Weekly Wireless Report WEEK ENDING November 21, 2014

INSIDE THIS ISSUE: This Week’s Stories Data Caps Don’t Work: Thoughts For The Future Of Cellular THIS WEEK’S STORIES Network Congestion Data Caps Don’t Work: November 20, 2014 Thoughts For The Future Of Cellular Network Congestion We are reading, posting, watching, and streaming more than ever before, but cellular network data has not kept pace—in fact, it’s gone backwards (as those 44 percent of AT&T customers clinging to their Firefox Drops Google For grandfathered unlimited plans can readily attest to). While our need for and use of cellular network data Yahoo Search has continued to increase, carriers have opted to manage usage and congestion through data caps, which can take a variety of forms depending on carrier. For the most part, data caps as they stand now PRODUCTS & SERVICES are not about alleviating network congestion as carriers claim; they’re about profit. Carriers know this, consumers know this...heck even the head of the FCC knows this, judging from FCC Chairman Tom This App Can Tell Which Brew Wheeler’s July 2014 letter to Verizon CEO Dan Mead: “It is disturbing to me that Verizon Wireless Is Right For You would base its ‘network management’ on distinctions among its customers’ data plans, rather than on network architecture or technology.” Snapchat Teams Up With Square To Offer Money-Transfer Feature Yes, in some cases data caps can help prevent the most excessive overuse of a limited resource, such as the top 1 percent of mobile data subscribers that generate 10 percent of mobile data traffic. Network EMERGING TECHNOLOGY congestion itself is very real, and with estimates forecasting 15.9 exabytes per month of global data traffic in 2018 (that’s 20 billion GB a month aka over 7,700 GB being used every second for those Dropbox Carousel Comes To playing along at home), it’s an issue that’s only going to grow more and more important. This alone is iPad And Web Today, Android why crude approaches to network management like data caps need to change, and quickly. How we Tablets Soon use, how we view, and how we’re delivered data are all rapidly changing - monitoring and measurement need to advance at the same pace. IBM Verse: Can It Trump Google Inbox? In the wake of Sprint's "double the high-speed data" promotion (and the subsequent responses of AT&T MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS doubling their data, Verizon doubling their data, and Sprint doubling its data again), traditional views on the price of cellular data and the need for data caps are shifting. “Data” in the abstract seems more arbitrary than ever. If data caps were about managing congestion, how were they all able to increase at Former BlackBerry CEO Heins once? Did the network capacity magically double overnight? Named Chairman Of Startup Powermat Leading rhetorical questions aside, it’s clear data caps for congestion are the wrong tool for the job, but INDUSTRY REPORTS what’s interesting is that carriers don’t even have the right tools to begin with. In the ideal scenario, network traffic evaluation would be done in real time at the individual cell sites and only slow down Sprint Makes Dramatic Jump users who were hogging bandwidth at that exact moment. But that is not how carriers handle it. In LTE Coverage In Q3, With T-Mobile Not Far Behind Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint claim they only throttle the top 3-5 percent of users (as measured Will Apple Soon Be Worth $1 by monthly data consumption), and once you’ve gone over your monthly cap you’re at risk of being Trillion? throttled if you enter a congested area. While this strategy is great for profits, it’s a fundamentally broken way to properly handle a network. A cellular network doesn’t care about past usage patterns of customers or how much data they’ve already used that month, it cares about how many people are trying to access how much data from it right now. Even the carriers’ seldom used but seemingly more technical approaches of peak time management, concurrent user thresholds, and bandwidth thresholds aren’t up to the task of properly handling network congestion.

The underlying problem in all three approaches is that they attempt to handle congestion through educated guesses based on network proxies rather than actually monitoring the network itself. Peak time management uses time of day guesses; concurrent users bases it on number of people on the network, not how much they’re actually using; and bandwidth thresholds operate under the misguided assumption that link/resource capacity has a fixed maximum, which results in guesses for congestion threshold levels (e.g. “apply management when traffic on this link exceeds 72 Mbps”) rather than

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dynamically adjusting to its capacity in that moment (e.g. “apply management when this link exceeds 90 percent of its current capacity”).

The main problem with proper and effective cellular network congestion management is not awareness—carriers understand these methods aren’t the best tools for the job—it’s capability. Legacy solutions were either prohibitively expensive, time-consuming, or didn’t work at scale, and as such carriers used the cheaper and easier methods outlined above. And to a degree, those techniques worked back when there was less cellular network traffic and consumers didn’t know what to expect from carriers, but the volume of data and our demands on the network are changing. It’s time the solutions for managing that data did as well.

Fortunately, monitoring technology has not stood still and today's cutting-edge solutions are better placed to support a more rational approach to congestion management. The key need is for granular monitoring of dynamic demand patterns from users, and of congestion conditions within the network itself. These requirements couldn't be met in the days when operators had to rely on coarse-grained observations of total traffic load. But today's technology enables real-time monitoring of data usage on a per-user basis, at timescales down to seconds or below. Solutions are also available for the problem of accurate real-time congestion measurement, for example by tracking user data as it moves across and between networks, and detecting any long transit times or inadvertent drops due to overloaded bottlenecks. Monitoring systems can even detect particular patterns of usage that are more likely to contribute to congestion than others – a bit like spotting slow 'platoons' of cars on the freeway that hold up other drivers. When you put these techniques together it's clear they give operators more than sufficient visibility to dynamically detect congestion conditions, and react intelligently in a manner that correctly accounts for actual user activity. The days when lack of monitoring capability could be offered as an excuse for clumsy congestion management are drawing to a close.

While cellular network congestion can currently be semi-contained with the sledgehammer approach of data caps, the amount of people in the world with connected devices will only continue to grow (to the tune of 500 million more smartphones sold globally in 2018 than now) and with it the need for more refined methods of network monitoring.

When the amount of drivers on the road increased, we didn’t say that after driving 100 miles per month you’re capped at school zone speeds or must pay 3x the normal price for gas. Instead, we adjusted our transportation infrastructure, we incorporated technology like live updating and dynamically priced toll roads, and we worked towards more opportunities and innovation in public transit. It’s time for us to take a similar approach with network congestion.

The solution of tomorrow needs to be able to really and truly monitor network congestion (rather than using byproducts of congestion as proxies or estimates based on past data) and, more importantly, it needs to be able to do this in real time.

wirelessweek.com

Firefox Drops Google For Yahoo Search November 20, 2014

Mozilla takes up with new Firefox search partners that it believes are better aligned with its values of “Mozilla has bitten the hand choice and independence. that fed it. After a 10-year Mozilla has bitten the hand that fed it. After a 10-year partnership, Google Search next year will no partnership, Google Search longer be the default search engine in Mozilla's Firefox browser. next year will no longer be the default search engine in Mozilla, which develops open-source software for the benefit of the public, has struck a five-year deal Mozilla's Firefox browser.” with Yahoo to make Yahoo Search the default search engine in Firefox. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, comes as Mozilla's three-year deal with Google is about to expire.

That arrangement, which made Google the default search engine in Firefox globally, is said to have been worth $300 million annually. Mozilla's deal with Yahoo, however, covers only Firefox in the US.

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Mozilla CEO Chris Beard said the company is ending its practice of having a single global default search provider.

"Our new search strategy doubles down on our commitment to make Firefox a browser for everyone," said Beard in a blog post. "We believe it will empower more people, in more places with more choice and opportunity to innovate and ultimately put even more people in control over their lives online."

Mozilla's declaration of independence comes six years after Google began competing with Firefox through its Chrome browser, which this year displaced Firefox as the second most popular desktop browser globally, according to NetApplications.

The search deal is non-exclusive. Firefox users will have the option to set Google as their default search engine, or to choose alternatives such as Amazon, Bing, DuckDuckGo, eBay, Twitter, and Wikipedia. A Mozilla spokesperson didn't immediately respond to a request to confirm whether the Yahoo partnership affects Firefox for Android, which defaults to Google Search. FirefoxOS, Mozilla's mobile operating system aimed at phones in emerging markets, defaults to Microsoft Bing for search.

Beard says Mozilla sought out partners that "aligned with our values of choice and independence." By implication, Google no longer fits that description.

Mozilla's strategy change could help the company in markets where regional Internet usage differs from the US or where nationalist politics demand a search engine other than Google. In Russia, Yandex will become Firefox's default search engine. In China, Baidu will continue being the default search engine. However, it's unclear whether joining up with search companies that operate under politically mandated censorship will advance choice and independence.

As if cozying up to Yahoo weren't enough of a repudiation of Google, Mozilla has managed to get Yahoo to agree to respect the Do Not Track setting, to the potential detriment of advertisers. But Yahoo is only extending this privacy protection to Firefox users.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer celebrated the partnership by noting that Yahoo's deal with Mozilla is its most significant in five years.

"At Yahoo, we believe deeply in search -- it’s an area of investment and opportunity for us," said Mayer in a blog post. "It’s also a key growth area for us -- we’ve now seen 11 consecutive quarters of growth in our search revenue on an ex-TAC basis."

A few years back, Yahoo didn't believe in its own search technology. In 2009, it struck a deal with Microsoft to utilize the infrastructure of Microsoft's Bing search engine, ditching its homegrown search system in the process.

Two decades ago, Microsoft's disinterest in Internet innovation and hostility toward Netscape was, incidentally, what gave rise to Mozilla and Firefox.

informationweek.com

Products & Services This App Can Tell Which Brew Is Right For You November 20, 2014 “App users have the ability to customize a profile with their Ever gotten stuck in a grocery aisle debating what beer or wine to buy? For college students on a strict budget, that risk can sometimes cause frustration. likes and dislikes, which in turn allows the app to Now Next Glass, a new smartphone application that launched today, can provide newbies with some calculate the chemistry of guidance. their taste preferences.”

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The app was inspired by a disappointing restaurant experience Next Glass CEO and founder Kurt Taylor had with his father. The two ordered an expensive bottle of wine per the waiter’s recommendation but ended up disliking it.

“We realized there was no universal way to describe taste,” says Taylor.

So Taylor set out to objectively and universally define wine and beer, creating Next Glass in October of 2013. It began in laboratories with the intent of identifying the chemical makeup of each wine and beer bottle. The process, he says, is like finding a fingerprint.

“We realized that we could definitely improve recommendations using the chemistry,” Taylor says.

Next Glass also conducted what they call “The Beer Census,” using a 20-foot refrigerated truck to travel around the country with stops in more than 35 cities.

“It’s a great way to make sure Next Glass has a value to users no matter what part of the country they live in,” says Trace Smith, chief operating officer.

The Beer Census included pit stops in multiple big college towns – natural hubs for wine and beer consumption.

“I think college students would really enjoy trying to find and discover all sorts of new beer, especially when they know they are really going to enjoy it,” says Taylor

But college students won’t be the only ones who benefit from Next Glass, Taylor says. He believes the interest will extend to anyone looking to discover new wine and beer options.

“I think college students would really enjoy trying to find and discover all sorts of new beer, especially when they know they are really going to enjoy it” (Photo courtesy Next Glass)

App users have the ability to customize a profile with their likes and dislikes, which in turn allows the app to calculate the chemistry of their taste preferences.

There’s also a scanning option, where users can scan the front label of a wine or beer to see how that product stakes up to their taste profile. There is also an option to link up with friends and see their respective preferences, plus another that provides nutritional information.

“Wine can be an intimidating endeavor,” says Taylor. “You talk about people who are in college and don’t have a lot of experience yet or tried a lot of things — going into these stores that have a thousand different options and to have something that makes them feel more confident in what they are purchasing is definitely an advantage for college students.”

University of Oregon senior Bobby Whittingham has experience with that intimidation.

“The app sounds like something I would definitely download,” Whittingham says. “There are different times I am standing the grocery store or at a line at a pub trying to figure out what beer I am going to order and I think ‘Oh, would I like it?’ It sounds like this app is going to be pretty clutch.”

Whittingham, a self-proclaimed craft beer fan, says that he enjoys how the craft beer scene fosters a sense of community and likes the idea of having a way to look up drink information with the simple touch of a button on his smartphone.

Ali AAsum and Emily Halnon, both of the Oregon-based Ninkasi Brewing Company, say apps like this one help create conversations with consumers and spark interest in the craft beer scene.

The financial risk decreases, Halnon says, when experimenting with beer as opposed to wine. But she believes this app could be a good place for novice craft beer consumers to explore options.

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“Giving people new ways to discover new beers and things they would like is positive,” says AAsum. “I think you are just giving people new opportunities to drink more delicious beer.”

usatoday.com

Snapchat Teams Up With Square To Offer Money-Transfer Feature November 18, 2014

Snapchat Inc. developer of a mobile application for sending disappearing photos, is teaming up with payments company Square Inc. so that users can send cash to each other.

Snapchat, which recently received an investment from Yahoo! Inc. that values the startup at $10 billion, will make the new feature, called Snapcash, available for users who are 18 or older with a debit card, it said in a blog post yesterday.

The deal gives Square access to Snapchat’s users, who send more than 700 million disappearing “snaps” a day. Snapcash joins other apps such as Venmo in offering people a way to send and receive money quickly, such as when diners split a restaurant bill. This is Los Angeles-based Snapchat’s second potential revenue-generating product in addition to advertisements, which debuted last month.

The security of the debit-card numbers will be handled by San Francisco-based Square. Snapchat apologized in January for a security breach that led to data on 4.6 million users being exposed in 2013.

bloomberg.com

Emerging Technology Dropbox Carousel Comes To iPad And Web Today, Android Tablets Soon November 20, 2014

Ever since the first cloud storage services hit the web, they've been a prime destination for thousands upon thousands of uploaded photos. Unfortunately, many of those services don't have polished user interfaces that allow for easy viewing and sharing -- unless you're just a big fan of file manager-esque folders and list views. In April, Dropbox debut Carousel, an app that seeks to solve that problem by grouping your images together by date and letting you scroll through endless years of photos and sharing your favorites with friends and family. The service was only offered on iPhones and Android smartphones until today, when Dropbox announced that it's now available for iPads and the web, with support for Android table Ever since the first cloud storage services hit the web, they've been a prime destination for thousands upon thousands of uploaded photos. Unfortunately, many of those services don't have polished user interfaces that allow for easy viewing and sharing -- unless you're just a big fan of file manager-esque folders and list views. In April, Dropbox debuted Carousel, an app that seeks to solve that problem by grouping your images together by date and letting you scroll through endless years of photos and sharing your favorites with friends and family. The service was only offered on iPhones and Android smartphones until today, when Dropbox announced that it's now available for iPads and the web, with support for Android tablets coming in the coming weeks.

The concept and interface is almost exactly the same, with the biggest difference being that the app now takes advantage of your full screen. Additionally, having the service on your tablet and PC will give you much-needed continuity with your photos and conversations. It's the natural next step for Dropbox. On top of that, you'll also be able to share those priceless memories on Instagram and WhatsApp (it's new to iOS, though Android users are already enjoying that option).

Carousel's simplicity makes for a pretty interface, similar to the iOS photos app, but we'd love to see more options to customize and organize content. For instance, there's no way to group photos by anything other than date, so you can't simply put together a family section or images from every Disneyland trip you've ever taken. Also, there are times in which larger thumbnails appear in your standard grid of pics, but you have no control over which ones to enlarge, and there's no way to rearrange them. There's also little incentive to use Carousel's conversations feature when you already

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have SMS and MMS threads available. Dropbox insists that its primary focus for now is on simplicity, so it doesn't want to add complexity to the user experience -- and perhaps it's working on a way to add more options and features and maintaining its simple look in the process, but the company's taking things one step at a time for now. The free app should be available for iPads today, and head over to Carousel's website and sign in to check out the service.

engadget.com

IMB Verse: Can It Trump Google Inbox? November 18, 2014

Cloud-based IBM Verse blends email, collaboration, and social intelligence to show what's relevant. “IBM is trying to deliver a Main rivals: Microsoft Clutter and Google Inbox. better way of dealing with the symptoms of the email IBM on Tuesday introduced a new cloud-based service called IBM Verse that the company said will "reinvent enterprise email" by blending it with collaboration tools and social smarts to help users quickly problem rather than marking find and focus on their most critical tasks and communications. email work better.” "We've applied analytics to enterprise email in an innovative way," said Bob Picciano, senior VP for IBM Information and Analytics Group, at a launch event in New York. "It's about engaging with people, driving relationships, and highlighting important tasks, not managing messages."

IBM contrasted Verse with free Internet mail services that "mine a user's inbox to increase advertising and monetize data." But it's clear that IBM Verse is going after the corporate email and collaboration market served by Microsoft, Google, and others.

IBM Notes (formerly Lotus Notes) and Domino gave up messaging market leadership to Microsoft Outlook and Exchange more than a decade ago. But IBM remains a leader in social collaboration tools with its IBM Connections Suite. IBM Verse is a stab at snatching more messaging and collaboration deployments as the market heads into the cloud.

Hoping to be a disruptor, IBM is blending email, meeting, calendar, file sharing, instant messaging, social update, and video chat capabilities in a single environment. To this it's adding faceted search, for quickly finding content by type and topic, as well as personalization and social behavioral analysis capabilities to reduce the time and effort required to manage email and collaboration tasks.

"IBM is trying to deliver a better way of dealing with the symptoms of the email problem rather than making email work better," said Matt Mullen, senior analyst, social business, at 451 Research, in a phone interview.

Rival efforts to streamline email management include the recently announced Microsoft Clutter and Google Inbox, but IBM is promising to do more than de-clutter the email inbox. By analyzing each user's social connections, activities, correspondence patterns, and how they use the tools, IBM said it can personalize the experience of each user and surface their most important tasks and correspondence.

IBM Verse is designed to keep priorities in sight by showing work you owe, work others owe you, and meetings you need to attend.

"The big problem with email is not clutter," said Mullen. "Microsoft Clutter and Google Inbox may be very useful, but IBM is going a level deeper, to look at the things that users are planning and who they're planning them with, which is something that IBM Connections has a better handle on than, say, Google."

IBM Verse is being introduced with a freemium model on IBM's cloud, taking on the likes of Microsoft Office 365, Google, and other cloud-based messaging and collaboration service providers. But analysts briefed on the product said it won't be long before IBM adds on-premises software aimed at maintaining existing on-premises IBM Notes/Domino messaging deployments that aren't headed into the cloud.

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"IBM would like to get new [on-premises] enterprise customers, but I don't believe that's the goal," said Alan Lepofsky, a VP and principal analyst at Constellation Research, in an email interview with InformationWeek. "Because Verse is going to be available very easily in the cloud, it puts IBM into the SMB battle with Google Apps and Office 365. They are even going to price it similarly."

Pricing details weren't available at the launch event. Customers can sign up for the IBM Verse beta release immediately. General availability is anticipated in early 2015.

informationweek.com Mergers and Acquisitions Former BlackBerry CEO Heins Named Chairman Of Startup Powermat November 18, 2014

Thorsten Heins, former chief executive officer of BlackBerry Ltd, is taking the reins of Powermat “The new CEO’s mission will Technologies Ltd. from founder Ran Poliakine after a board dispute over the leadership of the wireless be to continue striking startup. partnerships with consumer Heins was named CEO and chairman of Powermat, the New York-based company said in a statement companies, airports and today. Poliakine will become vice chairman. others for Powermat’s technology.” “My role is about growing it to scale and making it a global leading technology company,” Heins, who was BlackBerry CEO from January 2012 to late 2013, said in an interview yesterday as he was finalizing the contract. “Ran will continue to be an evangelist for the wireless recharging market.”

Poliakine, who founded Powermat in 2007, said he is “extremely excited that Heins is joining.”

The move is part of a succession plan that Poliakine agreed on with the board at a Feb. 4 meeting, he said. Poliakine volunteered to step down under pressure from investors including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and hedge fund Hudson Clean Energy Partners, according to interviews with four board members. The investors wanted a new CEO who can take on more operating responsibilities, the board members said.

The plan was accelerated by investor Chris Burch, who filed a lawsuit last month in Tel Aviv against Powermat and Poliakine, alleging the entrepreneur was running the company for his own benefit. Burch, co-founder of Tory Burch LLC, the fashion brand that carries his ex-wife name, invested $6.5 million in Powermat in 2007. The investor, who declined to be interviewed for this story, withdrew the suit on Nov. 4, after he and the company settled on the timing of Poliakine’s succession.

Powermat Technologies Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Ran Poliakine hopes that the partnership with Starbucks Corp. will do to his company what the world’s biggest coffee shop operator did to Wi-Fi.

“Burch’s lawsuit only accelerated a process which was already under way,” Powermat President Daniel Schreiber said in a phone interview.

Poliakine has denied any wrongdoing and said he was leading the search for a successor using two executive recruiting firms.

“I believe Chris acted out of frustration because the process was moving very slowly,” said David Tuohy, an operating partner at Hudson Clean Energy, which invested in Powermat.

Andrea Raphael, a spokeswoman at Goldman Sachs, declined to comment.

Powermat, which is closely held and has generated little revenue, has raised $250 million in financing. Goldman and Hudson invested $30 million and $20 million respectively in a 2012 financing that valued the company at about $330 million, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That valuation has climbed to about $500 million, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the numbers are private.

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Powermat’s technology is used by customers including General Motors Co., which has rolled out Powermat-enabled vehicles. Starbucks Corp. is also installing the technology so consumers will be able to recharge wirelessly in 200 coffee shops in the San Francisco Bay area. DuPont is also working to embed Powermat’s solution in its Corian surfaces “because it has the most powerful network effect,” said David Walter, head of DuPont’s global business development.

“The new CEO’s mission will be to continue striking partnerships with consumer companies, airports and others for Powermat’s technology and to make it as pervasive as Wi-Fi. He will also have to find ways to make money off the data that the company is collecting about users”, Poliakine said.

In January 2012, Heins took BlackBerry’s top job from the co-founders of the once-dominant Canadian smartphone maker as it bled market share to Apple’s iPhones and to devices running Google ’s Android software. Heins stepped down in November 2013 after failing to sell BlackBerry. Poliakine and Powermat’s investors said they believe the new CEO can help the company reach a multibillion dollar valuation.

“Ran is extremely creative but we now need a CEO who goes out and cut 10 more Starbucks deals, something that Ran would find boring,” said Tuohy.

At stake is an edge in the wireless power transmitters and receivers market. Revenue in the industry is projected to reach $8.5 billion in 2018, up from $216 million in 2013, according to a report by IHS Technology. Poliakine said he likes the incoming CEO because of his relationships with mobile carriers worldwide.

“That’s what Powermat needs to be adopted globally,” said Poliakine.

bloomberg.com Industry Reports Sprint Makes Dramatic Jump In LTE Coverage In Q3, With T-Mobile Not Far Behind November 19, 2014

Wireless carriers continue to boast about the progress they are making in rolling out their nationwide LTE networks. And therein lies a bit of confusion. The covered population targets the carriers announce are on a nationwide basis, and while carriers have been disclosing the names of markets they have deployed LTE service in, it's often difficult to know just how much different parts of the country are covered by LTE service by each carrier (unless you're living there, of course).

Thanks to an exclusive partnership between FierceWireless and network testing firm RootMetrics, readers will be able to see how the carriers are progressing in terms of network deployments by technology on a region-by-region basis. RootMetrics conducted extensive testing across the country both in the first half of 2014 and in the third quarter to gauge how the four Tier 1 carriers were stacking up in terms of network deployments.

The data makes it possible to check how actual network testing across the country is measuring up against carriers' claims. For example, AT&T Mobility said in September that it hit its goal of reaching 300 million covered POPs with LTE, several months ahead of its target. The company has declared its LTE buildout essentially complete. According to RootMetrics, in the third quarter, averaged across the eight regions it surveyed, the firm found AT&T LTE coverage in 97.26 percent of its tests, making AT&T's claim that it essentially has built out LTE to its entire footprint more plausible (the firm found 3G coverage on AT&T's network in 2.52 percent of its tests on average).

Sprint said at the end of the third quarter its 1900 MHz LTE network now covers a total of 260 million people across 500 U.S. cities (up from 254 million POPs at the end of the second quarter). The company also said it is nearing its goal of covering 100 million people with its 2.5 GHz LTE network; the carrier said it currently covers 92 million people with its 2.5 GHz LTE network. As for Sprint's 800 MHz LTE buildout, the carrier said it now covers 50 percent of its total LTE footprint with 800 MHz LTE and will complete its 800 MHz LTE buildout next year.

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RootMetrics' data showed significant improvement in Sprint's LTE network coverage from the first half to the third quarter across all regions. Most dramatically, in the Rocky Mountain region Sprint's LTE network showed up in just 45.65 percent of tests in the first half, but that figure nearly doubled to 90.68 percent in the third quarter.

On average, across ell eight regions, in the third quarter Sprint's LTE network made up 81.57 percent of tests and its 3G network made up 17.82 percent of all tests, according to RootMetrics. That's compares to averages of 58.65 percent of Sprint tests on LTE in the first half and 38.57 percent on 3G in the first half.

T-Mobile said at the end of the third quarter that it hit its year-end goal of covering 250 million POPs with LTE several months early, and said the company is now on track to cover 260 million POPs with LTE by the end of 2014. T-Mobile's test results mirror that increase.

According to RootMetrics, T-Mobile saw significant increases in LTE coverage in its test in three regions. The results were most dramatic in the West, with T-Mobile going from 74.22 percent of its tests on LTE in the first half up to 92.73 percent in the third quarter. In New England, T-Mobile went from having 66.98 percent of tests being on LTE in the first half to 82.97 percent in the third quarter. In the Southeast, T-Mobile's LTE coverage jumped from 79.21 percent of tests in the first half to 90.15 percent in the third quarter. Nationally, averaged across all eight regions, T-Mobile's LTE network showed up in 87.43 percent of tests.

Verizon Wireless, which says its LTE network covers 306 million POPs, and has long claimed to have the most LTE coverage of any U.S. carrier, can feel pretty good about those claims. Nationally, averaged across all eight regions, Verizon's LTE network came through in 98.96 percent of tests. In fact, according to RootMetrics, the only region where Verizon's LTE network was present less than 99 percent of the time was in New England, where it showed up in 96.58 percent of tests (still the most of any carrier).

The firm says it will be able to include more when collects the data again in the fourth quarter.

fiercewireless.com

Will Apple Soon Be Worth $1 Trillion? November 18, 2014

Apple has a $260 billion market value lead over key rival Microsoft and is worth $300 billion more than Google, another big competitor.

Apple's market cap is $185 billion higher than the combined market values of all 20 companies in the Dow Jones Transportation Average, an index that includes well-known blue chips such as FedEx, UPS, Union Pacific, and Delta.

So how much higher can Apple's stock climb? Could it one day be worth more than $1 trillion? Legendary investor Carl Icahn thinks so. Icahn, who owns a stake in Apple, said in a letter to the company's management team that the stock could be worth $203 a share.

That's nearly 80% higher than its current price. At that level, it would value Apple at more than $1 trillion-- even if Apple bought back as much stock as Icahn thinks is necessary to boost the share price. Most Wall Street analysts aren't as bullish on Apple though.

One of the most optimistic, Brian White of Cantor Fitzgerald, has a $143 price target on Apple, according to FactSet Research. That would value Apple at just under $840 billion.

Tiptoeing through the tech tulips again? But investors need to be careful of getting too excited about the 12 zero mark. You could argue that the mere fact we're contemplating whether Apple could or should be worth $1 trillion is a sign of another tech bubble like in 2000.

Back then, there were many investors who thought that either Microsoft or Cisco Systems would eventually hit the $1 trillion level. Needless to say, nearly 15 years have passed and we're still waiting for that to happen. Cisco is now "only" worth $135 billion --- well below its peak of about $550 billion in 2000.

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Google or Microsoft beating Apple to $1T? Could Apple suffer the same fate as Cisco? Colin Gillis, an analyst with BGC Partners, thinks that's possible. He wrote in a report last month that Google has a better chance of getting to $1 trillion in market value since its business model of focusing on services and software will prove to be more profitable.

He still feels that way. He notes that Google is not as dependent on one product as Apple is with the iPhone, which accounted for 56% of Apple's total revenue in the last quarter.

Gillis added that he believes Microsoft, which is moving more into cloud-based services, under new CEO Satya Nadella, also is more likely to top $1 trillion in market value before Apple.

"Apple is a great company and it is sucking up all the profits in the smartphone market," he said. "But this is a product that's ultimately a low-margin widget. What happens if Apple eventually has to sell iPhones at cost because of even more competition?"

That's a good point. Apple, despite all its success, still is in the cutthroat hardware business. It's hard to stay on top of the gadget world forever. Just ask Sony, Dell, or Nokia.

Don't forget about China. It seems inevitable that at least one company will reach the $1 trillion market value at some point. After all, stocks historically go up over the long haul. Eventually, there could be multiple companies worth more than $1 trillion.

And one company actually has already hit the $1 trillion level ... albeit briefly. PetroChina surpassed that level in 2007 when its stock began trading in Shanghai. It's now listed on the New York Stock Exchange as well but its market value has fallen to about $230 billion.

So maybe the next company to top $1 trillion in market value will also come from China? Alibaba has been on fire since its IPO in the U.S. in September. The company is already worth nearly $285 billion.

Jack Ma's e-commerce giant is clearly a bet on the continued emergence of the middle class in China. And you could argue that a key investing trend for the next few decades will be consumer spending in China.

If that's the case, Alibaba stands to gain more from this than Apple, Microsoft, Google or any other American company.

cnn.com

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