Ziwen Liu’s course blog for the MCDM

A link to the presentation on Mobile Communication&Technologies:

http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dg289dxs_93qmpwxf8

Losing data in your cell phone is a painful experience for most of us because we all know that it is difficult and takes long time to retrieve the lost data. But it might as well be an opportunity for mobile operators, retailers and manufacturers.
There has been an independent research conducted by CelleBrite, which provides mobile phone synchronization and management systems, suggesting that mobile operators, retailers and manufacturers are missing an important opportunity to increase revenues by failing to effectively market a mobile data back-up solution to users at the point of sale.
According to the research, only 18% of users who participated in the research(1000participants) back up their mobile data, in spite of the fact that 47% of them have already lost a mobile phone. Research also revealed that 47% of users were unaware of services offered by network operators in store to back-up and synchronize mobile data, and 48% of those expressed willingness to pay somewhere between £5 and £20 extra and wait up to 10 minutes to receive such a service.
Another significant finding was that only 16% of users change handsets more than once a year. 25% of respondents admitted that the difficulty in transferring mobile data dissuades them from upgrading to a new phone. The survey also revealed that 27% of users would change handsets more regularly if they could transfer their mobile content onto the new phone at the point of sale.
The 47% of them who have lost their phones admitted that recompiling the lost contacts and mobile data such as photos, music, text messages and videos can take up to six months and 24% admit that they never manage to fully recapture the lost data.

I just read an intereting article today in http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.co.uk/. It says, “Ugandan mobile operator MTN says it has seen impressive take-up of its recently-launched Voice SMS service, and has ordered an upgrade to triple the capacity of the Voice SMS system.”
Voice message is really innovative to me because I thought it has disrupted the way we think of SMS communication. Also, the benefit of this service is pretty obvious, “It enables subscribers to communicate faster, with greater ease, and convey emotions as compared to limitations of text messages.”, as said in the article. Also, I expect this service will be especially popular in emerging markets given the fact that illiteracy rate is generally high there and this voice MSM service will free illiteracy people from typing. However, there are two questions I believe we should think of before getting too opstimistic: firstly, is the service expensive compared to normal SMS services? secondly, is the service reliable when we think of accuracy? But in either way, voice SMS is a start of changing the way we think of SMS communication.

China had released its first 3G license in January 2009, however, “this is just a beginning”, according to an insider from China Mobile. An exciting news came out recently that China Mobile will deploy its first TD-LTE trial network in Shanghai in 6/2010 and will bring it into trial operation during the 2010 World Expo. This is really a bad news for cable company in China because the well recognized definition for 4G is those services which can reach a downlink rate of 100 megabytes per second, which is a lot faster than cable company can offer(1/2/4/8 megabite per second). So, as a bystander, I am really curious about how those cable companies in China will respond to this news? Will they lower their price for their internet services? or will they develop new technologies which can deliver faster and better internet experience? But either way, this is a positive signal for mobile operators, because they will be expected to see another strong growth of value-added services they provide.(mobile tv, internet and etc.)

In China, a lot of buzz are going these days regarding to Google’s recent anouncement of shutting down their business in China. I checked out some Mobile bbs today, and saw a lot of fans of Google who already have a Gphone or plan to buy one complain that “if Google is outta here, what should we do? Are we still having access to abundant of Google apps? If not, our phone will suddently become a crap.”. I see their reaction reasonable, even though Google recently added that they are just planning to shut down Google.cn, and some business will not be affected such as Gmail and Gphone. However, I believe that Google should be giving an answer better than that. The position Google taking in China is far more than just Gphone and Gmail. What about those strong apps that we get used to everyday, such as Google Earth, Google talk, Google search and etc.? What about other smartphone based on Android system, such as OMS and Ophone? So I see Google’s decision has already affected or disappointed millions of their Chinese fans and this number is expected to continue to grow if they do not offer a more satisfactory response shortly.

The launch of Nexus One is creating lots of buzz among Google fans, and it seems they all can’t wait to get a real thing in their hands. And even me, not a crazy fan of Google, is considering switching my Nokia 6110 for a Nexus One. But on second thought, hey! it is FIVE HUNDRED dollar phone, should I get one simply because it is cool? And we all know that cool doesn’t last long. So, I just did a little research online to see if I should get one. Then I found that most of reviews are pretty negative. I decided to highlighted five things that you want to consider before having a nexus one:
1 The interface design of Nexus One is terrible. One of the most important reason for their buyers to consider before getting hands on it is that whether or not it is cool or fashionable. But obviously Google delivered a poor answer to this question. You can’t certainly compare Nexus One to Iphone, Nexus One is just like other commercial 3G phone, black and old-fashion. You can’t even regconize it is a Nexus One if you missed the logo printed on the back.
2 Application. Google is only offering around 15,000 applications for their phone. And compared to Apple’s more than 100,000 available applications online, it is huge disadvantage that google will have to deal with, especially in terms of entertainment. That means a real lack of good games, no eBook readers like Kindle or Noook, no Slingplayer etc. Remember, phone is now becoming a platform for most people, a wide variety of applications is fundamental.
3 Security. No real password protection. Hardware or SD encryption. No remote management or wipe. Maybe Ok for consumers but hardly good enough to protect anything important.
4 Exchange. It’s nice to see Exchange support native (HTC has offered it for their Android devices for some time) to Android but it’s not a great implementation. Too many issues, especially in terms of calendar.
5 locked out? Google offers two options：Completely free phone, which means you can use it under any operator’s network, but the price is 529. Locked in phone, which means you have to sign up a two-year contract using T-mobile’s network, and the price is 179. So, I am just wondering why Google is claiming their phone locked out?

So, the result comes out that neither will I pay 530 for an immature product, nor will I sign up a two year contract with any operator.(Cause I already signed one)