Wireless Connectivity

Re: ONLINE EVENT: Following up on the Webinar -- Getting out the Vote and Data

donc — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 10:03:23 GMT

Not everything about reduced mobile coverage is negative ... I suspect [ this discussion ] will definitely gain momentum in years to come... a lot of scientists now view mobile phone usage in the same light as smoking.

Re: ONLINE EVENT: Following up on the Webinar -- Getting out the Vote and Data

donc — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:21:54 GMT

KatrinV:
Have you mapped coverage in the areas where you work? Has anyone in any reliable fashion

Yes, but unfortunately not to any extent that IMO would be useful to you...

Many of our facilities have no mobile coverage at all... others have part coverage, and while this is mapped in our internal emergency response plans it's only mapped within our property boundaries. Our mapping can embrace several thousand hectares on each site (or even hundreds of sq kilometers on our larger facilities), but it's still only a tiny % of the surrounding unmapped area.

I agree this is an issue - A decade ago we did have accurate maps for entire districts in different countries developed in conjunction with local Emergency Services... Unfortunately this wasn't able to be sustained as we have seen Analogue mobile telephony migrate to CDMA (coverage dropped by an estimated 60% in some places), and again when CDMA was migrated to 3G (coverage dropped again by an estimated further 40% in some places and has not recovered as deployment budgets are cut in this time of financial difficulty).

Add to this...

Our vehicle fleet is provided with external high-gain mobile phone aerials for reason of helping driver emergency communications in the event of accident or break-down - however newer PDA's (iPhone, iMate Ultimate, Palm Treo etc.) do not have car-kits available meaning they cannot connect to external aerials; they only support Blue-tooth -Yet many of our staff like to use these devices (I'm guilty; I have an iMate Ultimate).

An outcome of our adoption of PDA's is that effective mobile coverage has reduced by a further 50% in some areas for people traveling between our sites simply because they cannot use the cars aerial - What's happening in practice is that some people are carrying two mobile phones. One a PDA; one a Nokia or similar to connect in the car.

It's all getting a little ridiculous and is one reason we are now installing dedicated DECT phone systems in some of our larger facilities. It's at the point where we are seriously considering dropping the use of Telco provided mobile phones altogether in some places.

Re: ONLINE EVENT: Following up on the Webinar -- Getting out the Vote and Data

KatrinV — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:58:41 GMT

Don -- thanks. Have you mapped coverage in the areas where you work? Has anyone in any reliable fashion -- even if it's country-by-country or even within country? I really need to get my hands on some reliable data in this regard and really do not want to have to generate it (nor crowdsource it, for that matter...). Thanks!

Re: ONLINE EVENT: Following up on the Webinar -- Getting out the Vote and Data

donc — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:16:29 GMT

Hi Katrin,

Our experience is... In developed countries you can generally get a fairly accurate picture of true mobile coverage by contacting local emergency services - As these are people to whom communications is vitally important; as well as people required to travel to all areas at different times, they usually have a very good handle on what works and where. In most of Oceania and Asia we are told a figure of 4%-5% coverage is fairly accurate.

As we should expect, coverage has substantially dropped since the introduction and deployment of digital mobile technologies (roughly 9 digital towers are required to provide coverage for the same area as a single analogue tower). Some investment is continuing into digital tower deployments, but obviously the global economic crisis is impacting on this.

We find in less developed and geographically isolated countries (Mongolia and northern China, parts of Africa, South America, Australia and northern Canada) that mobile coverage tends to follow the affluent and industry - high density population centres and large industrial complexes are usually well covered; rural and poorer areas far less so. There are many truly massive areas of land with no mobile coverage whatsoever.

Don

Re: ONLINE EVENT: Following up on the Webinar -- Getting out the Vote and Data

KatrinV — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:06:59 GMT

Don -- really interesting as this has not been my experience at all in many countries in Africa where even in remote areas there was somewhat reliable mobile phone service. I agree with you that the coverage maps are largely bogus and unreliable but I also found coverage in very unexpected places - albeit spotty at times. I would love to talk to you more -- it seems that this is a natural area where we should do some work to better map actual coverage. Ping me at katrin@mobileactive.org to talk?

Best, Katrin

Re: ONLINE EVENT: Following up on the Webinar -- Getting out the Vote and Data

donc — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 03:25:23 GMT

Hi Katrin,

I'm actually not in the US and must beg to differ regarding the extent of coverage of mobile telephony - Unfortunately what we generally find are Telco provided coverage maps outlining general areas of coverage, however rarely do they embrace a totality of coverage within the provided border limits - This particularly applies in parts of Asia where some truly outlandish coverage claims are regularly made by local Telco's.

I.e. I live in a district of 6,500 square kilometers in rural Au, 90% of which is covered by mobile telephony (according to our coverage maps) - The reality of course is that less than 5% is actually covered by a usable mobile service; being the major central towns, major roads and some highlands within line-of-site of a tower. Mobile coverage generally fails at a nominal distance of approx 1km from any road (noting these are 3G technologies; analogue was much better in terms of coverage however this is no longer used).

My company has offices and facilities around the world with most located in rural districts of Africa, Australia, North & South America, Asia, Canada and northern Europe. Providing mobile telephone services to staff remains one of our biggest hurdles. By example (just at one site); only last year we paid >$100,000 to a local Telco to install a dedicated mobile tower at one of our facilities - such was our frustration at the lack of mobile coverage within a near- 50 km radius (or 2,500 sq km area) that we purchased our own mobile tower and ancillary equipment simply so people could make and take calls, and to provide a modicum of communications safety for remote travelers in our area.

Please don't get get me wrong - I am a huge fan of mobile technologies (hence my reason for asking about deployment strategies), however we should not be fooled by the promotions of Telco's with regard to coverage.. it is nowhere near the figures claimed in most areas, and to cite 90% world coverage is I'm afraid a huge exaggeration of the reality.

Cheers, Don

Re: ONLINE EVENT: Following up on the Webinar -- Getting out the Vote and Data

KatrinV — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:51:35 GMT

Don - I have to correct you. The world is much farther advanced than the US is in regard to mobile communications. The US is, in many ways, one of the least developed countries in regard to mobile sophistication. And 90% of the world HAS indeed mobile coverage, so in that regard you are wrong as well, I am afraid. This is one of those instances where we here in the US have rather a lot to learn from the innovations elsewhere.

Re: ONLINE EVENT: Following up on the Webinar -- Getting out the Vote and Data

donc — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:44:31 GMT

Hi,

I've been following this event with considerable interest - some great ideas are coming out!

Once area I have yet to see raised is that of outreach - How do we propose to get mobile phone coverage to the 96%+ areas of the globe where mobile phone coverage is unavailable? - Are there any strategies in place (or proposed) to help the less advantaged of this world share in the phenomenon?

Cheers, Don

Re: ONLINE EVENT: Following up on the Webinar -- Getting out the Vote and Data

benrigby — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:23:14 GMT

Also, have compiled a bunch of stats here:

http://www.theextraordinaries.org/stats.html

and here

http://www.theextraordinaries.org/stats/

ONLINE EVENT: Following up on the Webinar -- Getting out the Vote and Data

KatrinV — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:31:18 GMT

Reaching out to Young Voters and Data on Efficacy of Text Messaging as a Get-out-the-Vote Tool:

http://www.completecampaigns.com/article.asp?articleid=118

Study on the 2006 data: (2008 should be out sometime soon) Text out the Vote: mobileactive.org/txt-out-vote-text-messag

See also the New Voter Project: http://www.newvotersproject.org/research/text-messaging

Vote Loatino: http://mobileactive.org/node/8758

DATA:

GMSA Market Data -- GSMA is the global association of the wireless operators: http://www.gsmworld.com/newsroom/market-data/index.htm

ITU: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/, see also their new Development Index that has a ton of useful data: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/2009/index.html

The iPhone does not Drive 50% of US Mobile Web Traffic: http://wapreview.com/blog/?p=3383

M:Metrics data -- lots of useful data there, but here is a recent one on the mobile web: http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2752

Will post more in the next few hours as well -- keep your questions coming!