if connected

Unusually, while commuting to the office on the tube yesterday, I used my laptop to work rather than my mobile phone.

Two things made this possible:

• My new laptop has a flash “hard drive” which means there’s no risk that bumps will damage it — really important on the tube — and also it’s fast to start up and put into sleep.
• This time of year there are seats available. Laptops don’t work standing up, unlike phones, unless someone knows otherwise?

Mobile broadband and mobile Internet isn’t ‘always-on’ whatever the industry may tell you.

Mobile network signals vary. Inside buildings the 3g signal often drops out. Underground on London’s tube, there’s no signal at all. Worse, when a phone has a weak signal applications go treacle-like and waste users’ time rather than offering a clear error message. Phone GPS satnav receivers virtually never work indoors and often struggle on city streets with tall buildings.

3G mobile phones and USB modems drain battery power to such an extent it effects use patterns. The more mobiles are used to go online the more the battery is hit. Heavy users temper and reduce their use of push email, downloading large files, and so forth to reduce the power impact. The result is that they’re never fully online.

It’s not mobile ‘always-on’ but mobile ‘almost-on’ most of the time. Even when battery and network signals do hold up, the design of mobile devices alters the net experience so people behave differently when mobile. Small screens and poor text input results in email triage. Longer efforts wait until when people are back at their PC. Noisy locations and sunlight make music and video a poor experience compared with home.

People are not, and will never be always-on, even if the technology manages to catch up. If people go into a meeting, they are effectively out of touch (reading email still isn’t acceptable behaviour however much people do it). Similarly, people are offline during the morning shower, when asleep in bed, or when out for a run or out for dinner in a restaurant even if the tech folks swear the mobile phone is online.

Travel booking website thetrainline offers buyers the option of choosing a seat neat to a power socket (alongside, direction of travel, with table, near luggage rack, near toilet.)

Works on the UK’s west and east coast main line routes. Not sure about others. Pointed out by a friend that’s used it.

Special guest blog from Dorothee Vogel:

I was quite relieved to read this week that I was not the only one to be upset by the way Ryanair tried to sneak on a priority boarding charge onto my luggageless booking. Ironically, this is an area where Ryanair are in dispute with online travel site lastminute.com, and feel themselves to be a victim.
While we European frequent fliers are being trained to travel with hand luggage only to save on air travel expenses, the industry is in a heated debate over adding further charges on to ticket prices: Either in the form of optional carbon-offsetting to subsidize eco-stoves in Guatemala, or mandatory taxes. Eventually the airline industry may become part of emission trading schemes.
European travel companies are already starting to advertise individual carbon-offsetting solutions on their websites. Lastminute.com displays a ‘carbonwise’ plane flying over green hills and rainbows during searches for flight connections. By contrast, Air Canada is encouraging increased air travel with a fly as much as you like pass.
Ryanair where will the journey take us?

Jupiter is conducting research into this area in Europe at the moment, clients please ask us if you’d like to know more.
If you are a company with services in this area, please request a briefing with us.

There’s too much talk of WiFi on planes. Who’d really used WiFi in the cramped surroundings of a passenger jet? They’re clearly just trials for the real target market: ocean liners. Take the JupiterResearch high road and travel on the new Queen Mary 2 which is equipped with WiFi broadband.
For related information, see this story on Boeing’s moves out to sea Broadband Service Ready To Set Sail

At a Paris hotel this week, despite it claiming good Internet access in advance, the reality was just a dial-up connection.
Nevertheless, I tried WiFi, and found a solid chargeable connection from the cafe-bar three floors below completely bypassing the hotel’s services.
The same competition will apply to cafe’s that locate in clusters on the same street. I could equally have been in the bar next door as a hotel room. Offering WiFi access will not guarantee increased premise footfall, if the WiFi signal penetrates into adjacent cafes as it surely will. For me, the choice in such situations will continue to be based on the best coffee and most comfortable seating.
But Who will make money from such hotspots?
Read the report, or talk to us at Jupiter Research.

Interesting information in the Yahoo Japan financials. While not part of my coverage area (Europe), it’s pertinent given the UK BT Yahoo! Broadband launch, and the potential for further Yahoo/Broadband Provider partnerships elsewhere in Europe.
In the full year report (to end March 2003):
- 2.3m broadband subs up from 490k a year earlier
Revenue share agreement with Softbank, new incentive agreement April 2002:
- Lump-sum incentive fees: circa Y11,000/€86 per application (80 percent at application, remainder after six months)
- Bonus incentive fees (in addition to the lump-sum fees) incentive fee per 100,000 lines (figure undisclosed)
- Continual incentive fees, approx Y150/€1.17 per month per continued use
Softbank Responsibilities:
- Providing ADSL service between users and phone offices, installing network infrastructure between phone-office
buildings, and providing connections to Internet networks
- Handling user inquiries and providing technical support
Yahoo! Responsibilities:
- Promoting Yahoo! BB services
- Recruiting users of Yahoo! BB services (and I have a Yahoo! Broadband bag picked up in Akihabura, Tokyo in July to prove it!)
- Operating the Yahoo! BB portal site
- Providing mail and Web site services
- Providing a fee-collection platform
In the most recent interims, the proportion of Yahoo! Japan net sales / income, split by division is:
Auction 27.6% / 40%
Listing 17.4% / 23.4%
Yahoo! BB 17.8% / 19.8%
Shopping 8.8% / 2%
Media 8.1% / 3.7%
Given the high speeds available (8M, 12M and 26M) and Japan’s leadership in many areas of technology adoption, these figures demonstrate the importance to Yahoo! Japan of these broadband revenues, and the background experience for the SBC and BT services.