One mobile phone to conquer the world: mankind's last chance for gold nuggets

Chapter 8 Humanity's last chance to dig gold (1)
[The fourth phone or the only phone? 】

Is the mobile phone the fourth phone of human beings, or the only one?
Different answers, different fates——

Why is Motorola's mobile phone sweeping the world?

Why is AT&T in the US a missed opportunity?

Why did the newly separated China Mobile defeat the former giant China Telecom in just five years? !

In June 1999, I gave a lecture at a training meeting for telecommunication cadres in a certain province in China. More than 6 mid-level and high-level cadres participated.At that time, China Telecom and China Mobile were separating. The situation at that time was: China Telecom was the richest, and whoever wanted to install a landline phone in his home had to find someone, get approval, and pay 7000 to 2000 yuan for the initial installation fee. We have to wait another two months to be notified to release the number, and the master has to prepare cigarettes and alcohol for the installation.At that time, there were only about 2004 million mobile phone users, because mobile phones were still very expensive at that time.I asked: "Now that the family is going to be separated, who wants to go to China Mobile?" The audience was silent.Then I predicted on the spot: "I am here today, and I have the destiny to tell you that anyone who stays in China Telecom is stupid. After five years, the revenue of the newly established China Mobile will definitely exceed that of China Telecom." There was sarcastic laughter.In the end, only a few people listened to me and volunteered to go to the newly established China Mobile.Five years later, in [-], the revenue of China Mobile surpassed China Telecom in an all-round way. I joked: "Anyone who becomes the chairman of China Mobile will be the leader of the same industry in the world." The development trend is irresistible.

Why did I say this prophecy in 1999?Because I heard a story a long time ago, the core question of this story is: What is a mobile phone?At that time, I was working as a brand promotion consultant for Motorola (China).

This story is about Bell Labs, a pioneer in researching mobile phone technology in the world. It belongs to the famous AT&T Corporation (American Telephone and Telegraph Company) in the United States and was founded by Alexander Bell, who invented the landline telephone.In this laboratory, six Nobel laureates came out.In the research field of mobile phone technology, Bell Labs is in a leading position. In addition to the relationship with AT&T, they also cooperate with Motorola.When the mobile phone technology made a decisive breakthrough, the boss of AT&T had doubts: "So much money has been invested, although there has been a breakthrough, but can it make money? How many people will use mobile phones? How big is the market share? If it doesn’t make money, why do we engage in it?” So, he invited a well-known consulting company to conduct an analysis.

After six months of research, the company finally gave the answer: "Never invest in mobile phones." According to their mathematical model, after 20 years, there will be no more than 2000 million mobile phone users in the world.With so many base stations built and so much money invested, there are only 2000 million users, and there is little money to be made.The reason why this consulting firm makes this conclusion is that they believe that the mobile phone is the fourth telephone of the American people, which is dispensable. How can this be said? AT&T has a history of 200 years in the development of landline telephones. Every household in the United States has a landline telephone. This is their first telephone; Telephone.With these three phones, 70% to 80% of a caller's communication needs are basically met. Who would spend money to buy another mobile phone? "America's fourth phone" - the conclusion of the consulting firm, is their answer to the question "What is a cell phone?"

AT&T in the United States believes that mobile phones are the fourth telephone of human beings. This answer makes it miss the opportunity to make money in the era of big phones!For this reason, it suffered heavy losses (it established a mobile operating company when the mobile market was almost divided up, and finally it could not continue to operate at a loss, and sold it to others).

Finally, Motorola engineer Martin Cooper (Martin Lawrence Cooper) developed the first mobile phone in April 1973. He carried a mobile phone that was said to be as big as a brick on 4th Street in Manhattan, New York, USA. , make a call to Bell Labs.At that time, everyone was asking what this "monster" was, but no one could have imagined that this "monster" had conquered mankind within 56 years.Motorola increased investment and was approved by the US government. In 20, it launched the first mobile phone civilian network in Chicago, USA. Motorola entered China in 1983. In July of that year, it released China's first mobile phone number in Panyu, Guangdong, which marked the first mobile phone in China was put into use.

What is a mobile phone?How does Motorola answer this question - "Mobile phone is the last and only phone for human beings".As long as everyone has a mobile phone, everyone's home phone, office phone and public phone are no longer needed.Mobile phones are convenient and free. People no longer need to carry a thick phone book and get rid of the shackles of phone lines.

It was this story that led me to say that prophecy in 1999.This is the general trend, and I see the crux of the industry trend: the mobilization of voice services.

I know that it is by no means China Netcom, the fixed-line rival in the north, that defeated China Telecom.Because the mobile phone is the only phone for human beings, China Mobile must quickly defeat China Telecom after the separation!
data
Since Martin Cooper invented the mobile phone in April 1973, 4 billion mobile phone numbers have been sold out of the 72 billion people in the world, and among the 65 billion people in China, mobile phone numbers will be issued by the end of 13 Exceeded 5900 billion.

2013年第一季度三大运营商财报显示：中国移动用户总数达到7.26亿户；中国电信移动用户数达1.68亿户，当季固网本地电话用户数减少130万；中国联通移动用户达2.5亿户。[1]
Voice services are bound to be mobile. Every time a mobile phone user is developed, a fixed-line phone user will lose a voice user. People no longer use fixed-line phones for convenience and freedom.The mobilization of voice services determines that no matter who is the leader of China Mobile, it will defeat its fixed-line competitors.

For the same reason, I can predict today that the future development of voice services must be IP-based.This is bound to be a huge test and challenge for China Mobile, which is dominated by voice revenue. Facing the unstoppable situation of sharp decline in revenue, only by following the trend and self-reform and transformation can we have a future.

Knowledge point

IP is the abbreviation of English Internet Protocol (interconnection protocol between networks), which is a protocol designed for computer networks to communicate with each other.The IP-based voice service means that the data channel for voice transmission is the IP protocol channel of the Internet.

What is voice service over IP?
Whether it is on a computer or a mobile phone with Internet access, you only need to download a software, such as MSN, QQ, Skype, Ant (Maaii), WeChat... Thousands of such software, call and send text messages to each other , MMS, and video messages, there is no need to pay fees, and operators can only earn a small amount of traffic fees. The result of IP-based services is that voice services, MMS services, and video services are free for operators because they cannot receive any money.When Tencent’s WeChat business started, I said on Sina Weibo:
The day when WeChat has 6 million users is the bottom of China Mobile!Another case of cross-age small products destroying industrial giants is about to take place.Like digital cameras ruined Kodak!
——@北邦王立新微博 November 2012, 11

China Mobile now has 7.2 million users, with an annual revenue of nearly 5600 billion yuan and a net profit of about 1300 billion yuan.However, notice that 5600% of the 80 billion yuan comes from voice calls, text messages, and multimedia messages, and the remaining 20% ​​from non-voice and non-text messages is less than 1200 billion yuan.The IP business of Internet companies like Tencent is developing extremely fast.It took only two years for WeChat to surpass 4 million users from its launch.When Chinese people all use WeChat, China Mobile will be very dangerous.Because China Mobile's 3G network has a difficult start due to government-led political reasons, there are almost no fixed-line networks, and traffic revenue will definitely not come up in the near future.

Every time you answer "What is a mobile phone?", the answer is different, and the opportunity to make money is different.If you answer wrong once, a great company will be ruined; if you answer right once, a small company will soon become a giant; if you answer correctly first, you will realize it first.Just like Ma Huateng moved such a small instant messaging software QQ to the computer and mobile phone.Such a small company has become a giant by expanding to 7.8 million users for free.Now he has put WeChat on his mobile phone again, and more than 11 people register every second, and the number of users has exceeded 4 million.

data
The growth rate of WeChat
2012年3月29日，微信官方宣布注册用户突破1亿，用时433天，用户数平均每天增长23.09万人！

2012年9月17日，微信官方宣布注册用户达到2亿，用时172天，用户数平均每天增长58.14万人！[2]
2013年1月15日，微信官方宣布注册用户达到3亿，用时120天，用户数平均每天增长95.24万人！

Which industries will be killed by mobile phones?

From the first generation to the Nth generation, which traditional industries will die under the strafing of mobile phones? In the 1G era, fixed-line voice services died, printing presses and related industries are dying in the 2G era, pagers are dying, and digital cameras are beginning to die. In the 3G era, PC computers began to die. TV sets will die in the 4G era. 5G is coming, what will die?
Since the first mobile phone came out in 1973, in the past 40 years, mobile phones have developed from 1G to the 5G era.The emergence of each generation of mobile phones is like a black hole, destroying and reconstructing all traditional industries it touches!We have to continue to ask, what is a mobile phone?
1G Era: The Death of Fixed-line Voice Services

"Big Brother" not only satisfies the vanity of the nouveau riche, but also opens the era when the mobile phone is the only phone for human beings! In the 1G era, the fixed-line voice service must die!

1G is the first generation of mobile communication system. The 1G era is also the era of mobile phones. It mainly uses analog signals and cannot transmit digital content. It can only make calls.The mobile communication function of the first generation of mobile phones indicates the demise of fixed-line voice services, and the trend of this demise will become more and more clear with the popularization of mobile phones.But at the same time, we have also seen that the revival of the fixed line is that it is no longer used for making calls, but for broadband Internet access.

Knowledge point

The term "big brother" originated from the honorific name for gang leaders in Guangdong and Hong Kong. When analog mobile phones were first launched, they reached a sky-high price of more than 3 yuan each, and the unit price of a battery reached more than 7000 yuan. At that time, mobile phones It once became a symbol of status and wealth, and it was because of this that it was dubbed "Big Brother", showing the prominent status of people who could use mobile phones at that time.

First Generation (1G) refers to the original analog, voice-only cellular telephony standard, primarily using analog technology and Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) technology.Due to the limitation of the transmission bandwidth, the long-distance roaming of mobile communication cannot be performed, so it can only be a regional mobile communication system.The first generation of mobile communication has many deficiencies, such as poor security performance, it is easy to be stolen by parallel machines; poor anti-interference ability, low call quality; only voice services can be realized, and rich and colorful value-added services cannot be provided; network coverage Low range and poor roaming capabilities.Moreover, the mobile phone at that time could not realize the separation of the machine and the card, and a mobile phone permanently used one number. The 1G era uses analog signals, because different data must be converted into corresponding signals for transmission. Analog signal transmission uses a series of continuously changing or voltage signals (such as audio voltage signals in telephone transmission) to transmit, and continuous transmission will As a result, the signal is easy to be eavesdropped, and the anti-interference ability is poor.

The brand promotion I planned for the data bureau of China Telecom Group at the beginning was: "Chinanet China Broadband Internet, let us have a broader mind." Fixed-line telephones have helped China Telecom come back to life by repositioning its "Internet" usage.

早在2003年10月底，我国的固定电话用户数已达到2.55139亿，较上年年底新增4091.7万户；移动电话用户数已达到2.56938亿，较2002年年底新增5093.3万。[3]下图为2001年以前世界上移动电话超过固定电话的国家和地区。

1993-2001 Countries and Regions in the World where Mobile Telephones Exceed Fixed Telephones[4]
The demise of landline telephones is evident:[5]
1. Declining use of landline telephones:

2013年1～2月，全国固定电话用户减少83.0万户，达到27732.3万户，占电话用户总数比重从上年年末的20.0%下降至19.7%。

2. Decrease in usage time of fixed-line telephones:

The call duration of fixed local calls dropped significantly: fixed local calls reached 85.9 minutes per monthly account, a year-on-year decrease of 15.0%.The duration of mobile local calls reached 3456.9 billion minutes, a year-on-year increase of 5.5%.

2G Era: The Prelude to the Demise of a Series of Industries

It is definitely not Nikon that beats Canon in the future, but mobile phones!In the future, it is not the new version that will beat the textbook, but the mobile phone!It is by no means Heidelberg printing presses that beat Manroland, but mobile phones!What beats post office letters, telegrams, or mobile phones!
In the 2G era, the digital mobile communication system takes digital voice transmission technology as the core, and the transmission rate is 9.6Kbps, up to 32Kbps. It supports digital information transmission of SMS and MMS, and adds the camera function of mobile phones with lower pixels.In the era of second-generation mobile communication, what is a mobile phone?A mobile phone is a camera, and a mobile phone is a newspaper and magazine!The phone is the book!

Knowledge point

The second-generation mobile communication system introduces a digital cellular mobile communication system composed of digital radio technology, which provides higher network capacity, improves voice quality and confidentiality, and provides users with seamless international roaming.The second generation is a digital network based on GSM developed in Europe and CDMA developed in the Americas. The breakthrough of the SIM card in the 2G era is the separation of the machine and the card. The cardholder information is stored in the SIM card, which enhances the mobility of GSM communication and greatly enhances the sharing of equipment from various manufacturers; the communication is safe and reliable.Because there is a permanent memory in the SIM card, which has both storage capacity and computing capacity. The time division multiple access transmission technology is adopted in the 2G era, that is, the time for transmitting information is divided into non-overlapping periods (frames), and then the frames are divided into non-overlapping time slots (channels), which have a one-to-one correspondence with users. Slots distinguish user signals from different addresses, thus completing multiple access connections.Compared with analog signals, it is to cut the original complete information into small pieces and transport them on different roads, and then arrange the information in the proper order at the end.

The 2G era has also opened the prelude to the demise of a series of industries!
Because of text messaging, pagers must be dead!The telegraph is dead!Letters are dead!

Also dying are cameras and printing presses!

And the industries related to it will disappear!

In the 2G era, the industry whose life is being terminated by mobile phones: letters disappear

The earliest record of communication in my country comes from oracle bone inscriptions unearthed from the Yin Ruins.Oracle bone inscriptions record the account of Bian Xu reporting the military situation to the emperor in the time of Pan Geng in the Yin Shang Dynasty (around 1400 BC), with the word "laigu".After research, "Laigu" is similar to today's reconnaissance and communication soldiers.In the "Book of Songs", there is also a record of "Jianshu", which is an emergency official document that is engraved on animal bones and delivered by messengers. "Jianshu" originated from the late Yin Dynasty and the early Zhou Dynasty (12th century BC-11th century BC), which was the predecessor of post post.Now the history of human beings communicating by letters is over.

In 1996, the total number of letters of the Guangxi Post Office was more than 2 million. With the rapid development of the Internet, as of November 2004, the total number of letters was only more than 11 million, a drop of nearly 1%. [50] Taking the United States as an example, in 6, the US Postal Service delivered a total of 2011 billion pieces, a decrease of 2030 billion pieces compared with 2010, and a decrease of US$95 billion in revenue.Some experts predict that the total number of postal items this year will be 28 billion, a decrease of US$1750 billion compared with 2011.And that includes a lot of business correspondence.

telegram disappears
(End of this chapter)