Verizon Wireless finds itself with a very interesting dilemma this week. But first, a little background - when Apple signs carrier deals for its iPhone it places heavy demands on the carriers for guaranteed purchases. Apple has been able to get away with this because of its position within the market, and more specifically it was able to lock Verizon in for some really large numbers when Apple and Verizon struck their deal to finally bring the iPhone to the carrier. Now unfortunately Verizon may find itself holding the tab for a huge number of iPhones it hasn't yet sold but is committed to acquiring from Apple. How substantial is it? How about $14 billion worth of iPhones Verizon must purchase?

We wonder what the iPad hit for Verizon is likely to be. Be that as it may, though it may perhaps be obvious, it turns out that most users do not use their tablets to replace their smartphones. A new report from Moffet Research clearly underscores that for most users a tablet generally ends up replacing a lot of PC-based functionality. Further, the devices are primarily Wi-Fi connected. According to Craig Moffett of Moffett Research, within the U.S. market only 20 percent of tablets sold are specified with either 3G or 4G LTE mobile Internet connectivity, and even then the tablet serves primarily as that desktop - and in many cases TV screen - replacement.

Speaking of replacement services, there is a new effort underway to have a new top-level domain created - .RADIO, which would have a rather clear focus. Towards that end BRS Media has just passed the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) initial evaluation steps for a .RADIO domain. With the completion of this step BRS Media will be allowed to operate the .RADIO top-level domain registry, and that means some very real possibilities coming out in the not too distant future.

One thing that both smartphones and tablets are driving in tandem is the need for businesses to deliver significantly enhanced multichannel customer service capabilities. Customers now simply demand from customer service the same anytime and anywhere services they expect when it comes to sales and instant mobile-derived gratification. As technology has evolved, so has the customer, quickly taking hold of mobile, social, and multichannel communications capabilities in their daily lives, extending those expectations to their customer service demands. Which entirely explains why Aspect reached out and acquired Voxeo - with the hope that it will greatly enhance Aspect's cloud and multichannel customer service capabilities.

Hopeully Aspect and Voxeo will get it right - worse than a failure to offer cloud and multichannel services is to deliver services that fail to be effective. As cloud applications become more sophisticated, they require a dynamic infrastructure that can readily adapt and adjust to ensure optimal delivery. Sometimes it is the underlying network itself that isn’t smart or flexible enough to isolate, differentiate and optimize traffic to each application’s needs. What can be done to optimize broadband networks in in order to solve these problems on a large scale and allow everyone to fully benefit from the promise of the cloud?

One way to ensure customer happiness is to, “Accelerate superfast broadband deployment.” So notes research firm Analysys Mason in its new Connected Consumer 2013 Survey. The chief finding is a message to service providers; fixed line superfast broadband customers are more satisfied with their service than average customers and by three percentage points are less likely to churn. That is a huge incentive.

Last this week there is news from Wikipedia. Developers have long wanted a tool to edit English pages without needing to learn wiki markup language or use the classic Wikitext source editor, and the Wikimedia Foundation has heard them. It has now launched the beta version of VisualEditor, a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor. According to Wikimedia, both the VisualEditor and the old wikitext editor are automatically available for all registered editors on all article pages. Developers can continue to edit Wikitext directly using the Edit source tab.


Edited by Tony Rizzo