Mind Commerce - Push to Talk over Cellular (PoC): Business Opportunities and Challenges

Tables.
Figures.
Abstract

1 Introduction: Push-to-Talk and the Walkie-Talkie.
1.1 From Military Origins to Mass Market
1.2 Push-To-Talk Over Cellular (PoC)

2 PoC: A Mini Tutorial
2.1 SIP Makes PoC Work.

3 The Economics of PoC..
3.1 The Future of PoC..
3.2 PoC Market Size and Growth.
3.3 The PoC Value Chain.
3.3.1 Equipment
3.3.2 Service.
3.3.3 Microeconomics of the Handset
3.3.4 Content

4 Handsets and PoC..
4.1 Nokia: Still the Giant
4.2 Motorola: The PoC King.
4.3 LG: Recovering from a Disastrous Year
4.4 Samsung: Korean Product at its Best
4.5 Sony Ericsson: Not Interested in the US Market
4.6 PoC Handset Market Share.
4.7 Profitability of Handsets.
4.8 Smartphones.
4.9 Research in Motion ("Blackberry"): Smartphone Leader
4.10 Palm/PalmOne: Trailing Badly.
4.11 The War of the Chips: Broadcom vs. Qualcomm..
4.12 Opportunities for Third Parties in the Handset Business.
4.12.1 Sonim: Most Successful
4.12.2 Sky MobileMedia: Up and Coming.
4.12.3 Genaker: Hiding in a Corner
4.13 Costs to Handset Manufacturers.
4.14 Risks and Benefits to Handset Manufacturers.

5 All 3G Network Equipment Supports PoC..
5.1 Ericsson: King of the Hill
5.2 Alcatel-Lucent: Growth through Merger
5.3 Motorola: It was Our Idea!
5.4 Nokia-Siemens: Another Merger Provides Scale.
5.5 Nortel: Trailing, As Usual
5.6 Huawei: Chinese Upstart Out-Sells Nortel
5.7 ZTE: Only Just Begun.
5.8 Network Equipment Market Share.
5.9 Network Equipment Profitability.
5.10 Costs to Equipment Manufacturers.
5.11 Risks and Benefits to Equipment Manufacturers.
5.12 Opportunities for Third Parties in PoC Network Equipment

6 The Main PoC Service Providers.
6.1 Sprint Nextel: Still in Trouble?.
6.1.1 Sprint Nextel: PoC Leader
6.1.2 Will QChat Save Sprint Nextel?.
6.1.3 Skeletons in the Sprint Nextel Closet
6.1.4 iDEN: Narrowband Dead End.
6.2 Verizon: Serenity amongst the Turmoil
6.3 AT&T/Cingular: Surviving the Merger
6.4 T-Mobile: Uh, Where's the PoC?.
6.5 Alltel: It's OK to be Small
6.6 "Big Five" Operator Market Share.
6.7 Operator PoC Share using a Handset Surrogate.
6.8 Cellular Service Profitability.
6.9 Operator Efficiency.
6.10 Customer Satisfaction and Churn.
6.11 Figures of Merit: Multiple Dimensions.
6.12 The Small US Operators.
6.13 Many International Operators offer PoC..
6.14 Opportunities for Third Parties in PoC..
6.15 Costs to Network Operators.
6.16 Risks and Benefits to Operators.

7 Where is this "Content" We've been Hearing About?.
7.1 Grinding to a Start
7.2 Push To eXperience (PTX)

8 Customer Benefits and Applications.
8.1 Commercial Customers.
8.2 Government/EMS Customers.
8.3 Private Customers.

9 Summary.

10 Tutorial: What You Need To Know About PoC Technology.
10.1 First Generation Cellular Technology: Analog 1.0.
10.2 Second Generation Cellular Technology: Digital 2.0.
10.3 Third Generation Cellular Technology: Digital 2.5 And 3.0.
10.4 Fourth Generation Cellular Technology: Real Bandwidth.

11 PoC Protocols.
11.1 SIP Makes PoC Work.
11.2 The Role of SDP.
11.3 The Role of SIMPLE.
12 How the Industry Sets PoC Standards.
12.1 IMS.
12.2 3Gpp.
12.3 3Gpp2.
12.4 OMA..
12.5 IETF.

13 Proprietary PoC Solutions.

14 Non-3G PoC Standards.
14.1 TETRA..
14.2 P25.
14.3 Other Standards.

15 All Radio Systems are Limited by Coverage.
15.1 Out-of-Coverage Use.
15.2 Multipath.

16 Signal Delays Unique to PoC..

Tables
Table 1: Model Share of Major Terminal Manufacturers.
Table 2: PoC Phones Offered by AT&T.
Table 3: US Model Share of Major Terminal Manufacturers.
Table 4: Model Share of Major US Network Operators.
Table 5: Correlation coefficients among operator figures of merit
Table 6: Some Possible PTX applications.
Table 7: Organizations Contributing to IMS (from Cisco)
Table 8: Comparison of OMA with Proprietary Standards.
Figures
Figure 1: Full Duplex (A), Half Duplex (B), and Full Duplex via Cellular Network (C)
Figure 2: Motorola SCR-536 circa 1941.
Figure 3: "Professional" walkie-talkies.
Figure 4: "Toy" walkie-talkies, conventional and bizarre.
Figure 5: PoC is an application - layer service.
Figure 6: George and Fred on Walkie-Talkies.
Figure 7: George and Fred on a PoC Call
Figure 8: The PoC Value Chain.
Figure 9: Flows of Handsets, Services and Cash.
Figure 10: Handset market share 2006.
Figure 11: Handset Manufacturer Profitability.
Figure 12: Smartphone market share 3Q07.
Figure 13: Mobile browser market share 2007 (from RoughlyDrafted)
Figure 14: The Sonim XP-1 Rugged Phone.
Figure 15: Wireless Network Equipment Market Share.
Figure 16: Profitability of Network Equipment Manufacturers.
Figure 17: US "big five" operator market share (in subscribers)
Figure 18: Network operator profit for big five.
Figure 19: Revenue per Employee for big five.
Figure 20: Network Operator Churn Rate.
Figure 21: Big Five Statistics Compared.
Figure 22: Market positioning of PoC (from Ericsson)
Figure 23: Classes of group call (from Nokia)
Figure 24: 2.5-G and 3-G signal flows, GSM..
Figure 25: Signal flows in a 3-G CDMA and 4-G network.
Figure 26: PoC is an application - layer service.
Figure 27: George and Fred on walkie-talkies.
Figure 28: George and Fred on a PoC Call
Figure 29: General PoC Building Blocks.
Figure 30: PoC architecture.
Figure 31: Standards bodies Relevant to PoC..
Figure 32: IMS consolidates functions common to all applications (from Cisco)
Figure 33: General arrangement of PoC functional blocks.
Figure 34: Radio coverage in a mountainous region.
Figure 35: Multipath Reception.