Thanks to Debi Jones at Mobile Messaging 2.0, the Carnival of the Mobilists #110 is live.

Jan Chipchase, the well-known anthropologist with Nokia has come out with another one of his illuminating blog posts on the sharing of the mobile phone in Uganda.  You can read the blog post here.  It also provides a summary of the post and a 7MB Powerpoint presentation.

The study uncovered six shared phone practices summarized here:

1. Sente is the informal practice of sending and receiving money that leverages public phone kiosks and trusted networks. In Uganda the word Sente has two meanings the first being ‘money’ and the second ‘the sending of money as airtime’.

2. Beeping, flashing and missed calls are all ways to describe the practice of calling and hanging up before the recipient answers. It is in essence the cheapest form of lo-fi personal convenient communication and can be found anywhere where there are highly price sensitive consumers - from students in Helsinki to village dwellers in Uganda.

3. In Uganda most phone kiosk communication is mediated through a kiosk operator who completes parts of the calling task normally carried out by a sole device user.

4. Pooling is the collective buying of air time that exists amongst peer groups - students, colleagues, friends who each contribute to buy the lowest available denomination of airtime.

5. Phone kiosk owners often use a large notepad to document phone numbers used by their customers and over time it represents a form of address book and call log for the local community.

6. Step Messaging is the process of delivering either a text or verbal messages via shared mobile phone or kiosk where the message is delivered the last mile on foot.

Did you know that for 2008, there are approximately 200 malware threats for mobile phones?  Check out the details here. That should give an indication of a slow but definitely rising problem in the mobile world.

Recently the SANS Institute published its Top Ten Cyber Security Menaces for 2008.  The fourth menace was related to mobile:

Mobile Phone Threats, Especially Against iPhones And Android-Based Phones; Plus VOIP

Mobile phones are general purpose computers, so worms, viruses, and other malware will increasingly target them. Google’s recent announcement of “android” and the formation of the “open handset alliance” is a watershed moment for the mobile industry. A truly open mobile platform will usher in completely unforeseen security nightmares. The developer toolkits provide easy access for hackers. And hackers are taking note. The author of Metasploit, H.D. Moore, plans a mobile payload presentation webcast this month.

Attacks on VoIP systems are on the horizon and may surge in 2008. VoIP phones and the IP PBXs have had numerous published vulnerabilities. Attack tools exploiting these vulnerabilities have been written and are available on the Internet. In short, the VoIP attack surface is enormous.

Last month, Fortinet researchers found a new, socially engineered Symbian OS worm that is actively spreading on mobile networks as users unwittingly send the malware to their unit’s entire address book.  Although it currently runs on specific Nokia models, it is likely to infect other brands of smartphones running the Symbian OS (about 100 million mobile devices run Symbian OS).

In its Symantec Internet Security Threat Report Volume XII, Symantec says that the attackers are getting more organized and professional in their approach.  Their method and detail depends on the geographical region that is targeted.  There is a lot of convergence in their approach (trojans, bots, malaware, etc all mixed together and served up in a truly malicious recipe).

As I discussed before, the WSJ has a report stating that Sprint and Clearwire are dancing together again, with support from investors including Intel, Google, retailer Best Buy and some others (even an ‘un-named foreign investor). That is certainly heartening and gives all these players a shot in the arm.

Meanwhile, Clearwire is strengthening its offerings on WiMAX by buying the Nortel VoIP softswitch to provide its subscribers with ‘the main choice for VoIP’. Essentially, the subscribers can get their VoIP from anybody.

In order for WiMAX to take off really well in the USA, a number of things need to happen.  First, Sprint needs a shot in the arm.  With the departure of Gary Foresee and the falling apart of its loose coupling with Clearwire, it is in a bad shape.  The Xohm testing has just had a soft start.  It badly needs WiMAX to work.  Second, Clearwire needs a shot in the arm.  Although its loss per subscriber has been improving, it has a long way to go to move into black and recover the investment in spectrum-shopping.  Third, WiMAX needs to take off really quickly.  After months of hype and hoopla, it finally seems to be delivering in other parts of the world.  With competition breathing down its neck (LTE, HSDPA, etc), it needs to start generating revenues soon.  Fourth, the 700MHz auction could be utilized for WiMAX and so that has perked up a number of players.  Cisco, (which has not bid) showed its WiMAX seriousness by buying Navini.  Google, (which has bid, but …) is eyeing the mobile world in multiple ways and any means of connectivity is game for its feast.  AT&T, which sold the 2.5GHz spectrum to Clearwire has little stake in WiMAX.  Verizon has announced its backing of the LTE race-horse for 4G and will lean heavily on Qualcomm’s current opposition to WiMAX.

In all this, Intel has a big stake in WiMAX.  Its long-delayed PC card will finally see the light of the day some time in mid of this year.  It has invested heavily in Clearwire.  It badly needs WiMAX to hit off in order to justify its spending on WiMAX.  So, inspite of the recent resignation of Intel bigwig Arvind Sodhani from the Clearwire board, all indicators point to a stronger Intel-Clearwire tie.  Alexei Oreskovic, the Senior Writer at TheStreet.com has written in detail about this. 

This drama could unfold in a number of ways.  The humming blogosphere is coming up with lots of ideas.  One old idea is that Google will buy or invest in Sprint.  The other is that it is participating in the auction to ward off the big carriers and will lend its support to an underdog.  Of course, in exchange it would demand access to the connected customers using this spectrum.  It could invest in ClearWire to galvanize the WiMAX rollout and therefore get access to those connected customers (after all, Paul Otellini is on Google’s board).  That way, Google, Intel and Cisco could team up with ClearWire/Sprint to have the WiMAX party, where the music would come from an ad-supported mobile revenue model.  Google still gets to attend ‘the other party’ (of mobile carriers) thanks to OHA, Android, search and partnerships.  Motorola and Samsung also get to attend and benefit from both parties.  Hark!  Did I hear somebody knocking on the door?  I suspect it’s Apple.

These are interesting times indeed!

The NYTimes is reporting that the EPA is launching a new public campaign  aimed at getting consumers to recycle those phones.  The $175,000 campaign “Recycle Your Cellphone.  It’s an Easy Call” is particularly aimed at the 18-34-year-olds in an attempt to recycle as many of the 150 million cellphones that are taken out of service each year in the US alone.

Eleven companies — AT&T, Best Buy, LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, Office Depot, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Sprint, Staples and T-Mobile — are partners in the campaign. Each has promised to collect phones and hold recycling events through their own programs.

Craig Rubens of GigaOm’s earth2tech has a very nice post titled “Big Green Business of Cellphone Recycling“ with lots of useful information.

Some further links:

Information on CTIA’s website about cellphone recycling is here.

Or, maybe this will motivate you further: National Geographic says that recycling your old cellphone could save African gorillas.

Here is a link to an older article in the NYTimes with names of several companies that recycle cellphones.  Do check to see if the links still work. 

Lots of companies and non-profits are working in this area.  Some examples are: the link to Earthworks is here and the link to Wirefly is here.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released the latest numbers on mobile phone usage in India.  Although the overall numbers show an increase because of record growth, the average usage per customer has fallen on both fronts: voice calls and SMS.  The SMS usage per subscriber has fallen 11% for GSM and 15% for CDMA operators.  In essence, Indians are talking less and texting less too. 

This needs a little perspective.  An average GSM user in India now sends about 32 SMSs per month instead of 35 sent earlier.  The world average of the 2 billion active users of SMS texting is about 2 SMS per day.  The Minute of Usage in India may have come down, but it is still the second highest in the world, next only to USA.

Inspite of eye-popping growth (217 million subscribers by Oct 2007), barely 23% of the population owns a phone.  So, there is a vast amount of potential there.  In 2007, mobile Value Added Services (VAS) generated $926 Million, which is still barely 7% of the total telecom revenues for Indian operators.  Most of these services are provided through SMS, IVR and WAP.  SMS of all types (P2P, A2P and P2A) contributed to over 55% of the VAS revenues in 2007. 

Some quick notes here: 

Revenue-Sharing: There is a rather big skew in revenue sharing.  Unlike the model elsewhere, the telcos keep the lion’s share (about 70%) of the revenues.  This provides no incentive to the VAS players to improve, innovate and provide better services. The falling ARPUs are only following a global trend.  Operators are too much focused on acquiring new subscribers rather than introduce new VAS avenues that could launch new revenue streams.  The market is in infancy and so tapping advertising as a mechanism is still unexplored.  I am confident that this will be a big driver of revenues.

Tariffs: One word describes the situation: Confusion.  On all fronts: different charges for pre-paid and post-paid SMS, no clarity on how premium SMS is charged, local/international roaming rates, etc.  On one hand, the operators have cut down the available free texting allowed on festive occasions (when there is a big uptick).  On the other, they have reduced the cost of voice calls to make it an easier alternative to texting for many people.  While this may work for a small section, bulk of the users will continue to prefer texting since it is asynchronous communication (the Homo Connectus as Tomi Ahonen called them).  In May ‘07, TRAI recommended the move from 4 digit to 5 digit short code which also led to a decline in SMS usage and hence revenues. 

Market Segments: First-time mobile subscribers are less apt to use SMS.  Less half the subscribers in India are English-literate and that effectively cuts down the SMS usage.  Yet, less than half a dozen startups are barely beginning to address the multi-lingual SMS texting.  Today, approximately 60% of mobile content downloaded in South India is in local languages.  Texting is only a small part of the spectrum.  Awareness, education, ease of use, user interface, cheaper yet better devices can pull in more subscriber usage of other VAS.  The fastest growing segment is the rural sector which provides new challenges to addressing their needs and providing new VAS that could stimulate revenues.  Rural subscribers can and will pay for premium services and value-additions.

What is needed from TRAI are more details of what VAS segments generate greater interest from subscribers.  Which ones will benefit both subscribers, VAS providers and telcos?  Since prepaid subscribers constitute about 90% of the market, how are operators battling subscriber committments?  It needs to push for clarity in how the services are charged.  It needs to push for better revenue-sharing models that provide incentives for new VAS and content providers to innovate and deliver on new business models.

Further Reading:

BDA provides a lot of market information.

On behalf of our enthusiastic team, I wish you all a Very Happy New Year!  May 2008 bring you all peace, plenty and prosperity!