Sprint Bundling Hulu

Another reason I'm looking forward to the Voga V

CNBC

Sprint will offer its unlimited data plan customers free subscriptions to the streaming service Hulu, the companies said on Wednesday, marking the latest move by a U.S. wireless carrier to bundle content with mobile service.

Under the agreement, Sprint's unlimited plan, priced at $60 a month for a single line, will cover Hulu's $7.99 a month basic subscription. The No. 4 U.S. wireless carrier is also working on plans to offer Hulu's $39.99 live TV streaming service to customers next year, potentially at a discounted price, said Allan Samson, senior vice president of marketing at Sprint, in an interview.

U.S. wireless carriers are seeking ways to provide content to win over customers in a saturated market. In September, T-Mobile said it will offer free subscriptions to Netflix with its unlimited data family plans.

AT&T, which is in the process of buying Time Warner for $85.4 billion, has already started bundling the premium channel HBO with wireless service. Earlier this year, Sprint tested a promotion with Dish Network's streaming service Sling TV in Chicago and Atlanta.

5G

One of the "ecosystem" technologies to watch is 5G.

How exactly it will appear remains to be determined, but it's sufficient to say that it will make wireless data a LOT faster, and probably a lot cheaper -- making streaming and downloading video content a lot more convenient and affordable.

PCMag  (Much more at the source)

AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and other carriers will start to launch 5G networks next year. But what exactly is 5G? Here's what we know so far.

5G Will Enable Mobile AR/VR

So…what about phones? The biggest change 5G may bring is in virtual and augmented reality. As phones transform into devices meant to be used with VR headsets, the very low latency and consistent speeds of 5G will give you an Internet-augmented world, if and when you want it. Sprint recently demonstrated streaming wireless VR at the Copa America soccer tournament. The small cell aspects of 5G may also help with in-building coverage, as 5G encourages every home router to become a cell site.

Mobile carriers getting more into Media

These telecom companies are figuring out how to deliver media and advertising through mobile phones. They don't charge for data when you're viewing the media they distribute.

Advertisers will pay more for advertising that multiple people see at once than they will for one head bent over the screen of a smart phone.

So, when you present a short funny cat video to your four friends and you're all laughing together -- they pay more, more fun is had, more message is out.

I do not think it's an accident that they are working on this kind of media before PicoP is widely available.

Wall Street Journal ( Much more at the source)

The show, which plays online and on Verizon’s smartphone video app, is part of a more than $10 billion gamble by Verizon to build a digital-media business to compete with Facebook and Google for advertising dollars.

*

It is a radical move for a corporate giant long treated by investors as a utility with a safe dividend, and is a strategy that has previously stymied other players, including Yahoo itself. Even if it succeeds, it may have little impact “on the battleship that is Verizon,” said Craig Moffett, an analyst at MoffettNathanson.

Verizon isn’t alone among telecom carriers in trying to figure out a different form for the future. AT&T Inc. also had sought Yahoo, and last year AT&T spent $49 billion to acquire DirecTV and become the largest U.S. provider of pay television.

Mr. McAdam said the core of Verizon’s business will always be its wireless network and he isn’t expecting quick returns from the media investments, which are about 5% of capital spending. “It’s not a bet-the-company kind of play,” he said.

The executive has a history of making unorthodox moves. When he ran Verizon’s wireless unit, he joined with Google to develop what became the Android operating system for smartphones. That paid off, helping counter AT&T’s then-exclusive deal for the iPhone.

Last year, Mr. Piligian, whose Pilgrim Studios is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., and other producers figured they could revive the idea by using mobile technology to enable the chase and get viewers involved.

FCC Approves 5G - Phones to get 5 times faster

Which will be really good for viewing video with your PicoP

Seattle Times (more at the source)

“These are huge blocks of spectrum that will deliver amazing applications to Americans,” said Meredith Attwell Baker, president of CTIA, a trade group for wireless companies, including the top four U.S. carriers, AT&T, Verizon Communications, Sprint and Bellevue-based T-Mobile US. “This is a critical first step to ensure the U.S. is in a position to lead the world in 5G.”

All four top U.S. mobile carriers have announced plans to test 5G technology, with partners including Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm and Samsung Electronics. Connections are projected to double by 2020 and reach 500 billion a decade later as more mobile devices, robots, light sensors and drones all become part of the so-called internet of things.

“We’re talking about superfast data rates, super-low latency: the kind of wireless anyone would want that’s only a dream today,” said Dean Brenner, senior vice president for government affairs at Qualcomm. The chipmaker joined with Intel, Verizon, Samsung, Nokia and Ericsson to ask the FCC to allow higher power for base stations than the agency initially proposed.

Smartphone boom about to bust?

Thanks for the heads-up Roger.

Then again -- perhaps RoBoHon will pick up some new market.

From Yahoo Finance -- more at the source.

We have a situation where market saturation is happening. (There are 7 billion people on earth, and 1.4 billion smart phones sold annually -- 2015 numbers -- so one in six people on earth last year got a new smartphone. Expecting them to be a little bit durable -- that's nearly total penetration of the possible market.)

The smartphone boom is about to go bust, with sales growth expected to fall to single digits in 2016. That’s a far cry from the 73% growth the industry saw just six years ago.

According to market research group Gartner Inc., worldwide smartphone sales will increase by just 7% in 2016. IDC Research, meanwhile, predicts growth will slow to just 3.1%.

>>>> Of course, that's 98,000,000 more smartphones than were sold last year, if you consider the 1.4 billion sold last year. <<<<

Why such a precipitous drop? Simply put, because consumers already have too many smartphones in their hands. Smartphone markets in North America, Europe, Japan and more mature Asia and Pacific markets have already reached 90% penetration, according to Gartner. That’s a lot of smartphones.

To try to counteract this trend, some US carriers and handset makers are taking steps to get consumers interested in purchasing phones at a faster clip. Gartner, for example, points to Apple’s buyback program that lets you get a new handset after having your phone for a year. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon offer similar upgrade programs.

But without a fundamental shift in smartphone design or function, the market will likely continue to see minimal growth going forward.

>>>> Bring on PicoP -- which can lead to a fundamental shift in smartphone design and cause a market boom that the industry is craving. <<<<

AT&T Unlimited Data for Video

An alert poster at Yahoo Message Board posted this link The ecosystem continues to improve!
More at the source.
From Yahoo News

AT&T (T) unveiled a new unlimited plan with an emphasis on video. 

The new plans will only be available only for AT&T's 25 million customers who also subscribe to AT&T's DirecTV or U-Verse television service at home, however. And unlike the truly unlimited data plans of a decade ago, customers will actually get 22 GB of high speed downloads before AT&T slows their connection to a crawl when they use their phones in congested areas.

Video distribution is heating up as one of the next battlegrounds for the mobile industry as the U.S. market matures and customer growth slows. Verizon Wireless (VZ) launched a free short videos service called Go90 in September and T-Mobile (TMUS) unveiled a feature it called BingeOn in November that lets customers watch as much video from many popular online services without counting the downloads against their monthly data limits.

Shares of AT&T rose 0.5% on Monday after the unlimited plan was announced. Shares of Verizon and T-Mobile were unchanged.

AT&T, which spent almost $50 billion buying satellite television service DirecTV last year, plans to make a hard push to use the new unlimited plans to cross-sell its mobile and home video offerings, Glenn Lurie, CEO of AT&T Mobility, said in an interview. About 15 million DirecTV subscribers don't use AT&T for mobile and 40 million AT&T Mobile customers don't buy home video from the company, he said. 

"The cross-selling opportunity for us is just staggering," Lurie said.

But AT&T disputed that the new plans were a reaction to T-Mobile, saying that the deals were part of a strategy to leverage its investment in DirecTV, plus another $418 billion spent last year on additional spectrum rights. "Please don't compare this to BingeOn," Lurie said, emphasizing the cross-selling opportunities. "It's nothing like it."

Mobile video services to launch & Google Chromecast

We're very close to a world-wide launch of a big-screen that fits in your pocket.

Everyone likes mobile. Everyone likes big screens.

Is it a coincidence that two major mobile companies in the US launch or re-launch their mobile content services? Services that they've set up at enormous expense?

I don't think so.

C|Net Go90 on Thursday 

"Go90, a free ad-based service that will play a selection of short and long videos, will be available in the app stores for both Apple devices and those running on Google's Android software."

Go90 Original Content
Verizon invested 5 Billion in Mobile Video

Watchable at ReCode

"The fact that you can watch Watchable without being a Comcast subscriber is worth noting, since many people believe Comcast will end up trying to make real money outside its “footprint” of areas where it sells Internet and TV access."

This article isn't very positive, but it's because apparently because the the fact that there is so much competition in the space, and that Watchable is replacing a different streaming service. (thanks Bill.)

Watchable

This is additionally interesting because of Comcast's WiFi sharing program. 


.... And Google's NEW Chromecast -- which scans all of your streaming services to help you find the content you want to watch. (I'm looking for details, but I'm assuming this is an HDMI connector that will be able to fit an MPCL1.)

Google's new Chromecast

Portability is Priceless

ATT, Verizon & Ecosystem for PicoP

When a new device hits the market -- the kind of environment it lands in is very important. If the environment is ready for it it will do very well, very quickly. If the environment isn't ready the device may remain an oddity for a long time.

The telephone and the fax machine are examples of devices that didn't have an easy environment to land in when they were first available. If you had the first fax machine -- it was completely useless to you until you had people to communicate with who also had a fax machine.

With PicoP -- it's good to keep a close watch on the ecosystem. If there will be a lot of content for PicoP --- and support from content providers and bandwidth providers, things will go very smoothly. 

Verizon and ATT both have content ready for mobile. ATT purchased DirecTV, and Verizon is rolling out a FREE ad-supported service for mobile video.

Both companies are featuring the ZTE Spro2 -- a projector that I will stack SONY's MPCL1 up against any day. While it's getting decent reviews and has some excellent features, it's big, it sucks power, has a poor contrast ratio, and poor resolution next to the MPCL1.

ZTE Spro2 - Featured in USA Today
ZTE Spro 2 - PC MAG
ZTE Spro 2 - ATT
ZTE Spro2 - Verizon
ATT ZTE Spro 2 Videos


Verizon Go90
"Go90 is expected to be a free, ad-supported service that offers a blend of live and on-demand content. Though initially developed for mobile devices (the name of the service is about rotating a smartphone 90 degrees to view video in landscape mode), Verizon’s also noodling TV-based streaming strategies, the paper said."

DirectTV ATT Advertisement

DirectTV / ATT Advertisement -- nice projection feature.

The ecosystem for PicoP is READY.

 

Verizon & AT&T see Huge Opportunity for Mobile Video

People like mobile first, then big screens. When a technology like PicoP can provide them both -- it's going to be extremely valuable to mobile data providers. 

Verizon sees 80% of media consumption going mobile!

SONY and Verizon are cooperating: (Sony Z4v at Verizon)

Something else very interesting in this article is the amount AT&T is paying for DirecTV. The value of content for mobile networks is huge -- and PicoP can deliver content for anyone -- and probably will be for everyone. Will we get to a 48.5 Billion valuation? (ATT buys DirecTV) 

To deliver content, you need the pipes, the content, and the medium. PicoP is the link between portability and large screen experience.



From MyWayNews

We see the world shifting very quickly to mobile and we believe that mobile will represent 80 percent of consumers' media consumption in the coming years. And the Verizon-AOL partnership will allow us to capture that shifting opportunity," said Verizon CFO Fran Shammo on a conference call.

Verizon's mobile video service will work on competitors' networks as well as on Wi-Fi and will include ad-supported data, says Verizon executive vice president Marni Walden. That could mean an advertiser pays for some of the data required — video is a data hog.

Verizon is securing deals for live and on-demand content, Walden said. The company currently has the rights to the Live Earth concert, a partnership with the NFL that lets wireless phone subscribers pay $5 a month to watch live football games and a deal for exclusive content with AwesomenessTV, an Internet video network.

AT&T, Verizon's wireless rival, has gone in a different direction with video. It's buying satellite TV provider DirecTV for $48.5 billion. Regulators must still approve that deal.

More Mobile Content

More mobile content improves ecosystem for PicoP. 

AT&T's Randall Stephenson plans to lean on DirecTV relationships to strike new media deals.

Full Article at CNET

Dish Network's Sling TV, which offers a bundle of a dozen cable channels for $20 a month, is seen as the first to break through with a credible alternative to cable TV service. But it won't be the last. Verizon has said it will launch its own over-the-top service later this year.

AT&T hopes to strike new deals through its pending $48.5 billion acquisition of satellite TV provider DirecTV, which will give the carrier 20.3 million subscribers to add to its own 5.7 million U-Verse TV customers. More important, it will give AT&T the relationships and clout it needs to negotiate more online content deals for its customers. Stephenson said he expects the takeover to be completed in the first half of the year, and added that mobile television is a top priority.

Stephenson also talked about Otter Media -- AT&T's joint venture with the Chernin Group to acquire, invest in and launch online video services -- as a way to deliver online content.

"I expect customers to walk out the door with content on their mobile device," he said, noting that he's looking at multiple channels and channel lineups that could be delivered to tablet, smartphone and broadband customers. "Stay tuned."