Data Services

Processing large amounts of data can be difficult for developers as they accumulate troves of it. Running complex queries using traditional database styles isn’t fit for developer needs today as they can take hours and require something more real time. InfiniteGraph is offering a way out. More after the jump.

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.

Social Intelligence firm Claritics recently raised $1.5M in Series A financing. The company will use these funds, provided by Cervin Ventures and TiE Angels, to continue improving their product suite and expand sales and operations.

It will be interesting to see how this new reporting system works for high-traffic web sites. Change is fast becoming the only constant in an increasingly dynamic Internet. Content and advertising managers can benefit greatly from a system that offers real-time data. They can serve content and manage campaigns based on emerging traffic patterns.

CNET reporter Molly Wood often refers to the “literal net,” which is her term for people on the Internet who seem to be obsessive about correcting anything and everything that they think is incorrect. In my opinion the “literal net” has been hard at work trying to correct all of the U.S. carrier’s use of the term 4G.

While it is true that none of the U.S. carrier networks claiming 4G status can reach the required peak speed of 100 Mbps, I honestly don’t think it matters to consumers. What does matter to consumers is, how much are they paying for the service, and are they getting what they are paying for?

I took a look at each of the carrier’s mobile broadband plans and compared the price the carrier’s 4G plan to the price of their 3G plan. What I found is that except for AT&T, each of the carriers charge the same price for their 4G and 3G plans. AT&T actually charges $10 less ($50 vs $60) per month for their 4G mobile broadband plan than 3G plan. T-Mobile does not distinguish between 4G and 3G in their list of plans, though in practice we know there are locations where they only provide 3G service, meaning the prices of 4G and 3G are the same. All of the carriers have a 5 GB data cap except Sprint, who’s $59.99 WiMAX 4G service has no data cap.

My point is that from a cost perspective, there is no difference in what consumers are paying for the two types of data networks. In other words, there is no financial impact to consumers if the 4G data service they are paying for is really providing 3G speeds. If the carrier’s 4G networks had a higher price, then I think the issue of whether 4G is really 4G would be more significant to consumers.

What we do know is that Verizon’s 4G data network is currently significantly faster than all of the other carrier’s 4G networks, so if it is really important to you to have the fastest mobile broadband, Verizon’s is the service for you, provided the network exists in areas where you need to use it. Beyond Verizon, each of the other carriers can claim to have the second fastest network at certain locations or within certain speed intervals.

The vast majority of my infrequent air travel is over an ocean. So, I’ve never had access to in-flight WiFi for more than a few minutes at the beginning or ending of a flight (usually during the period when you are told to put away all eletronic gear). However, I may get WiFi access on these over-the-ocean flights in the not too distant future according to a couple of items mentioned in this PC World article that focuses on increased in-flight WiFi speeds.

Aircell to Boost In-flight Wi-Fi Speed

Here are the two sentences that I found particularly interesting:

Satellite uplinks will also allow Aircell to offer services outside the continental U.S., on carriers based both in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The Ka-band system will be available in the continental U.S. in 2013 and around the world in 2015, according to Aircell.

The K_a-band (pronounced Kay-A Band) is the frequency band used by communications satellites. I have my doubts about how useful it will be in-flight. However, I’ll certainly give it a try when and if it becomes available in a few years.

I was very puzzled when Microsoft bought Danger, the company that produced T-Mobile’s SideKick phone and its wireless server services, in 2008. Microsoft, after all, already had a mobile phone platform based on Windows CE called Windows Mobile. Sidekick had a number of problems including the infamouse October 2009 server meltdown that caused what appeared to be the loss of all data stored by subscribers to Danger’s servers.

T-Mobile discontinued the original Sidekick on July 2, 2010. They plan to launch an Android-based Sidekick in the near future. Ironically, one of Danger’s co-founders is Andy Rubin who leads Google’s Android development efforts.

Late yesterday, T-Mobile announced that they will end Sidekick customers’ data services and it will be no longer available starting June 1.

The full press release I received is reproduced below.

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After May 31, 2011, the Danger Service (a subsidiary of Microsoft) used by T-Mobile Sidekick customers for data services will no longer be available on Sidekick devices.

T-Mobile will provide offers for our Sidekick customers before May 31, 2011, to help make an easy transition from their existing Sidekick device to a new device. We will have more information to share about these offers with our customers in the weeks ahead.

To ensure the best possible transition for our loyal Sidekick customers, an enhanced Web tool is available on myT-Mobile.com to easily export their personal data, including contacts, photos, calendar, notes, to-do lists, and bookmarks, from the Danger service to a new device, computer, or a designated e-mail account. An application is also available in the Sidekick Catalog to make it easy to export personal data to the Sidekick’s memory card. Many T-Mobile stores can transfer data from that card to a new T-Mobile device if the customer brings in the memory card and Sidekick.

Wired.com has a nice article that explains what is 4G data service and how the U.S. mobile carriers are providing 4G data service. You may know that there has been a considerable amount of sarcasm on the Internet about the carrier’s claims about their 4G networks because by the full definition of the standard none of the networks meet the standard.

According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standards, 4G networks have download speeds betwen 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps, and none of the U.S. networks come close to that mark. In December the ITU began allowing the use of the “4G” label for forerunners of true 4G networks as well as evolving 3G networks, therefore opening the door for all of the providers to claim they provide a 4G network.

In the simplest terms, a provider’s 4G network is newer and faster than the current network that you are most likely using. If you are the type of person who has to use the fastest network my recommendation is to ignore whatever label the provider uses for their network and ask what are the practical download and upload speeds. Be aware that most providers will quote the theoretical peak speeds of their networks, and no network, not even wired networks, meet the theoretical peaks because speeds slow down as more people use the network.

The Wired.com article does a good job of providing the technologies, claimed (practical) speeds and theoretical max speeds, along with cost and availability. My recommendation is to focus first and foremost on availability in the areas where you will connect to the network. Next, if you can shop around, seek out people who already use the networks where you plan to use it and ask them what speeds they see. Bandwidth speed test apps are available for every smartphone platform.

Yesterday’s announcement that Verizon will start selling the iPhone in February includes one new iPhone feature, the built-in personal hotspot. What is a personal hotspot and what benefit does it provide?

The personal hotspot feature on smartphones provides a way to share an Internet connection with other devices. If you are familiar with WiFi access points, the personal hotspot software basically turns a smartphone into a WiFi access point. You may have also heard of MiFis, which are basically the same as a personal hotspot except that they are dedicated to sharing Internet access, where as a smartphone has multiple functions, including send and receiving phone calls.

The benefit of a personal hotspot is that it enables Internet sharing using the nearly ubiquitous WiFi wireless technology. Any device that has a WiFi radio can access a personal hotspot, once it is configured. There are, however, some constraints with personal hotspots that don’t exist with WiFi access points.

All personal hotspots and MiFis limit the number of simultaneous connections that it supports, and usually that number is five devices. There are a number of reasons for this constraint, ranging from performance to the fact that the carriers want to limit the number of devices that use the same connection to their network.

Another constraint is that the data transfered between a personal hotspot and the Internet may count as part of a smartphone’s data plan. For example, if your plan has a 5G limit, the data transfered while your smartphone is acting as a personal hotspot counts towards that limit.

Mobile providers may provide additional data allotments for personal hotspots, or they may count personal hotspot use separate from a regular smartphone data plan. In these cases the provider usually charges an additional fee for using the personal hotspot. You have to sign up for the carrier’s personal hotspot service, and pay a monthly fee, before the software will even work.

Finally, when the personal hotspot software is running it can limit some functions of the smartphone. Verizon users need to know that because of limitations with the CDMA technology, you will not be able to send or receive phone calls while the personal hotspot feature is enabled. Smartphones running on GSM technology such as from AT&T and T-Mobile usually do not have the same limitation.

The key thing to keep in mind is that for most smartphones and carriers, personal hotspots are not only a feature of the phone, but also a service that the carrier provides. As such, your smartphone needs to be capable to act as a personal hotspot and you need to subscribe to the carrier’s service. If you are interested in using a smartphone as a personal hotspot, talk with the carrier to find which of their phones support it, how much it costs, and what are the constraints for using a personal hotspot on their network.

I’ve written several blog posts over the last couple of weeks about the FCC’s recent Net Neutrality rulings, and in particular how there are basically no neutrality rules for mobile broadband. I noted that we are likely to see an increase in the number of different types of data plans from mobile providers, many of them tailored to specific services. Today MetroPCS announced changes to their LTE data plans that provide an example of exactly what I have been writing about.

MetroPCS announced three plans, all of which have unlimited calling minutes and text messages. The $40 per month plan provides unlimited web browsing and unlimited access to YouTube. A $50 per month plan adds GPS navigation, an additional 1 GB of data access, and access to their MetroSTUDIO video service while on WiFi. A $60 per month plan adds unlimited data and access to their MetroSTUDIO video service via the 4G network.

I did a little investigation on MetroPCS’ web site and I was not able to find any explanation for what constitutes “unlimited web browsing.” For example, if you open a site with flash video, will you be able to play it? Is MetroPCS blocking ports, which will prevent you from accessing certain web sites that don’t use Port 80? Will you even be able to access e-mail?

Now imagine that you are a company that creates a mobile web store that uses HTML5 to show video of product demonstrations. If all mobile providers follow MetroPCS’s lead that will mean only a fraction of the possible mobile broadband users will be able to use all the features of your site because the majority of people will only select the lowest price option.

How can something that claims to be “unlimited” have limits? Today most people would understand “unlimited web browsing” to mean that I can access any web site on the Internet. By my read of the information that MetroPCS provides there will clearly be limits on what web sites you can access with their service. The worst part about this is that MetroPCS is only a regional provider, just wait until the big carriers start slicing and dicing Internet access.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed rules this week to regulate how Internet Server Providers (ISPs) can provide services to consumers. The set of rules fall within the concept of Network (Net) Neutrality. Basically, the idea behind net neutrality is to prevent ISPs from discriminating between different content or applications that use the Internet.

What if AT&T decided it didn’t like the idea that people could make free or very cheap phone calls on their network, so they decided to block the use of Skype? As it currently exists (without the FCC’s ruling) it possible that AT&T could take such an action. The problem is compounded by the fact there is very little, if any, competition in Internet access in most communities. What if you live in a community only served by Comcast, and Comcast decided the only network TV it would allow on it’s Internet service is NBC’s?

The FCC’s rules treat wired and wireless Internet access differently, with wireless access remaining pretty much unregulated. Wireless providers will have the ability to tier their services, including discriminating different content type. Engadget has consolidated the responses that each of the mobile carriers have provided, even though the final text of the FCC’s rules have not yet been published, and the reactions are all over the map.

As it seems to be the case of any government regulation, overall reaction ranges from those who support the regulation who think the rules don’t go far enough, to those who dislike any government regulation, and feel it is unnecessary. What we now wait for is what actions the mobile providers take. I expect to see an increase in the number of data plans from mobile providers, with plans like mobile gaming and voice over IP costing more money.