Worst of the Week: All your predictions are belong to us

Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
So, it’s December and that can only mean one thing: Outrageous predictions for next year.
Somehow this annoying activity has become a ritual that for some reason everyone expects. It does not seem to matter what subject you are interested in, there is someone, somewhere who has put out a list of things they expect to see on that subject over the next 12 months.
Truthfully, I have a negative opinion of this trend as for the most part as soon as these sort of predictions are made, they are forgotten. Sure, they are still good for some quick entertainment, but virtually no one goes back in time to see just how accurate someone’s predictions were.
Plus, if anyone was really good at making these predictions I would guess they would use their talents for more evil activities by booking the next flight to Las Vegas. I hear they have activities there that someone with prognostication abilities could use to their advantage.
I am not sure if I have ever made such a list myself (at least sober), but if I have I am sure I was wrong on all of those predictions and probably even spelled my name wrong.
However, I have been told by many that people love these things and if anything I am a man of the people and desperately in need of approval.
So, in that spirit, I present the WOTW 2011 predictions:
1. One wireless carrier will start marketing their service using the “6G” brand. This carrier will be so forward-thinking that they will have figured out that if “4G” has to be better than “3G” then why bother moving to “5G” when “6G” is better still. Also, having that “6” and “G” together sort of looks cool. Further adding awesomeness to this prediction is that the carrier that makes the move will be a mobile virtual network operator offering only voice and text services. Genius!
2. Phones will somehow get more complicated and thus less useful. Right now I have a phone that I am pretty sure can launch Russian rockets and change the weather. Unfortunately – or probably fortunately in this case – I have no idea how to access that functionality. Sure, I could spend weeks working through all of these advanced features, but I am just as likely to break my phone in that time period and have to go through the same process with a new phone. I think that by adding a few more buttons, or better yet taking some buttons away, and putting more functions into that device (pizza slicer anyone?) a handset maker can make its phone even harder to comprehend.
3. Something at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show will not have anything at all to do with wireless. My wireless crystal ball is not receiving a clear enough signal at this point to predict exactly what that one item will be, but from the blurry picture I am getting I can make out that it’s either a chainsaw or bubbles.
4. Someone besides AT&T Mobility will begin offering the iPhone domestically causing a mass exodus of current AT&T Mobility customers to that new carrier. This will result in a drastic, short-term increase in revenues for AT&T Mobility as all of these customers will happily fork over hundreds of dollars in early termination fees. Those customers that do remain with AT&T Mobility will then witness the network speeds on their iPhones jump to 1 gigabit per second and their coverage expand to both underwater and into space. This will result in customer churn at AT&T Mobility dropping to less than .1% and customer satisfaction scores to jump so high that they will need letters to express the results.
5. The carrier that is blessed enough to land the iPhone will see their customer growth numbers skyrocket throughout the year as every media outlet both real and imagined shouts the news that anyone that stays with AT&T Mobility with their iPhone is a “sucka.” These people will blindly sign any contract terms that are waved in front of them in order to have that device on that carrier. Small people are likely to get trampled in the melee. This (un)lucky carrier will then see its network grind to a halt under the data load and customers begin to fume as they realize that all the apps they bought on their AT&T Mobility iPhone will not transfer to the new device.
6. Speaking of Apple, the company will launch a new product that will look like a trash can, but because it has the Apple logo on it and is made from aluminum, customers will line up for weeks to shell out $200 for the aptly named iCan. Samsung will then come out with a copy within six months that will be made of plastic, be slightly smaller and sell for $100.
7. A tower company will get too greedy by attempting to put 37 antennas onto a single tower and instead of that tower toppling over, it will simply sink into the earth. Traditional wireless coverage around that tower will suffer, however mole people living in the area for the first time will be able to make a cell phone call from their hovels.
8. An application store operator – either Apple, Google or Palm (he he) – will make headlines by announcing it now offers more than 1 million mobile apps. This will cause quite a stir for as we all know, more is better. This mark will be celebrated with the 1 millionth application (a farting app, of course) being offered free to all. And while these sounds will only be digital in nature, they will be utilized so often and by so many people that they will actually impact the ozone layer. You’ve been warned.
9. One daring mobile operator will begin paying people to use their service. Now, I am not talking about some sort of rebate or discount on a current offering that a carrier’s marketing department will then spin into some “We know customers will like our service so much we are paying them to use it” sort of promotion. But a real, honest-to-goodness “We will give you money every time you use our service” sort of deal that will result in consumers having more money in their pockets at the end of the day then what they started with. Obviously, this business model will be tricky to manage, but with how haphazardly it seems many “legitimate” businesses are being run these days I think it’s something someone will make work.
“Why not 10 predictions?” you may be asking. Well I am not sure my fragile ego could take being wrong on 10 out of 10 predictions. Plus, what do you care? You are going to forget all nine of these as soon as you click off this page. As will I.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras courtesy of our RCRBlog at uplugged.www.rcrwireless.com:
—(From Matt Kapko) Perception can become reality in unique ways. So much of our world is predicated on how things are perceived.
On at least some level, this factor is impacting Chinese vendors Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and ZTE Corp. in their aims to break deeper into the U.S. market.
We may never know if the companies were indeed blocked from their latest attempts with Sprint Nextel Corp. or just dismissed for political or business pressures. Regardless, the perception that security might be somehow less secure on their equipment is there.
There is an overall theme emerging wherein “national security concerns” continue to be raised against the Chinese vendors in one forum or another. Almost any negative activity that perpetuates this trend, whether perceived or real, will continue to derail the Chinese vendors’ hopes of grabbing a bigger share of the global wireless infrastructure market.
Bad news isn’t always better than no news at all. And that’s particularly t
rue for heavily regulated (and leveraged) industries like wireless telecom.
Huawei is particularly dogged by reported ties to the Chinese military and subsidies or financial incentives that it is rumored to be receiving from the Chinese government. The company has also been accused of stealing intellectual property from its competitors.
Huawei, which was founded by a former Chinese military officer, and ZTE, which was founded by a group of state-run companies that now own a minority share in the business, have consistently denied any collusion with the Chinese government or military.
Whether it’s formal policy or not, it’s regularly suggested that most deals involving Chinese vendors would be blocked by the U.S. government anyway, although Huawei already supplies equipment to Clearwire Corp., Cox Communications Inc. and Leap Wireless International Inc. Perhaps just the mere possibility of regulatory hold-ups is enough to keep most companies looking elsewhere for partners and potential suitors.
It’s happened before. Huawei’s attempts to buy in to Harbinger Capital L.L.C.’s LTE network, Motorola Inc.’s network business and 2Wire were stymied by security concerns. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. blocked Huawei from acquiring 3Com because of national security concerns and now the group is investigating Huawei’s acquisition of 3Leaf Systems because the deal wasn’t pre-approved.
Whether the company’s overall success is really defined by its position in the United States or not, Huawei is showing no signs of relenting in its quest for more big contract business here. But as long as even the perception of nefarious intent is present in the United States, Chinese vendors will have to overcome much more than simply one-upping their competitors on pricing and technology.
—(From Tracy Ford) Sprint Nextel’s announcing of a $5 billion network upgrade officially marks the beginning of the end of the story of Nextel Communications Inc., a proud yet bitter history of arguably one of the nation’s best wireless communications carriers.
Before smart phones and 5 GB data caps, before LTE and WiMAX, there was iDEN technology. But push-to-talk is only part of the story. The real meat of the matter is the people behind the network and the company. Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to interview a lot of former Nextel employees and two things always become apparent quickly on: 1) these people were proud of the network they built – overcoming adversity that came with deploying new technology that didn’t work well, getting a much-needed $1 billion investment from wireless pioneer Craig McCaw, and ultimately having the highest ARPU and a fiercely loyal customer base. You could argue that Nextel really helped wireless adoption by bringing a valuable service beyond business executives to blue-collar workers out in the field.
The second thing you learn after talking to former Nextel employees: Many believe Sprint killed Nextel, rather than just acquired it. Nextel was valued at $35 billion when Sprint acquired it in 2005, and the two companies never successfully integrated. (For a great perspective on the early days of Nextel, click here. For a great perspective on the lessons learned from the disastrous merger, click here.)
Is Sprint making the right decision to turn off the iDEN network? Probably. The world has changed. But cheers to the individuals who persevered technology challenges, Wall Street scorn, regulatory scrutiny and the rest to bring the right service to the right people at the right time. My hat is off to all of you.
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I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at [email protected].