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Google Voice “UC” offers telecom-providers major angst

Google is now starting to admit new users to Google Voice, and the new offering is certainly a step that will give telcos worldwide some major angst. Google Voice is a free service that provides a single number, voicemail, free calling in the U.S., call screening and blocking, SMS alerts, email delivery of voicemail, rings on multiple phones, changes phones in mid-call, etc.

The new offering is surely a version of a unified communications product hosted on the Internet and it competes with nearly all of the telco advanced voice features. It also seems to signal Google’s entry into more traditional services. What the business model for this will be is very hard to say, but the offering certainly puts pressure on telcos to come up with a better (which is to say ANY) service-layer strategy.

DOCSIS 3.0 spurs cable/telecom broadband “speed wars”

There are some signs that the DOCSIS 3.0 broadband speed wars are already having an impact on the market. Both Verizon and AT&T have been boosting their broadband speed tiers in preparation for the expected pressure on speed generated by cable companies. But there’s also a general industry push to sign new customers through incentives like the FiOS free-netbook deal.

Industry data shows that almost three of every four TV viewers will stay with their incumbent operator unless there’s some exciting incentive to switch. The summer is also a good time for promoting a change; with kids out of school and the main channels in reruns, there’s more interest in premium channels and in the use of the Internet for entertainment.

A more significant marketing initiative by Verizon is an increase in the uplink bandwidth to accentuate an area where cable lags even with DOCSIS 3.0. FiOS uplink speed has doubled or more in the lower tiers of the offerings, but pushing how fast uploading content could be risks encouraging P2P, which is the form of consumer uploading most commonly used.

EU tackles social networking privacy regulations

European regulators have often been more aggressive and pro-consumer than those in the U.S., and now they’re looking at the privacy implications of open social network platforms like Facebook’s. Social network companies have been pushing open platforms that give third-party firms access to their users’ data. This is a revenue stream for Facebook, but regulators fear it’s a surrendering of user privacy, often without full knowledge and disclosure.

So far, the recommendations for further protection are just a part of a draft document that hasn’t been presented to the EC, but regulatory trends have been showing a significant pro-consumer, pro-privacy shift. The result may be increased difficulty in monetizing not only social networks but also other online trends like video. In the U.S., the House is also closing in on privacy legislation that may well impact social networks and behavioral targeting.

New BlackBerry targets consumers as open handset policy brews

RIM’s new BlackBerry Tour may be a critical product for the company because it’s aimed at a consumer market that’s a shift from RIM’s usual enterprise targeting. The Tour is an upgrade, though in some ways a minor one, to the Storm but has the familiar BlackBerry keyboard.

The reason we think RIM is so hot on the new consumer opportunity is that it doesn’t want to be locked into a defensive war against the Palm Pre and the new iPhone 3GS for enterprise customers without at least threatening rivals’ broader base.

The summer is going to be a major face-off in the smartphone market, complicated by the fact that there is growing pressure (created in large part by the AT&T/iPhone deal) for Congress to create an open handset policy. While such a policy doesn’t kill smartphones, it may reduce provider incentives to push them, thus putting promotion of the devices in the hands of handset vendors alone.