's getting a lot more interesting being a cable/telco TV provider these days.

Some recent survey data to gauge just how interesting:

Overall demand for video is increasing, with the typical American watching 142 hours of TV each month, up five hours (Sept. 30, '08, versus the same date in '07);
Internet use averaged 27 hours per month, up 1.5 hours over the same period;
Among U.S. broadband households, nearly 50% are interested in receiving premium web content, including TV shows and movies, via an Internet-connected set-top box;
While 72% of U.S. homes have broadband connections, only 28% have the speed necessary for quality high-definition video streams.

Read more about the research, from Nielsen and Parks Associates, here.

"Customized," "anytime" and "anywhere" are the new video buzz words. "Linear" appears to be how I watch TV....

Business technology spending by vertical

2009-03-24T11:57:00.002-05:00

If you're not already using U.S. Census Bureau data in your company's market opportunity and forecasting exercises, click on over to www.census.gov and wallow in a sea of free data.

As a sampler, taken from a recent Census Bureau press release (see the full release and data by clicking here), here are the U.S. verticals (industry types) spending the most on information and technology equipment and computer software in 2007. Together these five verticals accounted for more than 75% of all business IT spending:

Information: 24.1% of total ICT expenditures
Finance and insurance: 19.9%
Manufacturing: 13.7%
Professional, scientific and technical services: 9.4%
Health care and social assistance: 8.1%

Which verticals increased their '07 spending most, compared to '06 levels? That would be mining (up 30.7%); arts, entertainment and recreation (19.3%); management services (18.3%); wholesale (16.6%); construction (16.4%); and retail (15.4%).

Where information technology is most available, least expensive

2009-03-24T11:34:00.004-05:00

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has developed a new ICT (information and communication technologies) index that ranks 154 countries by ICT access, use and skills, looking at factors like households with a computer, the number of Internet users and overall literacy levels.

Examining the period 2002 to 2007, the ITU report finds that almost all countries have improved their ICT levels. As reported in Telecommunications Magazine (click here for the full article): "Eastern Europe not only features high relative growth but also one of the highest IDI value gains and can thus be considered as the most dynamic region on ICT developments during this time period. Countries that were driving this process include the Baltic States and Romania. Other economies that have significantly improved their ICT levels are Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, Ireland, Macao (China), Japan, Italy and France."

The top 10 countries by their '07 ICT rankings are:

Sweden
Korea (Rep.)
Denmark
Netherlands
Iceland
Norway
Luxembourg
Switzerland
Finland
United Kingdom

The study also reported countries with the lowest average ICT prices. The top 10 countries in this category are:

Singapore
United States
Luxembourg
Denmark
Hong Kong
United Arab Emirates
Taiwan
Sweden
Norway
Finland

U.S. consumers may be cutting back on mobile voice, data expenditures

2009-03-24T11:22:00.003-05:00

New survey data suggests U.S. consumers may be ready to cut back on their mobile phone expenditures.

A survey of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers by Opinion Research Corp. found that:

39% of mobile phone users are "likely to cut back" on usage over the next six months if the U.S. economy doesn't improve;
26% of users with contract-based mobile phones are more inclined today than six months ago to switch to cheaper prepaid plans;
About 20% of prepaid mobile phone users had switched prepaid plans in the last six months due to job or recession concerns;
41% said they are very or somewhat likely to reduce mobile data usage (texting and web access), with 15% already curtailing usage.

Read more about the survey and results here.

Trouble accessing and sharing information? Try wikis and blogs.

2009-03-24T10:43:00.003-05:00

Research from McKinsey shows that lots of enterprises have adopted so-called Web 2.0 applications like blogs, wikis and social networking but are less-than-happy so far with the results.

According to a global survey of 1,988 enterprise execs conducted in June 2008:

Blogs are used by 34% of companies (versus 21% in '07);
The use of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) jumped to 33% from 24%;
The use of wikis increased to 32% from 24% in '07;
Social networking was used by 28% of companies, up from 27%;
83% of responding companies reporting adopting these tools to help "manage knowledge," to help employees store and share information;
Other reasons for Web 2.0 adoption include to foster collaboration (78%) and to enhance company culture (74%).

For more survey results click here.

It's clear, though, that we're in the early adopter phase for enterprise Web 2.0, with only 21% of responding companies voicing overall satisfaction with their efforts and 22% saying they were dissatisfied.

In good news for consultants who develop those easy-to-use ROI calculators, the survey says the highest ranking barrier to Web 2.0 adoption is that "my company doesn't understand the potential financial return from the use of Web 2.0 tools."

Survey: push reliability, safety and bundles to keep landline customers

2009-03-24T10:23:00.003-05:00

I need to dip into some '08 research that I missed because it's relevant to questions client are asking me -- what would keep residential landline customers from cutting the cord?

In a Verizon-sponsored survey of 800-plus consumers who pay for landline phone service, 83% plan to continue landline service "indefinitely" even though 74% own a mobile phone as well. Why?

94% of respondents cite a landline's "reliability" -- voice quality and the ability to always establish a connection;
91% cite its always-on power status;
75% specify that their landline home phones beat their cell phones on "voice quality, reliability and consistency of service";
Nearly 50% said they would feel "unsafe" without a non-battery-powered landline connection, typically for emergency use.

According to the survey, consumers most likely to retain landline home phone service are women, senior citizens, middle-income earners ($50-$75K) and those living outside metro areas.

Interestingly, nearly two-thirds of the flip side (urban, younger adults making more than $75K annually) say they would consider bundling landline phone service with TV, Internet and wireless phone service. Consumers with both landline and mobile phone services are more likely than non-mobile phone users to like bundling.

SMBs looking for mobile, Wi-Fi, solutions

2009-03-01T21:56:00.006-06:00

SMBs are becoming increasingly mobile and Wi-Fi reliant, with workers more dependent on notebook PCs, netbooks and smartphones.

New data from ABI Research and AMI Partners both address SMBs, with ABI counting 200 million small and midsize companies globally whose workers rely on smartphones when traveling by year end. Read more about the research here and here.

The research pinpoints SMBs as lucrative opportunities for Wi-Fi equipment and service vendors. “'Despite the present economic downturn, this is a hot market...' says an ABI VP quoted in the above-linked eWeek article. 'But SMBs have very particular needs and characteristics, and vendors wishing to serve this market need to pay close attention to them.'”

Specific research results include:

Domestic travel for SMB employees has nearly doubled since 2006, and international travel has increased fivefold;
Nearly 50% of companies with up to 99 employees and nearly 90% of companies with 100-999 employees have workers traveling at least four days each month;
Many SMBs are increasingly replacing desktop PCs with notebook PCs and netbooks and buying smartphones to upgrade older, basic mobile phones;
Many SMBs have not installed their own Wi-Fi networks -- although the research suggests that as SMBssmartphones and other wireless-connected devices they are looking for products and services that give their workers Wi-Fi connectivity; adopt
AMI estimates the U.S. market opportunity for SMB mobility-related solutions at about $1.2 billion (includes smartphone service and data plans, network firewalls/VPNs, smartphone/PDA equipment and wireless LANs and excludes portable PCs and basic mobile phone equipment and service). AMI predicts this market will reach $2.6 billion in five years.

Finally, incentive for all you 'cone of silence' designers

2009-03-01T21:30:00.003-06:00

New research shows that the number of U.S. employees, contractors and business owners working remotely at least one day per month increased 17% over the past two years, from 28.7 million in '06 to 33.7 million in '08. Since '03, the number of once-a-month U.S. telecommuters has increased 43%.

The research -- by the HR association WorldatWork -- also shows a shift from full-time to occasional telework, with total teleworkers increasing while those working remotely almost every day dipped slightly.

Read more about the survey here.

According to WorldatWork quoted in the above-linked Network World article, “'Our study shows that occasional telework has risen dramatically... Employers seem more willing to try new ways of working. We receive calls on a daily basis from employers wanting to learn how to pilot a telework program, the do’s and don’ts of managing virtual workers, and how to use telework to reward and motivate talent.'”

Survey results paint today's typical telecommuter as a 40-year-old male who is a college graduate and has annual household earnings of $75,000 or more.

Sounds like good news for telcos selling home office-tweaked voice and data service, ISPs and consultants helping companies start and manage successful teleworking programs. Also good news for me, who apparently has plenty of company in trying to mask the voices of marauding 7-year-olds on the other side of the office door.

Mobile web searches catch fire

2009-03-01T21:08:00.003-06:00

ABI Research reports that 70% of U.S. mobile subscribers used their mobile phones to access information via mobile web searches -- a 14% increase over 2007 and double the rate of increase in simply accessing mobile websites.

The results come from a new ABI survey with more than 1,000 U.S. wireless consumers between the ages of 14 and 59. Read more about the research here and here.

Other cool tidbits include:

The types of mobile content seeing the greatest increase in mobile access, '08 versus '07, are news and game, music and especially video downloads;
The flip side of mobile content, with significantly lower access rates, are ringtones. User interest in location information, social networking and sports were about the same '08 versus '07.

ABI speculates that the year-to-year increases may be due to the increased popularity of all-you-can-eat data plans by U.S. mobile carriers. They also dovetail nicely with other research suggesting that mobile web access and searches will soon outnumber fixed PC web access and searches.

Recession proof?

2009-03-01T20:50:00.002-06:00

So far, U.S. consumers' economic tradeoffs don't mean fewer premium entertainment services. Research firm NPD Group reports that 38% of Internet-enabled households continue to subscribe to services like DVD delivery and music and gaming downloads, with 80% subscribing to premium TV services like premium cable IV or IPTV.

For your business case pleasure, specific subscription rates for web-enabled households include:

18% subscribe to a premium DVD service like Netflix or Blockbuster Online;
6% pay for an online music service like Rhapsody or eMusic;
12% subscribe to satellite radio;
and 12% have a premium gaming service like Xbox Live.

You can read more about the survey and results here.

A sea of data on hard-dollar UC benefits for enterprises & SMBs

2009-02-28T14:45:00.003-06:00

A recent survey commissioned by Siemens shows annual lost productivity costs and avoidable expenses of nearly $13 million per enterprise due to "fragmented communications."

In the survey, conducted by an independent research firm that interviewed 517 North American and European communications end users in companies with 1,000-plus employees, fragmented communications are defined as "workflow disruptions, added costs and associated frustrations to enterprises lacking unified communications." Read more about the survey's objectives and results here.

Although the survey was likely funded to help bolster Siemens' unified communications sales (62% of respondents, for example, were in customer service or sales roles, typical UC targets), the results are still interesting because of the paucity of surveys that try to nail the hard-dollar benefits of UC. Some of the more interesting survey results (some of which may find their way into my UC business case work) are:

94% of respondents reported waiting an average of 5.3 hours per week for information from others to complete tasks. Using weighted hourly wage of $37, Siemens calls this more than $9 million in lost productivity each year for a 1,000-person enterprise.
Respondents reported average productivity losses of 7.8 hours per month when working off site because they lacked communications tools available at their main offices. Siemens calculates this at a cost of more than $3 million annually for that 1,000-person enterprise.
Enterprises are wasting about $3,400 per employee annually in unnecessary business travel expenses due to ineffective or nonexistent collaboration tools. Those costs add to $3.4 million per enterprise.

You can download the entire report after clicking on the above Siemens website link.

Siemens sponsored a separate UC-centric survey that addressed the SMB market; those details are available here.

This survey produced a tantalizing list of the top 10 "communication pain points" for small and medium businesses, quantified into costs per knowledge worker per year. The top-10 list, with pain points and SMB knowledge worker costs, are:

Waiting for information - $9,970
Unwanted communications - $7,254
Inefficient coordination - $6,609
Barriers to collaboration - $6,009
Customer complaints - $5,354
Planning to plan - $5,199
Offsite work - $3,751
Travel to "synch up" - $2,245
Cost of working from home - $682
Cost of business travel - $619

The study says that 70% of SMBs have experienced the top five pain points, totalling 17.5 hours per week per knowledge worker of unproductive work time. Siemens rolls that into an average annual cost of $26,041 per knowledge worker and applies the magical factor of 4.96397 to come up with $5,246 in unproductive costs per employee per year.

Siemens believes that "at least 20% of a knowledge worker's unproductive time" may be avoided with a UC solution. So, using Siemens' estimate of $225 in UC software costs per knowledge worker per year and the 20% savings ratio, that equates to $5,208 in productivity savings per $225 UC expenditure -- a nice 23:1 payoff, at least mathematically....

Price alone won't bring the masses to broadband

2009-02-12T15:48:00.003-06:00

Lower prices aren't enough to entice dial-up Internet customers to move to broadband.

A survey of 4,254 Americans by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that only about one-third of non-broadband respondents see price as the biggest barrier to going high-speed. Those price-sensitive customers say the current monthly price for broadband -- about $34.50 -- must go down for them to upgrade from dial-up.

The nonprofit group One Economy (cited in an article here on the Pew survey results) says a price of $10 or less per month is the sweet spot for greater adoption.

Non-price barriers to greater consumer broadband adoption include access to computers and the difficulty of using technology.

According to the Pew survey results, about 57% of U.S. households use broadband services with 91% overall with Internet access.

Mobile video just starting life cycle climb

2009-02-12T15:34:00.004-06:00

Nielsen surveys point to mobile video as still a niche service, with 10.3 million mobile phone customers (or about 5% of all mobile phone users) accessing video monthly. A recent survey by M:Metrics puts the monthly video draw at 7.5 million mobile phone subscribers.

As many mobile phones appear to be following the iPhone's lead, most analysts are predicting strong growth for mobile video. According to Nielsen, the iPhone already accounts for 11% of the mobile video audience.

For more current research on mobile video please click here.

Fast, everywhere & easy all point to Wi-Fi, at least for now

2009-02-10T17:05:00.003-06:00

A new survey by a Wi-Fi applications vendor says that 81% of smartphone users prefer to access the web, send e-mails and download data using Wi-Fi versus 3G.

For more details on the survey, please click here and click here. There was no published information on the number or types of survey respondents, although they appear to be consumers rather than business purchase decision makers.

Other fun facts from the survey data, sponsored by Devicescape, include:

Almost 85% of respondents were in favor of citywide W-Fi networks;
Almost 56% would be willing to pay for citywide W-Fi;
91% expect Wi-Fi to be available while traveling, with smartphones, not notebook PCs, the preferred access choice;
86% want OEMs to build Wi-Fi into their mobile phones;
82% want their wireless carrier to offer a 3G/Wi-Fi data package;
90% would like to be able to roam seamlessly between 3G and Wi-Fi networks.

I'd be more fun to see how 4G fits into this Wi-Fi love fest, especially with reports (also noted in the survey results) of consumers being frustrated by complicated login screens as they try to connect to Wi-Fi hotspots. It could be that consumers are just saying that "fast," "everywhere" and "easy" are good regardless of the technology.

Most enterprise IT buyers call for reduced spending in '09

2009-02-08T23:24:00.006-06:00

Osterman Research released results of surveys it conducted from last year through this January, asking North American enterprise IT decision makers and influencers about their IT and overall spending plans. You can register with Osterman for a free download of the survey results here.

A summary of some of the most interesting findings --

On the direct impact of the slumping economy on IT budgets, 28% of respondents from this January's survey predicted "much lower" budgets for '09, versus just 8% who forecast "much lower" '09 budgets when surveyed in July of '08;
From the January survey, 34% said '09 IT budgets would be a "little bit lower," 23% thought there would be no impact, 13% said it would be "a little bit higher" and 2% said it would be "much higher";
Of nine spending categories, the top "probably" or "definitely will reduce budget" items for this year were travel, consulting services (oops...), bonuses and education/training;
Of those nine categories, the top "definitely" or "probably will not reduce budget" items were headcount, server hardware, desktop hardware and mobile devices.

The Osterman surveys did not address IP-PBX and hosted voice services. The results do give us some direction, though, as we sharpen our '09 enterprise sales expectations.

The good news of hosted/managed services for some - but not all- VARs

2009-02-07T21:00:00.004-06:00

A new study from AMI Partners Inc. points to managed and hosted services as a bright spot for VARs and other channel partners (see below for more good news for hosted and managed services).

The survey found that despite an expected slowdown in 2009 IT spending, U.S. channel partners predict their managed services revenue will increase 20% this year. About one-third of U.S. channel partners offers hosted and managed services, according to AMI.

Read more about the survey findings here.

One big plus to services is margin. Channel partners responding to the survey report margins of 41% on sales of IT services, 36% on Internet services and 35% on custom software development versus about 20% margins on computing and network CPE.

So, what about the two-thirds of VARs and other resellers who don't sell hosted and managed services? What can they learn from the hoping-to-be-successful resellers quoted above? What can they learn from consultants selling really cool ROI/TCO sales tools for hosted and managed services (sorry...)?

Strong outlook for managed and hosted enterprise services

2009-02-07T17:53:00.003-06:00

Network World's recent survey of 300 IT professionals showed that more than 80% of their enterprises are using a managed service provider (MSP) , and almost 45% said they expected greater use of MSPs in the future. (Read a short summary of the results here).

Asked about the managed services their companies are now using or plan to use, respondents indicated:

IP telephony;
application hosting;
managed router services;
unified communications;
and call centers.

As enterprises continue to cut IT headcount and capex budgets -- and, as the survey found, companies will demand more and new functionality from IT departments -- the outlook for managed and hosted voice/data services looks pretty good.

Customers to carriers: we'd like to use & pay for mobile IM

2009-02-07T17:24:00.004-06:00

Survey results by instant messaging company ProcessOne show that 60% of mobile phone users would send fewer text messages if they knew more about using mobile instant messaging (IM) services.

Despite most mobile phones' built-in IM capability, only 35% of respondents reported using mobile IM, with text messaging (SMS) the dominant non-voice communications medium.

For more on the survey results please click here.

Despite the billions of SMS text messages sent each month, the research revealed that users are increasingly frustrated by SMS's limitations (read: revenue opportunity...); 58% cited "character restrictions" as their biggest frustration followed by the lack of real-time communication (22%) and lack of a multimedia capability like video (20%).

Quoted in the Telecommunications Online article linked above, ProcessOne's CEO commented, "'Despite remaining very popular, text messaging hasn’t evolved with users’ communication habits. With today’s mobile devices, consumers are wanting much more real-time and interactive experience in order to better communicate with friends and colleagues.'"

According to the survey, the interoperability of mobile IM platforms and customers' uncertainty over how mobile carriers price mobile IM are big barriers to use. Forty percent of respondents said they would pay for mobile IM on a per-message basis; 30% would opt for a low-price monthly subscription, and 30% wanted advertising-funded mobile IM.

Reach MDs via social networking, videos

2009-01-30T16:54:00.002-06:00

If you want to sell to physicians, consider social networking sites and online videos. A new survey by Manhattan Research finds that 60% of U.S. doctors use social networking sites for physicians or are interested in joining them, and 83% of physicians watch online videos (compared with 34% of all U.S. adults).

The study surveyed more than 1,800 doctors across the U.S. Read more about the survey here.

Physicians active in online communities tend to be primary care doctors, female and younger than average.

How to reach, influence enterprise buyers

2009-01-30T16:40:00.002-06:00

One-third of enterprise IT purchase decision makers either always or frequently rely on blogs or online discussion boards before making a decision, according to Hill & Knowlton's fourth annual Tech Decision-Makers Study.

What information sources do these decision makers turn to first? According to the study, prior personal experience (cited by 58% of respondents), word of mouth and industry analyst opinions (both at 51%) are the most relied upon information sources.

The study included 384 phone and online interviews among C-level execs and IT managers in the U.S., U.K. and Canada who influence purchasing decisions. For more on the survey and its results, please click here.

Other notable survey results were:

The key influencers in winnowing down a short list of prospects were superior products and services (cited by 94% of respondents), superior customer service (91%) and a positive reputation (91%);
Advertising (17%) and direct marketing (21%) were called the least important information sources in generating that short list.

Where to sell globally

2009-01-29T16:07:00.002-06:00

For those of you polishing global business plans and trying to focus R&D budgets, a business school prof has released his second annual Connectivity Scorecard, which ranks countries on their use of telecom technologies like networks, mobile phones and computers.

The study was commissioned by Nokia Siemens Networks and was completed by Leonard Waverman of the London Business School. So, if telecom and high-tech infrastructure and usage are important metrics in targeting global markets, here are the ratings, with 10 the highest score and 1 the lowest. Click here for more on this study.

Top 10 rated developed countries:

U.S. - 7.71
Sweden - 7.47
Denmark - 7.18
Netherlands - 6.75
Norway - 6.51
Britain - 6.44
Canada - 6.15
Australia - 6.14
Singapore - 5.99
Japan - 5.87

Italy, Spain, Greece and Poland are among the developed countries with the lowest scores in the survey.

The survey includes a separate ranking for "efficiency and resource-driven economies," mainly developing countries. Note that the numerical scores cannot be compared to the developed country scores above.

The top 10 developing countries are:

Malaysia - 7.07
Turkey - 6.71
Chile - 6.59
South Africa - 5.76
Mexico - 5.39
Russia - 5.37
Argentina - 5.14
Brazil - 5.12
Colombia - 4.08
Botswana - 3.98

That's why no one ever recorded their favorite "All in the Family" episode on VCR

2009-01-27T08:57:00.005-06:00

As mobile phones do more, they're harder and harder to use. So says new research from Mformation, which found that 61% of those interviewed in the U.K. and U.S. called setting up a new mobile handset "as frustrating as changing a bank account," that 95% would try more services if the phones were easier to set up and that complex setup issues stopped 45% of respondents from upgrading to a more sophisticated mobile phone.

Now that should give us pause.

Mformation surveyed 4,000 mobile phone users, half in the U.K and half in the U.S., with "a good proportion of them" using smartphones. For more on the survey and its results click here.

Other survey results are:

85% said they were frustrated by the difficulty of getting a new phone up and working;
61% said they stopped using a mobile phone application "if they could not get it working straight away";
65% believed mobile operators were losing customers because of long and confusing mobile phone setup times;
Which services "always don't work" when respondents first switch on their mobile phones? Forty-six percent said e-mail, 40% said web browsing, 30% said instant messaging and 29% pointed to picture messaging;
Respondents said it should take no longer than 15 minutes to set up a mobile phone; they then reported that the average setup time is nearly one hour.

Lots of work, including basic customer research and man-machine interface (MMI) tinkering, to do as carriers switch from wireline to wireless business models.

Colleges dumping landlines, and some consumer media phone (Hub) trash talk

2009-01-26T13:25:00.003-06:00

An online survey conducted by the College Parents of America found that only 25% of the 900 responding parents are using landline phones to talk with their children at school.

And that's not because the parents don't have wireline phones.... An article in FierceTelecom (click here) highlights the University of Missouri-Kansas City, which recently disconnected landlines in its residence halls for savings of $75,000 per year. In 2008 the university opened new student housing with landline connections, and only four of the 850 new student residents called the local telco for landline service.

More data enflaming the let's-find-more-valued-added-wireless-services bonfire. I'm just not convinced that all those mobile-infused college graduates are going to run out and buy new and expensive and real-estate-hogging wired desk phones like that just announced by Verizon (follow this link to read of Verizon's launch of its Hub media phone.)

More news of what customers really want, and why they churn

2009-01-26T13:09:00.002-06:00

A recent Forrester study nails down some interesting data on consumer churn and, in the process, offers advice on how carriers can best manage churn.

Forrester surveyed 5,145 U.S. and Canadian consumers in the third quarter of '08 (more on the survey and results here) and found:

About 50 million telecom customers will change service providers this year;
16% of customers with service bundles will churn voluntarily;
18% of TV service customers will churn voluntarily, along with 12% of those buying Internet service and 9% of home phone customers;
Customers are most likely to churn in the first seven to 12 months of service or very late in the customer experience.

According to the above-linked Telephony article on the survey, there are two main drivers of churn: "first, what’s the value of the service or the benefit of what they are paying for, and second, are they getting the level of customer care they think they should be getting."

Forrester recommends active versus reactive customer care - reaching out to customers before problems emerge. I know, a no brainer, but read the post below before you slap the forehead too hard....

Enterprise customers to carriers: pay attention!

2009-01-26T10:33:00.005-06:00

A new survey by Accenture says that telecom carriers are losing as many of 10% of their enterprise customers due to billing problems.

The "grain of salt" pinch to this research, of course, is that Accenture would like to sell more of its billing services to carriers....

The survey (read more about it here) was done to better understand how enterprise customers perceived their carriers, how carriers perceived their own capabilities and any gaps between the two.

According to the above-linked article in Billing and OSS World, “'Customers are at risk,' said Robert Purks, a senior executive in Accenture's Communications practice who leads its North American billing group. 'When 10 percent of enterprise customers say they left their carrier because of inefficient billing processes and another 1 percent are considering leaving for the same reason, there is a significant disconnect.'”

Other interesting survey results were:

Only 56% of surveyed carriers said they measured specific customer satisfaction levels for billing (you 44%, contact me right away, OK?);
Fewer than 52% of surveyed carriers consistently used any of the 11 billing performance metrics suggested by Accenture in the survey;
62% of surveyed enterprises ranked easy-to-understand bills as very important, but only 22% rated their carriers' bills in this category;
Only a small percentage of carriers surveyed their enterprise customers on overall needs;
Due to this lack of customer intelligence, many carriers are investing in areas with little customer-satisfaction payback (for example, only 2% of surveyed carriers rated multiple payment channels as very important, despite carriers' heavy investment in this area).

For me, the big takeaway here is the absolute importance of understanding the key drivers to a customer's overall satisfaction and the drivers to loyalty metrics like repeat business and "would recommend this carrier to others." Especially in a down economy, carriers need to apply as many short-term investment dollars to the areas most sensitive to these satisfaction and loyalty metrics.

Don't worry; niche product....

2009-01-20T08:07:00.004-06:00

The product life cycle curve for Apple's iPhone is taking its predictable journey, with more middle-income buyers signing onto the still hot-selling smartphone.

Quoting an October '08 comScore survey, Mediabizcorp.com writes that "although still primarily a product for the wealthy (43 percent of iPhone owners report incomes of $100,000+), the widget-filled mobile-everything gadget is moving fast down the economic ladder."

By annual household income, consumers buying iPhones in the middle of 2008:

16% of buyers reported household incomes of $25,000 and less;
48% reported household incomes of $25,000 - $49,999;
46% reported household incomes of $50,000 - $74,999;
3% reported household incomes of $75,000 - $99,999;
16% reported household incomes of greater than $99,999

In the 1970s and early 1980s, U.S. auto makers said they weren't worried about Americans buying Japanese cars because those very inexpensive products were targeting a very small slice of consumer. A lesson to be learned, in reverse (not to use an automotive term...), perhaps?

We spend more on mobile than wireline services

2009-01-20T07:51:00.003-06:00

U.S. consumers now pay more for mobile phone service than for wireline service. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that for year-end 2007 (the latest year for data), 54% of all consumer telephone expenditures were for mobile phones versus 43% for wirelines and 2% for other telecom-related services.

As recently as 2003 wireline service accounted for 65% of all phone expenditures, dropping to 60% in '04, 54% in '05 and 50% in '06. I think you can draw that trend line without sophisticated regression analysis....

Other data bits from the BLS survey:

U.S. consumers spent annually $1,110 on phone services, with $608 going to mobile phones, $482 for wirelines and $20 for services like directory assistance;
Consumers under the age of 25 spent 75% of their phone dollars on mobile phones, with fewer mobile dollars for each uptick on the age bracket;
Consumers 25-34 years old directed 67% of their phone expenses to mobile phone services; 35-44 years old, 59%; 45-54 years old, 57%; 55-64 years old, 48%; 65+, 33%. And that makes for a tough wireline customer retention program....

Diving ad revenues & how to pay for content

2009-01-13T16:00:00.005-06:00

In Mediabizcorp's wrap-up of trends to watch for 2009 it pointed to a long-term decrease in U.S. advertising revenues. Except for a small upward bump in '04, total ad dollars as a percentage of U.S. GDP have trended down, falling from 2.5% of GDP in 2000 to an estimated 1.9% of GDP in 2008.

The company estimates the following changes in ad revenue, 2008 versus 2007:

Newspapers, -10%
Magazines, -6%
Radio, -10%
Syndicated TV, +7%
Cable TV, +4%
Spot TV, -3%
Traditional TV networks, +4%

In a separate report, PricewaterhouseCoopers says Internet ad revenue grew 15% during the first half of 2008 (compared to the comparable 2007 period) but declined between the first and second quarters of '08.

For those involved in the IPTV, mobile video and social networking markets, these declines matter; advertising still pays from most content, and if content drives customers, and customers pay our bills....

Number of wireless-only households keeps growing

2009-01-13T15:49:00.003-06:00

For those of us keeping score -- nearly 18% of U.S. households have no traditional wireline phone and rely on wireless services only, according to recent national in-person interviews with about 30,000 households.

In the first half of 2008, 17.5% of households were wireless only, up from 13.6% percent a year earlier. The stats have a margin of error of 0.9 percentage points.

Click-to-call from mobile IM -- now that's a way to sell UC

2009-01-13T15:00:00.002-06:00

Research from Siemens Enterprise Communications says there's a disconnect between end users of unified communications (UC), who already value UC's productivity boost, and the show-me-the-money-saved CIOs who sign off on these purchases.

In its survey, Siemens found that among "large enterprises," companies with more than 2,000 users:

16% have already installed UC systems;
and 37% are planning to do so within the next 24 months.

So, how to get to the other half? As a recent VON newsletter on the Siemens research puts it: "For end users, UC is all about the ability to work smarter. In the Siemens survey, the most common cited benefits from end users were increased productivity and business responsiveness -- critical factors for staying competitive in a down economy....

"There are tougher audiences in the organization, though, and they tend to be the ones making the decisions to buy.... IT departments want answers to tough questions, such as: How will I improve this business process? How can I accelerate sales cycles? How does this fit in with my overall infrastructure evolution? Can I consolidate IP trunking and the gateway feature and find a significant savings there?"

(Click here for the full VON newsletter article.)

Highlighting UC's role in combining voice with easy access to collaboration features and corporate data is one way to start building that hard-dollar business case, suggests the research. Also from the VON article: “'Click-to-call from IM? That's great and users love it,' [says a Verizon Business exec]. But the real value is in leveraging that to accelerate business processes.'

"For instance, a salesperson on the road trying to make a deal at a customer site might need to contact three people to get permission for a deeper discount or to bundle in more features. With a UC platform the salesperson can launch a conference call from his or her mobile almost instantly."

So, as with many new technologies, the art in selling believable business cases is in identifying and communicating real and tangible business benefits and then seeding small product trials (as with the salesperson above) that speak for themselves.

Untether and seamlessly refresh my video and audio worlds...

2009-01-13T14:00:00.004-06:00

A survey that Park Associates discussed at CES says the "next wave of consumer electronics purchasing" will be driven by consumers who want previously fixed content (like photos in frames) available for wireless updating and sharing.

According to a report on the research in InformationWeek, a good example of this emerging demand is the intersection of digital cameras, photo frames and mobile phones. The survey found that nearly 50% of U.S. broadband households want a digital camera with networking capabilities and that nearly 40% want a networked digital photo frame.

Click here to access the InformationWeek article.

Says a quoted Parks analyst: "We're entering a new stage in home networking where interoperability between fixed and portable devices defines new user experiences.... This trend will guide the development of powerful but energy-efficient networking solutions and the design of middleware and user interfaces that can be implemented on multiple devices running a variety of processors and core software."

Transferring mobile calls to fixed line phones and moving music and photos among PCs and portable multimedia players are also part of this trend, according to Parks. In this Facebook and LinkedIn world, it's all content, all types, live and portable all the time.... Or, if it's not online, it doesn't exist.

How to reach upscale video households (attention, IPTV marketers...)

2009-01-13T13:28:00.003-06:00

A new survey from Ipsos Mendelsohn on digital video recorders (DVRs) says that upscale households account for about half of all U.S. DVR homes. About 63% of U.S. households with incomes of $100,000 and greater subscribe to some form of video time-shifting device.

See more survey results here.

No great surprise, given the typical adoption curves for new consumer electronics products (as a product's first buyers, "innovators" are typically 3-5% of a product's total customer base, followed by "early adopters" (10-15%), "early majority" buyers (34%), "late majority" buyers (34%) then "laggards" or "nonadopters" (5-16%)).

How to reach these first DVR buyers? The Ipsos Mendelsohn research of 1,200 respondents says these upscale DVR users seek out the cable TV destinations Style Network, Fine Living, Versus, Sundance Channel and BBC America. Other cable channels drawing lots of affluent DVR users are Science Channel, Nickelodeon, Bloomberg TV, VH-1 and Animal Planet.

That leaves us Boomerang aficionados feeling just a little empty....

Fun, fast facts from the FCC; stop making up those forecasting assumptions

2008-10-21T12:57:00.004-05:00

Anyone who develops U.S. market revenue forecasts, specs out business cases or otherwise plays with telecom industry numbers needs to read the regular FCC reports on competition in the local voice service marketplace.

The current report is available free from the FCC here.

While not bedtime reading, unless you need help with that sort of thing, the reports are always helpful and sometimes surprising, and sometimes lead to some non-intuitive market opportunities. Here's a summary of the current report's data from the FCC's press release:

End-user customers obtained local telephone service by using approximately 129.7 million incumbent LEC switched access lines, 28.7 million CLEC switched access lines and 249.2 million mobile telephony service subscriptions at the end of December 2007.

CLECs reported 28.7 million (or 18.1%) of the approximately 158.4 million nationwide end-user switched access lines in service at the end of December 2007, compared to 28.7 million (or 17.6%) of the 163.4 million lines reported six months earlier.

About 42% of switched access lines in service to CLEC end users served residential customers at the end of December 2007, whereas about 63% of switched access lines in service to incumbent LEC end users served residential customers.

CLECs reported providing 41% of their end-user switched access lines over their own local loop facilities, 37% by using unbundled network elements (UNEs) they leased from other carriers and 22% through resale arrangements with unaffiliated carriers.

About 8.4 million end-user switched access lines were provided by CLECs over coaxial cable connections. These lines represent about 72% of the 11.7 million end-user switched access lines that CLECs reported providing over their own local loop facilities, about 29% of all end-user switched access lines that CLECs reported, about 70% of CLEC lines to residential end users, about 5% of total end-user switched access lines and about 9% of total residential switched access lines.

Incumbent LECs were the presubscribed interstate long distance carrier for 59% of the switched access lines they provided to end users, while CLECs were the interstate long distance carrier for 78% of their switched access lines.

Relatively large numbers of CLEC lines are associated with the more populous states. With respect to the calculated CLEC share of switched access lines in service, however, some less populous states, like Nebraska, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and South Dakota, had larger CLEC shares than some more populous states like California, Florida and Illinois.

Among the 50 states, only Alaska and Hawaii had fewer than 10 reporting CLECs.

See what I mean?

The fastest global mobile phone growth, and what marketing tactics work best

2008-10-21T11:21:00.005-05:00

A new survey by Tariff Consultancy says the fastest growth in gaining mobile phone subscribers over the next five years will come from Afghanistan, Iraq, Cambodia and Indonesia, with Iraq by 2013 forecast to have the highest mobile penetration rate of all 34 emerging market countries surveyed.

The research also suggested that mobile broadband will be the dominant path for Internet access in many of these countries. According to a Tariff Consultancy analyst, “'The imminent launch of mobile broadband data services provides an exciting new revenue stream as users are able to break free of low speed fixed or dial up access which will continue to have relatively poor levels of penetration. Mobile is going to become the standard for accessing the internet in many of these countries from now on.'”

Click here for more information on the survey and results.

What marketing tactics are most effective in attracting new customers? The research points to three:

A specific number of call minutes, both voice and data, as part of a flat-rate pricing plan (as a retention tool for low-usage customers and as a service differentiator in countries with intense competition);
An offer of unlimited SMS (text messaging) or voice calls over a 24- or 48-hour period (for short-term customer acquisition);
New distribution channels to attract low-income subscribers (lower denomination prepaid "top-up" cards, door-to-door sales and the use of sub-agents).

Who watches what video over the Internet

2008-10-21T10:55:00.003-05:00

Research published in Advertising Age gives more reason for us crotchety daily newspaper readers to gnash teeth and slap palms into foreheads (OK, I've just cut down from four to three daily papers).... Half of all U.S. Internet users watch at least one online video each week, and 10% watch every day. Even among consumers aged 55-64, who should have that ready stack of reading material next to their favorite brightly-lit yet small household reading room, 25% of women and 35% of men view an online video at least once weekly.

For more on the research results please click here.

From the research, here are the top types of content viewed by U.S. web visitors aged 12-64 (percentage of all respondents viewing), with the top-viewing segments for each type. For those of you targeting specific consumer segments in your web advertising/promotion campaigns:

Comedy/jokes/bloopers -- 37% (tops are males and females aged 12-17, males aged 25-34)
Music videos -- 36% (females 12-17, females 18-24)
User-uploaded content -- 33% (males/females 12-17, males 18-24)
News stories -- 31% (males/females 45-54, males 55-64)
Movie previews -- 28% (males/females 25-34, females 12-17, males 18-24)
TV shows -- 25% (males/females 18-24)
Weather -- 24% (males 55-64)
Clips of TV shows -- 22% (females 12-17)
Sports content -- 20% (males 12-24)
Full-length movies -- 17% (males/females 18-24)

Who will stitch together and support our digital toys (I mean productivity tools)?

2008-10-10T12:57:00.003-05:00

As consumers demand a combination of more networked devices and better customer service, telecom operators face a huge market opportunity and an equally daunting challenge.

A new Accenture survey of 600 early adopting global consumers described as "heavy users of digital devices and services" shows that:

87% believe most digital devices, whether portable or tethered, will be networked;
81% would prefer a single company to provide that networking and associated customer support;
85% said that customer support was the most important criterion when choosing a networking provider;
but -- when asked which companies would most likely provide networking services -- consumers rated Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft ahead of telecom providers, followed by consumer electronics companies and retailers.

In pondering that last point, I can well imagine these early adopters believing that web-portal and open-standards-loving companies like Google, Yahoo! and (even) Microsoft have an advantage over telecom operators in supporting multiple devices from multiple manufacturers on multiple platforms.

But to telecom's opportunity, an Accenture analyst quoted in a Telephony article about the survey results commented: "'I can understand why they choose these guys from an enablement point of view but in terms of customer support, they don’t provide any.... I don’t know how you find a phone number to call Google.'" Click here for more info on the results from Telephony.

Telcos, cable operators and mobile operators have all faced challenges with customer service, either real or perceived. But, as the research indicates, for the initial sale "perceived" trumps "real" every time, and it's a hard and expensive slog to win back customers thereafter.

So the question becomes -- is it easier for a Google/Microsoft to build (or acquire) the necessary networking and customer support infrastructure or for telecom players to be more device/network agnostic and turn around their customer support image?

The lure of hipness and speed (probably in that order)

2008-10-10T12:04:00.004-05:00

Survey results from NPD Group show that the new iPhone 3G is helping AT&T lure customers away from competing mobile operators. The research shows that about 30% of AT&T's new iPhone 3G customers switched carriers specifically for that phone.

AT&T has exclusive U.S. rights to the new iPhone.

NPD analyzed data from June to the end of August this year and found that the largest number of gained customers came from Verizon (47%) with 24% leaping from T-Mobile and 19% from Sprint.

Apple's launch of the 3G-version iPhone has helped increase its U.S. smartphone market share from 11% in June to 17% by the end of August. Click here for more info on the survey results.

These results add more fuel to several oft-observed trends (some even mentioned here...) -- consumers, at least a sizeable early adopter segment, still want to be perceived as hip and trendy; they love wireless; they love "fast," and faster is even better; and they have a high perceived value and complementary willingness to pay for the right combination of form factor and network.

Customers of bundled services & TV give top satisfaction scores to telcos

2008-10-03T15:27:00.004-05:00

The results of two large telecom satisfaction surveys are in, and cable operators look to be taking it on the chin.... The numbers look good for telcos versus cable operators for bundled services and for Verizon and AT&T over cable (and satellite) for consumer television service.

For bundled services, CFI Group in its annual Telecom-Cable Industry Satisfaction Study of more than 1,318 U.S. households found that consumers who want bundled services are more interested in buying them from a telco versus a cable operator by a 2-to-1 margin. That's a bigger gap than indicated by last year's telco bundle advantage of 54% to 44%.

CFI says that higher cable rates and a perception of poor customer service from cable operators were the biggest drivers in the results. The firm also notes that cable operator bundles are much more widely available than telco bundles and that just 2% of respondents reported being current telco video service customers. Read more about CFI's results here.

Doing some quick back-of-the-envelope fact checking, that 2% share for telco IPTV makes sense. At year-end 2007, the NCTA reports 112.3 million U.S. TV households, 58% of which were cable operator subscribers and 1.1% telco IPTV customers.

And that leads us nicely to J.D. Power's "2008 Residential Television Service Satisfaction Study," which included AT&T and Verizon in its rankings for the first time. Power's survey results say that IPTV's small slice of TV households are very happy ones -- AT&T U-verse took top satisfaction rankings in the east, west and south regions, and Verizon FiOS took top honors in the north central.

According to Power: "Both communications providers perform particularly well in the offerings and promotions factor, specifically with their bundled pricing options. They also both excel in the performance and reliability factor, especially regarding picture clarity."

The Power survey garnered 18,938 responses. Even if we put IPTV's market share at 3% at the time of the survey, that means only 568 responses for AT&T and Verizon together, 284 per company if split equally. And, if each company's responses were split equally across the four U.S. regions the company surveys, that means only 71 responses per region. I don't know this level of detail for the Power results, but we are drilling into some small numbers from a statistical significance perspective, so a small dose of skepticism about the IPTV results may be warranted.

See Power's press release on the survey results here.

Other survey results include:

Half of cable customers bundle their video and Internet services with 19% subscribing to video, voice and Internet;
90% of households report having at least one high definition-capable television;
Of those without an HD-capable set 58% say they intend to buy one within six months;
HD households view nearly twice the hours of video on demand as non-HD households;
44% of respondents say they use digital video recorders (DVRs) versus 38% in '07;
Respondents receiving electronic bills report higher satisfaction ratings than paper bill customers.

Hey, ISPs, leave our bandwidth alone (and start selling us more stuff...)

2008-10-01T14:50:00.008-05:00

To drive revenue broadband Internet service providers should upsell subscribers on premium services and forget surcharges for exceeding bandwidth caps and metered service plans.

So says a recent IDC survey of 787 consumers -- 94% of whom saw value in premium services "that provide special treatment of voice, video, gaming, telecommuting or other specific applications." By contrast, 81% opposed bandwidth caps and a requirement to pay extra above a cap, and 54% said they would leave a current broadband ISP that imposed caps.

Other facts and figures from the research (read more about it here) include:

54% of respondents would be willing to change ISPs for a premium service;
26% said they were willing to pay their current provider additional fees for a premium service;
Of consumers who opposed bandwidth caps, light to moderate users are more likely to change ISPs to avoid caps than heavy users.

A thirst for speed, and a willingness to pay

2008-09-29T14:31:00.004-05:00

We need, and plead for, more and more speed....

Survey results from RVA Market Research show that in areas where fiber to the home (FTTH) is available U.S. take rates have surpassed 30%, clearing moving beyond early-adopter status. In competitive areas Bell companies are getting 35% take rates with CLECs grabbing 29%.

Other FTTH adoption rates, ready for use in your business cases, cited in the research include:

55% by CLECs in underserved areas;
85% in some small towns;
Average take rates of 54% in small and mid-sized municipalities;
And an average of 58% by rural ILECs.

For more survey results click here.

An FTTH industry trade group member quoted in the article said: "'This continued growth in the number of connections and in the take rate is evidence of what consumers think about fiber to the home - it is fast becoming the technology of choice for receiving high-bandwidth Internet and superior video services.... In addition, we are continuing to see enormously high customer satisfaction rates for FTTH services when compared to other types of broadband and video providers.'"

With Verizon's FiOS FTTH service now advertising as "starting at $42.99 per month," there appears to be plenty of perceived value for consumer broadband at around 50 Mb/s. In Milwaukee, AT&T is offering its Basic DSL for $14.99, Express at $25, Pro at $30 and Elite at $35. That puts FiOS at a 23% price premium over "Elite" DSL (at 6 Mb/s downstream).

Thinking of my previous post on mobile data plans, and now FTTH, I'd bet on some untapped pricing opportunities for marketing-savvy operators.

Faster mobile networks, better phones mean lots more tired thumbs

2008-09-29T14:01:00.003-05:00

Mobile phone data use in the U.S. is skyrocketing, putting some mobile operators in the "be careful what you wish for" camp.

New research from comScore, which recently surveyed more than 30,500 U.S. consumers, shows that for the 12 months ending June 2008 compared to the previous period:

The number of Americans accessing social networking sites using mobile phones increased 93%;
58% more people sent photos via a mobile phone;
And the number of Americans with unlimited mobile data plans increased 58%.

For more information on the survey results, please click here for the BusinessWeek article referenced in America's Network.

A market analyst quoted in the article estimates that the increased mobile data use has "as much as one-quarter of some carriers' coverage ... straining at the seams." Like broadband Internet service providers, many U.S. mobile operators are either exploring or implementing more expensive data tiers or monthly data caps. I haven't seen research exploring mobile phone customers' preferences for these plans or their price sensitivity to mobile data plans.

It could be that as mobile phones improve (OK, read "iPhone" there...) and data networks get faster that the customer's hugely enhanced mobile data experience will support higher price points. Or not.... Only research and time will tell.

Consumer VoIP penetration hits 17% in Western Europe

2008-09-26T12:07:00.002-05:00

New research by TeleGeography shows that almost 10 million western European households became VoIP subscribers during 2007, bringing the total number of VoIP households to 25.3 million, roughly a 17% adoption rate.

VoIP provider revenues were $4.2 billion, or about $13.80 per household per month.

The company estimates that France leads Western Europe in embracing VoIP, with a 42% penetration, and that Spain lags the pack at 2%. The research looked at fixed-line replacement VoIP and excluded VoIP clients like Skype. For more research results click here.

TeleGeography notes that the "blistering pace" of VoIP adoption in Western Europe will increasingly hurt traditional PTT residential dialtone service, both by replacing the PTTs' fixed lines and by driving down prices. It also points out that VoIP adoption in Europe is far outpacing U.S. VoIP adoption rates in part due higher prices for U.S. triple-play services (about 70% higher in the U.S. than in Europe).

It would be fun (and instructive...) to see how VoIP adoption is impacting mobile phone use and ARPUs; due to its traditionally high fixed line prices, among other factors, Europe led the world in mobile phone penetration. That bit of research might be helpful for U.S. mobile carriers, who are just now seeing mobile phone penetrations crest in a market where residential VoIP is making slow but steady progress.

Going mobile

2008-09-19T12:59:00.010-05:00

A new survey by Nielsen Mobile says that 17% of U.S. households (20 million) have mobile-only phone service, up from 8.5% in 2005. The firm expects 20% of households to take the wireless-only plunge by the end of this year.

According to an article on the research in Mediapost (see more here), "'As wireless network quality improves and unlimited calling becomes increasingly pervasive, we expect the trend toward wireless substitution to continue,' said Alison LeBreton, vice president of client services for Nielsen Mobile, in a statement. 'In a tightening economy every dollar counts, and consumers are more and more comfortable with the idea of ditching their landline connection.'"

Other survey results include:

The average landline monthly expense is $40.
Mobile-only households use their mobile phones 45% more than do wireline subscribers, but they still save an average of $33 each month.
Nearly 60% of mobile-only households have household incomes of $40,000 or less, and 55% are renters versus homeowners. Sixty-four percent are aged 18-34.
Among major U.S. mobile carriers, Sprint and T-Mobile are more likely to have mobile-only customers.

Versus landline households, mobile-only households are less likely to have satellite TV, more likely to have broadcast TV and watch more TV on their PCs.

A glimmer of hope for all those bundling, value-added, voice quality conscious telcos out there -- 10% of current landline phone subscribers said they were previous mobile-only customers who reconnected because of a need for another service, because they bought a service bundle or deemed it too expensive or unsatisfactory to be mobile-only.

Free versus free-with-a-catch

2008-09-19T12:59:00.004-05:00

A new survey by TNS Technology shows that most consumers (56%) believe that content downloads to mobile phones should be free but that 25% "are so averse to advertising they are now willing to pay a premium in order to avoid it..."

For this 25%, then, their aversion to advertising trumps their distaste for paying for content.

According to the research, this sentiment rings truer with younger consumers -- 35% of respondents aged 16-24 are happier to pay for content downloads than receive them with advertising versus 17% of respondents aged 35-44. For more details on the research findings click here.

I've discussed on this blog the movement, seemingly unstoppable, toward location-based advertising on mobile phones. The TNS research tosses in at least a bit of caution for mobile carriers.

The TNS data also report that 47% of respondents feel that mobile phone ads "tailored to their individual tastes and interest" are a good idea overall but that 50% of respondents willing to see ads via Internet-connected PCs were not happy to received them on their mobile phones.

It's unclear if the added consumer value of location-based mobile ads will be enough to overcome all this unhappiness.... All good fodder for more research.

SMBs show low awareness, perceived value of unified communications

2008-09-17T10:19:00.004-05:00

Survey results released earlier this summer by bMighty.com suggest that small and medium-sized U.S. businesses don't understand and don't see advantages to unified communications.

The company surveyed 628 small and medium-sized U.S. businesses. Click here for more info on this survey.

The survey results -- which should give pause to telecom operators and SMB IP-PBX equipment vendors pushing UC solutions -- include:

Two-thirds of companies surveyed don't understand the term "unified communications."
Once a definition of UC is provided, about 75% say they understand but are not willing to purchase.
About two-thirds of responding companies believe that UC is more expensive than traditional telecom options.
SMBs say that "integration and complexity" are concerns with implementing UC and that there is no clear way to calculate UC's ROI.
54% believe that SMBs should not adopt UC until UC products "become more seasoned."
54% of responding companies that spend more than $25,000 annually on communications rate UC highly versus 35% that spend less than $25,000 per year.
Only 16% of responding companies see UC as a way to gain competitive advantage.
When asked about traditional and UC features, tradition wins. Eighty-two percent of SMBs gave traditional voice mail high ratings for value, 81% for e-mail and 55% for the UC-centric single number access.

It would take some pretty sophisticated data mining to uncover nuggets of hope here.... From where I sit, UC has always been more sold than understood or demanded.

I think it has inherent huge advantages for companies, especially when fully ported to and meshed with mobile solutions, but its adoption so far has been limited to enterprises. "Adoption" might be too strong a word since UC is baked into most new IP-PBXs, so the actual enterprise desktop/mobile phone UC use and demand may well lag published deployment rates.

Non-traditional video screens, small and smaller, are ruling the night

2008-09-15T14:14:00.003-05:00

The Bridge Media Group has collected and released a grab-bag of U.S. consumer video research that has implications for TV networks, content developers, cable and telecom operators, ISPs and PC/consumer electronics manufacturers.

In brief, on the average, non-blockbuster TV viewing day, about 25% of us are tuning in from PCs and, increasingly, mobile phones.

So, it's not only programming (content) that has become more segmented since the days I begged to watch more of "Bonanza" on school nights; there's also a choice of two or more small screens and an infinite variety of non-shag-rug-laden locations from which to watch. Segmentation and brand loyalty research, anyone?

Some of the more tantalizing results (for more information on the research results click here):

In an early '08 Nielsen survey of U.S. broadband users, 14% had viewed traditional network-produced television programming on their desktop PCs. Other small screens used for TV viewing include laptop PCs (9%), video-enabled mobile phones (6%) and other portable video players (4%).
During one night of high-viewership Olympics coverage, NBC measured how many watched from what kinds of screens. Out of 113 million total NBC TV viewers, 5.5 million (a bit less than 5%) tuned in from non-traditional screens. Of that 5.5 million, 0.5% watched via video on demand, 9% via video-enabled mobile phones and 90.5% via the Olympic website.
Of total weekly TV viewing time, consumers in the 15-19, 20-24 and 25-29 age segments reported TV time via PCs at 26%, 24% and 27% respectively. Consumers aged 50 and above reported the lowest percentage of weekly TV time via PCs (5%), with consumers aged 30-34 at 20% and aged 35-49 at 15%.

Mobile customers: how many will churn, and why (think call quality)

2008-09-10T10:05:00.003-05:00

The latest results from J.D. Power and Associates' U.S. wireless call quality study (see more details here) show that the 14% of customers who say they "definitely/probably will" switch mobile operators in the next 12 months have a high rate of call-related problems.

The rate of call quality problems (mainly dropped calls) among identified churners increased 16% over last year's survey results.

Further, mobile subscribers who said they "definitely will" switch operators experienced call quality problems at rates five times higher than the "definitely will not" switch camp.

The report concludes that, with increased competition and more complex services, "carriers that offer superior network quality will improve their likelihood of attracting new customers and will increase customer retention." All of which make great areas to explore in customer satisfaction surveys, by the way....

Eight years ago I wrapped up a market research project with consumers and small business decision makers who reported, in general, that they were quite satisfied with their cellular carriers and were willing to give them slack on poor call quality. The value-add of mobility and, for businesses, using mobile phones when fixed lines were down trumped call quality.

It looks as if expectations are a bit higher now, something any operator pitching FMC services or targeting the growing bucket of mobile voice-only households needs to consider.

VoIP, with IPTV coming, driving value-added revenue from consumer broadband

2008-09-10T09:38:00.002-05:00

Value-added consumer broadband services, 10% of total global consumer broadband revenues in 2003, accounted for more than 30% of broadband revenues in 2007 according to a recent survey by Point Topic.

"As it gets harder to make a profit in the hyper-competitive line rental market," said one of its analysts, "the operators and suppliers have to look to add value, and revenue, with their service offerings." Click here for more survey results.

According to the data, 56% of that value-added service revenue is coming from VoIP and associated security services. They are followed by:

online gaming;
home networks;
music downloads;
and video over broadband.

Point Topic singles out IPTV along with VoIP as strong drivers of value-added service growth.

The survey results suggest that operators can't count on consumer VoIP as a revenue and profit engine forever; in France, for example, 27% of all residential fixed lines already are VoIP. I'd also suggest other possible dark clouds ahead for consumer broadband ARPU -- recent monthly price reductions (at least in North America) in overall monthly broadband subscriptions due to DSL price competition, and increased competition with low-priced VoIP bundles from cable operators.

I believe that dial tone, however one provides it, is still perceived by consumers (and many businesses) as a near commodity. As such, value-added products like unified communications, services that seamlessly span fixed-mobile platforms (like social networking and messaging) and video will drive ARPU for operators.

Asia-Pacific enterprises seeing more value to hosted & managed VoIP services

2008-09-08T13:34:00.003-05:00

A recent Yankee Group survey of enterprises in China, Hong Kong, India and South Korea shows strong adoption of and preferences for managed and hosted VoIP solutions.

Survey results include:

About 40% of enterprises report they are now using a service provider to manage their IP telephony equipment.
An additional 22% of responding companies said they are either planning to or would be comfortable using hosted business VoIP providers.
The Yankee Group says that Chinese enterprises "are the strong candidates for the use of IP Centrex" or hosted VoIP solutions; almost 30% of Chinese companies reported being "existing IP Centrex users/planners," 8 percentage points higher than the survey average.

You can read more about the Yankee Group's survey here.

The firm's analysts say the survey data show that IP telephony value propositions are shifting beyond cost effectiveness and improved operational efficiency. More than two-thirds of the Asian-Pacific enterprises surveyed, for example, value IP telephony for reasons other than efficiency.

Aside from making their users more efficient (strongly agreed to by 81% of responding companies), top-ranking IP telephony value propositions included:

Creates new business processes - 69%
Can provide better reliability and overall uptime - 68%
Improves customer service - 67%
Makes it easier to deliver services to telecommuters and road warriors - 65%
Is the foundation for unified communications - 61%

Upselling the mobile phone user is oh so hard to do

2008-09-08T11:55:00.003-05:00

In an article discussing consumer choice modeling (click here), strategy+business, a Booz & Company publication, highlighted the results of a 2007 survey of more than 1,800 U.S. consumers that simulated the mobile phone purchasing process. The survey asked persons to compare their existing mobile phone packages with alternatives.

The results shared in the article -- some predictable, others more thought provoking -- help explain the success of Apple's iPhone, how sticky mobile phone service actually is and the challenges faced by operators in moving customers to higher priced (and higher margin) packages.

The survey's results include:

Aside from offering a bargain-priced mobile phone, it's almost impossible to convince a consumer with a low-end to mid-functionality mobile phone package (device and service contract) to change.
One-third of U.S. consumers are unwilling to change their mobile packages regardless of the competing mobile phone price.
Of all mobile phone users, owners of low-end phones value their mobile phone package the least, making them most open to competitive poaching.
Owners of highly designed, full-featured mobile phones care much more than low-end phone owners about functionality, usage range and purchase location (they want retail locations offering personal attention, for example) and are willing to pay a premium for these preferences.
Three factors -- features, design and brand -- are the most important to consumers considering a high-priced mobile phone (the factors that Apple targeted with its first iPhone).
A mobile phone's price matters at all levels of purchases (low, medium and high functionality phones). For example, as cited in the article, when Apple discounted the original iPhone by $200 sales increased more than 1,000%.

Cable operators are winning with bundles

2008-09-03T15:54:00.002-05:00

JupiterResearch says the U.S. consumer VoIP market will nearly double from 14.7 million subscribers today to 28.4 million in 2013. Cable operators are expected to get most of the increase.

Perhaps more interestingly, in a survey of cable operator VoIP customers 47% pointed to bundling as a "strong influence on their selection of home phone service provider." Click here for more details on the JupiterResearch survey findings.

We all know this is happening, but it's good to get a hard number to drive the point home. That's why AT&T is pushing U-verse, why Verizon is rolling out FiOS and why cable operators keep thinking about wireless voice.

From my SMB research, I suspect small businesses are not far behind consumers in valuing the one-price, one-stop approach to voice and data services. It'd be fun to find out (as long as I'm not the investor) -- can you get a sustainable differentiation today from a single-service offering?

Market for home office services - big and bigger

2008-09-03T09:50:00.004-05:00

More companies in the U.S. and Canada are offering telecommuting options for their employees, meaning a big jump in the available market for home office voice and data services.

According to an annual survey by WorldatWork, a global human resources association, 42% of U.S. companies (up from 30% in '07) offer a telework option with 40% of Canadian employers doing the same (up from 25% in '07). Read more about the survey here.

Using back-of-the-envelope analysis and some broad assumptions -- if North American companies offer work-at-home options to 25% of their employees, that means a total of

9.1 million U.S. and
1.5 million Canadian work-at-home desktops.

Given the big bump in the survey's results in '08 from '07, 2.6 million U.S. teleworkers and 550,000 Canadian teleworkers began searching for advanced voice and data services this year. With fuel prices and public sentiment for resource conservation both trending up, there will be more hungry teleworkers looking for services in '09.

If North American service providers do their marketing homework (most importantly, how to identify, price and reach this growing customer segment), that should be good news for sellers of broadband, VoIP, unified communications and conferencing/collaboration services.

What mobile consumers want

2008-08-28T16:10:00.002-05:00

A recent ABI Research survey of 1,402 wireless subscribers in seven countries found that high-end digital cameras, Bluetooth connectivity and music/radio playback are the top "must have" mobile phone applications.

42% of respondents consider a 2-plus megapixel digital camera as essential;
34% demand Bluetooth connectivity;
And 32% demand music/FM radio functionality.

Despite this feature focus, the research concludes that mobile consumers in mature markets still make their wireless provider decision based on basics like price and network coverage. You can read more about ABI's survey results here.

The study also notes that games (64%), web access (61%) and cameras (58%) are the three most common features present on respondents' phones, although games and web access "are high on the list of features that subscribers never use." Wi-Fi and mobile TV are also least likely to be regarded as essential features.

Traditional wireless telcos should take heed. As 15% or so of U.S. consumers opt for a wireless-only phone experience, LECs without a wireless play are trying to hang onto their wireline customers. EMBARQ, for example, kicked off a new service called eGo that offers new wireline phones with visual voice mail, news and a contact directory. It would be fun to ask wireline-only consumers what it would take for them to resist the siren song of megapixels and music.

Cable operators' push helps drive SMB tech spending

2008-08-27T13:45:00.002-05:00

IT and telecom spending by U.S. SMBs is growing three times faster than the overall U.S. economy, says Access Markets International.

AMI's research points to cable operators, who have finally started targeting their IP-based network expertise at SMBs, as one key to the increased spending. See more survey results here.

"... the top five cable operators ... have around 20 percent market share in Internet services versus a 6-7 percent market share in voice services," according to the AMI report's author. Cable operators are also "making more inroads with smaller businesses (1-99 employees) compared to medium businesses (100-999 employees)," she added.

Cable operators are also offering more value-added SMB services like hosted e-mail and hosted business VoIP, according to the report.

I'm a big fan of follow-up research questions that begin with "why" - why are cable operators' SMB offers so compelling? A likely suspect is the cable operator's fixed-price small business VoIP bundle, which typically includes dial tone, advanced messaging, UC and web portal functionality. Cable operators would love to see their SMB voice penetration approach their 20% broadband Internet share....

How to sell Internet-connected home products and services

2008-08-27T12:32:00.004-05:00

MultiMedia Intelligence has very cool research out on how to best target Internet-connected home information and entertainment services and devices. According to the company, which surveyed more than 25,000 U.S. adults (see more about the survey here), the traits that best define the early-adopting U.S. networked household include:

Household income between $100,000 and $150,000;
Located in metro areas on east and west coasts;
Households with children;
And consumers accessing the Internet from home with notebook versus desktop PCs.

The survey results also say not to forget older consumers, those heads of household age 60-69; they're "among the fastest growing segments adopting data home networking," according to MultiMedia Intelligence.

Good data to keep in mind as telcos, cable operators and wireless service providers add more advanced, and more integrated, services to their triple- and quadruple-play offerings.

One way these service providers are trying to add value for customers (and reduce churn and increase ARPU) is to ensure that video, music, data and voice all work (really, really easily) across devices. More research like this should help pave the way.

All-in-one gateways could drive VoIP in SMBs

2008-08-27T12:07:00.002-05:00

An In-Stat survey reports that more than 50% of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have installed what the research firm calls "multiservice business gateways," and 60% of SMBs prefer that these gateways have integrated Wi-Fi.

The gateways combine the functions of a router, Ethernet switch, security firewall, VoIP gateway and other technologies. Their presence could give a significant boost to vendors selling VoIP and fixed/mobile unified communications solutions to SMBs, applications that so far have been a tough sell to SMBs.

The In-Stat survey targeted IT and business managers employed by corporations operating small, medium or branch offices with more than 20 employees. You can read more survey results here.

Research I've done on unified communications (UC) for the U.S. enterprise market shows that mobile voice and data solutions in general are hot and that wireless UC solutions are hotter. Maybe SMBs are next in line on the adoption curve. It would be fun to ask SMB purchase decision makers what's driving the purchase of these gateways and if their use is changing the value proposition for UC.

Cablevision tops consumer VoIP ratings

2008-08-26T14:37:00.006-05:00

Using customer surveys, PC Magazine has just updated its U.S. consumer VoIP rankings for 2008. Cablevision's Optimum Voice service took top honors in overall score, ease of setup, sound quality, connection reliability and support for non-technical VoIP issues and had the lowest percentage of customers requiring tech support. You can find all the survey results here.

In overall score, Cablevision was followed by Vonage, AT&T CallVantage (no longer taking new customers), magicJack (new on the list for '08), Time Warner Cable and Comcast.

Squinting really hard over few data points, I can see three factors here that seem to drive the overall satisfaction scores - ease of setup, reliable connections and a low percentage of customers requiring tech support. That makes sense from previous work I've done with consumers as well as with small businesses; ease of use and reliability are top requirements.

Statistically, though, none of the factors in this study jumps out as a significant predictor of customer satisfaction, meaning (gladly for us research companies...) more work should be done to identify just what factors are important to customers as they decide to choose, and to keep, consumer VoIP providers.

Mobile social networking to drive mobile ads

2008-08-26T13:39:00.005-05:00

Research firm ABI recently forecasted a boom in location-based mobile social networking services, projecting a $3.3 billion market by 2013 (see more details on the research here). ABI's report noted that the growth of these services will "provide opportunities for location-based advertising in the future."

With more than 100 million registered users each for MySpace and Facebook, I'd have to agree - and I'd go a step further than ABI by saying that mobile social networking users are the necessary and driving foundation for location-based advertising (LBA).

Ask Google where it's headed - social networking, plus consumers' hunger for everything mobile, plus newly sophisticated and cheap navigation hardware and software will equal Lincoln Navigator-sized ad revenues. One of the biggest barriers to LBA is getting users to consent to sharing private information - where they are, what products and services they like and use, where they shop, who their friends are - and to view this sharing as a net positive. Facebook and MySpace users have already enthusiastically agreed to both, and they are looking for ways to share via all sorts of mobile devices.

Looks like a big and fun market opportunity.