China

Things are even worst for the USA that is seriously topping the recession in the shoulders of the other countries. Recently the US ministry of economics has announced that China was the USA's golden sponsor for Septemeber 2008. Thats not ofcourse about all the Chinese restaurants that are rapidly growing feeding the
Americans with the americanized chinese springrolls, but about the US debt that is growing. The US ministry of economics announced that China has topped out Japan making the Americans grateful to the Chinese empire and then to their Japanese buddies.


Crunching the numbers in, China has a bill of $585 billions to "cash out" (doubt it) and Japan $573,2 billions. Proudly the 3rd country in the list is the UK with $228,4 billions, really far away from the top. Now, Obama wants to support the auto industry with another $50billions... Is that new "freakonomics" or what? Guess, China and Japan need to work harder to finance the Presidential plans and save GM, when literally they are riding bikes or they are walking to work? Isnt that an excited story with plenty of suspence that will keep us wondering for a while? On the other hand excpect another flood of Chinese and Japanese products, surfing the US market unregulated and tarrif free :-) Whenthe credit cards will be maxxing out, the international trade agreements might not be enough to excuse the above huge bills and then the USA might collapse for ever..

content

Lots of discussion lately on interactive content and digital content production. Most of the European markets including Greece are trying to adapt IPTV solutions, examining platforms and content over the pipe. The Telcos seem to have an advantage looking for content in different markets that they are heavily investing into, leaving the local content producers out of the game.

Is IPTV a viable solution in Greece? When the government and all are investing in broadband, the answer is yes. What really needs is serious planning and collaborations identifying the subscribers needs. The interactive content can easily fuel people's excitement, making them pay for it and isnpire others to create the right channels, with interesting program and content. Culture and entertainment should be the top needs to start with, including international production on travel and cooking.

On Telecoms brings Fox channel to the screen, creating a fully subtitled 24/7 program. Fox International Channels is distributing High-Definition content also for mobile platforms: FOX Life HD, Next HD, National Geographic Channel HD and FOX Mobile. Whats really interesting is to see the competitors reaction that perhaps are still negotiating with similar content distributors. Early IPTV markets are really interesting and offering excitement and surprises with the enntertainment and access to new stuff not only for the investors but also for the users.

Books

...finally I'm going in and into serious publications. I am really happy, cause finally my research will be included in book chapters on relevant topics.Thus, two of my papers that lation are both mainly on new technology forecasting and regulation will be published next year in two different books.
"Fourth-Generation (4G) Wireless Networks: Applications and Innovations"
A book edited by Adibi, Sasan and Mobasher, Amin - published by IGI Global(IDEA Group).


Then, I have another paper on forecasting and regulation that will appear in:
"Regulation and the Evolution of the Global Telecommunications Industry" edited by A. Gentzoglanis & A. Henten, by Edward Elgar Publishing


Finally two other papers have been already published in the special issue in the journal of Communications and Strategies, Ultrabroadband Networks, IDATE, November 2008. The first paper was on QoS and the other one was on new technology forecasting and regulation.

Its been a productive year, cause last year I was stuck, doing only conference papers, due many life's changes, but finally here I am, surviving. Concluding, I can easily call 2008 a fruitful academic year, thanks to my partners and collaborators that supported me. I 'm going in guys - thank you!

-E

ebusinessforum

And yes, digital TV will arrive slowly to Greece, since the EU has announced the full transition to the digital world by 2015. Advanced countries will do that much faster, following the US that is a few hundred days away based on Shelly.
On the other hand FCC recently OKs unlicensed access to vacant TV airwaves. That U.S. regulator's decision seen as a victory for Google, Microsoft, Moto and others, against broadcasters.

But Europe is getting there. Being part of the ebusiness forum public consultation's team, I got the feeling that people will get there sooner or later, since some piolot digital broadvasting has already started from the government channel. however there is still lots of discussion and consultation on the future available TV bands, the upcoming digital services, the benefits and drawbacks. The ebusiness forum always puts effort into new things and is really exciting the fact that we will draw some new actions to promote digital TV with perhaps some EU financial support.

Digital TV in Greece is not a Sci-Fi project any more and I am confident that will soon happen even with some international support and guideline. People are really excited and love the opportunity of the new TV, either that is digital broadcasting or even IPTV, altough it is really early for Greece right now. The Telcos are still wondering, but they should definetely keep a very close look to our tema's progress and future plans, since our coordinator is the ministry of transportation and communication.

P2PTV

..well, thats nothing new, but check out the content growth and what can happen with the almost real time option that P2PTV supports. It has some delay as the peers retransmit the data, thus usually a live soccer game is lagging behind from the reality. Particurarlly, a few days ago was watching a champions league soccer game from a P2P agent, since the regular TV was not covering the game and the same time from a sport's Web site Live Center that was posting the score, refreshing continuously - also 'real time'. Well, these two sources had a 2-3 minutes difference..when the one team was scoring as the Live Center was posting, then was waiting for 2-3 minutes to watch the goal on P2PTV - almost real time!


No matter that real time weakness, I am really impressed with the P2PTV. Not only its free. but in many cases can work as cable TV with good quality and resolution, In one of the agents, that are so many, was watching the "National Georgaphic" channel with Chinese subtitles, true! But the other cool thing is that you can add your own server and start streaming, if you really want to feel the excitement of a TV producer. Back in time people used to broadcast with Antennas and in some cases illegally without registering their channels, usually called TV piracy; today you can do that legally if you master the video streaming technology and have some content. The good news is that the P2P agents are under human supervision restricitng in most of the cases porn and similar inappropriate content


Do the people like it? Sure they do, especially the sports fans, thousands and thousands of people are watching and all you need is broadband i.e ADSL or cable connection or even WiMAX, that simple! People love variety, international content, looking up all these different channels that offer more than you can imagine overrriding a stereotype TV channel with certain content that could be easily boring.


Some P2P agents to check Sopcast, JustinTV and more, keep searching, its a really exciting live media world. Folks, lets deliver our media to the world!

In-Building Summit Middle East 2008

The event will bring together operators, industry expert and solution providers from across the region and beyond to address current as well as future in-building coverage challenges faced by operators throughout the Middle East.


The conference programme will answer key issues surrounding the design, implementation, upgrade and optimisation of in-building solutions to achieve optimal and cost-efficent indoor coverage and capacity.

My presentation "Examining The 4G Evolution For In-Building Services And Products" takes place the 2nd day of the conference. It is expected to interact with various operators and executives mainly from Middle-East, but also global such as Motorola and ipAccess

You are all welcome to the warm Dubai:))

Is there an operator's reaction?

...thats the big question these days, when your competitor is offering the iPhone, do you see your churn to increase? Do you feel like you cannot be that competitive any more? Today the iPhone sales are beyond 9 million, which is a number that not even Google's G1 might reach. Will a new plan compete against iPhone's empire? Had an interesting conversations the other days with a senior associate from Booz Allen Hamilton and realized how complicated the future will be in telecom that will end up in a 'high connectivity ecosystem', something similar to what Google is trying to do.

Gartner claims that the operators shouldnt worry that much, since Blackberry is still very competitive, but my personal feeling is that more and more the bz warriors are carrying iPhone, cause its the 'trend', all these updates all the time. Its a never ending battle that will force people to carry both Blackberry which is superior, when it comes to heavy duty business functions and iPhone with its cool mutli-media functions. And somewhere there in-between is where the G1 grows and will serve as mover and shaker, as it is expected to steal some of the glory and make people wonder. It will end up as a debate of Apple fans vs. Google fans. Overall the Telecom today, doesnt looks like an operators' and new services battle, but rather a cell vendor's battle, extended to operators. The operator's role right now is to run after them, build the alliance and get the competitive advantage, offering the best platform and experience to the subscibers.

Hence, its a paltform-based battle, with operators-cell vendors alliances and ofcourse media companies fueling these platforms with content, adding significantly to the paltform's value and services.

The Greek Telecom paradox

Although Greece is in the bottom of the list in broadband penetration, it offers free Internet access within the airport. The speed is really good and you can easily and quickly get on any workstation that are nicely spread all over the airport main terminals. It is obvious that the tourists are surprised, but really appreciate the free service as of now. As I was coming the other days from Frankfurt's airport, I saw that the Internet service's cost was 21 euros/hour, which is definetely overpriced, but normal, since everything including the food is so expensive. Besides that Athens airport is running for the Golden Pillow Award in the European region, which is a really cool achievement, since it holds the 2nd position in the list...go and vote

..next we get an airplane in the bundle

its really funny, but a combination of marketing, technology and revenues make us dream here in Greece, about what we would like next in a bundle with the double play. I, personally, got a decent MP3 player like a PDA, now some operators give away in the bundle, laptops or multi-machines with scanner and print functionalities. And all this to promote ADSL when Verizon was promoting Fios-TV with full-HD TV, will soon come up in Greece. The good thing that all these devices are extremely useful, but the consumers on the other hand are confused, cause its really not worth to lock yourself with an service provider for 2-years just for a laptop? There should definitely be other criteria, but the providers are trying really hard in the switching battle and gaining more business.

I want, I want..hmm back to my iPhone stories, guess soon Vodafone will do the magic bundle for me..to me me happy:)

-E

Managing Editor

I decided, here in Greece, to look at things from a more critical spirit starting from the Greek Telcos and expanding globally. A new business magazine will soon be published in an every 2-months frequency for Telcos executives under my supersvision and intellectual writing style, aiming to bring some new blood and directions to the Greek Telcos! Dont forget that Greece is in the broadband EU tail in penetration together with the new members Bulgaria and Poland, which is unacceptable...The title of the magazine is "Telecom's Review" sort of conservative, my initial idea was "Telco2Go", meaning keep walking and progressing, but was too ambitious and was rejected :) Thus I am discovering and exploring my talent in Telecom Management as a journalist also, and I think its really cool. The publisher is "Boussias Communications", organizing conferences and publishing other managament magazines. The site is in Greek, sorry, but working on that..

keep you posted!
-E

UBB down the road

blogging and blogging..about time

After the successful conference in Paris on "Ultrabroadband Networks", I am happy to announce that the topic will soon be published in a special issue of the "Communications and Strategies". Part of the review committee is CITI, Korean Telecom and Orange Labs. As part of the committee I will try to have one article that was presented in Paris on "Quality of Service to the last mile". The issue should be ready by Fall '08, which means lots of summer work.

Some news: I am working in the Ministry of Media Press, in Athens, Greece and my director is my co-author in the Telecom papers, cause his PhD is in broadband management. A business proposal was presented in Boston a few weeks ago - May 10 - after an interesting collaboration on the topic of WiMAX community. It was actually a competition, but we didnt make it to get one of the first 3 positions, either the topic is still immature or too ambitious. Anyway the presentation has been a great experience for me.

more to come...stay tuned

supercapitalism

There is a lot of buzz created around the new book that describes 'supercapitalism'
Robert Reich gives his own take on the term, which is not new and we can describe it as beyond the capitalism. When the democracy is overwhelmed and the politics are diverted then its time for the new citizen's guide.

Or perhaps its time for more liberalism, the netcitizen's guide or define the world citizen, beyond the nation's border. The business idealist that can start up his business anywhere in the world, in a flat planet and apply new business models without the presence of the venture capitalists that in some cases they rather restrict than release innovation for the shake of revenues. The social contribution of a business idea is never considered towards the supercapitalism, but the creation of more capital is the main target. And if the USA is the leader and a mixed economy with the capitalism dominating, what is the picture, what is the growth...recession and currency depreciation are the answers.

back in writing after a long time -apologies to my readers

-e