The City of New York has a long and sad history of trying to be a leader in providing free broadband services. Over the years there were to be pay phones converted to Wi-Fi access points (now back agaian) and many other attempts. Some believe NYC will make it this time because of the demand, but along with that demand come all of the laws of physics, the interference, and the congestion that will make it more difficult and more expensive for the city of reach its goal. As for Open Wireless Movement, it is an interesting concept but I can tell you that when you walk or drive past my home and office you will not find my Wi-Fi open for your use. I pay for it, and I pay for it to be mine all of the time, which means I won’t be sharing my bandwidth with people I don’t know.

Muni-Wi-Fi has failed ever since Metricom, founded in 1985, finally gave up the ghost in 2001 even after Microsoft’s co-founder Paul Allen purchased a controlling interest in the company. Next time you are in Phoenix, look at lampposts along almost any road and you will see what is left of Metricom — white antennas still proudly sticking up into the air. In 2005, EarthLink came on the scene and won Muni-Wi-Fi networks in Anaheim, CA, Philadelphia, and other cities. By 2008, EarthLink was ready to turn off both systems. Philadelphia purchased the network for $2 million and struggled for years to turn it into a network that could carry its own weight in expenses.

In cities in Silicon Valley, in San Francisco, Atlanta, and many other cities, Muni-Wi-Fi was the next big thing. Portland Oregon’s experience cost it a lot of money only to end up disassembling the network. During this time I wrote many articles about the pros and cons (mostly cons) of Muni-Wi-Fi stating the obvious: The lack of inbuilding coverage, the presence of network interference, and the lack of a sound business model.

After a while things went quiet in the Muni-Wi-Fi space but then grew hot again as round two started. In Silicon Valley, Google installed a free system with no support and no way to contact anyone. It was a free network but it only sort of worked. A utility company decided that when installing smart meters it could also install Muni-Wi-Fi and it would be paid for by some magical calculation.

That brings us to date with the exception of one or two places in the United States where Muni-Wi-Fi is alive and well and in some city parks and other confined areas where people gather. Otherwise it has been a dismal failure. No matter how many different financial models have been run on spreadsheets, Muni-Wi-Fi has, to my knowledge, never reached even breakeven anywhere—not from city investment, not from selling advertising, and not from any other model that has come and gone.

Now New York City and a few others are back. This time claims are that it will work because people have to pay network operators too much for broadband and much of that broadband is doled out in 2-GB or 3-GB monthly increments. The disadvantaged certainly deserve access to the Internet and according to the Open Wireless Movement website, open Wi-Fi access using your router and mine will spur innovation, is crucial to wireless privacy (?), benefits emergency services, and conserves a scarce public resource in the form of radio spectrum. The site also delves into the “myths and facts” of open wireless including explaining how opening up your access point to others will not slow your own access, how you will not be legally responsible for illegal actions of others (at least they “don’t think so”) and, of course, the fact that opening up your router, even in guest mode, will not put you or your own systems at risk from hackers.

What the site does not cover, and apparently the City of New York does cover, is that laws of physics come into play with radio or wireless communications. Some of these laws have been bent a little here and there over the years but not broken. They have to do with how many people can make use of the same spectrum in the same basic location at the same time. How much spectrum is available in the Wi-Fi 2.4-GHz and 5.8-GHz bands, how much interference there will be, and how that interference can and will cause problems.

In addition to these issues, I did not see any discussion of the changing environment in wireless either, such as the advent of LTE Unlicensed (LTE-U), which is supposed to co-exist on the same spectrum as Wi-Fi today, or about the new “citizens band” (the FCC could have called it ANYTHING but that!), for users, or the upcoming advent of 5G, which is based on small cell deployment and that includes small cells that today might be referred to as Wi-Fi Access points. Remember, too, that the wireless spectrum Wi-Fi employs is unlicensed for Wi-Fi use but it is licensed to others. The rules state that Wi-Fi cannot interfere with these licensed users and unlicensed Wi-Fi users must accept any and all interference they encounter.

The reality of Wi-Fi is that in New York City if you stand on any street corner anywhere in the City and look for open and closed Wi-Fi access points you will find dozens and dozens. Some are in the stores on either side of you, some on upper floors in offices or apartments, some are being carried down the street (many people don’t realize when their device is active in Wi-Fi mode and can be seen by others), and you will see more and more cars driving by with their own hotspot connected back to the Internet over a wide-area LTE wireless network. Add to these the fact that many cable TV companies ship cable modems and TV cable boxes with Wi-Fi that is active and perhaps hardwired to a specific channel.

Those pushing for Muni-Wi-Fi and free access anywhere and everywhere will tell you that since each access point only covers a small area (smaller indoors than out), none of what I have just stated above matters. But they are wrong in several ways. First, when we ran tests on the Anaheim Muni-Wi-Fi system we could see some outdoor access points but could not connect to them because of interference from other stronger access points on the same channel. Let me put it another way:

You have an access point in your apartment in New York City. Your neighbors on both sides of you and across the hall from you do, too. Those a story above and below you have them as well, and the folks on the other side of the street have them. If all of them happen to be set to Channel 6 in the 2.4-GHz Wi-Fi band, coverage from each will be limited. You might have already noticed that the access point you installed in your home or office a couple of years ago does not seem to have the same reach or speed it used to. The defense for this will be that Wi-Fi is smart and can sniff out available spectrum and if set up properly (ah, that is a big if!), it will not interfere. Perhaps this is true in some cases.

But NYC is talking about fast Wi-Fi at gigabit speeds not accomplished by using only one portion of the 2.4-GHz band, say channel 6. Instead, this is accomplished by using the entire 2.4-GHz band or most of the 5.8-GHz band. Yes, multiple users can co-exist, but remember those pesky laws of physics? You cannot break these laws, only try to work within them. Putting a lot of people and devices on the same system in the area will, at some point, mean that none of the users will be happy with the coverage and/or data speeds.

The same people that tell you access points don’t cover large areas so more of them can provide more capacity are only partially correct. They are correct to a point where the number of access points, users, or interference issues reach the limits of physics. (How many of you have noticed a drop in your Wi-Fi range or speed after installing LED lights, which introduce interference?) In other words, while today’s technologies can offer up much better coverage and speeds, users are demanding more, using more, and in major cities are in closer proximity to each other. Now add the fact that outdoor Wi-Fi won’t work well indoors but it can interfere with indoor systems and vice versa depending on where they are located in a building, and further add that it will take a great many outdoor access points to cover NYC and it perhaps becomes clearer that those trying to make all of this happen are bucking some issues over which they will have no control.

Two companies are pushing New York and other cities. The first is Intersection, the company that administers LinkNYC, and the second is Sidewalk Labs, a company funded by Alphabet (Google). Their business model is not unique in that it relies on advertising to pay for it, but it is unique in that the advertising consists of signs at kiosks spread out around the city. According to the companies, they are also in talks with other cities but are not ready to make any announcements yet. Will this “new” model work? Will there be more interference from other Wi-Fi access points, and how will they achieve citywide coverage?

The EarthLink system in Anaheim started out with 70 access points per square mile. Now, there is a huge difference between Anaheim and NYC in the number of buildings, heights of the buildings, and other factors, but EarthLink had to increase from 70 access points per square mile to 90 and then 120 and the system was still not reliable or, in many locations, even usable. Remember, too, that depending on the type of network configuration, every third or fourth access point or perhaps every access point needs to be connected back to a network so it can be connected to the Internet. An access point sitting on a pole not connected to the Internet does not provide any type of useful service.

The theory was that with the next, faster Wi-Fi technologies, and the new insatiable demand for more data and video, the economics would be there this time around. The demand would be such that we would be able to take on the wide-area wireless and wired commercial broadband providers by offering the service for free.

So once again I have dissed Muni-Wi-Fi, just as I have in the past, but the only thing that has changed in the world of Wi-Fi is that the new, higher-speed Wi-Fi access points make use of more spectrum in order to reach faster speeds, and since Wi-Fi spectrum is a limited resource (as is all spectrum), the more access points and users in a confined area, the worse will be the broadband experience.

Fiber and microwave are today’s ways of transporting broadband wireless back to a point where it can be integrated with services and the Internet. Fiber and microwave equipment and service are expensive, and fiber costs a lot on a per-foot basis to install if you have to dig up a street, install the fiber, fill the trench back up, and repave. In many places fiber is already installed but some of you may remember that a number of companies offered rooftop wireless broadband. Towerstream, which is still in business, still offers rooftop wireless broadband. One reason Towerstream and others expected to be profitable in major cities was the fact that most buildings do not have any capacity for new cables (such as fiber), or cannot bring it in from the street at a reasonable price.

Conclusion

There is not much magic in providing broadband. It costs money to connect to the Internet and it costs money to put in fiber and/or wireless devices, even small ones such as access points. Bandwidth, regardless of where you are, is not unlimited. Radios interfere with each other, and other devices such as LED lights and even computers can interfere with radio communications. Perhaps one way to better understand how important it is to have a quiet radio environment is to think about how a grain of sand feels like a rock in your eye, but that same grain of sand between your two fingers feels very small and insignificant. A radio receiver (access point) in a quiet radio environment will hear your Wi-Fi signal as though it were that grain of sand in your eye, but if the radio environment deteriorates over time and becomes worse and worse, soon that access point will hear your signal as though it was that grain of sand between your fingers. The term for interference noise is “RF pollution,” and it can turn a really good system into a really bad system over time.

The bottom line is there is nothing for nothing. Every way in which we gain broadband access to the Internet today costs money. Even unlicensed Wi-Fi is not free; someone is paying for it. If it stops working as well as it did because people listened to the folks at Open Wireless Movement, they will turn off their guest access to their access point and make other changes, and return to receiving what they are paying for.

Will Sidewalk Labs and Intersection be successful in New York City and other places? Some will say that with Google behind them success will be assured, but will that hold true for this venture? Only time will tell.

Andrew M. Seybold

Rumors abound that Sprint is after T-Mobile, which could be problematic from a Federal Government approval point of view, and T-Mobile recently entered into a deal with Verizon Wireless to purchase a slice of 700-MHz, lower A Block spectrum, and give Verizon some AWS1 and PCS spectrum for a good deal of cash. The addition of the 700-MHz A Block to T-Mobile’s spectrum holdings provides T-Mobile with access to spectrum below 1 GHz for the first time. For a number of years, the A Block was not considered desirable spectrum because it sits next to TV channel 52, but with the FCC’s planned auction of TV spectrum below the A Block, it will soon become prime 700-MHz spectrum and will greatly enhance T-Mobile’s ability to compete.

Meanwhile, the 700-MHz National Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN) in the upper 700-MHz band is taking shape. Harris County, Texas has a system up and running and FirstNet, the board that owns the spectrum, has entered into spectrum leasing agreements in other parts of the nation, including Los Angeles, which has gone to bid for its own portion of the NPSBN. FirstNet is moving quickly to provide broadband services on a nationwide basis for the first responder community, and I expect a lot of progress in 2014.

Meanwhile, muni Wi-Fi is in the news again. It is amazing to me how many times, in city after city, people have tried to build out metro-wide Wi-Fi systems. Only a few years ago, systems that had been built out were being abandoned and ripped out because the expected financial models simply did not work. What has transpired in the meantime that makes people think they can try yet again and succeed? I believe it will be even more difficult this time around, not easier. First, the 2.4-GHz band is even more crowded than it was back in the heyday of metro Wi-Fi version 1.0. Even here in Santa Barbara, I have moved my access point to 5.8 GHz because I find that 2.4 GHz is ridiculously crowded. For example, in my small neighborhood I can now see twenty different access points up and running. Since there are actually only three 2.4-GHz channels that don’t overlap with the others (1, 6, and 11), finding a spot to park a new access point is almost impossible.

Granted, the FCC is working on freeing up more unlicensed or even semi-licensed Wi-Fi spectrum and TV White Space Wi-Fi is growing slowly in the more rural areas of the United States. However, with so many cable modems being shipped set to channel 6 on 2.4 GHz and being turned on weekly, and the addition of the new Wi-Fi standards that demand yet more spectrum per channel, I don’t believe metro Wi-Fi version 2.0 will be successful either. As always, time will tell, but I am betting that the systems in process and being planned will also disappoint and that the expected financial return on investment will not be forthcoming.

Wireless and wired bandwidth demands continue to grow at unprecedented rates. Wide-area wireless networks are adding capacity, filling in with smaller cells closer together and adding more sites. The trend for video over wireless is the primary reason for this continued increase in demand, and as more of us own more wirelessly-enabled devices, I don’t see any end in sight. Wireless networks are working on LTE spectrum aggregation, which means stitching together spectrum in different bands to enable more capacity. Some network operators are following the development of standards for multicast, the ability to transmit a single video to multiple users simultaneously, but that approach only works in venues where multiple users want to watch the same video at the same time, e.g., at a football or baseball game. The true demand appears to be that each user wants to watch a different streaming video. Multicast does not help in that case.

Of course all of this video and other data is being transported over the terrestrial Internet, yet there is no indication that there is more capacity in the offing. There is a move to build out Internet 2.0, but so far that network is closed and being used by governments and universities—not available to business and consumer users. I still think that with all the fiber owned by Google it has a plan to build out its own version of the Internet, controlled by Google for Google customers. Google is an interesting company because it wants access to everyone and is trying many different ways to accomplish that goal.

I don’t believe Google will bid in the upcoming spectrum auctions because if it becomes a network operator its access will be limited to customers it can attract to its own network, rather than having access to every wireless user. But Google needs to be watched closely as we move further into the decade of wireless. One of its efforts I watched with interest was its attempt at Wi-Fi coverage using hot air balloons. You might recall that only a few months ago Google made a big splash in the press with this concept and it is actually experimenting with the idea. However, weather experts do not believe balloons can provide predicable and regular coverage of a given area because of constantly shifting wind patterns. We all know by now that having access to the Internet occasionally or only some of the time is a non-starter no matter the technology.

Google’s Android operating system has taken off for sure, but I am not a fan for two reasons. First, it is open source so there are multiple flavors of Android in the marketplace, but mostly because it is not a secure operating system. Of all the malware and hacker attacks on wireless devices, the vast majority occur on Android devices. As we all know, the Internet is filled with hackers of all ilks who want to break into websites, company data stores, clouds, federal government and utility sites, and even desktops, laptops, and wireless devices. The most recent major incident was the Target hack that resulted in a large number of credit and debit card numbers, PINs, and more being stolen and sold on the Internet. Security is not something you can bolt onto an existing system. It must be built in from the ground up, otherwise those who want to break in will continue to find ways to do so. (I won’t even comment on the NSA discussion!)

Wireless has become part of our everyday lives in so many ways. Broadband, especially LTE, has opened up the world of information almost regardless of where we are or what we are doing. We have come to rely on wireless access and when it does not work or does not work as fast as we want it to, we tend to become frustrated. I have been involved in wireless since the early 1970s and have witnessed the advent of cellular voice service, text-based wireless, and the early days of wireless data with blazing speeds of up to 8 Kbps. Now we have LTE with true broadband capabilities. All of this has happened quickly with the most recent advances coming at a faster pace than had been imagined.

There is more to come—a lot more including faster speeds, broader access on a wider variety of devices, and who knows what else. But we need to be mindful that radio spectrum is a finite resource. We cannot make any more of it but demand for spectrum from commercial, private, and government users continues to increase. The Federal Communications Commission is doing its best to make more spectrum available for all sorts of individuals and organizations. Still, we have to be realistic about the demands we make on the spectrum. Speeds will vary and access may not always be possible. When it works it is a great tool for business or pleasure, but it might not always be available for us when we want and need it. Murphy is still alive and well and when it comes to wireless communications, his Law seems to be that when you really, really need access you probably won’t have it!

Andrew M. Seybold

Satellite Companies Turned Terrestrial

Satellite communications services have, for years, filled the coverage gaps for voice and even some text and slow-speed data services around the globe. But satellite communications have been expensive to use, and work only outdoors, but they have been used to bring services to ships at sea, oil platforms, and people living in rural areas of the world where no other form of communications is available.

Over the years, satellite companies have come and gone, morphed, or been acquired. Iridium, first formed by Motorola and a host of partners, went bankrupt and was saved by a government contract for services. The Iridium service is still in existence but one of the primary issues with this system is that the smarts and the technology are in the satellites and not on the ground so upgrading to better and more robust service is not easy.

Orbcomm, which has been around for a very long time, has morphed its business many times over. When I served on the Orbcomm advisory committee years ago, it was a store-and-forward satellite communications system for data services. Today it has expanded its M2M push service and has partnered with cell phone network operators to broaden its services.

Does anyone remember Teledesic? Founded in the 1990s by Bill Gates, Craig McCaw, Paul Allen, and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Teledesic was to launch 840 low-earth orbiting satellites (LEOs) and provide data at the then blazing speed of 720 Kbps down and 100 Kbps up from the ground. The project was scrapped shortly after both Iridium and Globalstar failed, but there were and still are other satellite service companies.

Fast-Forward to 2011 and Beyond

LightSquared, which started out as American Mobile Satellite Corporation then merged with Motient, the original IBM/Motorola joint venture for terrestrial data known as ARDIS, decided to combine terrestrial LTE with satellite services. Unfortunately, those in our government who approved this concept did not take into consideration that the spectrum to be used was next to the GPS spectrum. The ensuing outcry by military and public GPS users resulted in the FCC barring LightSquared from using this spectrum for terrestrial LTE. LightSquared is in bankruptcy but still looking for a way to compete.

Dish Networks was next and obtained permission from the FCC to build out some of its satellite holdings with terrestrial LTE but then the FCC imposed a number of restrictions on the build-out including a four-year build-out time for 40% of the network and reduced RF power output. Dish, which has not given up, has tried to buy Clearwire and make a deal with Sprint, looked at T-Mobile and other options. At this point it is still in limbo.

New Entry

Recently, it has been reported by Fierce Wireless and other wireless Internet publications that the new Globalstar is seeking a waiver for some of its satellite spectrum in order to build a combined satellite/LTE/super Wi-Fi network and has teamed with Amazon to run some tests. The Globalstar system, unlike Iridium, uses its satellites in what is called a bent-pipe configuration. That means that the technology is not in the satellites but on the ground and therefore easy to upgrade since earth stations beam signals at the satellites and they, in turn bend the signal and shoot it back to earth over a wide area.

We are told that the tests being conducted involve a Wi-Fi-like local service, some terrestrial LTE, and at some point satellite services. It will be interesting to see what develops from these tests. Could Amazon and Globalstar become a player in providing broadband services in the United States and elsewhere? It is not yet clear from the little information that has been filed with the FCC and few sources know exactly what these companies are testing or what their plans are.

It will be interesting to watch as this progresses. If this is to become a mostly terrestrial system, will there be enough demand for it? If it uses the satellites, will the increased latency in the network cause problems for SSL and other types of secure sign-ons for banking and other services? How much will Globalstar charge or will this be a service available only to Amazon Kindle users? Amazon is the only company we know of today that delivers books and other content over commercial networks at no charge to the customer. Amazon has deals with the wireless operators and its sale price to the customer includes whatever fee it has to pay for delivery of the information. Amazon calls this service Whispernet.

Can any of these satellite-turned-terrestrial networks succeed? This will depend partly on how the FCC acts on their waivers or rulemaking changes. Part depends on their partnerships, the amount of money they are willing to spend, and how fast they can bring the network to market. While all of this is going on, the FCC is preparing to auction more spectrum. In the short term there should be some auctions in 2013 (for spectrum available for use in 2015-16 MHz) and then the Incentive Auctions, authorized in the Tax Relief Bill of 2012, will be held. Depending on the outcome of the TV channel relocation, this auction could be for as much as 120 MHz of prime 500-600 MHz spectrum now occupied by TV channels 32 to 52 (excluding channel 37, which is used for radio telescopes).

But it will also depend to a large degree on what devices are made available for these networks and at what cost to consumers. Today’s smartphones are being enabled by Qualcomm and others to cover many different portions of the spectrum. However, since this spectrum, if approved, will be U.S.-centric, you have to wonder if there will be sufficient demand for devices that work on these networks. There is a limit to the number of different radio bands, antennas, filters, duplexers, and other components that can be included in one device. The cost of building a greenfield LTE network to cover 95% of the United States would be about $20 billion and the ongoing operational costs will also be high. Tower space and cellular site locations are at a premium, and a Wi-Fi-type system that requires hundreds of small access points means delays and costs in permitting and installation, and an increase in the number of backhaul locations needed.

Muni-Wi-Fi systems, once the “next big thing,” are almost all a thing of the past because they were too costly to build and operate and then they provided only limited in-building coverage. Today, commercial network operators have built out more wide-area networks and filled in-building coverage with femtocells and Wi-Fi hotspots tied back to the network with Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS). Catching up will be very difficult, taking deep pockets and a different business model if the network is to be a success.

As we watch the satellite companies vie for terrestrial business, how the FCC handles these issues, and how handset vendors respond to having to build more and different portions of the radio spectrum into their devices (and Congress may require any device to operate on any U.S. network), of all of those trying to re-invent themselves, perhaps the Globalstar/Amazon partnership has the best chance for success, if only for the fact that Amazon is very good at what it does and always seems to come up with a new wrinkle or twist to solve a problem. If any partnership can work, this may be the one.

Andrew Seybold

Wi-Fi is in coffee shops, McDonalds, and many other places and today it is free. Not too long ago some companies thought there was financial reward to be had by installing Wi-Fi and then reselling it to customers. This is no longer true and except for some hotels, I have not been asked to pay for a Wi-Fi connection in the past two years. So why would I pay to have a Wi-Fi connection in my car?

But that is what Audi and T-Mobile apparently expect us to do. At the time of purchase of the car, you can pay an additional $450 and get 30 months of Wi-Fi in your car, fed by T-Mobile’s 4G network. Or, if you want, you can pay nothing upfront and a monthly fee of $30. But if I have an iPhone or other smartphone or tablet that is connected to any of the 3G or 4G networks, I can set it in hotspot mode and accomplish the same thing. This has to be one of those ideas hatched my marketing folks (no, I don’t have anything against marketing folks) and not thought-out, tested, or run by the public to measure interest.

First I have to ask myself why I would want Wi-Fi in my car to begin with. So far I have come up with a couple of reasons. The first is that I might drive a carpool to and from work and it might be a nice perk to offer the passengers, but most of them have smartphones and plans with wide-area networks. Some may have tablets with Wi-Fi onboard, in which case it might be neat to give them access to the Internet on the drive.

If I took younger kids from place to place, perhaps I would want Wi-Fi in the car to save on their wireless bills for streaming video and game playing, but texting today is unlimited and free so unless I am taking the kids on a vacation and looking for a way to keep them occupied, I am not at all sure that an extra $30 per month over and above my existing wireless bills is something I would be very excited about.

In fact, the trend for wireless in vehicles seems to be going in the exact opposite direction. Several years ago I wrote an article about what I wanted from my wireless device and my car. Some of the things I asked for were:

1)     When I get into my car it recognizes me, adjusts the seats, mirrors, temperature, and sets the radio to my favorite channel at just the right volume level.

2)     If it is commute time, the car knows I am headed for work, sets the onboard navigation and traffic monitoring system, and warns me of any delays.

3)     When I leave the car, the phone locks the doors for me.

Some of this is already being done, and I know a lot of people who use their smartphones and tablets for navigation instead of paying the $2500 for an onboard system. I always thought it would be great to have a touchscreen in the car that my wireless device could talk to. The only obstacle I have seen so far with using a smartphone or tablet in the car is the battery life, and having to plug it into the accessory power plug (cigarette lighter) is a hassle, but strides are being made in charging, too, so that should not be a problem for much longer.

The major problem with building things into cars is the fact that cars tend to be owned for many years and technologies change. Look what happened to OnStar. It had analog phones installed in a lot of vehicles. When analog cellular was cancelled and 2G and 3G systems came online, the upgrade prices I heard quoted by the auto dealers were in the area of $500 to $600 per car. Obviously, that did not work well for customer retention for OnStar. Building technology into vehicles also takes time for the automobile maker to decide which technology, which partner, and more. Perhaps the best-known partnership success today is Ford and Microsoft but that does NOT include wireless built into the car. Rather, it provides syncing between wireless devices and the car, and it still has onboard navigation in the car.

So in this case I think that the T-Mobile/Audi relationship will not be well received, at least in the United States. In Europe where Wi-Fi is still plentiful but, in many cases, customers have to pay to use it, perhaps it will be more of a success, but my bottom line feeling here is that this was not well thought-out, not well-structured, and does not offer any really bargain when it comes to Wi-Fi services.

I am sure that the people at both companies who worked so hard on this project believe that it is a win-win. That is, for T-Mobile it would add car subscriptions to its wide-area network and to Audi perhaps the believe that it will be one more reason a potential customer would buy an Audi. I don’t think either will occur and instead, by the end of the first model year, the results will cause a re-thinking of this relationship. Perhaps if they work on future versions of in-vehicle wireless, they might hit on something that will prove to be a must-have for drivers, but this is not it!

Andrew Seybold

The event will not be branded as a “Wireless University” but rather as a full-day educational session entitled “Mobile – Today and Tomorrow. When we suggested the title “Broadband Today and Tomorrow,” we got pushback from the folks at the GSMA who did not believe that “Broadband” would be a draw for the event since LTE is not as big outside the United States. This got me to thinking about LTE or 4G wireless technology. It has been a perception for many years that Europe and other parts of the world are more advanced than the United States when it comes to wireless. After all, they did introduce GSM, a second-generation wireless technology, while we were still offering analog cellular service. It took some time before BellSouth, Cingular, and others moved from TDMA to GSM, and some of the first CDMA 2G systems were deployed in the United States by Verizon and Sprint.

However, the United States has taken a commanding lead when it comes to 4^th-generation wireless. Verizon was first to move to LTE and did it with a bang. Normally, new wireless technologies are rolled out slowly over the course of many years, but Verizon jumped in with both feet and quickly began bringing up markets. It was dedicated to LTE and decided to make huge investments in the technology. AT&T has been playing catch-up but is making great progress while Clearwire and Sprint have thrown in the WiMAX towel and are placing their future bets on LTE. Even T-Mobile, the leader in HSPA+ 3G+ or as it called it, “4G technology,” has moved into the world of LTE.

LTE has gained traction in the United States faster than any other wireless technology. Why? It is not currently being used for voice except by MetroPCS, and Verizon has shelved its Voice over LTE plans for a couple of years. So LTE is about fast data speeds and capacity, plain and simple. Voice is still being carried on 2G and 3G networks and will be for some time, but LTE is about streaming video, fast access to the Internet, sharing pictures, and near-instantaneous data and video communications. The perfect storm for LTE was the explosion of the smartphone and tablet markets. Apple has led the pack in both of these areas. You might remember that when the first 3G iPhones came on the market AT&T was caught flatfooted and could not provide the capacity for these devices in major cities.

Just as we have all wanted fast and faster wired connectivity and access to the Internet, so too have we all wanted faster data speeds for our wireless devices. In this case, there was a very short lag between the introduction of LTE and the devices that supported it. 4G technologies were the first to be designed for fast data first, and oh, by the way, perhaps voice later. WiMAX and LTE are data-centric technologies whereas data was an afterthought for 2G and even 3G technologies.

That makes sense because wireless voice was the core “application” for wireless for many years. Then along came SMS or text messaging and voice customers found that text had great communication value as well, especially among the younger generation. Those of us who grew up with landline phones quickly embraced wireless voice because it gave us the mobility we wanted and needed. This generation has grown up with the Internet and just like we welcomed wireless voice, they have welcomed wireless data services in a huge way. Wireless data demand had grown at a rate of more than 100% per year for the past few years with no let-up in site. Network operators are facing spectrum shortages and are having to off-load customers to Wi-Fi and in-building femtocells. Still, in major metro areas, data speeds are not as good as they were only a few months ago, and as more customers come online and more videos are streamed, the situation will only worsen.

One reason for data growth in the United States is that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has never dictated that a certain portion of the spectrum can only be used for a specific technology as is the case in Europe and other parts of the world. This permitted U.S. network operators to deploy analog, then TDMA, CDMA, GSM and then GSM/EDGE, CDMA 1X and then CDMA EV-DO, and finally LTE. LTE is the first portion of the spectrum since the 800-MHz analog days where all of the network operators have chosen a single wireless standard.

In Europe, on the other hand, spectrum was always paired with a technology. The 900-MHz spectrum required GSM, as did the 1500-MHz spectrum. When 3G came along, it was allocated to the 2100-MHz spectrum, meaning that 3G required four times the towers to build than the GSM systems at 900 MHz, and also meaning that 3G was only a metro-area technology for many years. Now that LTE is on the scene, Europe continues to tie technology with spectrum. However, things are changing since all of the 2G and 3G systems will be replaced with 4G (LTE) systems over time. Until then, LTE is on yet a different band, and Europe continues to tie a technology to specific spectrum.

When it comes to voice and data pricing, the United States has some of the lowest pricing in the world. India’s pricing is lower, as is China’s, but generally, the rest of the world is still paying more for wireless services than we are in the United States. I keep getting into disagreements about this point but if you look at the various pricing offered in the different countries, it is easy to see that even with all-you-can-eat data pricing basically gone in the United States, we are still paying less for wireless services than in many other places around the world.

It should be interesting to put together our session for the Mobile World Congress. We will have access to the GSMA’s Wireless Intelligence group, which has great stats and numbers, and we will be comparing and contrasting them to what is occurring in North America. We are looking forward to this event, and we are certain that there will be a great deal of discussion regarding our contention that Europe has lost its wireless EDGE (sorry for the pun), and that the rest of the world is watching, with envy in many cases, the LTE developments in the United States.

Andrew M. Seybold

Looking back a few years, we see that when NextWave showed up at the PCS auctions in 1996, bid on, and won spectrum, the FCC and the federal government said it had too many foreign investors. What ensued was a long drawn-out battle that ended up in court with NextWave returning spectrum to the FCC, which signaled the end of NextWave as a viable network operator. Next came the failed AT&T purchase of T-Mobile.

NTT DoCoMo, the largest network provider in Japan, had, I believe, a 20% investment in AT&T at the time of the Cingular/AT&T merger, but AT&T bought NTT out either before or during the merger. At one point, SK Telecom, a Korean network, made a bid for Sprint that was rejected.

As you can see, there is a long history of foreign investors coming after U.S. networks, and you can’t blame them because we have some of the lowest customer prices while maintaining relatively high margins. I am not writing this article because I am against SoftBank’s purchase of Sprint. If it will strengthen Sprint it will be good for the industry as a whole. However, since SoftBank will obviously have majority control over the board of directors and may not fully understand the differences between the Japanese market and our market, the result might actually be to lessen the competitiveness of Sprint, and thus Clearwire. We will have to wait and see.

The issue I have is why the shift within the federal government to permit foreign companies to own a majority of these networks when we are trying to keep jobs and money in our own country. I am curious about the ownership rules apparently changing over time and, of course, I am concerned as a U.S. citizen about the profits from these foreign-owned companies flowing off-shore and perhaps not being used for further investment and/or research and development here.

Companies that invest in or buy other companies do so for several reasons, but primarily to make more money for the company and its shareholders. They do not make money by leaving all of the profits in the companies they purchase; they take the money out of the company and put it into their own coffers. In the case of Verizon Wireless, for example, over the past few years, Vodafone UK has received many billions of dollars. This is great for Vodafone, and certainly a return on its investment, but I am not so sure that in the long term it is good for the U.S. wireless marketplace. One could argue that it was partly Vodafone’s investment in Verizon that enabled Verizon to expand its network and service offerings and therefore it is entitled to a return on that investment. There is no clear or definitive, black-and-white answer for foreign investment.

Certainly Sprint can use the billions it will receive from SoftBank, and certainly Sprint has taken steps to end up with control over Clearwire and Clearwire’ s spectrum holdings (which are substantial). However, I have to wonder whether the investment directly into Sprint will be enough to help it get back on track. Sprint appears to be on its way back in any event, and perhaps this will enable it to move more rapidly. More than half of the SoftBank investment will go to existing Sprint shareholders—good for them—but it doesn’t really help Sprint in either the long term or the short term. Further, with only 30% of the Sprint stock still in play, I am not at all sure what this will do to Sprint’s ability to raise additional funds when and if needed.

It really confuses me when our federal government denies AT&T and T-Mobile the ability to become one company and to reduce the foreign ownership of T-Mobile in the bargain, and then, if the Sprint-SoftBank deal passes, to permit yet another of the top four networks to become not only foreign owned, but to acquire by control a huge amount of additional spectrum from Clearwire. What I don’t see in the U.S. policy for commercial wireless networks is any consistency. There should be one set of rules that is known to everyone and those in the business of providing commercial wireless service should know and understand the rules.

Today it seems that if there are any rules in place they are simply guidelines and each situation is looked at differently. I am guessing that this purchase will fly through the U.S. government because it strengthens one of the four major network operators as opposed to consolidating the top four into three as the AT&T/T-Mobile deal would have done. But at the same time I have to ask whether making money for a Japanese company is something that is okay with our government instead of helping make our network operators stronger within the United States and keeping the re-investment and profits in the United States. I have to wonder what will happen a few years from now when Sprint/SoftBank decides to buy T-Mobile.

Andrew Seybold

However, over the past couple of years, the FCC has stalled a number of spectrum swaps, consolidations, and sales. Am I the only one confused by the FCC’s statements versus actions? The FCC and the Department of Justice put a halt to the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile, a move that would have given AT&T more spectrum for broadband and more towers on which to deploy it. The stated reason was that it would be bad for competition, reducing the number of “nationwide” operators from 4 to 3, and that somehow this would stifle competition and drive up consumer prices. Yet in many other countries there is a trend to shrink the number of commercial networks, and study after study has shown that pricing for voice and data services has come down year after year.

Next up is the still unresolved Verizon deal with a number of cable companies. In this deal, Verizon would purchase spectrum that is not being used and that the cable companies have no intention of building out, in exchange for a marketing agreement that would bring more competitors into the marketplace. As part of this deal, Verizon has also agreed to a spectrum swap with T-Mobile in the AWS-1 band that would make it more practical and efficient for both companies to offer fourth-generation broadband services. Dish network is waiting patiently for the FCC to act on its waiver request to use some satellite spectrum for a terrestrial 4G network that will not interfere with our GPS system as the LightSquared network would have.

While operators wait for more spectrum to be available at auction, including ASW-2 and ASW-3 bands and the incentive TV auctions, they are trying to find other ways to obtain more spectrum as quickly as possible. AT&T bought the Qualcomm 700-MHz spectrum and it took the FCC a long time to rule on that purchase. Now AT&T is in a deal with NextWave for additional spectrum and I have to wonder how long that will take. How can the FCC say one thing and consistently do something else?

Yes, the FCC and the NTIA seem to be working together to “find” additional spectrum, and they are certainly looking at other ways of making spectrum available including spectrum sharing (which I don’t think is a great idea at this point), cognitive and smart radio use, and more. But the fact remains that even if and when they “find” spectrum it will be years before it can be placed into commercial service. It has to be identified, existing users have to be moved somewhere else, it has to go to auction, and existing users have to be given enough time to move. Someone has to pay for the relocation, and once the spectrum is cleared, network construction can begin and devices can be designed to operate on the new spectrum. It is anyone’s guess how long this process will take, but at the very minimum it will be 3-5 years before any of the new spectrum is available for commercial use.

In the meantime, operators are trying to manage the increasing demand in a multitude of ways. The first was that all-you-can-eat data pricing became a thing of the past on most commercial networks. Operators are off-loading traffic to Wi-Fi access points and femtocells within homes and businesses, applying for permits to build more sites closer together (takes time and lots of money), and trying to make deals with other spectrum holders for spectrum that is not in service. It seems to me that the logic here is for the FCC to act quickly when idle spectrum is made available to someone who will put it into use and build out more broadband coverage. It seems to me that spectrum swaps to help provide more efficient use of the spectrum and spectrum purchasing and other ways to make more spectrum available should be welcomed by the FCC and encouraged, not sat on and debated ad nauseam.

Verizon is not my client, but I watch the ongoing battle for what seems to be a simple solution for both Verizon and the cable companies. Take the spectrum that the cable companies paid the federal government for that is NOT in use, sell it to Verizon for more than what the cable companies paid for it, and permit the cable companies to essentially act as Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) on the Verizon network. When Sprint, T-Mobile, or one of the other network operators adds an MVNO it is simply announced, no FCC action required. It astonishes me that the Communications Workers of America (CWA), Sprint, and others are fighting this transaction as much as they are. I have read the arguments on both sides, since each week it seems, I receive emails from the CWA about its position on this, and frankly I don’t get it. Like the failed AT&T and T-Mobile Merger, the Verizon/cable company deal should be welcomed and quickly approved.

Cable operators have been interested in wireless since the 1996 PCS auctions when they teamed up with Sprint on the bid. Since then they have, on several occasions, worked with Sprint on joint ventures, all of which were announced with grand fanfare and none of which ever went anywhere. This time around they have spectrum to throw into the pot so they have something to barter with, thus the deal makes a lot of sense. The FCC took what seemed like forever to approve the AT&T purchase of the Qualcomm 700-MHz spectrum. If it had been approved on a timely basis it would already be in service and helping to add capacity to the AT&T broadband network.

Until the FCC and NTIA come together and decide what spectrum will be made available to fulfill the FCC’s promise of 500 MHz of additional broadband spectrum, it seems only logical that they would be in favor of deals that will put more spectrum into service as quickly as possible. Since the demand for wireless broadband is increasing more rapidly than the network operators’ ability to handle the demand, and since there are interim solutions out there involving unused spectrum, spectrum swapping, companies that want to buy spectrum, and companies that want to sell it, the FCC should be working toward a common goal—a goal the FCC continues to restate—of putting more wireless broadband spectrum into service as fast as possible.

Andrew Seybold

In May of 1982 I worked at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. Along with several colleagues, I was exploring ways to improve the usability of IBM’s mainframe timesharing system of that time, VM/370.

Let me remind you of the state of technology thirty years ago. Personal computers were still largely regarded as hobbyist toys. The Apple II was just beginning to see uptake by businesses. The IBM PC had been launched the previous August and was just beginning to be recognized as a huge and unanticipated success. The MacIntosh was two years away. Mainframe computers represented the majority of the computing power in the world. If you used a computer, you used it at work. There were no tablets or laptops, no portable computers of any kind. The Internet had yet to be born (although its predecessor, Arpanet, was available to universities).

At home, the world was quite different from today. There were no cellular phones or even cordless phones at home. You got your phone from the phone company: desktop, wall, or princess (remember that?). Answering machines were only beginning to appear, and voicemail was an experimental project at IBM Research residing on (again) a mainframe computer. So your telephone was quite easy to use. If it rang, someone was calling. If you wanted to call someone, you pressed the keys, and that was it.

Television was also quite simple: You turned it on and selected the channel you wanted to watch. I had twenty or so cable TV channels, which I accessed through the television tuner. Cable set-top boxes had yet to appear. VCRs had been introduced only a couple of years earlier and were still quite rare. For most people, if you wanted to watch a television show or sporting event, you had to be in front of your TV at the time of the broadcast.

I relate this because at a lunchtime conversation at IBM Research in early 1982, a colleague of mine lamented that if only we could make computers as easy to use as televisions or phones we would make quite a lot of progress. We all agreed that this was a worthy goal.

Now, it is thirty years later. After returning from CTIA in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago, I observe that we have indeed made quite a lot of progress: Our televisions and phones are now as difficult to use as our computers!

It takes four separate remote controls to operate my television, cable box, disc player, and amplifier, and multiple button presses on them to acquire what I want to view. Thirty years ago I simply turned the TV on and it was playing the channel I had last watched.

To make a call on my smartphone I must press two different buttons then tap the screen before I can begin dialing a number. Thirty years ago, I simply picked up the handset and started dialing.

As for computers, well, I will leave them out of this. While still complicated, they have come a long way from the days of MS-DOS or the mainframe timesharing systems. Computers are indeed easier to use than those of thirty years ago.

What has happened?

Our televisions are more difficult to use because they are no longer merely televisions.

Thirty years ago, I had cable TV at my house, but no cable box was required. Rather, the television’s tuner accessed the twenty or thirty available channels. VCRs were beginning to hit the market, and I did not yet own one. So my television was only a television, and the single remote control was all I needed.

My television today is no longer a standalone device. Rather, it is one component of a sophisticated home entertainment system. Its 55-inch high-definition flat screen puts the 1978 Sylvania 25-inch CRT to shame. Instead of the single six-inch speaker in the old TV, I now have a five-speaker surround sound system that provides immersive high fidelity music and soundtracks. Through the cable box, I have access to scores of channels plus movies and special events on demand. I also have a Blu-Ray disk player that delivers beautiful movies from disks the same size as the floppies on my original IBM PC. The player also has a set of applications, including Facebook, Netflix, Pandora, and Vudu that provide access to all sorts of media from the Internet.

Of course, the television, cable box, disk player, and amplifier each have their own remote controls. Turning it all on and off or selecting the proper input or application for the television takes quite a bit of doing. In fact, I have had to write up a one-page document on how to watch television in our house!

While I would not trade the capabilities of today’s entertainment system for my television of thirty years ago, I do miss its simplicity and ease of use. This leads me to ask, what is the source of the complexity, and how can it be reduced? I believe there are two main problems: poor integration among the multiple devices that make up a home entertainment system, and the use of one-way infrared signals to control those devices.

DLNA, the Digital Living Network Alliance, was supposed to solve the integration problem. It provides a means for the various devices to recognize each other and transfer control and media among them. In theory, it should enable me to build a home entertainment system using components from different manufacturers. This is a great goal, but in my experience the reality falls short.

In order to watch television, I must turn on the television, the cable box, and the amplifier. The television and amplifier are DLNA-compliant, but the cable box is not. My amplifier cannot be controlled from my television. It worked with an older television, but not with the newer one. Thus I have two choices: Use the multiple remote controls provided, or purchase a smarter, programmable remote control.

This leads us to the second problem—trying to control multiple devices with a single remote control. Such programmable remotes are surprising easy to program, although I’ve never wanted to spend an hour or more programming them. That accomplished, we are still left with the inadequacies of the one-way infrared signaling system. The key problem is that the remote control cannot know the state of the device it is trying to control. In particular, it cannot turn the device on or off; it can only toggle between on or off.

When I use the remote control to begin watching television, it first sends a signal to turn on the television, then a second signal to turn on the amplifier, then a third signal to turn on the cable box. This takes close to five seconds, during which time I must continue to aim the remote control at the devices. If I fail to hold it steady, one of the three devices will not turn on. If I use the remote to try to turn the others off, those that are on will turn off, and the one that is off will turn on. Thus I must get up and go over to turn it on manually.

Once everything is all powered up, I must still navigate to the Netflix application if I want to watch a movie, and must remember that to get to Netflix the Blu-Ray player must be powered up and I need to select it as the input source for the television. Sound complicated? It is.

Our telephones are more difficult to use because they are no longer merely telephones.

My smartphone is a computer. Of course, since it is a cellular telephone I can use it almost anywhere in the world. And, of course, it does so much more than the corded landline phones of 1982. Today I use Microsoft Outlook on my computer and access the same Exchange server from my phone. My email, address book, calendar, and tasks are all automatically synchronized. This works really well and was simple to set up.

Beyond that, from my phone I can access friends on Facebook and colleagues on LinkedIn. Because my phone has a GPS receiver, I can get driving directions and a traffic app to help me avoid backups. With the browser, I can access any website in the world. Simply amazing from a device that fits in my shirt pocket.

While all of this capability is wonderful, it makes the phone more complex. I must navigate through different screens to access the information I want. Applications I never use clutter the screen. Since my Facebook friends are displayed in the contacts application, I must wade through all of them to find the person I actually want to call.

What is the solution? Better design. This is easy to say but difficult to do well. I’m not about to teach anyone how to build a better television or phone. Instead, I offer three principals that are often lacking in many of today’s mobile phones.

1. Prioritize. What is the most important function of the product? If it does ten things and all of those are of equal priority, the product will be complicated. Having said that, I recognize that different people may use the same product in different ways. For example, I talk much more than I text. With my children it is the opposite. See point 3 for a solution to this.
2. Hide the details. There needs to be more of this in products. Prioritizing the most important functions does not mean other capabilities must be removed. Hide those extra capabilities, but still make them accessible.
3. Support profiles. Great products allow for creation of profiles or customizations. That way I can make the product work better for me, which is no doubt different from the way my children will use it.

I’ve used smartphones based on each of the main platforms, and in my experience they all demonstrate this problem to a greater or lesser extent.

There you have it. I await better designed devices that will make my life simpler!

Robert O’Hara

The operators defend these fees by pointing to the increased cost of the devices and their inability to bear the cost of additional subsidies. Yep. The devices are becoming more expensive. So is the price of gasoline at the pump. But I’ve yet to get a bill from Exxon Mobile asking me to pay an upgrade fee if I switch from regular to premium. There is no mention of how much more it costs to provide that upgraded octane, it simply adds the upgrade cost to the price per gallon.

Operators also claim there is an additional cost to provide sufficient customer support for those purchasing smartphones. Yep. There probably is, at least for some customers, but not all subscribers. The more technically savvy users can handle their own setup. In my personal experience, the only issues I’ve had with setting up my smartphones have been software related when the device was released before the vendor and network operator were in sync and the device and software were not quite ready for primetime. Covering the cost of training and support for new users has been handled quite effectively by the computer industry. It provides various levels of technical support – for an optional fee. Solutions range from short windows of free tech support to multi-year contracts. Customers pay to play.

A recently published PwC survey of trends in the North American Wireless Industry indicates “on average, 46 percent of subscribers are on family plans in 2011.” This means it is not easy, convenient, or economical for loyal customers to go elsewhere for a better deal on a new smartphone and they will most likely stay with their current network.

It is understandable that operators should charge data hogs extra for clogging their networks and causing disruptions in service to other users. It is understandable that operators should charge for enhanced applications that make users’ lives easier and more productive. But is it reasonable to charge subscribers who merely want to take advantage of the newer technologies and enhanced services being offered by the operators a fee to upgrade? Or is it reasonable to do so given the understanding that upgraded phones will result in enhanced revenue to the wireless operator? Does it make sense to initiate a revenue source that will be perceived by customers with the same distain as the irritating itemized fees the airline industry now implements? What’s next? Incremental charges for customer care phone calls? Higher rates to contact customer care over your mobile as opposed to a landline?

Wireless network operators need to meet their investors’ demands for increased stock value, and they need to grow their individual businesses in a commodity market. But they must take into consideration the opinions of their customers and manage their businesses in a customer-friendly manner. My eyeballs already roll when I see my phone bill for our family. Being hit with another “fee” will not be warmly received. Why not simply add the extra $18, $30, or $36 amortized over the normal 24-month contract? Frankly, I wouldn’t even notice an extra $1.50 in the monthly service fee given the plethora of line items currently on my 9-page bill.

U.S. operators are very successful in generating data revenue compared with many other global operators. They should package their offerings so they do not bite the hand that feeds them and avoid negative publicity such as that airline carriers have brought upon themselves.

Bob Chapin

I think Apple has a great new product but the way it is handling early deliveries was not well thought out. It seems that so many people pre-ordered a new iPad that Apple would not have been able to fill those orders and have any of the first batch available for the stores. So what did it do? You know by now that Apple decided to stiff those who pre-ordered and pre-paid in favor of stocking the stores with the new iPads so there would be news stories about the lines outside the stores and those who just have to be in the first wave of new iPad owners. If I had pre-ordered a new iPad I would not be very happy at the moment.

Granted, Apple stated that if I had pre-ordered the iPad it would have been delivered by March 19, but that is not the point. The point in pre-ordering is so you can be the first kid on the block to have and flaunt the newest iPad. Now the guy who lives next door and stands in line on March 16 will have those bragging rights. What does a three-day wait really mean? In the long term not much, but in the short term Apple made a commitment to customers who pre-ordered that they would get their iPad first and then changed its mind. Granted, the change was based on what Apple called overwhelming demand, but I still think that it is unfair to change the rules after the game has already begun.

iPad 2 Pricing

Meanwhile, Apple also dealt a blow to those who want to sell their iPad 2 in order to upgrade to a new iPad. It has lowered the price of the iPad 2 in an obvious attempt to move the balance of the inventory, but in doing so, the resale price has plummeted except at Amazon. On Amazon you can trade in your iPad 2 for a gift card. A 16 GB Wi-Fi-enabled iPad 2 will get you $320 while a 32 GB unit gets you $375 and so on. While a gift card is not real cash, it is still a smart move on Amazon’s part. On eBay there are thousands of iPad 2s available new, refurbished, and for resale. The price to buy one of the new or refurbished units is dropping quickly and individuals who are trying to sell theirs online are competing with stores and dealers selling hundreds of them for discounted prices.

If you have to have a new iPad the best bet is to hand down your iPad 2 to your kids, your mother or father, or even your grandmother. Have you ever seen a kid turned loose with an iPad? Elder adults who are computer phobic also tend to take quickly to an iPad. As all of us who have to be first to have the newest and latest electronic gadget knows that being first comes at a price!

The iPad and the host of tablets has certainly changed the way many of us work, and sometimes for the best. I still won’t give up my laptop, partly because I need to write articles while I am traveling and partly because it syncs with my desktop system every time I return to the office so it has all of my files and information on it. Some will say I should make use of the cloud but I am still not convinced that I will always be able to access my data, and sometimes I need something when I am out of wireless coverage. And I still don’t trust the “cloud” with my data. Too many cyber attacks are happening too often. I view a cloud that is storing not only my information but also that of many other people as a target in the sky. If I were a hacker I would not waste my time looking for small companies or individuals to hack. I would go after the mother lode of data that is stored in the cloud. Yes, you can tell me that clouds are secure and immune from being hacked but tell that to the CIA, FBI, and NSA, all of which were hacked last year. If hackers can get into these sites, how can a cloud service be truly secure?

Conclusions

The new iPad looks like a great evolution of the iPad family. Many people are buying it and the gaming and video communities are welcoming it as a great new platform because of its superior screen. All that is well and good. My iPad 2 does what I need it to do, I have a Wi-Fi-to-4GLTE hub so I already have 4G for my iPad and other devices, and while the new screen would be nice, I will sit out this evolution of the product.

4GLTE is a worldwide standard for wireless broadband and it should enable us to go anywhere in the world and be able to access 4G services. However, while we do now have a worldwide standard, it is a shame for Apple that it is being deployed on more than 42 different portions of the spectrum around the world. Thus there is no way that an iPad or any other device can be built to provide access to 4GLTE everywhere. Someday perhaps we will have a common wireless standard and some standardized wireless spectrum—but by the time that happens my grandkids will have grandkids.

Andrew M. Seybold