by Todd Gibson

Co-Founder and Co-Editor - WIIE

The iPhone and the Android based OS enabled phones have notably revolutionized the telecommunications landscape.  The proliferation of 3G services and bandwidth throughputs are increasingly raising awareness of the smart phone's capabilities and highlighting carrier's weaknesses.  All of this reminds me of the Mercedes Benz commercial for their new E class AMG where there was a beast under the hood and fighting to get out.  In a sense, this is essentially the scenario that all of the carriers are in with these new classes of smart phones.

The iPhone was the first on the market and offered a wide array of applications enabling you to customize your phone to meet your needs and desires.  For a majority of customers, the App Store is the channel to search and download of applications which suits most customers today.  For some customers, the applications available on the App Store just did not provide them with the applications they desired.  Starting with the 1st generation iPhone, a unofficial store was created to share applications built by individuals to take advantage of the iPhone's full capabilities.  Apple has struggled with this application store underground and has made it difficult for Apple in a number of ways.  Apple is committed to a positive user experience and has developed an SDK and rigorous test cycles so that the customer can feel confident the application will not hamper their ability to use the device.

Google took a different approach with their Android platform with their decision to introduce this OS as open source.  Like Apple, Google launched an application store called Android Market.  Android Market has thousands of applications that a customer can download and customize their phone for them.  Since Google made their OS open and created a place for all developers to upload their code, the Internet base has not created a rogue application store thus making it easier for end users to search all available applications.  Where as with the iPhone, I have had other iPhone users ask me where did I download some cool applications and what is "Cydia"? 

All in all, both phone platforms add a new dimension to the carrier in terms of how to drive near flawless user experience in regards to the data network.  Apple's approach adds some level of security since they have closed code and more formal process to add new applications to the App Store.  The Android Market is a bit more trickier since the OS software is Open Source for the developers to create both commercial and free applications.  Time has proven that there is a market for these applications and the 3G networks are enabling the developers to create richer multimedia applications.  

There are 2 key challenges for the carriers:
1.  Variety of Applications:  each application behaves differently on the network and the carrier is dependent upon the developer to conduct rigorous testing and certification before making the application available to the publilc.
2.  Bandwidth Consumption:  as 3G networks proliferate, applications are being developed that allow for a customer to stream high quality video across 3G and Wi-Fi networks.  Since the carriers are enabling the customer to utilize un-trusted applications, prediction of network capacity and growth requirements is extremely difficult.  Unlike traditional wireless phones that offered very little in terms of functionality, the carrier defined what applications were on the phone & knew the bandwidth signatures for each application thus enabling capacity on the network was considerably easier.  Whereas there are nearly 100,000 applications available via Apple's App Store and Google's Android Market which each carrier can not possibly certify before a user downloads onto one of their devices.

These two devices alone have transformed the wireless telecommunications industry and driving PC-like Internet experience both from an applications and bandwidth point of view.  Some carriers have been having significantly difficulty with the bandwidth issue which is driving the 3G vs 4G, map comparisons and the WiMAX marketing blitz which is really driving confusion to the customer base.  More importantly, this is driving the carriers to just being in the pipe business for these handsets with a good example of the Google Nexus phone being released later to find that the phone had a bug impacting its ability to maintain a 3G connection. 

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