Wireless

LAS VEGAS--From new cell phones to set top boxes to emerging devices, AT&T is looking beyond the iPhone as it focuses on a rapidly expanding application business.

The company's top wireless executive, Ralph de la Vega, told developers at the company's fourth annual application developer conference here Wednesday that AT&T's future is in applications.

AT&T wireless chief Ralph de la Vega addresses application developers.

(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET)

De la Vega noted the explosion in application growth in the U.S. cell phone market over the past year. "No country has seen the growth we have seen," he said. In 2009, U.S. wireless consumers downloaded 832.7 million applications, a ninefold increase over the past two years. He also noted that revenue from these downloads has increased some 60 percent.

At the company-sponsored event held on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show, de la Vega outlined AT&T's strategy for pushing new applications onto a slew of new devices, and he provided a glimpse into how ... Read the full post at CNET's CES 2010 blog

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Forget about the Google Phone already: the Nexus One is merely a blip on Google's long-term strategy for the rise of mobile computing.

One could be forgiven for assuming Google was about to knock over the smartphone market--two and a half years after Apple did just that--with one quick blow going into Tuesday's Android event with a phone designed by Google and sold at retail by Google. After all, that's what the Internet said would happen leading up to the event.

Phones like the Nexus One are more sexy than mobile distribution strategies.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

But what actually emerged from Building 43 on Tuesday is just another Android phone: a nice one, to be sure, but one featuring hardware designed completely by smartphone maker HTC and software features that will soon be available to other Android phones with advanced hardware, like the Droid. The real story is perhaps less sexy than a sleek iPhone killer that so many techies would love to see compete with Apple, but it's a sign that Google CEO Eric Schmidt has learned his lessons about competition over a lifetime in the tech industry.

What Google is trying to do is gradually reel in Apple over a period of years by emphasizing open phones with open application stores sold through a variety of channels running an open-source operating system. And, for good measure, it's also trying to do nothing less than reinvent the way mobile phones are sold in the U.S.

In order to do that, Google is going to have to do two things. It will need to show that consumers are willing to embrace a distribution channel for smartphones that is not controlled by wireless carriers, who will never give up their gatekeeper role over access and pricing of these phones if they are not forced to do so by customer demand. And it will have to continue to create compelling mobile software that serves as a check on the iPhone.

Google is certainly proud of the Nexus One. But it didn't build the phone, which, in any event, is at best a modest improvement on the current generation of Android phones.

According to a source familiar with the process, the Nexus One was designed by employees of One & Co., a San Francisco design firm acquired in 2008 by HTC. Andy Rubin, vice president of engineering for Android at Google and leader of the project, later told GigaOm that "there are no hardware or industrial designers on my team." Leading up to Tuesday's event, widespread reports claimed that Google had designed the Nexus One by itself, and while the company may have specified hardware requirements to go with its software, that's not the same as designing the phone.

So while Google is not making its own hardware, as Rubin maintained back in October, it will eventually be doing the second thing he claimed Google wasn't doing that day: competing with companies it formerly considered customers.

Google's Andy Rubin, head of Android development

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

With T-Mobile and Verizon on board for the Nexus One launch, all appears rosy between Google and those partners, who even though Android was a free product were essentially the end customers of that software up to this point. But make no mistake: Google's ultimate goal is to create a business plan where top-notch Android phones are created by companies like Motorola and HTC and then sold through a virtual mall of sorts where carriers like T-Mobile and Verizon have to compete for your business.

Indeed, in the same report referenced above, Om Malik's sources claim that behind the scenes, Motorola and Verizon are annoyed as they were expected to be leading up to the launch of the Nexus One. That's because Google's plans for the Nexus One and future Nexus One phones involve cutting out the heart of the smartphone market.

At the moment, the carriers cut three-way deals with the phone makers and operating system vendors to sell phones exclusively on their network, hoping to get the best phones on the market as to entice as many people as possible to sign up for two-year contracts with data service. What Google is proposing is a business model in which you pick a phone and then separately pick a carrier, all without having to leave your house.

In other words, it would be like buying a PC. Comcast doesn't have an exclusive deal with Dell where if you want one of their PCs, you have to get it from Comcast and lock yourself into a two-year cable modem package. It means wireless carriers would have to compete on pricing and the quality of their networks rather than exclusive deals for hot phones.

Google argues this is what caused the PC-based Internet to flourish, and if the mobile Internet is to do the same thing, it needs someone to break the logjam of carriers, phone makers, and software providers.

But will it work? In a way, Google is currently doing exactly what it decries: it's offering an excellent phone through an exclusive channel tied to a single carrier. Later this spring the Nexus One will be available on Verizon's network, but it's harder to sell unlocked CDMA phones (Verizon's technology) because they don't use removable SIM cards found in phones based on the GSM family of standards. So that phone might well be tied to a two-year Verizon contract, and Verizon confirmed Tuesday that it won't be sold anywhere other than Google's store.

But Rubin said during a question-and-answer session following Tuesday's event that Google has to be in the game before it can start shaking up the market. He linked the potential for this type of strategy to the same revolution that took place in retailing, with companies like Amazon.com proving that people were willing to buy products over the Internet without checking them out in stores first. That allowed companies like Amazon to eliminate the overhead associated with maintaining a physical retail store and consumers to have more flexibility with their spending.

In a way, the strategy behind the Nexus One is very Googly: launch early and iterate constantly. Schmidt's previous gigs at Novell and Sun Microsystems showed him what could happen when innovative companies were slowly subsumed by determined competitors with deep pockets (Novell versus Microsoft) and open software married to cheap hardware (Sun versus Linux). This time, he's marrying both in an attempt to remake mobile computing in Google's image by taking on Apple and the wireless carriers.

Don't expect Google to sell a ton of Nexus One phones in 2010. Rubin told GigaOm he thinks the company can sell 150,000 this year, which is a fraction of the 1.8 billion smartphones that Pyramid Research recently said it expects will be sold over the next five years.

The upside for Google is that even if this strategy doesn't work, the mobile Internet will still carry advertising.

Outside the Google press event Tuesday morning.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google's first consumer phone has arrived.

You've read all the exhaustive coverage of Google's Nexus One phone over the last month. The Android-based device emerged at a company holiday party and has been the talk of the smartphone industry ever since. And at an event here at its headquarters Tuesday, Google is unveiling the Nexus One and announcing a plan to sell it directly to consumers.

This post is our live coverage of the event, which lasted about 90 minutes. You can also get a summary of today's announcement and some of my colleague Kent German's initial thoughts about the Nexus One here.

9:52 a.m.: We're awaiting the start of Google's Android event here in Building 43 at Google's headquarters in Mountain View. The event is expected to start in about 10 minutes, and the requisite pounding get-excited music is blaring inside a large conference room. There are maybe 100 people crammed into the room, and Google executives Vic Gundotra and Andy Rubin have already been spotted.

10:06 a.m.: Mike Nelson, a PR representative for Google, kicks things off by promising a series of short presentations. Mario Queiroz of Google has been leading Google's efforts in this area, and he starts off the presentation.

We knew it was coming, but we had to wait for Google to spill the news before we could talk about it with authority. And the company did so Tuesday morning at a press conference at the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif.

As expected, the Nexus One is a new Google Android phone that offers an inside designed by Google and an outside designed by HTC. According to Google's Mario Queiroz, the Nexus One is a "superphone" where the Web meets the cell phone. "It's an exemplar of what mobile phones can do with Android," he said. The handset will be available first for GSM carriers like T-Mobile, but a Verizon version will follow. ... Read the full post at CNET's CES 2010 blog

Google has asked the Federal Communications Commission to designate it as one of the administrators of a database for "white space" devices.

For several years, Google has been among the companies urging the FCC to open up the "white spaces"--small amounts of spectrum between broadcast television channels--to unlicensed use. Google joined the White Spaces Database Group in February to help move the project along, since one of the requirements of the white spaces plan is a database that devices can use to figure out which channels are available for use.

At that time, Google's Richard Whitt, Washington telecom and media counsel, said in a blog post that "we don't plan to become a database administrator ourselves, but do want to work with the FCC to make sure that a white spaces database gets up and running." However, Google announced just such a plan Monday evening, revealing its proposal that "the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC" or "Commission") designate Google to be administrator of a TV bands geolocation database."

"Why are we offering to do this?" White wrote in Monday's blog post. "We continue to be big believers in the potential for this spectrum to revolutionize wireless broadband, and we think it's important for us to step forward and offer our assistance to make that vision a reality. Since launching the White Spaces Database Group last February, we've been working with other stakeholders to exchange ideas and perspectives on how to best operate a working database, and we believe we're in a strong position to build and successfully manage one."

There are two types of databases that will be needed for this project: geolocation, which Google has now proposed building, and spectrum-sensing technology. The idea behind the databases is to avoid creating interference with television broadcasts and other wireless technologies.

(Credit: Gizmodo)

A tipster just sent in these Nexus One screenshots that supposedly confirm two things: that Google will sell it unlocked and unsubsidized for $530, and that Google will sell it itself. Plus, some other very interesting details.

Some of the most important bits of info we extracted (assuming the tipster is accurate, and it seems like he is). Oh, and take a look at our hands on with the device in case you haven't familiarized yourself with it yet.

• Yeah, it's $530 unsubsidized. Google's not going to be selling the phone at cost, like so many people considered. They're not going to save us from the "making money off of hardware" culture we've got right now, so this is basically just another Android handset, albeit a really good one
• If you want it subsidized, you'll have to sign up for a 2 year mandatory contract and pay $180 for the phone
• There's only one rate plan: $39.99 Even More + Text + Web for $79.99 total
• Existing customers cannot keep their plan if they want a subsidized phone; they have to change to the one plan, and this only applies to accounts with one single line
• If that doesn't fly with you, you have to buy the $530 unlocked version--this actually might save you money over two years if you already have a cheap plan
• Family plans, Flexpay, SmartAccess and KidConnect subscribers must buy the phone unlocked and unsubsidized for $530
• You can only buy five Nexus One phones per Google account
• There is language in the agreement of shipping outside the US
• Google will sell it at google.com/phone, which explains what they were doing with that page a few weeks ago
• Google will still call it the Nexus One apparently, and not the Google Phone

And here is a big one:

• If you cancel your plan before 120 days, you have to pay the subsidy difference between what you paid and the unsubsidized price, so $350 in this case. Or you can return the phone to Google. You also authorize them to charge this directly to your credit card.

One weirdness in the Terms of Sale that we quickly glanced through was that Google made sure you acknowledged that the manufacturer is HTC, and not Google.

This story originally appeared on Gizmodo.

(Credit: Gizmodo)

(Credit: eMarketer.com)

Data from a new report shows that the iPhone may finally have a true competitor with Android phone users' profile appearing very much alike that of iPhone users'.

According to eMarketer.com, the marketing intelligence firm comScore found that 37 percent of U.S. mobile users had heard of Android in November 2009, up from 22 percent in August, and "likely due to the Verizon Droid ad campaign." More interestingly, "17 percent of mobile users in the market for a new smartphone in the next three months planned to buy an Android phone compared with 20 percent who would pick up an iPhone."

The report also shows that usage patterns for Android and iPhone owners were very similar in terms of media consumption, Web browser, and application usage, but e-mail usage on Android devices oddly tracked behind that of other platforms. This is likely because of the immaturity of the e-mail application that ships with Android and not a change in use patterns.

This news obviously keeps the iPhone in the dominant position, but shows that other smartphones finally present a real challenge. It's notable because BlackBerry and iPhone users have always seemed worlds apart, whereas Android users seem to be using their devices at parity with the iPhone crowd.

The fact that the Droid runs on Verizon instead of AT&T no doubt helps with data usage, though only time will tell if Verizon can handle the traffic or if T-mobile can handle the pressure of a huge influx of new Google Nexus One phones running Android.

Thanks to a clandestine meeting with a source, I got a chance to play with and try out the Nexus One. It's basically, from my time with it, Google's Droid killer. It's thin, it's fast, it's better in every way.

My source was very firm about no photography, and I didn't want to jeopardize anything on my source's end, so there are no photos, hence these photos are ones we've already shown you. But, based on all the leaked shots this week, plus the very pretty and very clear one last week from Boy Genius, everyone knows what the phone looks like already. Hell, there's even a complete UI walkthrough today that's on YouTube. So I'm going to focus on the experience, and how it compares to the Droid and the iPhone 3GS.

(Credit: FCC)

Updated at 4:20 PST with response from T-Mobile.

After a busy weekend where it made its very unofficial debut, HTC's Nexus One entered into full legitimacy Monday with approval by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC documents also reveal that the device will support North American GSM bands (850 and 1900) and T-Mobile's 1700 3G network.

Though at least one Nexus One sighted this weekend was running on an AT&T SIM card, the support for T-Mobile's 3G would leave AT&T out of the running for the Nexus One, at least for now. The two carriers use the same GSM bands for voice calls, but their 3G networks are incompatible.

T-Mobile said it doesn't comment on rumors or speculation, but its participation in the Nexus One (aka the "Google phone") would send a mixed message concerning how the device would be distributed to consumers. The Wall Street Journal reported today that Google would directly sell the Nexus One as an unlocked unsubsidized model. Distribution through a carrier channel, however, would mean that Google wouldn't sell the Nexus One on its own.

Details and specs on the Nexus One remain mostly unknown, but the FCC documentation also shows that the handset would support hearing aids, a microSD card slot, Bluetooth, and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi.

(Source: Phonescoop)