Looks like that AllTel deal is getting a little pricey for Verizon. They have decided to start raising the rates for for-profit companies that use SMS messages to communicate with their users. The fee is supposed to increase to 3 cents per message. This sound small, but it is a huge increase to companies that were just paying a fraction of a penny before. If the fee is put into place, it may force mobile content companies to abandon their Verizon customers.

Such a huge increase does seem weird. Is Verizon trying to get rid of third-party web sites and mobile content providers? I can see the short term biz plan to raise revenue in the short term, but at what cost in the long term?

After reports of increases in the faster decline of landlines comes some good news from the carriers. Wireless data in the U.S. is growing, by 40% just this quarter compared to last year.

The biggest winner is Verizon. It saw its wireless data revenue up to $2.6 billion this quarter and is predicting that annual numbers will top $10 billion. Since it will have total revenues for the year somewhere around $100 billion, this is about 10% of its revenues.

The best part of these numbers is that Verizon and the other carriers are beginning to realize that it makes sense to open its networks to third-party app developers. They are starting to realize that they are not be best at deciding what apps the customer may want and that their best strategy may be just to deliver the data that the customer wants when he wants it.

What a concept! It is like the Internet in 1995 all over again.

Verizon and Alltel had announced that Verizon will buy AllTel. Technically, they are being bought for $28.1 billion, which is slightly higher than what it cost a private equity group and Goldman Saks to take it private at $27.5 billion last year. It is really not as simple as a $0.6 billion profit. Verizon is paying $5.9 billion in cash including $1.4 billion in cash that is already in Alltel. The rest $22.2 billion is debt that Verizon has agreed to assume. But Verizon is sure to refinance the debt portion, so it is an even better deal for Verizon.

Verizon and Alltel are like mirror opposites when you look at their coverage maps. They are a perfect fit and use the same technology. It is a win-win for all, except maybe for Alltel’s customers. Their combined customer base of over 80 million customers will top AT&T’s 71 million to make Verizon the biggest US phone company.

Just remember that these huge US phone companies are still small compared to China Telecom with its 250 million subsribers. And China Telecom is dwarfed by China Mobile with its 400 million subscribers. For some perspective, the population of the US is just over 300 million men, women and children.

 Today at Macworld I spoke to RouteBuddy and Garmin about the idea of making a open source method to allow users to upload Geogad Mobile Tours and similar content to their GPS products and solutions.  Let’s hope that they are interested in a nice, simple open format as I discussed in my previous post.  It would make a killer app from their side and allow regular people (and Geogad, of course) to create and post their own tour content.  All in all, very Web 2.0. 

Today at Macworld, Steve Jobs finally put the rumors to rest.  Yes, Apple is introducing the much rumored iPhone.  Judging by today’s demo, it will be a hot device.  It is quite literally the merging of the iPod (music, video, and photo) with a phone with an Internet browser.  Just to review the basic features, it is a device with a single button that has a 3 1/2 inch touch sensitive hi-res screen.  It will only be available on Cingular (soon to be the rebranded AT&T, …it’s BACK) for $499 for a 4G model and $599 for a 8G model.  Both versions require a 2-year plan.  The iPhone will be available in the US in June, which will give everyone a chance to start saving their latte money to buy this new phone. 

From Geogad’s point of view, the new iPhone looks great.  Its large screen and iPod functionality will allow travelers to view and play their Geogad Mobile Tours as a selected playlist.  The iPhone will even allow the user to see the album art in each MP3 as if they were books in a bookshelf so the user can see what is coming up and what they have already listened to.  The Internet browser seems to be able to view regular web pages in vivid detail.  If so, then it may be possible to surf to the regular Geogad web pages without having to deal with the limited WAP-type pages.

On the downside, the Iphone was reported by CNET to not have 3G capabilities.  They create a multimedia phone with a low speed connection.  What are they thinking? Maybe they are planning to have the user handle high speed communications with WiFi.  Now we just need to roll out WiFi.

Another downside for Geogad is how to best support providing our content to mobile devices.  After all, the big mobile streaming standard were MP4 and Microsoft WMV and WMA.  The other major trend in mobile content is also one of the biggest.  Verizon and YouTube/Google are teaming up to offer limited YouTube downloadsvia Flashlite.  It seems that the future of mobile content standards are going to be determined by the big cell phone and content companies teaming up to offer their content flavor to their customers. 

Let’s just hope that they work among themselves to provide some interoperability.  It is still a messy, mobile world out there. 

Speaking of messy, how do you suppose that you keep the screen clean if you are always touching it.  Also, how do you protect the screen from scratches if you are always testing it.  iPod are great devices, but they are notorious for how easily they are damaged.  Will this be an issue with the iPhone?  After all, is there any standard portable electronic device that has to take as much punishment as a regular old cell phone?

Another downside is the pricing.  But given that Apple does not want to lower the margins on their iPods, they really could not have sold the iPhone at the standard pricing for smart phones in the $200-400 range.  After all, that is the price of the standard Video iPod now.  Since the iPhone is also a phone and Internet browser, it would have to be price at least $100 higher than the Video iPod while still below the important mental price point of $700.  After all, you are starting to get in the range of a good laptop computer at that point. 

iPhone, Real, Flash, Cingular, MacWorld, Garmin, RouteBuddy, open source, GPS, multimedia, Verizon, WiFi, Geogad

We are looking at the end of a fantastic and busy year.  2006 saw the start of Geogad, the offical launch of its website and the release of 5 different tours in 3 different cities.  2007 will be just as busy.  More tours in dozens of cities have been planned for the coming year.  The Geogad web site will see more features added to make it even more useful to travelers.  Just keep you eyes on Geogad for all the latest developments.

Part of looking into the future includes imagining what new things we would like to have.  The biggest wish on the Geogad wish list is for new functionality to be included in personal GPS systems. As GPS systems drop in price, they will become a bigger part of everyone’s lives.  It will be great when Geogad Mobile Tours can be seemlessly added to these units as part of a universal GPS tour.  The only problem with GPS systems now are their still high prices and their lack of standardization.  What the producers of GPS systems should do to increase their usefulness is to allow customers to quickly add third-party content, such as Geogad’s tours, using ax XLM-based open source standard in the spirit of RSS.  For example, a simple text file could list a route as a series of coordinates (as many GPS devies currently do).  But they can also include references to other media files, such as MP3 or video.  I envision the file looking something like

(rss:global tour) 

(header info about tour)

(body)

(point 1: lat, long)point1_section1.mp3, point1_section1.mp3, point1.mp4(/point1)

(point 2: lat, long)point2_section1.mp3, point2_section1.mp3, point2.mp4(/point2)

…..

(point x: lat, long)pointx_section1.mp3, end_of_tour.mp3, end_of_tour.mp4(/pointx)

(/rss: global tour)

The GPS system could read the text file to understand that it should play some intro MP3 file then used its satellite direction system to guide the user to the first coordinate within a +/- error distance.  The GPS unit could then play the specified series of MP3, MP4, or other media file.  At the end of all of these media files, the GPS unit could then play an ending media file.

Let’s get the word out to Garmin, TomTom, Magellan, Nokia, Mitac, Verizon, and all of the other players in the GPS systems space that getting these device to play nice with third-party apps and content will help speed GPS adoption and improve travelers’ lives.

GPS Universal GPS tour standard TomTom Garmin Nokia Verizon Magellan