The beginning of the end for unlimited Net plans?

Given that the average user absolutely loathes pricing based on the quantity of data downloaded, it's interesting to hear that carriers and ISPs in places such as the US, Canada and Japan are considering doing just that.

In Japan such pricing is still in the discussion phase, but ISPs there have expressed concerns over an explosion in P2P and video traffic and some see "per-byte" charging as a possible solution. Bell Canada is also looking at its options, according to media reports, which stated that an industry group representing more than 50 independent Canadian ISPs is suggesting that Bell Canada's plans to throttle the web traffic on its networks is part of a larger plan to implement a tiered Internet pricing scheme. And in the US, Time Warner has already started trials in Texas of pricing schemes based on how much bandwidth the user consumes.

Users in Australia and New Zealand have long been used to Internet "caps" and associated charges that see them pay for the extra data they download. But in the rest of the world, "unlimited" data plans are taken for granted. There are a number of other countries that have capped data tariffs, but mostly these are outweighed by unlimited plans, as a study by New Zealand's Wairua Consulting found in 2006. NZ had the distinction of having the highest percentage of capped products among OECD countries surveyed, while the study also found that the top three countries in terms of broadband uptake -- Sweden, the Netherlands and Norway -- all "have significantly more choice, faster plans and either no usage restrictions or limits that in most cases are unlikely to ever affect customers."

Over the past 12 months I've been a user of both unlimited and capped services and have noticed a massive difference in my broadband habits depending on which I'm using. Using an unlimited broadband connection gives the user the opportunity to embrace the digital world fully, whether that's contributing to or accessing video sites like YouTube, sampling the world's radio stations via the Internet or creating a virtual meeting place on a social networking site.

A capped service, as I've experienced the past four months, can see users severely throttling their broadband activity and nervous about experimenting with anything online that might send them over their capped broadband limit and paying exorbitant charges for the excess data. In my case, the cap is 5GB -- a limit the carrier and a few friends suggested would rarely be exceeded. Wrong!

I don't consider myself a heavy surfer, particularly of video, but I've still found it easy to exceed the 5GB threshold. One change of habit as an example: I no longer have music services such as Last.FM playing constantly in the background while I work. I also have to be careful of automatic updating services, such as the security and other updates from Windows or application updates from the likes of Adobe.

In many ways, excess data charges can be compared to international roaming charges: they're often exorbitant, they create billing uncertainty for the user, and they end up inhibiting usage. Yet while there is plenty of action aimed at bringing down mobile roaming fees, there seems to be less momentum for removing data caps and excess charges. In fact, as the recent announcements in the US, Japan and Canada suggest, the trend could be towards more rather than less per-byte charging. And that would seem a distinctly backward trend given all the rhetoric about moving towards digital economies and the need for communities to take up broadband. -- Geoff Long

Last throw of the dice for WiMAX

Like it or not, this is the year that will prove whether there is a business case for mobile WiMAX. If it doesn’t take off in a substantial way in 2008, I think you can safely proclaim it another broadband wireless niche platform that has come and gone, similar to the likes of LMDS, MMDS and some of the proprietary stuff that came before it. It will live on for providing fixed “DSL-equivalent” broadband in remote areas and emerging markets, but it will have missed its chance of becoming a ubiquitous broadband technology for the roaming masses.

If it hasn’t solidified its base by the end of the year, then it will be because carriers have chosen to stick with HSPA and wait for LTE, which will by then be just around the corner. And that will mean that WiMAX has been pushed down to become yet another footnote in wireless broadband history at the expense of the GSM juggernaut. (And the same goes for the other proposed 4G standard, Qualcomm’s UBM, by the way.)

Of course, it could be that WiMAX really does prove itself in 2008 and there are already some encouraging signs. In Japan late last year the government awarded two licences in the 2.5GHz band to consortia headed by KDDI and another to Willcom, with equipment vendors already lining up to provide gear. One thing to bear in mind, however, is that in the case of KDDI, trials are only expected to kick off in February 2009.

Similarly, 2009 is expected to be the year that another potential WiMAX market, Taiwan, really gets underway. Taiwan also sees itself as a major supplier of WiMAX equipment to the world, and it is interesting that there are already grumblings over there about the cost of WiMAX compliance testing. According to Digitimes sources, it will cost about US$25,000-31,250 for the makers to complete the certification testing of a single fixed WiMAX item. In addition, the WiMAX Forum is charging US$10,000 per mobile WiMAX product to use the WiMAX Forum certified mark compared to US$5,500 per fixed WiMAX model. The news report also noted that a fee of up to US$200,000 is being estimated for the testing of some items.

The WiMAX camp also got a generally favourable report from Juniper Research last week suggesting that the mobile WiMAX 802.16e market will grow to $23 billion by 2013, with half of that total coming from Asia. However, that will still only represent “a single digit proportion of the Asian mobile broadband base by 2013,” according to the report.

The Juniper report also warns that both the availability of suitable devices and the awarding of licences will be important factors in determining the success of Mobile WiMAX 802.16e, both in Asia and globally. Interestingly, it also tips licences in India and Thailand as being crucial to the WiMAX camp. Warning bells should ring right there, given the two countries’ notoriously slow licensing regimes. In the case of Thailand, you can almost guarantee that it won’t be issuing licences for WiMAX this year, given the political environment and the need to create a new regulatory body.

When it comes to devices, one of the WiMAX camp’s trump cards is the backing of Intel, which will see it become standard in every new notebook computer, much the same as Wi-Fi is today. The only problem with this is that if there is no network to connect to, it doesn’t really matter if the notebook is WiMAX-enabled or not.

In contrast, if the push to include HSPA in new devices takes off, the HUGE advantage they have is that the networks and service are widespread already. And the momentum to include HSPA chips in notebooks is likely to happen this year. Throw in all the HSPA-capable mobile phones, and the economies of scale certainly don’t favour WiMAX and won’t any time soon.

Despite some vendor claims to the contrary, WiMAX needs the Sprint rollout in the US to succeed, and it will need to succeed wildly in 2008 if it is to give any vote of confidence to carriers in the rest of the world wanting to roll it out. If it doesn’t, then the GSM/HSPA/LTE camp will have won the battle for mobile wireless broadband supremacy for the foreseeable future. – Geoff Long

Do we want our IPTV?

Video is clearly the “in” thing on the Internet, with new peer-to-peer television offerings, user-generated video services, Internet video channels and telco interest in IPTV. So it was a shock to see such a low turnout at last week’s IPTV World Forum Asia in Singapore. You’d think every telco in the region would have sent out a delegation to find out what the latest thinking is and how the pioneers are doing. Or perhaps it’s in everyone’s too hard, too costly and too much government meddling basket?

Let’s face it, Asia hasn’t realised its promise when it comes to IPTV, particularly given the much touted high-density, high-bandwidth economies like Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. The region was at the forefront thanks largely to PCCW’s Now offering, which first started more than four years ago, but since then there’s largely been a vacuum. PCCW/Now still accounts for the majority of IPTV subscribers in Asia with its 850,000 signups, and it was only a few months ago that it was joined by a serious telco IPTV offering – Singtel’s Mio.

In the meantime, it seems there’s now more IPTV activity in Europe and the US, particularly in conjunction with some of the new fibre rollouts. The Asian numbers haven’t been helped by some world-class dithering by regulators, which continue with 20^th Century models to regulate Internet and new media. South Korea, for example, should be an IPTV showcase by now if it wasn’t for the insistence by regulators that they can’t broadcast in real-time and other hobbling policies. Most of the other regulators around the region seem not to understand the new digital media landscape either.

Nevertheless, there were still some interesting lessons to be had from last week’s IPTV event, first and foremost that it will remain a very expensive business to enter into and one that will have a very long return on investment. Speakers from PCCW/Now and Singtel/Mio both stressed that they viewed the business as a pay TV service – meaning it required all of the various agreements with content producers, advertising and a reliable platform rather than an Internet “best effort” platform.

In the case of PCCW, it’s yet to turn a profit after four years and has recently ploughed US$200 million into getting the broadcast rights for English Premier League football. Singtel has also been sourcing original content and is not expecting to turn a profit on its IPTV service for 10 years. Low Ka Hoe, the director of Mio TV and content, also pointed out that nothing less than a 20Mbps connection (or ADSL2+) was good enough for delivering the service given that they wanted it to be seen as reliable as regular satellite/cable TV.

For all the talk of “video 2.0” and user-generated video content, most of the big telcos seem to think they need to be a pay TV operator first, then add the social networking/user-generated content frills later. This could well be the case because, let’s face it, everybody across the whole media landscape seems to be still playing a guessing game when it comes what consumers want and are willing to pay for. The real convergence hasn’t happened yet – consumers still go to a TV set to get regular shows and head to the Internet/PC to get niche content. Whether the two come together remains to be seen.

Content producers are also still guessing. Yew Ming Lau, VP of business development for Turner Broadcasting Asia Pacific, said Turner and other original content producers were still working out how to tap into the “long tail” of niche content by experimenting with various web channels and other delivery models. Telcos would be happy to hear that he believes they are better placed to deliver the niche stuff in conjunction with the regular programming, but then again this could be just because both the telco and the content producer see this as the best way to monetise user-generated and other new content forms.

Which brings us to the elephant in the room that few people want to draw attention to – the web-based and peer-to-peer players like Joost, Babelgum and the newly-announced Knocka TV (from the founders of ICQ). Some might even call it the over-the-top elephant that may come crashing through to spoil the party. One surprising voice to acknowledge it at last week’s IPTV gathering was Hou Zi Qiang, an independent director of China Netcom who stressed he was presenting his personal views rather than those of the carriers.

According to Qiang, “the basic business model of new media is the Internet business model” and “video should be on the Internet, not on the private network of an operator.” In other words, IPTV is ripe for disintermediation like every other media. And perhaps that explains the low turnout at last week’s IPTV World Forum Asia last week – everyone’s tuning into what’s happening on the Internet before they commit to expensive IPTV rollouts. – Geoff Long

A broadband tale of two countries

What a remarkable contrast between the two election campaigns that have recently been on-going in Australia and Thailand. The elections might be just one-month apart (Australia 24 Nov, Thailand 23 December), but in terms of ICT issues and the realisation that broadband infrastructure is a critical economic and social policy matter, they’re generations apart.

Sometimes I think the media and parts of the industry in Australia don’t appreciate that the country has a healthy, competitive ICT environment, both in terms of the infrastructure in place and the regulatory framework surrounding it. Sure, it could be a lot better, but then again you’re never going to satisfy everyone.

And sometimes I think the media and parts of the industry in Thailand don’t appreciate that the country is falling behind when it comes to infrastructure and a regulatory framework that promotes investment. Not just falling behind the likes of Australia, but neighbours such as Malaysia and perhaps even Vietnam. Sure, it could be worse, but not much.

This week in Australia is probably going to see a major announcement on broadband, given that it was a central plank of the new Labor government’s election campaign. But to be fair, you have to give credit to both parties for realising the importance of broadband and putting it on the political agenda. And the result of that is, no matter which party was elected, there was always going to be a political push to improve the country’s broadband infrastructure. At least something will happen.

In Thailand, by contrast, the only safe bet is that nothing will happen. And the telecom sector has pretty well been in limbo for the past decade. Ask most people who the current ICT minister is and you’ll likely get a shrug of the shoulders, although they’ll probably remember Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, who resigned as ICT Minister last month. However, they won’t remember him for his forward-thinking ICT policies, but rather his somewhat bizarre behaviour and occasional disjointed thoughts on improving ICT.

In his brief reign as ICT Minister, he managed to ban YouTube, tell foreign reporters that state-run telcos would be fully-privatised while at the same time telling Thai reporters that they would never be privatised, and proposed handing over all telecom networks to be managed by the listless Telephone Organisation of Thailand.

At one of his few meetings with the international media, at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Bangkok, he managed to talk more about his sexual history than telecoms policy. He’s also well known for a collection of more than 300 guns, carrying around his own personal euthanasia machine (which he invented), and being the inventor of the Bangkok taxi meter. Yet at least in terms of education, he had something in common with his Australian counterparts – he boasts a PhD in Solid State Electronics from the University of New South Wales in 1975.

It would be wrong to blame Sitthichai, however, given that he was drafted into the position by the military junta – whoever held the reigns until the next government was always going to keep things in a holding pattern. However, that doesn’t excuse the previous years of inaction. In the past five years there have been numerous stories of foreign businesses relocating to other parts of Asia because of poor and costly telecoms infrastructure in Thailand. Now the local business people are getting outspoken as well.

As noted in CommsDay last week, a panel of some of the top Internet and telecom experts slammed the country's regulatory environment at a roundtable at the ICT Expo, saying it has left the nation ill-prepared for the convergence of telecom, broadcasting and media. Typical was the comment by Vilaiwan Vanadurongvan, an advisor to the Channel 7 TV station, criticising the regulatory vacuum. “Is a merged or separate watchdog better? We as the private sector do not care anymore. Anything is better than 10 years of inaction. Just go ahead and do something. Anything is better than the status quo we have today,” she stated.

If the contrast with Australia is unfair, given the differences in economic size of the two countries, Thailand needs only to look across the border in Malaysia to see what can be done with a strong government push. Initiatives such as the MSC and its supporting infrastructure, the licensing policy for both WiMax and 3G services and the plans for a national fibre rollout are way ahead of anything happening in Thailand.

Singapore and Hong Kong are probably unfair comparisons, given their sizes, but still it’s the willingness of the government and regulatory authorities to put in place policies that stimulate ICT spending that are the key issue. Hong Kong and Singapore have quite different approaches – with Hong Kong much more laissez faire – but both have been instrumental in creating an environment conducive to business.

There is still time for one of the political parties in Thailand to take up the ICT policy challenge and articulate a clear and enlightened framework to bring the country in line with others in the regions. If the next government fails to take action, however, Thailand will continue to be a telecom backwater and lose business to its neighbours. – Geoff Long

WiMax on the ropes?

Here's a commentary piece I wrote for CommsDay Asean last week, shortly after Sprint Nextel CEO Gary Forsee resigned. Over the past 12 months I've heard so many WiMax vendors suggest the fact that Sprint is rolling out a massive 802.16e network meant that the economies of scale for the technology were guaranteed. But what if Sprint changes its plans?
The usual reminder: You can sign up for a free trial subscription to Commsday at www.commsday.com


When Sprint Nextel CEO Gary Forsee abruptly resigned earlier this week, he probably expected the speculation on his future and the future of the company that he had helmed for the past four years. It's unknown, however, if he expected the questions regarding the very future of the WiMax technology he has helped hype for the past 12 months.

Yet that is the biggest story to arise since Forsee left the office on Monday afternoon: whether there is any future in WiMax without a tier one operator to champion it. Not that Sprint has necessarily dumped WiMax, but most commentators and analysts are now seriously questioning whether the wireless operator will proceed down the WiMax route.

At best, most expect Sprint to slowdown its WiMax activity, which could equally be detrimental to the future of the technology, as Bear Stearns equity research analyst Philip Cusick pointed out in a note to investors. "We believe that Sprint is likely to de-emphasise the WiMax business, which could result in a slower rollout for WiMax in the U.S., lower economies of scale for Clearwire and shrink the ecosystem necessary to attract consumer electronics companies to WiMax," Cusick wrote.

That's quite a damning summation, but it's not the only negative sentiment nor the worst. Patrick Comack, a senior equity analyst with Zachary Investment Research, was quoted by the Washington Post as suggesting the company was negligent in going with WiMax in the first place. "The fact that they bought a $5 billion network without testing it was a violation of fiduciary duty. It's like buying a $5 billion car without test-driving it first," he said.

A similar sentiment was expressed to CommsDay this week by Gartner VP of technology and service provider research Martin Gutberlet, who pointed out that the WiMax technology that Sprint is deploying, 802.16e, commonly known as mobile WiMax, had not even started compliance testing yet. And it is widely known that the network had many technical setbacks.

Aside from a few niche fixed WiMax deployments in emerging markets, Gutberlet all but wrote off WiMax's chances against 3G and 4G technologies such as HSPA and LTE. He said that a new version of WiMax, 802.16m, had more potential but only if it wasn't hobbled by being made backwards-compatible. As this was unlikely to occur, he suggested that WiMax will never make it as a mass market technology.

Even the fact that the likes of Intel was pouring money into WiMax and supposedly making it standard in every new notebook in 2008 did not convince him that WiMax would become mainstream. As Gutberlet noted, Intel has got it wrong before. And it could also be that Sprint has got it wrong, too.

Given that the WiMax camp has put so much emphasis on Sprint rolling out the technology, it's fair to say that if they do indeed scale back their WiMax plans, the technology's future doesn't look anywhere near as bright as it did in the Gary Forsee era. -- Geoff Long

Do we really need broadband handouts?

We’ve supposedly got cheap and standardised networking components that can allow countries to leapfrog generations of technology. We’ve got concepts like user-generated infrastructure where shared connections are being tied together to form one global hotspot. Competition between not only service providers but also different technologies should be bringing affordable and fast communications to everyone.

So with all of this at our disposal, why does it sometimes seem that we’re regressing to a time when governments took the lead in providing communications infrastructure? Even in the most capitalist country in the world they’re calling for government intervention and more funding to improve the US’s poor showing in the broadband rankings.

Has the market really failed so spectacularly that the only way to get communications infrastructure rolled out is for governments to throw money at the problem?

The regression to government-led infrastructure is not confined to the US, however. In Thailand, for example, the rate of regression is probably world-class. A recent proposal was for the state-owned TOT to take control of all of the country’s networks, pool them together and then lease it back to the access providers.

It’s the sort of suggestion that makes you check that the date isn’t the first of April, and unfortunately it’s a suggestion that’s still on the agenda somewhere. It’s about the only time that it seems an advantage that the country is in a state of legislative paralysis.

When it comes to throwing money at the problem, however, Australia would seem to be leading the pack. I think most of the world doesn’t realise just how much money both sides of government are talking about giving out to build broadband. The incumbent government is offering $600 million for regional broadband, while the opposition says it would provide funding of some $4.7 billion if elected. Those are serious sweeteners.

There’s nothing wrong with governments having the goal of attaining world-class infrastructure. I just wonder if the paybacks will be as good as they’re expecting. Obviously the thinking is that the country will be more competitive as a result of blanket broadband coverage. Would be interesting to measure though. You could also argue that it’s just ensuring that everyone has equal access to digital entertainment.

Many people seem to agree that pervasive and super-fast broadband connections lead to economic growth. I’d like to see the data to back it up. If places like Stockholm, Paris, Hamburg and others now have widespread access to 24Mbps connections and higher, in some cases 100 Mbps pipes, have the citizens or businesses in those places become better off financially? Or do they just have better movie collections?

As well as serious studies into the economic flow-ons of superfast broadband, I’d also like to see another type of study – whether funding or regulatory reform is the best way to improve infrastructure. For example in the U.S., there are many who would argue that the problem lies with the power of Big Telco. Their lobby armies ensure that the vested interests of the big players are protected.

Similarly, in developing countries like Thailand it’s often the regulators that are stopping infrastructure from being built. But if they would allow outside competitors to enter the market, and allow new technologies like WiMAX and so on to flourish, they could probably have world-class infrastructure in a relatively short period of time. And all without the government having to open the public purse.

Let’s applaud the goal of wanting to have world-class infrastructure. But let’s also see if world-class competition and regulatory policies are a better way of delivering it. – Geoff Long

Muni meltdown: the lessons for Asia

Here's my latest column from BroadBand Communities newsletter. Go to www.commsday.com if you want to sign up for free . . .


Here in Asia the term “muni network” is not common, although I’m guessing most people that follow the telecom sector will know that it refers to the municipal networks, usually wireless, that are being championed by local governments. In the U.S., however, muni networks are mainstream news. They’ve either been built or are under consideration in 455 U.S. cities, while they’re popularity has created a cottage industry of conferences, consultants, lobbyists and publishing ventures.

However, the whole concept of muni networks and the industry that has sprung up around it could be in danger of unravelling – something governments in this region should watch closely. As our US correspondent Patrick Neighly reports this week, Chicago is one of the high-profile cities that has recently had a re-think of its city-wide Wi-Fi plans, while at the same time Earthlink, a major investor in muni wireless infrastructure, has also done its sums and concluded that it’s perhaps not such a good way to spend its money after all.

It’s not alone, however, with skepticism about the whole concept of municipal Wi-Fi being the main theme of media coverage in the past few weeks. According to an article in this week’s The Economist, most of the networks that have been put in place today suffer from a wide but consistent range of problems: poor indoor coverage, underestimating the number of transmitters needed for city-wide service, a lack of demand for the service from the general public and no real demand from the city governments themselves.

Somehow, you would have thought that someone would have pointed to such potential problems before the estimated 175 municipal networks now in service were rolled out. It’s not like the coverage problems weren’t known, and stuff like estimating demand and the number of transmitters needed would seem to be fairly basic steps before rolling out any wireless service.

As for the governments themselves, The Economist quoted networking consultant Craig Settles as saying they simply weren’t ready with basic things such as their back office systems to provide government services over the networks. Settles has also done a recent report on the benefits of muni wireless and he concludes that one of the biggest tasks is to manage expectations. “Poorly managing expectations is a killer. Muni wireless is taking some undeserved lumps because so many public statements in 2006 promised what the technology can’t deliver and supported business models difficult to sustain,” he wrote in the report.

In other words, many networks are being judged on criteria that they themselves had not set. He claimed that some of the success stories are not getting the publicity that the tales of muni doom and gloom are. For example, one of the first muni networks, in Philadelphia, was set up with the goal of fostering economic development in huge areas of urban decay within the city – something it was successful in doing. However, Settles claims that it is now being judged on other goals.

“Articles now say that unless we see hordes of young professionals and tourists roaming the streets of Philadelphia with Wi-Fi gadgets blazing, the network will be a failure. What total and complete crap,” he suggested.

On the plus side, all of this activity, both positive and negative, can provide useful lessons for similar networks going up in Asia. In places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Sydney there are plans underway for massive Wi-Fi networks, often with the most publicised feature being that they’ll offer free access. Yet already there are signs that they could face similar problems to those currently being experienced in the U.S.

For example in Taiwan the demand has been nowhere near what was expected – according to The Economist it was claimed to need 250,000 regular subscribers by the end of 2006 in order to break even, but had attracted only 30,000 by April this year. And we’ve already reported here in Broadband Communities of complaints regarding coverage and quality in Singapore.

In the case of Chicago’s decision to drop its Wi-Fi plans, one of the cited reason was that Sprint was going to make the city one of its pilot WiMax sites, which would offer better coverage. Yet look at cities like Sydney and Hong Kong, both of which have a wealth of wireless offerings in place already. Who is going to switch to a government backed Wi-Fi service? I know in my case, I’d pick reliable over free any day.

Which is not to deny that there is a place for municipal wireless, either in the U.S. or here in this region. But governments rolling it out should first ensure some basic steps. Firstly, clearly articulate what the goals of the network are. Secondly, ensure that proper planning and forecasting is done – don’t underestimate the number of transmitters needed or overestimate the number of potential users. If one of the goals is to use the network for government services, make sure the relevant public agencies are actually ready in terms of their back-end services.

And finally, do everything possible to manage expectations. If public access is not an important goal, or if the aim is to spur development in terms of business or public services, make sure that the public and media know that’s the case. Otherwise you could have the situation that is arising in America, where muni wireless is starting to be written off as a failure before it’s had a chance to succeed.

How WiMAX can disrupt the cellco cartel

I'm now working on our Broadband Communities newsletter, which has lots of stuff on WiMax and muni wi-fi this week. Go to www.commsday.com if you're not a subscriber (it's free).
In the meantime, I thought I'd resurrect this column on how WiMax can make its mark.

How WiMAX can disrupt the cellco cartel
The time to prove the demand for WiMAX among users is at hand. While the hype machine has been active for some years, it’s only now in 2007 that we’re really going to see any activity in terms of commercial networks, particularly of the mobile WiMAX variety.

And they’ve got a lot of catching up to do with HSDPA, which has enjoyed a steady stream of rollouts around the world. The question is, how many users of a HSDPA network, or a handset that’s capable of using it, are actually making use of mobile Internet capabilities? I suspect not too many.

In fact, in a presentation at the WiMAX Strategies Asia forum recently, Motorola head of technology for South and East Asia, Dr Ray Owen, noted that last year worldwide ARPU for mobile cellular data actually dropped, and is tipped to rise only slightly this year. That would suggest that other than SMS messages and ringtones – the bread and butter of data ARPUs – subscribers aren’t buying this mobile Internet thing.

And with good reason: it’s overpriced and often hobbled.

Everyone has known for years that roaming fees for mobile voice are excessive. Roaming fees for mobile data are nothing short of extortion. Even among business people who travel regularly, many are forgoing the mobile data features of their phones because of high data roaming charges. For independents (ie, those of us who pay our own bills), the shock of the bill on your return is not worth the pain.

And the latest news is that operators such as Vodafone and Orange in the UK have been disabling the Skype and other built-in VoIP capabilities in the new Nokia N95 phones. That way they can lock users into their higher prices when making international calls or when roaming abroad.

Skype has also made a submission to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on the same issue. In its “wireless net neutrality” proposal it called for users to be able to use Internet communications software and attach their own devices to any wireless network. Many commentators have pointed out similarities to the 1968 “Carterphone” decision, where AT&T was forced to allow users to connect third-party devices to their fixed line. (The decision was named after Tom Carter, who had a device for patching phone calls into two-way radio gear)

The mobile phone operators also want to lock you into their own walled garden of content as well. Last year Google hit out at such practices, accusing them of blocking access to Internet content and services including Google. “They’re inserting themselves in between you and an application that you want. I think that has scary, scary implications,” Chris Sacca, a Google senior exec, was quoted as saying.

So how does all of this help the WiMAX camp? It allows them to pitch their services as a “pure IP” play from day one. No walled gardens of content, no hobbled applications or disabled features, just pure and unadulterated access to “the” Internet. Wanna make voice calls, either international or local – go ahead, it’s just another application available on the Internet. Given that there’s already a WiMAX roaming forum being set up, it could seriously eat into cellco roaming fees the way Wi-Fi already is today.

One WiMAX operator at the WiMAX Strategies Asia forum is doing just that, even while offering its own VoIP services. “I don’t have a problem if my subscribers don’t use my voice but use Skype,” said Peter Ziegelwanger, managing director of Austria’s WiMAX Telecom. “What I can do is promise quality with my VoIP service,” he added.

Of course the mobile operators could also hit back with similar deals themselves. In a small way, this has already started to happen. Hutchison has launched its “X-series” of services that includes mobile Skype and other popular Internet services for its 3 mobile brand around the world, including in Hong Kong and more recently Australia. And users also get a flat monthly fee for mobile Internet as well.

Speaking to BroadBand Communities’ sister publication Communications Day, Hutchison Whampoa Group finance director Frank Sixt claimed that 3 was the first mobile operator in the world to tear down the walled garden. “Up until now network operators have treated network capacity as their most expensive asset. Historically it was and they rationed it and sold it at the highest possible price,” he said. “3 is the first mobile operator in the world to change the mobile media business model.”

To date, the rest of the mobile operator community has not followed suit. Which leaves a clear opening for WiMAX operators to offer – and more importantly market – what could be an important differentiator. That is, a “pure IP” service that is not hobbled or outrageously expensive, either at home or when on the road. – Geoff Long