The study asked 2500 mobile phone users across the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) “under which of the following circumstances they would use data services like wireless internet and mobile TV – if it were free, if the price were right or not interested at all”.

Brazilians had the highest interest in mobile data but only if these services were provided for free. Are we surprised this? Business and consumer customers across the world always show much higher interest in data, content, applications and games when there is no charge for them.

The more in-depth areas of the study examine those subscribers willing to pay “if the price were right”. Russians are willing to pay an average of $4.23 USD per month for mobile data, while those in Brazil and China would pay an average of $4.00 USD per month. Indian subscribers show the least willingness to pay with $1.50 USD per month, where only 20% of respondents showed an interest in mobile data applications.

The study has been conducted eight times since 2000 and uses a sample of 4000 mobile phone users in 21 countries. A few of the most interesting results from this most recent report includes:

• More than half of consumers say they are able to access multimedia services on their mobile devices
• Individuals with newer handsets are more willing to pay for multimedia services
• 56% of all multimedia phone owners now use mobile internet and email usage at least one message, up from 36% last year
• 33% of all multimedia phone owners download music, up from 21% last year
• 17% of all mobile users and 27% of teenagers say they are willing to pay for “time-critical and relevant content that can be easily viewed while on the move”
• Multimedia phone owners that do not use multimedia services listed uncertainty of cost, security and privacy, slow access, cost and poor content as reasons for not using these services
• 60% of customers expect to use their mobile phone for the majority of their calls this next year

Click here to download the full report (pdf).

The article talks about a need to help with problems or provide information, be seen as engaged, and a likely addiction to constantly monitoring their staff. Paul continue the article by pointing out that this “hyperconnectedness” can actually hurt projects and the team environment.

“The last thing most air passengers want is to be forced to listen to their neighbor chat on their cell phone about their ailments, dating problems, the latest reality TV show…,” Rep. John Mica, (R-Fla.), said at a hearing in July.

The industry has begun to acknowledge flyers concerns of being trapped on a plane with an overly loud and/or annoying passenger on their cell phone. Cingular Wireless even wrote to the FAA saying that passengers should be encouraged to “tap, not talk” during flights. In addition, many security experts have reiterated flight crew concerns of unruly passengers set off by the never ending conversation of some passengers.

To accommodate the need for passengers to stay connected, productive and/or entertained while flying, airlines have begin to move forward with testing Wi-Fi networks on flights. In June, the FAA gave Verizone Airfone and United Airlines approval to test Wi-Fi equipment for use in flight.

As frequent flyers, we are always looking for ways to make that 10 to 15 minutes waiting in line or few hours on a plane more productive. However, there are very few business phone conversations that we would feel comfortable handling where everyone on the plane could listen. Offering high-speed internet access during flights seems like a “no brainer”, but the price will have to be right.

The discussion from the FAA, FCC and industry groups has seemed very polar. It seems that we either have to accept unfettered cell phone use on planes or ban it all together. How about the addition of a “talking room” to be used for cell phone calls during flights and an allowance for cell phone usage only within this space? Access could be paid for, provided free or provided only to frequent flyers. The standard space for a bathroom could easily be used for two of these rooms.

This would provide an alternative to “all or nothing” views currently being discussed by regulators and the industry and would still allow passengers to send SMS from their seats and use Wi-Fi.

Jamster! has received quite a bit of attention in the past for being both widely successful and widely controversial. Youths know the company as a frequent advertiser in magazines and on MTV in Germany. Parents know the company because of the charges that regularly show up on the phone bills they pay for their children. The company was sued earlier in the year for allegations of signing consumers up for monthly subscriptions and recurring charges without proper disclosure.

Jamster! Guardian should go a long way toward answering the critics. Parents should always discuss the cost of purchases, whether mobile or fixed, with their children, but this new service gives parents additional control. The service should be offered in the UK this week and will be rolled out in other countries before the end of the year.

Telephia maintains a panel of 69,000 wireless subscribers in the United States that it samples each month for mobile phone research. For the month of June 2005, more than 1,200 selected panelists responded to questions about their mobile internet usage and demographics. Weather-related sites were accessed by 3.9% of the total wireless audience, 2.9% visited a search site and 2.5% visited a sports related site.

The tables below, sourced from Telephia Audience Metrics, provide more details on the high-level results.

Click for Table 1
Click for Table 2

The walled gardens of many carriers likely account for a portion of the reason that portals ranked so low, but there may be another reason. Today’s handsets (hardware and interfaces) make accessing mobile content extremely difficult for the average user.

Given the complexity of mobile surfing and a user’s general limited disposable time when mobile, users are defaulting to the information that they have the greatest need for and can access quickly. General research clearly shows that city guides/maps/directions are extremely valuable to consumer and business users. However, limited use maps provided by the Google/Yahoo/Mapquest at minimal costs or supported by advertising differ when compared to more involved location services. Along the same cost/benefit lines, current mobile devices are difficult for extensive reading of news, stock reports, etc.

On the other hand, access to email via a mobile device is relatively simple on most carriers with a capable handset. We believe that users are not reading or writing large amounts of emails on their phones. They are likely using their phones as a type of mobile alert system and reading select messages. SMS has become widely popular because of its simplicity, but it requires the sender to use their phone and compose a short message. Mobile access to email, though, does not require a sender to guess what device you have ready access to and allows them to send the full details.

Telephia’s report simply provides details on users and what applications they use. It is up to you to determine your own explanations for this usage.

At Ericsson’s Strategy & Technology Summit in Shanghai, Ericsson president and chief executive Carl-Henric Svanberg said, “Users demand more mobile content, operators are looking for new revenue sources and media companies need new distribution channels. This is in line with our vision of an all-communicating world and we are confident that the mobile content industry has wonderful potential.”. Svanberg also said that Ericsson had signed a research agreement with Shanghai Research Centre for Wireless Communications (SHRCWC) to collaborate on technologies such as Super 3G and 4G.

3G is increasingly being rolled out by cellular operators in Europe and North America. It promises to deliver average data speeds of about 400K bps to 700K bps. While the WiMax Forum predicts that mobile users will receive at least 1M bps from WiMax (for fixed devices, downlink data rates of up to 65 M bps at close range to 16 M bps at distances of 9 to 10 km), its coverage will be limited for the next three to four years and will merely supplement 3G offerings. It is possible that 3G, WiMax and other wireless broadband technologies will converge into a future 4G offering.

Some of these additional technologies include FLASH-OFDM (Fast Low-latency Access with Seamless Handoff-Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing) and UMTS TD-CDMA (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System Time-Division Code Division Multiple Access), but others exist. For a good overview of the area, Infoworld is running a good overview.

With the recent announcement of Japan and China collaborating on 4G and Sprint Nextel having a license for 80% coverage of the 2.5Ghz frequency range, this should continue to be an interesting area to watch.

The real growth in India’s cellphone industry came after the Indian government relaxed its rules. Since then, Reliance Infocomm entered the market. In 2002, Reliance Infocomm helped push the market by offering phones that were nearly free initially and did not require payment until later.

The Gartner report makes additional advisements for Indian telcos that include a key focus on non-voice value-added services such as games, ring tones, and music downloads. With a large portion of the market opportunity coming from low-income users, average revenue per unit (ARPU) may be as low as $5 per month in the next 18 to 24 months. These additional services will help to improve the bottom line and differentiate offerings.

NTT and others have been researching 4G for some time, well before WiMax development began, but standards have not been formed as there is still debate on the uses of 4G. The original plans for 4G were to offer 100 Mbps wireless transmission. NTT has successfully blown through this barrier with a successful test of 1Gbps using their 4G technology, a Variable Spreading Factor-Spread Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (VSF-Spread OFDM) and a 4-by-4 Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna.

Mobile companies have historically spent the largest amount of their marketing budgets on sponsoring sporting events and sports teams. However, this may be changing as these companies are drastically increasing the advertising budgets for live music performances, which have seen a boom in concert attendance.

In addition, mobile content is becoming an increasingly important area for mobile companies to focus on with customers, and sales of music and ring tones are a high-margin business for these technology companies.

Some key stats from the article include:

• More than 1.7 million concerts have been held in England and Wales over the past year
• The U.K. live music industry is estimated to be worth GBP 487 million per year, up 50% since 1997, despite a decline in the sales of recorded music sold via old medium
• T-Mobile signed an exclusive deal with singer Robbie Williams in July where its customs could download the singer’s content onto their phones
• O2 is moving its GBP3 million per year sponsorship of the Arsenal soccer team, and perhaps other athletic sponsorships, to music sponsorships, with almost GBP2 million to be spent on music sponsorship this year alone
• Other mobile provider sponsorships of live music include: Virgin Mobil sponsoring the V Festival, France Telecom SA’s Orange’s sponsorship of the Glastonbury Festival and T-In-The-Park Festival, and various music sponsorships by Ericsson.

The WiMax wireless protocols allow for long-range data connections of up to 31 miles. WiMax has been designed to co-exist and work with standard WiFi, which has a general range of several hundred feet.

The Technology Suits issued a call earlier this year for more innovation in the location based gaming arena, and Blister has answered the call first for the United States. Several of us here also know the Blister team quite well and are happy to see their progress. Now a little about the games:

The games are now available to Boost customers for a monthly subscription of $5.99 for the first month and $2.99 for each additional month.

Swordfish starts by using the phone’s GPS technology to find schools of virtual fish around the player. Players begin by casting for fish and may need to move between 25 yards to approximately 100 yards to find the closest fish, while adjusting line length. According to the screenshots, the game uses data from NAVTEQ and offers a map of the area showing the fish to help in searching. After having played various beta versions of this game, we can assure you that this is a great simple game that is sure to have you handing your phone to your friends to see if they can beat your score.

Torpedo Bay places the user in middle of a naval battle with health and extra ammo located around the player. The player can use the phone’s location technology (GPS for Boost) to locate the closest health and ammo. The game then becomes a strategy game of firing (using “< ” and “>” to rotate your weapons) at your enemies while trying to resupply your battleship. Torpedo Bay again delivers on providing a truly unique experience to mobile gamers.

Swordfish, Torpedo Bay and Undercover 2: Merc Wars (released in Europe) show that the developers, carriers and consumers are finally beginning to open up to the opportunities of location based games. These recent releases also demonstrate how location based gaming crosses game genres and begin take mobile gaming in a direction that really uses the uniqueness of cellphones.

Since then, Skype has hired Morgan Stanley to help facilitate a transaction or take the company public. While Skype has raised more than $20 million in funding from private investors Howard Hartenbaum, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Index Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners and Mangrove Capital Partners, it simply needs more money to keep pace with its competitors. As an example, Vonage raised $200 million from investors earlier this year.

Of Skype’s advantages is that most consumers do not need additional hardware to run VOIP. Most VOIP providers use digital phones to connect to broadband networks. Skype, on the other hand, can run entirely as a web-based service where members use the microphones and speakers attached to their PCs or embedded in their laptops. With more than 147 million downloads of its software (free and premium), the interest from consumers and businesses is clearly there.

Business models for the company include charges for the ability to call landline and wireless phone number, in addition to opportunities for advertising, marketing and media distribution.

‘Senses’ is claimed to work with a wide range of cell phones and smartphones, in addition to maintaining backward compatibility for content delivery.

Qualcomm has stated that it will market the new version of ‘Senses’ to both GSM and CDMA operators.

The NPD Group invited a balanced group of teens (13-17) and adults (18+) to complete the survey and received more than 8,700 responses, including over 6,700 from current wireless subscribers.

Key findings from the study included:

• 50% of U.S. wireless subscribers own a phone capable of downloading games
• 27% of wireless subscribers play games on their phones, including purchased downloads, free demos and pre-loaded games
• About 1/3 of those that play mobile games buy the games themselves
• About 2/3 of those that play mobile games only play demos or free pre-loaded games
• 6% of current non-gamers show an interest in playing games on their phone over the next 12 months
• The average mobile gaming session is 11 minutes in total length
• Consumers who play games on other devices (e.g. consoles, PC, laptop) are twice as likely to play on their cell phone
• 60% of kids between the ages of 13 and 17 are likely to be mobile gamers
• 23% of adults are likely to be mobile gamers
• Mobile gamers generally spend more money when buying their handsets; an average of 57% more
• Mobile gamers are generally “heavier users of their mobile phones” than non-gamers, using 48% more wireless minutes and spending 22% more than average
• The dominant purchase model in the U.S. is single downloads, as opposed to subscriptions
• “Compared to typical wireless subscribers, mobile gamers are twice as likely to be African-American, Hispanic or Asian”
• The most cited reason for playing mobile games is “to kill time or alleviate boredom”

While we would like to see more information regarding the demographic and economic split of the sample size, these high-level results and the overview of the full report, “Mobile Games: Who’s Playing”, are quite interesting and shed a good bit of needed light on the U.S. mobile games industry.

The large number of telecom and internet bankruptcies over the past five years has created thousands of miles of “dark” fiber-optic cable across the country. Google has been quietly buying up these high speed cables and super fast connections from other firms. At the same time, Google has been funding a project with Feeva, a startup, to provide free WiFi access in San Francisco’s Union Square shopping district. More recently, Feeva is rumored to be developing similar projects throughout California, Florida, New York, Washington and elsewhere, with an unnamed backer.

Numerous media outlets are touting Feeva’s proprietary technology that allows it to “pinpoint” a user’s exact location in real-time. While this is an interesting means for location determination, Feeva is not the only company capable of using WiFi for location “spotting”. Microsoft, Skyhook Wireless and others have proven the ability to use hotspots to triangulate user’s locations. Although, the area is still new, and the technology requires knowing the location of hotspots (open or closed) in an area.

With Google’s recent fiber-optic purchases/leases and the rollout of Feeva, Google does appear to positioning itself to offer WiFi to the masses, at least in major cities.

Will “GoogleNet” be free? That is the next question. Google does offer some services/software for a fee and has continually told analysts that standard sales/licensing processes remain a viable option. However, it is much more likely that a WiFi offering by Google will be paid for, at least in part, via advertising similar to the majority of its services. Consumers often view searches on Google/Yahoo or even basic television as free, but it is not. These services are paid for from advertisers. While consumers may not pay initially, the advertising budget supporting these services come from consumers purchases online, in stores or from service centers. The business model is simply different.

With Sprint Nextel owning 2.5 gigahertz coverage for 80% of the country, we may begin to see a race to push bandwidth well above the limits of the 3G networks being rolled out.

What may be next for the Sprint Nextel? The company owns 2.5 gigahertz coverage for about 80% of the U.S. This spectrum may be used to offer a “wi-fi on steroids” service similar to the wireless hotspots offered in airport terminals and coffee shops. Imagine taking a train trip coast-to-coast without disconnecting from the internet.

The application is called Meetro and it is essentially a location based instant messenger that also consolidates AIM and ICQ. It locates mobile users via wi-fi nodes and allows landline users to enter their address (or a close one for privacy, if at home). Users are then shown in the window sorted by distance from you. With this initial version the company is looking for critical mass, but there will be filtering by keywords, demographics and profiles soon.

I have used it for a few weeks in Chicago to try it out and test the experience. It is kind of neat to be sitting in a coffee house or at the airport and find someone else close by with common interests. It would be nice to be able to integrate LinkedIn into Meetro, but it is a really good start.

Take a look at it.

What do you think about the program and where mobile social networking will go in the future? Is there a market for social networking applications?

At least in the few private studies I’ve seen on beta applications, “social” applications that use cell-id seem to work better for buddy alerts for close friends than necessarily for extended networks, random meets or business networking. The reasoning seems to be that people are generally not willing to traverse the distance of a cell-id (even in the city center) or take the extra step of trying to find who is actually close to them unless they already have a close personal connection.

GPS is an option. However, the urban-canyon effect and lack of indoor locations (until low frequency receivers are adopted) again limit the usefulness of non-buddy alert social applications.

With that said, wi-fi is not commonplace on phones and thus has its own limitations. The one thing wi-fi does do is allows a system to more accurately (at least for now) determine location – often simply showing people that are on the same access point (e.g. in a coffee house).

Do you think consumers are willing to sign up for another network or will any successful mobile social application have to tie in Yahoo, MSN, AIM, Friendster, LinkedIn, etc.?