For All Networks, "Fiber to Where You Can Make Money" is the Issue

"Fiber to where you can make money" is a good way to evaluate various fixed network access methods. For cable TV operators, the issue is fiber deep into the neighborhood. For some telcos, that is the same issue.

For some telcos, fiber to the premises is the choice, but the issue of revenue generated by such networks remains.

For fixed wireless networks, the issue is fiber to tower or building. For mobile operators, the issue is fiber to the macrocell or fiber to the small cell.

In other words, the issue is not the choice of physical media, or the topology, but the revenue that any given deployment can generate. And, at a time when voice revenues are declining, and where facilities-based competition exists, the financial returns from fiber to the home often are questionable.

The choices are even more difficult for any telco operating in a market where cable TV firms are active, serious competitors. Stranded assets then are the real issue, as up to 60 percent of deployed assets can routinely be stranded (assuming cable TV gets 40 percent to 45 percent share, the telco gets 40 percent share, while other suppliers get 15 percent to 20 percent market share.

In other words, the issue is to deploy “fiber to where you make money.” That is true for all fixed network suppliers, including cable TV firms using hybrid fiber coax technology.

Assuming fiber is deployed rather deep into the network, coaxial cable can carry huge amounts of bandwidth.

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All Internet of Things Forecasts Slope Up and to the Right

It is impossible to find any Internet of Things forecasts, for any segment of the market, that fail to show an”upward sloping to the right” growth curve. In other words, virtually every forecast predicts significant to strong growth.

That seems to be true whether one looks at single-country or global forecasts. Of course, as always, global forecasts can obscure as much as they illuminate. Most of the near-term deployment of IoT will happen in a relative handful of countries.

So far, by some forecasts, North America represents as much as 45 percent of the global total, Asia perhaps 30 percent, Europe perhaps 20 percent.

source: Business Insider

source: marketsandmarkets

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More U.S. Teens Watch YouTube Than Linear TV

Whether YouTube is a “substitute” product for linear TV is debatable. What apparently is harder to debate is that YouTube is a preferred venue for consumer video consumption among U.S. teenagers.

In a survey of U.S. teenagers, analysts at Piper Jaffray found teens spent more time watching YouiTube than watching linear TV. Though 37 percent of respondents reported watching Netflix, 26 percent said they watched YouTube, compared to 25 percent who reported watching linear TV.

And 40 percent say their top shopping website is Amazon, leading other sites by an order of magnitude.

source: Piper Jaffray

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It's a gas! The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics

Scientific Cat-nundrums

This week, contracts won a Nobel prize. Or rather, economists Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström were awarded the Nobel prize in economics for their work on contracts. Their studies have enhanced our understanding of incentives by examining how contracts affect relationships between employers, employees, societies and governments.  The application of incentives to IP is broad - the innovation/social contract approach to IP, patents as performance indicators in employment contracts, and, the bread-and-butter of IP, licensing contracts.

Eyes on the Prize
First of all, a bit of background. If you are an economist who supports the selection, i.e. that the winning economist's work supports your own work, then you must praise the Nobel committee's choice and the prestige of the prize. If you are not, then you must highlight that the economics prize is not a true Nobel prize, as it is comes from the Swedish National Bank, and therefore is not particularly impressive. Either way, one must be careful not to be too enthusiastic about a fellow economist's success, lest it be taken for indication of an emotional imbalance.

Second of all, some tips if you, dear reader, are interested in winning said prize. First of all, start early and live long so that your genius has time to be recognised. Second of all, be male. Only one woman, Elinor Ostrom, has received the prize. Third, make sure you are somehow Western, and ideally American. Fourth, become at expert at posing for photos in front of books. Finally, surprisingly, remember you don't actually have to be an economist to win; John Nash, who had the gall to be a mathematician, won in 1994.  Things really are going to pot.

Contract theories
Hart and Holmström have won the prize because their names both start with H they developed complementary contract theories. Holmström began by studying trade-offs in contracts. The classic illustration is insurance, which combines both information asymmetry, where parties in a contract do not have the same information, and moral hazard, where a party may engage in riskier behaviour because the risk is shared. For example, a health insurer has less information about the insured's lifestyle than the insured.  [Merpel's insurer doesn't know how much catnip she consumes.] Once insured, the insured shares potential costs with the insurer, and will engage in riskier behaviour. [Merpel has taken up parkour, because she won't have to pay for the hospital bills.]

Hart built further on this theory by examining the incompleteness of contracts. No contract can possibly foresee every outcome and consequence of incentives. He argued that property rights help mitigate this, as they place the burden of decision making on those with the property - and hence those with a stake in the unforeseen outcomes. Hart's recent work on prisons illustrates this; summarised by The Economist: "In publicly owned prisons, managers might underinvest in quality-improving measures, but private owners face too strong an incentive to cut costs, leading to conditions for prisoners that are worse than those in public prisons." These incentives apply to most government services.  A privatised patent-granting body would have different incentives than a public body (think of those renewal fee$!)

Contracts and IP
Readers of Katonomics will be familiar with economists' focus on the incentives-to-innovate theory of IP. This is often known as the Social Contract (covered previously here), in which IP is a contract between innovators and society; the monopoly protection of IP provides a long-term incentive to innovate. Society cannot foresee (information asymmetry) the value of each potential innovation, so all innovators are granted the same level of protection. Assigning the property right to the innovator incentivises innovation as the innovator has a stake in the outcome and the IP system as a whole.

Trophies, by R. Oxley, CC

A goal of researcher employment contracts is to align firms' innovation needs with employee incentives. Patents are sometimes used as a metric of performance. There is a large body of economic analysis on the use of patents as a measure of innovation; the general conclusion of which is that patents measure patents, not innovation. More specifically, Harhoff and Hoisl (2007) examine German policies via a large survey, and find that, unsurprisingly, more valuable patents are associated with higher levels of employee compensation.  Baker (1992) models scientists' salaries as entirely dependent on the number of patents they produce (a problematic assumption.)  In his model, scientists are unduly incentivised to work on "easy" patents and therefore the employer reduces the per-patent payment to avoid overpaying. Japan has recently changed its approach to patents, making it easier for employers to own patents generated by employees.

Finally, licensing contracts enjoy a never-ending analysis of incentives and clauses. The primary job of lawyers negotiating and drafting such contracts is to align the incentives in the contract with the needs of the client.  While researching the biotech sector in 2007, I came across an interesting case. My interviewee had exclusively licensed a product on a royalty basis. The licensee instead marketed a competing product, leaving the licensor without royalties.  The contract had been used to eliminate competition from the market, and failed to align the parties' incentives. Another anecdote is the use by wealthy Multi-national Companies (MNC) of reversion clauses when partnering with companies in developing countries. The MNC engages in joint research and market expansion, then deliberately causes the project to fail in order to trigger the reversion clause. Both background and foreground IP, as per the contract, revert to the MNC. It's a cheap way to expand internationally.

I invite readers to tell their stories of the odd quirks of licensing contracts in the comments.  In the meantime, I'm off to work with Merpel on contract incentives of catnip producers. Fingers crossed for a Nobel!

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NO ROOT version of Toggle Mod v10.1 - Bugs Fixed - Mind Blowing Features - Mini Militia v2.2.86 for non rooted Android devices

Hello boys,

As always, I kept ma promise by releasing this "No Root Version Of Toggle Mod For Mini Militia v2.2.86" works with every non rooted Android devices, combined with awesome new features.

***IMPORTANT NOTE***
DO NOT EVER COPY OR MODIFY MY APPLICATIONS IN ANY MANNER AND NEVER HOST MY APPLICATIONS WITHOUT MY WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Let's jump in.

What are the Features?

Includes all features from the latest version of Toggle Mod v10.1 -  http://sihanandi.blogspot.com /2016/10/toggle-mod-v10.1-bug-fixes-mini-militia-v2.2.86.html" target="_blank">http://www.sihanandi.blogspot.com/2016/10/toggle-mod-v10.1-bug-fixes-mini-militia-v2.2.86.html , which is meant for rooted phones.

How to install? - (For users who knows my Toggle Apps before)

1. Download the app from the Downloads section below.
2. Install the downloaded "MiniMilitiaMods-RevealedTricks4U.com-NOROOT.apk" file.
3. That's it.

How to install? - (For new users)

1. Download the app from the Downloads section below.
2. Uninstall any previous version of "No Root Toggle Mod App". (App Signature changed)
3. Install the downloaded "MiniMilitiaMods-RevealedTricks4U.com-NOROOT-v10.1.apk" file.
4. Make sure you have already installed the latest game "Mini Militia - Doodle Army 2". It is version 2.2.86, at the time of writing.
5. Now open the game at least once. Just quit the game, after seeing the home screen.
6. Open the "ToggleMod" app.
7. Select your desired options.
8. Just press the button "Patch", then sit back and relax, until the whole operation completes. It would take around 1-5 minutes, according to your device's performance.
9. Now, you would be asked for replacing the installed game app. Make sure you have already took a recent backup of your game before proceeding with this.
10. Just press the button "Nail it!", and press "Un-install" and then "Install".
11. That's it. Now press button "Launch Game", back in the app and enjoy the gameplay ;).

NOTE - IF YOU'VE ALREADY PATCHED AT LEAST ONCE WITH THIS APP, THEN YOU DON'T HAVE TO UNINSTALL FOR FUTURE PATCHES, JUST PRESS CANCEL, AT THE UNINSTALL WINDOW.

Downloads

• MiniMilitiaMods-RevealedTricks4U.com-NOROOT-v10.1.apk (Around 2.9 MB) - Click on Skip Ad after clicking this link, to get the download page.

Bug Fixes

• There was a typing error in the code, that causes "Problem parsing package". - I would really like to thank you all, for reporting this withing a matter of seconds.

All I am asking you is "Share and Subscribe" ;).

Please feel free to leave your comments, If any problem persists.

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Around the Brexit Blogs and Related Events

InternKat searches for the latest updates...

 1. Afro-IP: Similarity Tools, Bug Bears and Brexit

The Afro-IP blog, covering African intellectual property law, informs readers that in the past the Republic of South Africa have looked to the UK when interpreting their Trade Mark Law. However, as the European system has developed, the South African courts have considered the decisions of the CJEU. Afro-Leo believes that the European influence in the interpretation of the ‘likelihood of confusion’ test is likely to prevail in Africa. However, he ponders whether after Brexit Africa will take direction from the UK or the CJEU.

2. SOLO IP: Why you should withdraw your European Patent Application

SOLO IP, blogging for Independent IP Practitioners, suggests that patent applicants and their agents should very seriously consider their portfolios of pending European patent applications. Barbara Cookson submits that the prospect of the Unitary Patent is fading fast after the Brexit vote and advises readers that examination fees will be refunded if examination has not started.

3.  MARQUES CLASS 99 (Designs: A different sort of Brexit: London Act is terminated.

Marques Class 99, blogging on design law, informs readers of the Termination of the London (1934) Act of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Deposit of Industrial Designs. This may be of more historical than commercial interest to many readers since the termination has been in process since 2013. 

Two related events:

1.  Is there a European Future for UK Intellectual Property Law?

The CIPPM Annual Symposium 2016 will address the uncertainties that surround the forthcoming role of UK in the European intellectual property arena, in an attempt to respond to some of the questions that have emerged in the wake of the referendum. Where: Executive Business Centre, Bournemouth University When: Thursday 3 November 2016, 10.30 – 18.00. 

2. Copyright Reform in a Brexit Environment, Public Lecture By Prof. Martin Kretschmer

The CREATe Public Lecture Series 2016 will investigate what a digital single market means in an interconnected world in which copyright still slices content by territory; and whether the balance between artists, investors and users still reflects an analogue world of linear exploitation. The lecture then considers if the UK will become a digital Island post Brexit. Where: University of Glasgow, Humanities Lecture Theatre When: Wednesday, October 19th, 17:30

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The Reason Why Video Entertainment is The Only Service To Increase Prices

Over the past several decades, it would have been a reasonable question to ask why entertainment video service prices grew faster than inflation, while retail prices for communications services (voice, texting, Internet access) declined, either on a price-per-unit basis or in terms of absolute price per unit.

The answer is simple: entertainment video is about the purchase of content, not access to content.

Compared to voice, texting or Internet access, entertainment video is more akin to fashion than a utility service. And that means retail price is not a direct function of production cost.

That is clear in the latest Federal Communications Commission report on content prices in the U.S. linear video market.

However, given diminished consumer appetite for the traditional “big content bundles” and a shift to over-the-top or on-demand viewing, it will be necessary for most, if not all, providers to “just say no” to content providers and restrict the size of bundles.

That is going to shift the way content gets to market, with increasing amounts of programming moving through new services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.

According to a new FCC report, the average monthly price of expanded basic service (the combined price of basic service and the most subscribed cable programming tier excluding taxes, fees, and customer premises equipment charges) for the communities surveyed grew by 2.7 percent over the 12 months ending January 1, 2015, to $69.03, compared to a decrease of 0.1 percent in the consumer price index.

That is to say, linear video prices rose by an order of magnitude more than the overall level of consumer prices.

This compares to a compound ten-year average rate of increase from 2005 to 2015 of 4.8 percent in the price of expanded basic and a 1.5 percent increase in the CPI.

To be sure, linear video providers have argued in the past that prices are up in large part because the number of channels offered in bundles has grown.

The price per channel (price divided by number of channels) for subscribers purchasing expanded basic service decreased by 1.8 percent over the 12 months ending January 1, 2015, to 46 cents per channel.

Over the 10 years from 2005-2015, the price per channel has declined by 1.4 percent on an average annual compound basis.

In the past, consumers might not have had as much choice. In the future, they will. Prices are going to come down. Still, the issue is whether entertainment video might still outperform voice, texting or Internet access, in some cases, in terms of absolute revenue contribution, price per unit or profit margin.

source: FCC

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