In its Petition for Declaratory Ruling, LightSquared is basically saying that it has the right to make use of this spectrum for a terrestrial LTE broadband system even if doing so might interfere with existing GPS receivers. The reason, LightSquared states, is not because its network might cause the interference but rather because the GPS industry receivers were not sufficiently protected as to reject interference from the LightSquared spectrum. One of the most interesting (to me) statements in this document is, “It does not matter whether the Commission characterizes commercial GPS receivers as unlicensed receive-only earth stations that operate under Part 25 of the Commission’s rules, or as unlicensed devices that operate under Part 15 of the Commission’s rules. The relevant precedent under either analysis reaches the same inescapable result: unlicensed commercial GPS receivers simply are not entitled to interference protection from LightSquared’s licensed operations in the MSS band.”

What this really says is: We don’t care if we interfere with GPS receivers; it is not our fault but the fault of the receivers, which should not be afforded any protection in any event; this is our spectrum and we want to use it for a purpose for which it was not intended regardless of the outcome. I cannot believe that this document was well received at the FCC, and to me it shows how desperate LightSquared is becoming as it digs a deeper hole for itself, or rather a number of holes.

The first problem is that it may, according to some sources, be running out of money. Next is the fact that its deal with Sprint was supposed to expire at the end of 2011 but Sprint gave LightSquared a thirty-day reprieve to obtain permission from the FCC to build its terrestrial network. The FCC has never acted on anything I can remember within thirty days—certainly the FCC does not care about these types of business deal deadlines. Congress is stirred up about the GPS interference as is the DOD, FAA, and other agencies, and now LightSquared is basically threatening the FCC by demanding to be permitted to use its spectrum for something other than what it was originally licensed for (satellite communications with SOME infill of terrestrial stations to cover dead spots). Not only is it threatening the FCC, LightSquared is also saying that it doesn’t have any obligation to fix any interference problems it creates to GPS systems including those that could result in deaths and severe accidents if GPS devices fail to work properly.

The only word I have for LightSquared at this point is “arrogant.” It followed a method of selling wholesale services prior to having a network in place to “prove” it is relevant. It is also promising lots of new jobs and an influx of revenue. LightSquared hit the scene when there were questions about the number of network operators, yet neither the FCC nor the Department of Justice took it seriously enough to help mitigate the ATT/T-Mobile merger. Instead, the ATT deal died because it would reduce competition and stifle competitiveness—which we all know is simply not true. I have to ask if LightSquared was a serious player, wouldn’t the FCC and DOJ have taken that into consideration before they opposed the merger?

Since they did not, do you suppose there is a reason? Perhaps both the DOJ and FCC saw the writing on the wall and decided that LightSquared was not a serious competitor to AT&T and Verizon since LightSquared doesn’t even have permission to build out its network. Or perhaps both the FCC and DOJ are aware of the true investment that must be made by LightSquared and decided that the company does not have the resources to make its network happen. In any event, it appears as though LightSquared may be taking its last breaths of air, and that means it is getting desperate, pulling out all of the stops for permission to build out its network. But what happens if it fails to gain the approval of the FCC, and Congress is in a position to stop the FCC from giving LightSquared the green light? While Congress doesn’t control the FCC, it does control the FCC’s funding, which is the same as controlling the FCC.

So if LightSquared tanks, and I think it will, what is next for it and the industry? The partial answer is that LightSquared spectrum value would drop dramatically, its investors would take a beating, and the wireless industry is back where it started except that the thirty or so companies that signed up to resell the LightSquared broadband service are now in the wind. However, the names of these companies are now known and it won’t take long for the nationwide network operators to propose agreements with them and see if they really have the stomach for the type of investment it takes to play in the wireless market space.

My best guess is that of the thirty companies that have signed on to the LightSquared network, only about ten have the desire to proceed to bring LTE into their markets. Perhaps the rest of them will go back to what they were doing prior to the LightSquared deal, or perhaps they will try to work with another operator and come face to face with the reality of the marketing dollars involved in entering the wireless marketplace. No matter what, not all thirty-plus of these companies will ever be in a position to offer wireless broadband services. Rather, I think that many of them have been sold on the wonderful opportunities as portrayed by LightSquared and that when reality hits them in the face, many will simply cut their losses and go home. Wireless broadband service is about size and scale, money, spectrum, and above all, marketing dollars. Regardless of what they have been told by the LightSquared folks, selling against the big guys won’t be an easy task.

LightSquared is a perfect example of companies bitten by the wireless bug. They never open a spreadsheet and go to DC with a story that those who make the rules want to believe: Affordable broadband for all, very quickly; an opportunity to provide broadband in competition with the big boys; and the ability to make money in markets where no money has ever been made before. This is merely a pipe dream but giving LightSquared credit, it has certainly stirred up a hornet’s nest and made promises it cannot possibly keep.

So I, for one, hope the FCC and Congress stick to their guns and don’t let the false promises of a zillion new jobs and two zillion in income sway them to even consider permitting LightSquared to build a terrestrial system in this spectrum. We cannot afford to have any network that could, potentially, disrupt our GPS system. It would be a disaster and all of the jobs promised and the infusion of dollars promised could never make up for the loss of a single life because of the malfunction of a GPS receiver due to interference.

Andrew M. Seybold

When you look at the United States on a market-by-market basis it is clear that in most major markets there would still have been five or even six competitors fighting for customers and both LightSquared and Dish Network have expressed a desire to enter the LTE market. Add to that the fact that Verizon has cut a deal with the major cable companies to not only purchase their spectrum but for these companies to become resellers on the Verizon network, and there are at least one if not two more competitors on the horizon.

Now mix in the fact that while the FCC has pledged to “find” an additional 500 MHz of spectrum that could be auctioned for wireless broadband services but the dysfunctional Congress did not include spectrum auctions in any of the end-of-year legislation, meaning that there will be another delay not only in making this new spectrum available but also in permitting the FCC to auction spectrum it has already identified. Even when this spectrum is finally released for auction it won’t be available for networks to build out for three to five years depending on how long it takes to “clear” (relocate) existing users of the spectrum identified.

An issue that has not been addressed is how many wireless network operators can thrive and survive in the United States. We are already near 100% saturation of the population and the growth of wireless is expected to move toward 300% penetration as we all opt for multiple devices and more devices are coming to us wirelessly enabled. The economics of entering a field that already has five or more competitors per market is tough. Building a network from scratch will cost $billions, the operational expenses (opex) associated with LTE, for example, are considerably higher than the opex for 2G and 3G systems because the backhaul from each site has to be high-capacity capable, meaning that it needs to be fiber or microwave and not the standard voice-grade telephone circuits used in the earlier systems.

This all comes back to how many competitors can survive in the market. The answer is unknown but if we look at China as an example, which is a much larger market than the United States, we see that what China did might be the correct way for us to move forward. A few years ago there were six competitors in China but today there are only three. The government decided (because it can there) that it would consolidate the six networks into three, giving each of the remaining three the ability to build out more cell sites since each site would have more customers, meaning that the networks could afford to build coverage in more areas of the nation. So far this plan has been working, and the price of wireless services in China continues to come down even with only three competitors in the market.

There is consolidation occurring in Europe as well. Some is due to the typical buy-outs or mergers of companies and some of it is companies coming together in joint ventures in order to be able to build a single network that two or more companies will share. Canada is doing the same thing.

If those making the rules (those in DC) better understood the dynamics of the growth in demand for wireless services and the competition that is already pushing the cost to customers down year over year, perhaps they would realize that market forces are more powerful than regulating competition. Clearwire is a perfect example of market forces at work. It has burned through a ton of money, and while its subscriber base is growing, it is not growing fast enough to stop the bleeding. Now Clearwire is being forced (by market circumstances, NOT regulations) to move to LTE in the hopes that such a move will help it gain more market share. Sprint is also moving to LTE, again, not because of regulations but because the market demands that it do so in order to keep its existing customers and gain additional customers.

Demand for broadband services is going through the roof and there will be no leveling off of this demand in the future. More smartphones are finding their way onto the wireless networks, more tablets, and now ultrabooks. People and companies trust the cloud to store their data and in some cases, applications, and the only way to access the cloud is via a broadband connection. Recent reports continue to show wireless broadband growth of triple digits, and the network operators are trying to figure out how to manage this growth.

Most network operators are engaged in a multifaceted plan moving forward. This involves the end of all-you-can-eat data plans and re-invokes usage-based pricing as a way to manage demand across the networks. It also includes building out more cell sites closer together (a two to three year task in many areas), off-loading broadband services to Wi-Fi, selling femtocells for use in homes and offices where the backhaul is provided and paid for by the customer, and trying to obtain more spectrum where it is needed.

Spectrum is the currency of the wireless network operators. Going back in history, most of the mergers and acquisitions were about spectrum—who had it and who needed it. Spectrum is a finite resource and while Congress and the FCC are trying to figure out the spectrum auction deals, the network operators need more spectrum. After blocking the AT&T/T-Mobile deal, today the Department of Justice said it would investigate the recent deals Verizon made with some of the major cable companies. As you might recall, Verizon bought these cable companies’ spectrum assets but it also set up a resale deal so the cable companies can resell on the Verizon network.

Congress should ask the cable operators why they were so willing to sell this spectrum. The answer is simple. They bought it at auction because wireless is the future. Then they ran the numbers and found out how expensive it would be to build out and operate their own networks, to come to terms with other networks for roaming agreements, and the marketing dollars it would take to compete. Based on this, a few continued with their existing deal to resell on the Sprint network and had little success. Cox was in and out of the Sprint resale deal within six months because the uptake of its service was disappointing and the phones it had available were not competitive with those of the larger or even regional network operators.

After the cable companies did the math it was obvious that they needed to bail out of the do-it-yourself wireless network business. Verizon wanted the spectrum and offered the cable operators cash for the spectrum plus the ability to resell on the Verizon network, which, I assume, also means a lot more phones and other devices will be available through the cable operators. In my opinion the deal makes sense all around. It is a market-driven deal and should stand as made.

In the United States we pay some of the lowest prices for both wireless voice and broadband services. Our coverage has improved, and both AT&T and Verizon have pledged to and are working at extending their networks or their reach with partnerships to cover more of rural America and the market-based approach to competition and services continues. There is a saying that “if it isn’t broken don’t fix it.” In this case, the wireless market in the United States is not broken so the government should be leaving it alone—not tweaking it or trying to fix it.

Andrew M. Seybold

The issue in both cases and in others is that the U.S. Government is concerned about alleged ties that Huawei has with the Chinese military. The thought behind this activity is that Huawei might include an easy to access hole in its systems so the Chinese could sneak in and snoop on those using these networks or gather data for use against the United States. From my perspective, this is simply paranoia on the part of some within the Federal Government.

I guess this also must apply to ZTE but why doesn’t it apply to all of the manufacturers and vendors whose products are built in Chinese plants and then shipped into the United States? How do we know that the factories that build this equipment and the mobile devices are not running over with Chinese military types who are busy embedding harmful software code into these devices that they can activate and use for snooping or to bring a network down? Paranoia is rampant in Washington, DC, that is for sure.

To those of you who say we should buy American, I agree. However, most of the leading suppliers of wireless infrastructure are NOT American companies. Alcatel-Lucent used to be American, now it is a French company, Ericsson is a Swedish company, and Nokia-Siemens is a Finnish company, so buying American is not an option. All of these companies have plants in China or contract with plants in China to build much of their equipment. Further, a large number of the wireless devices on our networks are also built in China and I fail to see the rationale in preventing Huawei from taking part in either our commercial or public safety wireless networks.

Besides, the Chinese military does not need any help from the likes of Huawei to monitor, access, or break into any of our networks. It and many other countries have scores of talented Internet hackers who do nothing but attempt to access various commercial and government sites all of the time, and with considerable success. I might add that I am sure we have a like number of very smart hackers working in various departments within the Federal Government doing the same thing to them.

Competition is a good thing and Huawei has been successful in many other parts of the world. From what I have seen, its backend and infrastructure equipment is well designed and well made (NO, I am not a consultant to either Huawei or ZTE nor have I ever been). I look at what is happening and cringe when people with the power make decisions based on paranoia rather than rational investigation. In fact, Huawei has on several occasions offered to have its company investigated but so far the United States has not taken up the offer.

So not only do we lose at least one if not two viable competitors in the U.S. market, we also lose jobs when we can least afford to. Huawei has a large presence in the United States which will, I believe, now be cut, leaving some very talented U.S. citizens out of work at a time when every job we can create is vital to us moving forward.

If someone wanted to embed something into one of our wireless networks or create a back door for illegal entry it could be easily done. Suppose you wanted to accomplish this. All it would take is to pay off a single engineer or software developer who is working for one of the “approved” companies and have him or her do what was needed to open up a network for intrusion. BUT, and this is a big but, those who work on these networks work hard to make sure they are not vulnerable. When they do find a vulnerable spot they fix it posthaste. Think about all of the software that has been delivered with bugs and other issues hackers have exploited. Many of the operating system companies have released patch after patch to plug these holes, and IT professionals and others are playing a cat and mouse game daily with hackers all around the world. We put up the best firewalls and software to prevent intrusion, the hackers find a way around it, we fix that, and then they find another point of access. As long as all of these networks are attached to the Internet they are vulnerable, plain and simple.

One of the issues we have is that many internal networks have far too many connections to the Internet. The smart organizations and companies have very few and these internal networks can be disconnected from the Internet easily and quickly if there is an attack. Unfortunately, this is not true for many companies and even Federal, state, and local agencies. Many of these organizations may not even know how many they have across their company or organization, especially if they have many different locations around the country or even around the world.

What about the devices on these networks? What about the lack of security built into Android devices and the amount of malware showing up in Android applications because they are not tested or vetted before they are released? A single device or multiple devices on the network can do a lot of damage or gather a lot of information if it has been prepared to do so. What makes the Federal Government believe, for a minute, that banning one or two qualified vendors from providing equipment in the United States will ensure our network safety? Networks are interconnected too, so if a network in Canada or Mexico uses Huawei infrastructure and it is connected to a network in the United States, isn’t that just as dangerous to us?

So I don’t get it. Why are some within the U.S. Government so paranoid that they are building a case for both Huawei and ZTE being excluded from providing infrastructure within the United States? There is an offer on the table from Huawei for a full investigation of the company that the United States has not acted upon, and I have not seen our Government investigating any of the other companies with products being built and even designed in China. I guess free trade only means free trade when we agree to it, otherwise we have the ability and the authority to keep a company out of the United States based on some “fears” that they have secret ties to the Chinese Army. There are many companies that are partially funded by the Chinese Government, and as I mentioned before, much of the equipment that is sold and installed in the United States from the other “permitted” companies is made in China.

When asked about their fears, those at the Commerce Department said that information is classified. Do they mean classified or do they mean that someone within the Commerce Department is paranoid and was able to convince others that they should be as well? I have to wonder how this will all end up and how many other companies that provide jobs within the United States will be banned from doing business here because they might have ties to the Chinese Government.

Andrew Seybold

Clearwire has publically stated that it wants to deploy TD-LTE (Time Division LTE), which is a flavor of LTE that uses the same portion of the spectrum for both cell site and device transmissions as its WiMAX system does today. TD-LTE is being pushed in China as a standard, Qualcomm’s chipsets already support both FDD and TDD LTE, and those making WiMAX devices for Clearwire could easily convert their products to TD-LTE.

Clearwire currently has a lot of spectrum assets. On average, for all of the markets it has licensed it has 150 MHz of spectrum in the 2.5-GHZ band. This compares more than favorably with both AT&T and Verizon that hold licenses that average 91 MHz for each market. This spectrum is not as valuable as spectrum at 700, 800, or even 1900 MHz because building a network at 2.5 GHz (2500 MHz) requires more cell sites per area covered. On the other hand, because there are more cell sites, the network has more capacity available.

The issues for Clearwire are the cost of the transition and the timing. First, the technology needs to reach a point where it can be deployed. Next, Clearwire has to be able to afford to make the transition, which means it needs to raise more money. It could sell some of its spectrum and has stated that it is in talks with other network operators, although Verizon denies it is talking to Clearwire. However, TDD spectrum at 2.5 GHz is not worth as much as FDD spectrum at lower frequencies. If Congress passes the spectrum auction part of any one of the bills currently making their way through Congress, there will be more AWS spectrum and other spectrum that will be configured as FDD below 2.5 GHz.

Clearwire’s desire to move to LTE is the right decision, now it is a matter of timing. Can it find the funds needed to make the transition, how will it go about building out and converting its WiMAX customers to LTE, and how long will that take? Because it has so much spectrum available it could build out the TD-LTE network on an unused portion of its spectrum leaving the WiMAX network in place and then transition its WiMAX customers over to LTE without having to do it all at once. It will be tough, but if Clearwire is really in the wireless business for the long haul I think it will soon find a way to move forward.

Meanwhile Sprint’s transition to LTE (the FDD version) on its 1900-MHz spectrum will give it quicker access to many different types of LTE-capable devices, and since it is deploying a new set of cell site radios that can operate on multiple bands and using multiple technologies in the same box, its move to LTE should not be as painful. The fact that Sprint also now has an iPhone will help keep its customers around while it makes the transition but it needs additional funding in order to make this move. After it announced its move to LTE, Wall Street punished Sprint, which I don’t understand. It appears as though The Street is still in the “what have you done for me today” mode rather than looking at the long-term results of what Sprint is planning to implement

Even though I have for years written that I believe both Sprint and Clearwire had made the wrong technology decision, I understand that back then the decision was based mainly on Intel’s push in the WiMAX space and its willingness to invest big bucks in order to make WiMAX a success. Since then Intel has decided that WiMAX did not meet the promises made by the engineers and has gone quiet and stopped funding any WiMAX activity. I don’t have a clue what Intel spent over the years trying to push WiMAX around the world but it was heavily invested in the technology, at least for a while.

With both Sprint and Clearwire making the move to LTE it is clear that WiMAX will end up being relegated to point-to-point backhaul types of communications and that LTE will emerge as the prime 4G network of choice within the United States as it is in most of the other parts of the world. In all fairness to Clearwire and Sprint, it should be noted that when they were ready to roll out their broadband network LTE was not yet ready for prime time. The only other option would have been to deploy 3G technology and they would still be faced with having to migrate their networks to LTE regardless.

AT&T is joining in the LTE fun and has, at present, five markets up and running: Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Chicago. Since LTE data speeds are dependent on the amount of spectrum in which is it deployed, customers will notice really fast data rates in all of the cities except Chicago. In the other four cities AT&T is using 20 MHz of spectrum (10X10 MHz) but in Chicago it has only turned LTE on in a 10-MHz (5X5 MHz) portion of the spectrum. Still early reports are that data speeds, at least in the first four cities, are very good, but it is important to realize that the network is very lightly loaded at this point in time.

AT&T has an aggressive build schedule planned for 2012, and since it already has HSPA and HSPA+ deployed in most markets, the fallback from LTE to HSPA+ in particular will not be as severe in loss of data speeds as moving from LTE to CDMA EV-DO Rev A on the Verizon network. However, Verizon had a huge head start in build-out and is way ahead of AT&T when it comes to percentage of the population covered and I can attest to the fact that its LTE network is robust in many areas of the country today. I have yet to travel to a city in the United States where I have not had Verizon LTE coverage in my hotel room.

Speaking of Verizon, it has even brought LTE to Santa Barbara. Sitting at my desk and running my normal speed test software on my desktop system using Cox Cable, my incoming data rate is between 19 and 22 Mbps and my uplink data speed is between 3.7 and 3.9 Mbps (this is in the middle of the day when the heavy cable system users are in school or at work). I am very close to one of Verizon’s LTE sites (I can see it up the hill from me out my office window) and on my laptop I am getting downlink speeds of between 19.7 and 22.5 Mbps and upload speeds of 14.8 to 17.7 Mbps. Understand that this is a fixed location using an LG USB modem and I have virtual line-of-site to the cell site. However, I have no way of knowing how much data traffic is on this particular cell sector.

AT&T has not, to my knowledge, published any speed numbers it expects customers to experience on its network. Verizon has been consistent in its numbers telling customers that they can expect between 5 and 12 Mbps down and 2 to 5 Mbps up to the cell site. I have found that these numbers are good and reliable numbers as I have traveled the United States. I will be running tests on the AT&T network as well. It is interesting to me that there are already those who tout that AT&T’s LTE is faster than Verizon’s LTE. In reality, both are using 20 MHz of spectrum (except for AT&T’s Chicago deployment), and the same release of LTE software so they should both be offering about the same speeds.

However, within LTE there are many different parameters that can be set and that will affect performance. Some of these include Quality of Service (QoS), priority access, and being able to set up the number of data speeds in both the outbound and inbound directions. LTE supports three outbound data speeds (fastest, fast, and slower) depending on your proximity to the center of a cell sector, and two inbound data speeds. It is possible to adjust any and all of these parameters to increase or decrease data speeds. It is also difficult when conducting these types of tests to know how many other users are sharing the cell sector. If you have no one else within your cell sector you achieve the full total speed and capacity that can be delivered within that cell sector. However, if there are a number of other users within the same cell sector you will be sharing the total sector capacity (and therefore speed) with the other users. If three or four users are streaming videos down to their devices the results you will see during testing will be slower than if you are the only customer in a cell sector. Thus unless the network operator is working with you on the tests, you have no way of knowing how much other traffic is on that cell sector and could be affecting your test results.

T-Mobile is rolling out HSPA+ and has declared HSPA+ as 4G (as has AT&T), and in some cases the data speeds are pretty close to what you can get on LTE within the same amount of spectrum. T-Mobile only has spectrum at 1900 MHz and in the AWS-1 band so it is much more limited in being able to roll out LTE than the other network operators. I don’t expect to see any move toward LTE from T-Mobile in the foreseeable future. If the AT&T/T-Mobile merger does happen, then the issue is moot. However, if the merger does not happen, T-Mobile will have to step up big time at the next spectrum auctions in order to obtain more spectrum if it wants to add LTE to its existing 2G, 3G, and 4G offerings.

LightSquared

I saved this subject for last because there is a lot going on. For those who don’t know, LightSquared has asked the FCC to permit it to build an LTE network on its satellite spectrum, which is adjacent to the GPS band. There is a lot of concern about the potential for interference to GPS systems if LightSquared is permitted to build out its network. After tests proved there would be widespread interference, LightSquared offered to build its network using 10 MHz of spectrum that is further removed from the GPS frequencies BUT there are still a lot of unanswered questions about whether even this network will interfere with some if not all GPS units in the field.

LightSquared has pulled out all the stops to have this waiver approved. It is accusing the GPS industry of building shoddy products, it has said that if it does not win approval it will sue the FCC, and now it is saying that it has contracted with a company to build filters to be used to retrofit GPS receivers and it is willing to pay to have the filters installed on Federal Government GPS units, BUT it expects the GPS community and users to foot the bill (estimated to be about $400 million) to install the filters on other GPS devices that are effected.

Meanwhile, LightSquared continues to sign up wholesale customers, it continues its push based on how much its network will assist with new jobs and more money being spent in this down economy, and the fact that it will be offering competition to the existing 4G network operators. It appears to be hoping that its jobs, money, and competition strategy will overcome the objections of those who have the technical knowledge to understand the potential interference issues. The FCC recently ordered more tests between the proposed LightSquared system and the GPS community. From my perspective, I think that if the FCC folds and this system is authorized we will have a big problem on our hands.

LightSquared did not pay for this spectrum and when it bought the company that owned it, the FCC rules indicated that terrestrial stations could be used for fill-in of the satellite signals only and NOT for a nationwide terrestrial system.

It appears to me as though the decision to let LightSquared move forward with a terrestrial LTE system was based on politics and NOT on factual engineering data. In light of the current findings and until the new tests are run, even after they are run, it would be foolish to permit LightSquared to proceed with this system. If it wants to build a network for LTE for wholesale purposes there is spectrum available from Clearwire and there will soon be more spectrum coming up for auction that it could bid on that would work for its intended purpose.

Lots going on in the world of 4G, lots of devices coming soon, and it appears as though the world is waiting not so patiently for the iPhone 5 that is rumored to be LTE-capable and which is also rumored to be announced sometime after the first of the year. Until then there are many LTE choices today and there will be more over the coming months. LTE is solid, it works, it provides the best data speeds yet, and speeds will be getting better in future releases of the LTE specification. However, it is also prudent to understand that there will be times when a customer will fall back to 3G data levels so using applications and services that depend upon LTE to function properly does not necessarily make sense.

Andrew M. Seybold

Then came another bomb in the form of HP’s announcement that it is getting out of the consumer PC and wireless device businesses and will focus on its high-end systems and integration. Is WebOS doomed now or will HP make an effort to find it a home? Does HP really believe that cloud computing is the only direction for the future? This seems to be what HP is saying as it is touting cloud computing and cloud-reliant devices. This announcement certainly caught us all by surprise. Only a few months ago I was invited to HP in Houston to address its PC and device group. We had a long dialogue about the future of the PC, notebooks, tablets, and handsets. There was not a single indication that HP was moving in the direction it has now announced.

Then Sprint announced it will stop selling the RIM WiMAX PlayBook because of a lack of demand, yet Clearwire may have killed the product simply by announcing it would be looking for $600 million in order to roll out TD-LTE in place of WiMAX in the near future, a move many of us had predicted, but it took Clearwire and Sprint longer to decide on than it should have. Rumors are circulating that Sprint may end up buying the rest of Clearwire in order to grow its own business. This makes sense since the Clearwire spectrum is perhaps Sprint’s best chance of being able to enter the LTE business. Meanwhile, Verizon has announced more LTE cities and AT&T is rolling out its first LTE devices and preparing for launch of its own LTE network.

The issue of LightSquared’s new LTE system interfering with GPS devices continues to be of major concern, yet LightSquared is signing up more wholesale LTE customers and moving forward as though it will win approval to build out its LTE system in spectrum adjacent to the GPS spectrum and that was originally allocated as spectrum for satellite communications. I was one of two people on a LightSquared panel at the APCO (Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials) conference in Philadelphia last week. The other panelist was from LightSquared and my presentation beat them up pretty well. What I did not do, the audience, made up of public safety communications types, did. You can read about this panel at http://psc.apcointl.org/2011/08/09/lightsquared-squares-off-against-andy-seybold/

My view is that LightSquared could obtain permission to build out this spectrum for all of the wrong reasons. It is aptly working the FCC and Congress touting competition, thousands of new jobs, and an infusion of money into the economy. Its latest technique is to try to discredit the GPS industry by saying that GPS receivers were not built to shield themselves from adjacent spectrum interference, therefore (my words): LightSquared should be permitted to build out its system no matter what affect it will have on all of us, including public safety and those calling 911, because somehow the GPS industry failed to build devices that took into account a network that wasn’t even contemplated by the industry.

The bottom line here is that while I like the concept of a wholesale LTE network that will enable smaller operators to resell LTE and, therefore, compete with AT&T and Verizon in the LTE business, I do not think LightSquared should be permitted to make use of spectrum that could interfere with GPS receivers. One of the questions I have yet to receive an answer to is since GPS receivers are used at almost every cell site to assist in user device hand-offs from one cell site to another, if LightSquared ends up sharing these cell sites, what will the impact be on other network operators?

But with the FAA, DOD, and most three-letter government agencies opposed to this network even using the lower portion of the LightSquared spectrum, I don’t believe Congress will permit the FCC to issue LightSquared the license it needs to proceed to build out its network. If the FCC does, then I believe all of us will find that the LightSquared network does, in fact, interfere with GPS and the fix to the problem will be both expensive and time consuming.

Summer used to be a time when companies slowed down and employees took vacations with their families and returned to work after two or three weeks refreshed and ready for the fall madness. However, summer has become like any other time of the year, and those who do manage to get away for vacation have to pay attention to the news and their emails even while trying to relax and enjoy a few weeks of well-earned rest. If they don’t pay attention, they will return to work and find out that the world, once again, has changed in their absence. One thing that is safe to prognosticate is the fact that no matter what we think will happen and when, what usually happens is something we did not expect, at a time when we did not expect it. Technology is great, BUT it has changed not only the way we do business but when we do business. Today that is 24/7, 365 days a year.

Andrew M. Seybold

I have been watching the news reports recently and some reporters and analysts have finally picked up on the fact that having an LTE device in the 700-MHz band does not ensure that it will work on both AT&T and Verizon Wireless, nor the other 700-MHz license holders’ networks. Few people really got that until recently, but since I have been working on the Public Safety portion of the 700-MHz band I have known about this for some time.

The reason most smartphones and perhaps even dongles and tablets won’t be able to make use of LTE on both AT&T and Verizon networks has nothing to do with the LTE standard. Both companies are deploying LTE that meets the 3GPP specifications although there may be some differences in the options implemented by these companies, theoretically a device should be able to be used on either network.

The reason this won’t happen, at least in the near term, is not a marketing decision nor is it an anti-competitive decision, but a decision based on construction costs for the devices. The 700-MHz band spans spectrum from 698 Megahertz (old TV Channel 52) to 806 MHz (old TV Channel 69). This is a lot of spectrum (108 MHz to be exact) and while chipsets can and do cover the entire spectrum, other parts of a phone (radio) do not.

As can be seen by the chart below, the 700-MHz band is actually two bands, or to confuse us further is it really three bands as defined by the 3GPP standards organization. These bands are referred to as band class 13, which is the upper portion of the band; band class 14, which is basically the Public Safety and D Block spectrum; and band class 17, which is the lower portion of the spectrum. Verizon’s C Block is located within band 13 and most of AT&T’s spectrum is located within band 17. Or to simplify it, AT&T’s spectrum is mostly in the lower portion of the band and Verizon’s spectrum is in the upper portion of the band.

(Courtesy of the FCC)

The rub is that while chipsets that provide the basic foundation of the devices are capable of providing access to the entire U.S. 700-MHz band, presently, the software built above it is built for only one portion of the band. Further, the filters and duplexers that are also a part of the phone, as well as the antenna system, at present can only support one portion of the band or the other. What is a duplexer? It is a device that permits full duplex operation of the transmitter and receiver using a single antenna. It is a series of filters that has to be tuned carefully to mix both transmit and receive signals on a common antenna. For this reason, it cannot be as broad as the entire band. Therefore, in order to provide a device (smartphone) that will cover both bands, two sets of filters and duplexers will be required. It is possible that dongles might be first to market with both bands in them since adding more components to a device causes some other problems.

A smartphone that is designed to work on 2G and 3G systems as well as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and that has a GPS receiver in it, is already chock full of components and antennas. Adding one more is being done but adding two more becomes an issue. If you want the device to be a world device capable of operating on all of the U.S. bands plus those in other parts of the world, the guts of a device become even more complex. If you then want to build the 700-MHz portion of the device with MIMO on LTE (two antennas to improve the range and throughput), we are really giving the design engineers a series of tough challenges.

Another glitch in all of this is that some network operators will also be using the AWS-1 spectrum for LTE in the future so in addition to 700 MHz, 850 MHz, and 1900 MHz, the devices will have to be capable of operating on the AWS-1 spectrum. As the FCC makes even more spectrum available for broadband services, the number of bands a standard device has to be capable of will only increase.

All of these engineering considerations must be taken into account as well as the cost of the parts. I have heard estimates that the add-on cost of building in the extra components to cover both portions of the 700-MHz band could add around $8 to the total cost of a phone. If you are a network operator that subsidizes the cost of a phone this means you will have to absorb this $8 bill of material increase just so your customer can leave your network and move to your competitor’s network.

Software-defined chipsets are making it easier to build more radio frequencies and more over-the-air technologies into a single device but the antennas and associated circuitry are the issue. Sometimes the same antenna can be used for multiple purposes as there are electrical relationships between lengths or they can be made to work okay on multiple frequencies, for example, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth can easily share the same antenna because they are in the same band. However, if both are to work at the same time, some additional and tricky engineering has to be employed to make that happen.

Now to add to all of this, while it is obvious that LTE is fast becoming the world standard for fourth-generation broadband services and at some point voice services, at present, LTE is being deployed on more than fourteen different portions of the spectrum worldwide. This makes it virtually impossible for a U.S. wireless device to become a world phone for LTE as well as to be able to operate across 2G, 3G, and U.S. LTE networks. The very smart engineers who develop these phones are already putting 25 pounds of components into a small 15-ounce package. There is some good news, perhaps. Several companies are working on active antenna technology, or antennas that can change their characteristics and operate on multiple bands. Part of the solution may include these new antenna technologies.

In the meantime, we have what we have. U.S. LTE devices will operate on 2G and 3G systems and one of the two LTE 700-MHz bands. There are some who believe that the FCC should mandate that every LTE device in the United States must be able to be used on both the lower and upper portions of the 700-MHz LTE band. I don’t believe this should be mandated by law since the challenges in providing such a device are both cost and engineering related. Mandating across-the-board 700-MHz devices might mean losing fallback capabilities on one of the other bands as well as an increased cost to network operators, which in turn will have to pass these costs along to the customer.

Once again, those who are looking at all this are not people who understand the nuances of radio and antenna technologies. The industry will sort this out at some point in the future, just as we have before. In the meantime, the operators should be permitted to make their own decisions, after all, how is the LTE issue any different from today’s 3G issue? An iPhone or other device on AT&T’s chosen 3G technology is not compatible with the 3G technology used by Verizon. So switching networks today means acquiring a new device. Wireless technology is very complex and those considering making the rules should take the time to understand the trade-offs and engineering issues involved. Some things are simply not possible even if you pass a law mandating them. There are laws of physics and while our engineers have been good at bending them a little, we cannot break these laws even if some mandate says we must.

Andrew M. Seybold

The history of wireless is littered with examples where the FCC acted on a request by a vendor, approved the deployment of a system, and later learned that the new system created interference to other services. The most notable of these mistakes by the FCC is the ongoing saga of the Nextel service. Nextel started out providing Specialized Mobile Radio services (SMR) for two-way radio systems as Fleet Call and then was re-invented to become a full cellular service but not in a cellular band. In fact, as Nextel went around the country and bought up other SMR operators’ systems (each one covering a specific local area), it amassed channels that were intermingled with other SMR operators, as well as fire and police radio systems.

Nextel’s founders worked hard to convince both Congress and the FCC that this type of system would be compatible with the existing users in the 800-MHz frequency band. Since there were only two cellular operators for a city at that point in time, both the FCC and Congress approved the concept in order to bring more competition into the cellular market. During the discussions, fire, police, and many SMR operators pointed out that Nextel’s cell towers would cause interference to these other services but their warnings fell on deaf ears.

The system was rolled out and, in fact, it caused significant interference to others in the same band including public safety. The reason was simple: SMR and public safety systems made use of tall towers or mountain top sites and only a few of them per city. The radios were high power and the systems worked well. Then Nextel began building towers using the cellular model, which is lots of towers at low locations in order to provide service over wide areas. The result was that when an SMR or public safety radio was within sight of a Nextel cell site, or even close to one, the cell site put out so much power 24/7 that the Nextel signals interfered with public safety and SMR radios and in many cases put public safety personnel in danger.

The solution, which is still ongoing today, was to re-band this portion of the spectrum moving Nextel’s frequencies to a contiguous block of spectrum instead of permitting Nextel to be intermingled with the other services. A lot of this re-banding, as it is called, has been completed but not without Nextel and now Sprint/Nextel having to spend billions of dollars and huge logistical issues for both public safety and SMR systems. Some areas of the country have not completed the re-banding process, including along both our borders where the process must also include coordination with either Mexico or Canada, and then there are many areas where there are disputes about the cost of re-banding or radio replacement.

Nextel got its way based on the belief in Washington at the time that we needed more than two cellular operators in order to create more competition and therefore lower prices. After Nextel was approved, the PCS spectrum (1900 MHz) was auctioned again to ensure more competitors in every market. Fortunately, the 1900-MHz users were relocated by the auction winners so there were no further interference issues.

Fast forward to 2011. The FCC’s broadband report says that we need more commercial and unlicensed broadband spectrum. The FCC’s OBI (Omnibus Broadband Initiative) has cited that in the United States we will be more than 200 MHz of broadband spectrum short to meet the demand by 2013, and the FCC says it will “find” 300 MHz of spectrum within five years and another 200 MHz within another five years. Further, there are two other attitudes in DC that influence the decision-making process. The first is the belief (which I disagree with) that broadband services will replace all wireless services going forward and therefore broadband is the most important form of wireless communications going forward. The other belief is the more competition there is in every market in the United States the lower the pricing will be for all customers. Neither of these beliefs is grounded in reality or can be proven but that does not matter. What matters is perception.

When LightSquared went to the FCC, as you can see, the FCC was already predisposed to approve both more broadband spectrum availability and more competition, especially since LightSquared is to be a wholesaler of broadband services. This will permit smaller competitors to compete against the larger nationwide network operators, at least on a local basis. It is no wonder that the FCC issued LightSquared its waiver to convert satellite spectrum into a full-blown terrestrial network as opposed to a previous ruling that would permit LightSquared to augment its satellite coverage with a few terrestrial sites. The warnings from the experts, once again, went unanswered, and the FCC issued the waiver.

Now, after the fact, the FCC and LightSquared are facing opposition from Congress, a collation of GPS companies, the aircraft industry, the Department of Justice, the Public Safety community and even the farmers who use precision GPS in growing their crops. Perhaps the good news is that the network has not been built yet and the hue and cry is growing louder by the day. The results of the first set of tests proved, beyond a doubt, that the first portion of the spectrum LightSquared intended to use for terrestrial broadband would have wiped out GPS reception within a few miles of each cell site and in the air as well.

Now LightSquared has filed its report, all 1200+ pages of it, and working my way through it is a challenge. It has said it will move to a different portion of its spectrum that is further away from the GPS band, and claims that in this portion of the band it will not interfere with 99.5% of the GPS devices. The fact that it WILL interfere with even, as they state, 0.5% of the devices should be reason enough not to grant permits to build the network. The other item of interest to me is that LightSquared now claims that it is the fault of the GPS vendors for building GPS receivers without the proper type of filtering in them.

I take issue with this point because the GPS band is in the satellite band and the GPS system was never intended to have to worry about interference from terrestrial transmitters. Because the GPS band is 20 MHz wide and uses spread spectrum technology, filtering these devices will take a lot of engineering if it is even possible. Meanwhile, if LightSquared is permitted to build out on this spectrum there is no guarantee there will not be interference to more than the 0.5% of devices it claims. The statistics it cites are not based on extensive testing, nor is this number substantiated properly in anything I can find.

The bottom line, to me, is that when non-technical people make decisions about wireless technology, which they do not understand or comprehend, and for the reasons stated above, if LightSquared is permitted to build out its system it can only result in a potential disaster that will take years and cost billions of dollars to resolve if it can be resolved at all.

There is no doubt that we need additional broadband spectrum to meet the growing demand for broadband services. However, endangering GPS, which is used for many different things including locating us when we call 911, is not the right way to go about this. We must take all the time needed to make 100% sure that there is no potential of interference, not 99.5%. I believe the best option is to deny LightSquared’s waiver, withdraw it, and let it find or purchase other spectrum that might be available at auction.

Clearwire is trying to raise money and has expressed a willingness to sell some of its spectrum holdings. I suggest that LightSquared make a deal with Clearwire and see if it can make its business model work on spectrum that does not have the potential to disrupt so many things we do each day, including saving lives. If you were the FCC Chairman, would you permit LightSquared to continue? I, for one, would not.

Andrew M. Seybold

I think those trying to outdo the iPad have several problems. First, they are coming out with a tablet product only, without the back-end support of iTunes and the Apps store. Next, the developer community has moved to the iPhone and iPad platforms because coding for these two hit products is relatively easy. Only one operating system and one set of software development tools are needed. Further, the market for both the iPhone and iPad is huge compared to most other markets. Apple does a great job of vetting applications for the platforms and, to date, there have been no bad applications permitted in the app store and no issues with any delivered via the app store as far as I know.

Next up is the fact that Apple has set the expected price for the tablet market and if others don’t meet or beat these prices they are perceived as not being competitive. This has certainly hurt the Motorola Xoom, which starts out $100 more expensive than iPad’s lowest price model. Not only have others missed the price point, they are having problems meeting making money on their own tablets.

So if you believe the tablet wars are over, you would declare the winner to be Apple by a mile—but you would be wrong. Tablets are not only the new thing, they will be around for a long time. History has a way of repeating itself, not that Apple has ever paid attention to history, but Apple had the PC market to itself with the Apple II, then lost it to IBM, which in turn lost it to Compaq and HP, which in turn ended up sharing it with Dell and a host of offshore companies until the industry contracted and today there are only a few choices left.

The same thing happened in the world of notebooks. Grid had the first true notebook, then Data General, then a host of others including IBM with the ThinkPad line, Toshiba was huge, and HP, Dell, Compaq and many more were going strong. Again, the companies that are still in the laptop business have thinned out and notebooks have also become commodity products.

I am not saying this will happen to Apple, but if you go back in history you will find that Apple lost out because of its closed way of doing business (no clones permitted). When it did permit clones, it missed the timing big time. But Apple has introduced and held onto the lead with iPods, iPhones, and now tablets so you might think history may no longer repeat itself. However, I believe we are only at the beginning of the tablet era and there is much more to come. Some companies are holding back and watching the market and not jumping into it quickly, while others are trying to enter into the market quickly.

The RIM PlayBook has been maligned by the press and analyst communities, but this first version of the PlayBook is designed for its loyal BlackBerry customers and I believe it will be a success in that market. What the reviewers missed is the fact that the PlayBook is a companion to a BlackBerry and not really a standalone product, at least this version. Will RIM be able to move beyond that market? I am not sure at this point, but RIM, like other companies, has a habit of keeping at it until it gets it right. Meanwhile, Apple’s closed system may actually hinder its growth going forward, and if it doesn’t play better with the wireless operators that are all trying to find other ways to increase their income, Apple might find itself on the outside of some deals moving forward.

Apple wins for this year, but there is next year, the next, and the next. There is no better market research than being able to talk to tablet customers and finding out what they like and what they don’t like, what they want to be different, what they would like to see added, and what types of applications they would like to see. This first generation of tablets, after the iPad, did not have this type of research available to them. But we are starting to see some focus groups made up of iPad and other tablet users, and many companies are reaching out to this installed base.

Just because Apple has a commanding lead does not mean this will continue, and I believe other tablet vendors will break the code and start offering end-to-end solutions that will be attractive to many customers. It is also possible that some tablet vendors will cut deals to share some of their app and other revenue with network operators and this will be an important weapon against the iPad if Apple does not find a way to do this as well.

It took Apple several generations to get its notebooks right; it offers great products today but if you go back and look at Apple’s first attempts you will find that they were pretty lousy products, and surprising for Apple. Then there is the issue for me of the Android platform and how long it will last before it becomes a target for the hackers of the world and loses favor with many customers who won’t have any faith in the apps available for the platform. Perhaps Google will wake up and take some control over the platform but perhaps not. Meanwhile, don’t count Microsoft out. It took three revs of Windows to get it right and it has been at the wireless O/S game for a long time without ever finding the right combination of platform, devices, and apps. But Microsoft may find it with tablets, and companies still loyal to Microsoft could conceive of and build some very cool tablet products.

The biggest losers in the tablet field will be those who believe that feature creep is the way to go, adding a hard drive, or more ports, making the devices heavier, or bulkier. The next group of losers will be those that believe a tablet and information and applications in the cloud will win the day. Access to the cloud is not ensured, the roadways to the cloud are not mission-critical, and Murphy lives in the cloud as well.

Tablets are here to stay. They will morph over time, but more and more of them will be sold. Apple will, for sure, continue to be a leader in design and innovation, but there is plenty of room for others to play in this market as well. Like all technology markets, we will see the latest, must-have devices leap-frogging each other, and the tablet to beat won’t always be the iPad. It might even come from a start-up company we have never heard of before. Remember that Compaq was born in a restaurant and its first transportable PC was sketched out on a napkin during that first meeting. Dell started in a dorm room, and HP, Apple, and others in garages. New companies, new products, and new winners can come from anywhere at any time.

In the short term, Apple remains the company to beat and its track record with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad looks hard to beat. However, that does not mean Apple will always be in the driver’s seat when it comes to tablets, nor does it mean that a number of other companies cannot make money in the shadow of the iPad.

Andrew M. Seybold

Impossible you say? Don’t bet on it. The cloud is the rage right now and companies are spending heavily to entice you to store your data and in some cases your applications in the cloud. This enables you to carry a smaller and lighter device devoid of a hard disk or much storage because the assumption is that you will be able to access the cloud every time you need to from anywhere you are. This is a dangerous assumption.

Do you consider your access to information mission-critical to you? Public Safety communications are obviously mission-critical but in many cases, so are corporate communications. We have come a long way in only a decade. Ten years ago, poor wireless networks with slow-speed data limited our access to information and access to the wired Internet was cumbersome and slow. However, today we have high-speed wireless access using wide-area networks and Wi-Fi, and our connections to the wired Internet are over DSL, cable, or fiber so they are fast.

However, the Internet itself is neither a mission-critical network NOR a managed network. There is no Network Operations Center (NOC) to monitor and control the flow of information, there is no Quality of Service, and there is no way to limit the amount of data consumed by a single customer (user). These elements are important since today the Internet runs at an average of 80% capacity in the United States most of the time. Streaming video will drive usage up in the coming months and I sometimes refer to Netflix not as the killer application for the Internet, but as the application that will kill the Internet.

Many who count on the Internet for day-to-day communications will think I am crying wolf, that the Internet could not possibly slow down or become so congested it will be useless. I hope they are right and I am wrong, but my tests of the Internet conducted every day, twice a day, using Speakeasy.net’s speed test that measures both upload and download speeds across the Internet indicate that when I connect to Speakeasy’s server in Los Angeles I experience a higher throughput than when I connect to its server in New York City.

There are some positive steps being taken in an attempt to obtain more bandwidth. For example, Netflix has made a number of deals with larger ISPs to store its movies at the edge of the Internet and then deliver them only over the ISP’s pipe and not always across the Internet. However, streaming video is still an issue for Internet traffic. When you move this traffic to wireless broadband, it is even more of an issue. The total bandwidth available on a 3G or 4G system is based on a cell sector. Typical cell sites are divided into three 120-degree sectors. In each of these sectors, the total bandwidth is then shared among all users within that sector. In a sector that covers two miles out from the center of the cell for 120 degrees, all of the customers within that sector will share the total capacity of that sector. If the sector is capable of supporting 15 Mbps of data and there is a single user in that sector, that user will have all of the bandwidth. However, if there are twenty users in the sector, they will all share the 15 Mbps. This is not much of a problem if everyone is processing email or other light data inquires. However, if a number of these users are streaming video, the bandwidth left over for the rest of the users within that sector will be smaller. Another factor is that the further you are from the center of the cell, the slower your data speed will be even if you are the only one in the sector. If you are at the edge of the cell, perhaps you will experience data speeds of only 500-700 Kbps down and 256 Kbps up.

If your life is stored in the cloud and you don’t always have access to it, this can impact your productivity and sometimes have an adverse effect on being able to access information you want and need when you want and need it. So I see a number issues with relying on the cloud for our data and/or applications:

1. Will you always have access to the Internet?
2. How much capacity and speed are available for the on ramp to the Internet?
3. How busy is the Internet?

And I have not yet discussed security. If your company’s data is stored in the cloud along with many other companies’ data (on the same server), that server is a bigger target for hackers than if your data is stored on your own machine. If it is on your own machine and you are hacked, only your data that is bad is compromised. However, if someone hacks into the cloud computers, a large amount of data from many different companies might be vulnerable.

For all of these reasons, I am not a fan of cloud computing as the primary repository for my data. I use the cloud to back up my data, and I CAN access it from any machine I happen to be using. However, in my office, at home, and when I travel with my laptop, the data resides on my local machine and as long as I can turn it on and use it, I can get to my data. Synchronizing data that is stored in multiple locations is easy today, there are many good software programs available that do a great job of keeping all of my files up-to-date on all three of my computers and across my office network. And no matter where I am, if I have one of my machines with me, I have access to all of my data, even if I cannot access the Internet.

So while Internet and computer companies are busy chasing this next big revolution in computing storage and access, I will continue to keep my data close to me and not have to worry about boarding a plane without the one file I really need or worrying about whether someone has hacked into my information.

Andrew M. Seybold

I couldn’t help thinking about this moment in film while walking the show floor at CES. Guestimates—and they are just that because with everything going on at CES, who had time to accurately count them—put the number of tablets on display at anywhere from 80 to more than 100. Many of these devices are or will be wirelessly-enabled or designed to use wireless devices as modems. So the question running through my mind is, how many will be dropped and shattered during the shakeout that will take place over the next year?

Wirelessly-enabled tablets are not new. AT&T launched the Eo Personal Communicator in 1993. Small by computer standards, but larger than most people wanted to carry and certainly not pocket-sized, it was an early shot at combining wireless connectivity with a slimmed-down computing device. Priced between $1,500 and $3,000 depending on how many “extras” you wanted, the product was short-lived. AT&T killed it in mid-1994 after blowing a reported $40-$50 million on the venture.

Apple’s iPad has successfully resurrected the concept of mobile computing beyond the smartphone format. And as with any huge success, it has attracted a plethora of imitators and a few with something more to add to the genre.

At CES there were many offshore, mostly Asian-based and relatively unknown companies showing tablets. Where they will be in a year is anyone’s guess. But regular followers of technology shows understand and appreciate the churn of exhibitors on the floor from year to year. So of the hundred tablets available for preview, let’s forget about—no let’s not even consider 75 to 80 of them. These dogs just won’t run.

Among the tablets that caught my eye was RIM’s PlayBook. It’s much smaller than an iPad, so it’s even more portable, though not pocket-friendly. Yet its smaller size should not be a deterrent to business users who love their BlackBerrys but want a larger screen. And its functionality is terrific. It will attach to your existing BlackBerry for wireless connectivity and it runs on a new operating system RIM acquired in early 2010 from QNX Software Systems that is pretty slick. The end result is that the PlayBook is a morphed gaming and entertainment device that supports business users with the benefits they enjoy on their BlackBerry handsets.

Motorola’s Xoom runs on the new Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system designed by Google exclusively for tablets, extending Motorola’s commitment to the ever-growing open Android ecosystem. A lot of consumers like this idea. Android has the opportunity to grow a fan base similar to that of the Apple-heads out there. More proof of the shift to Android are Samsung and Dell, both launching Android tablets, and NEC’s future dual-screen Cloud Commander. ASUS International is covering its bet by announcing three tablets running Android and only one on Windows 7.

As the Android wave continues to take global market share in the mobile space and Apple’s iPad OS holds its own, one has to wonder what the future will be for Microsoft in the tablet arena. Microsoft’s silence about its future plans for a Windows-based OS to run tablets was deafening. While quite a few tablets running Windows 7 were announced during the show, Windows Phone 7 or Windows Mobile 7 devices were no-shows at the party. Regardless of the version of Microsoft’s wireless OS, Windows has lost its appeal to many consumers. It fell behind when it failed to provide anything as exciting as Apple’s iPad or Google’s Android operating systems. Many industry insiders are questioning Microsoft’s strategy and its viability in the mobile market. If RIM’s new tablet OS can keep BlackBerry fans in its corral, Android continues its global upsurge, and Appleites remain attached to their technology tree, Microsoft may find itself scrambling to stay relevant in the mobile computing world.

It is evident that the mobile tablet form factor will be a winner for a long time. It provides an enhanced user experience, especially for entertainment enthusiasts. These devices also make it possible for business people to leave their laptops and netbooks behind, making life out of the office easier. However, only a handful of devices will survive the imminent shakeout and we believe the winners will be the major embedded OEMs that incorporate Android’s operating systems and reliable and cost-effective wireless data connectivity into their machines, Apple’s iPad and its second-generation versions, and RIM’s PlayBook.

Robert C. Chapin

Bob Chapin is an analyst partner in Andrew Seybold, Inc. specializing in industry strategic marketing and market research.