AT&T's Collins discusses HTML5 and the future of mobile TV

with Mark Collins, AT&T Mobility's vice president of consumer data

At AT&T Mobility's (NYSE:T) developer event last week in Las Vegas, the company touted its accelerated LTE deployment and reiterated its plans to introduce smartphones and tablets that operate over a variety of platforms including Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android, Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone 7 and Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS. The company also emphasized the importance of fostering a strong developer community--one that it hopes will help AT&T stand apart from the competition. Sue Marek, FierceMobileContent's editor in chief, sat down with Mark Collins, AT&T's vice president of consumer data, to talk about some of AT&T's latest innovations and what they mean for developers. 

 FierceMobileContent: AT&T announced an agreement with Open Feint to offer a social gaming platform that works across wireless networks. Why is this important?

Collins: One of the ways that customers engage in mobile data networks and applications is through our content stores and those of our partners. While the growth in mobile gaming has been great, it hasn't been as big as it has been in the broadband world. We are trying to help developers grow that business.

We brought in Open Feint because they have set up the tools. Social is, in fact, one of the biggest drivers in gaming, and here is a great toolset with an established community that developers can use at no charge.

FierceMobileContent: AT&T announced it will go live in March with a Beta program for an HTML5 developer toolkit, and said that by mid-year the majority of its new smartphones will support HTML5. So basically AT&T is standardizing around HTML5. Why is HTML5 so important?  

Collins: The rise of application stores has been a direct result of smaller devices with multiple operating systems--think of your consumption of mobile content before robust operating systems: There wasn't a compelling value proposition.

You have all these multiple sets of operating systems and application stores, which is fine because the market is so large that you are seeing developer support and OEM support and carrier support for multiple platforms.

But we see a day in the not-too-distant future where these things will become Web-connected devices.

FierceMobileContent: So you are seeing a future where there are no silos of application stores and operating systems?

Collins: Yes. You are already seeing it today. Developers develop today and it's HTML5 and whether you are coming from a browser on a phone or a browser on a tablet, the content renders the same and you are seeing the same thing. 

Think about the Web today, you have ecommerce engines like Amazon. But more often than not you have in-app purchasing on the Web. That's the way this will go. You won't have one distribution center. You will have multiple sets of models that will evolve. This is not something we spend a lot of time on in this industry but we have been enabling third parties [access to] our billing APIs for some time. So when you have advanced tools in place and content providers focused on a new standard, things will take off.

FierceMobileContent: Qualcomm sold its 700 MHz spectrum to AT&T and FLO TV is going away. What will that mean for AT&T Mobile TV?

Collins: It's going to go away. We were bullish, along with our partner Qualcomm, on delivering a true, over-the-air broadcast TV experience to the customer. But we knew going in that there were some limitations.

Over time I've been amazed that when you give someone something mobile over fixed, their tendency is to take it and use it above and beyond what they did when it was fixed. So you would think that same philosophy would apply here, right?

But then on the negative side, there are other trends we were bucking. That is the larger and larger screens for consumption of content in your home. So I think when we had our first FLO TV device, I had one HDTV in my house. Now I have four. I'm not going to sit in my house and watch a small screen when I have these TVs in my house.

The second issue was content and consumers' receptiveness to it and willingness to pay. With AT&T Mobile TV, what worked well were live events. When Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open it was one of our highest usage days. The Olympics were very strong. Those kinds of things where live TV made the difference, we had huge days. But you flip that to the rights issues--customers' expectation is that the experience will be the same no matter what platform. If you are in your home watching AT&T's U-Verse and you turn on your AT&T Mobile TV and you want to watch a certain show like "Modern Family" and it's on U-Verse but not on AT&T Mobile TV because of rights issues, the consumer will not understand that. It's a difficult issue to deal with.

Those two trends were challenging. And the market realized, as did Dr. Jacobs, that the spectrum had a more compelling use. 

FierceMobileContent: There are no plans for AT&T Mobile TV to continue in some other form?

Collins: Yes, absolutely. We have the MobiTV streaming service and we are working today to relaunch that as a branded service. On our devices that have memory and capability we will have U-Verse Mobile, which gives you the ability to sideload content to your device, and we will also have U-Verse Live TV, which will be streaming video services. Over time we will bring that into a single platform. We do have video plans, just not over broadcast spectrum.

FierceMobileContent: Verizon has Vcast, Sprint has Sprint ID. How do you see AT&T differentiating itself from the competition in terms of mobile apps?

Collins: We think about app stores the way we think about devices. We think that competition and choice are good for consumers. We continue to build and maintain our own service via our own app store, but we have also enabled more app stores than any other carrier in the industry. We have been the leader in third party content sales and carrier billing through the aggregators. We are shooting ahead again with HTML5. We may build a site or experience for content or services. But we are more likely to enable others to do it and help them have a successful business.

We will monetize it through carrier billing and other business models--like the Amazon model. Take it direct to consumer and also supply the infrastructure and open the network for other APIs and make money that way. 

FierceMobileContent: How is the mobile payment trial with Zong, Boku and BilltoMobile progressing?  

Collins: We just got the trial started and we don't have any good data to share with you yet. The initial feedback is that this is going to be a great opportunity. I can tell you from a family that has a set of Farmville addicts that I support financially I think the in-app model for purchasing is going to continue to be a big deal. We should have more details on this at the end of the first quarter.

FierceMobileContent: AT&T announced it will invest $70 million toward building three innovation centers around the world. Why are these innovation centers important for developers?

Collins: We are bringing all the capabilities in the network to these innovation centers. We have learned that you can't have a product team doing innovations and reaching into the startup community on a part-time basis. [AT&T CTO] John Donovan had the vision to realize we need to go where we see the innovation. We are going where people are innovating in Palo Alto, Calif., Tel Aviv and Plano, Texas. 

Before I would get these groups that come to Atlanta and wanting to see me and now they can go to these innovation centers. That is their job to meet these people and see what they are working on and doing. 

FierceMobileContent: I noticed that when AT&T talks about 4G the carrier basically means HSPA+ and LTE. Did you make that decision recently? At one point AT&T was opposed to referring to HSPA+ as 4G. 

Collins: There were a number of reasons for this decision. One is the facts and two is the industry.

First, let me start with the facts. When we had competitors shouting from the treetops about 4G and when we looked at the results--drive tests and monitoring our network--we saw that they were talking about something that leads the consumer to believe they are faster than we are, but we know that they aren't. So why would we let them make that claim?   

And we have also seen the industry say that 4G speeds are a wider spectrum than we originally thought. We know from our own work and network that our average speeds on HSPA+ with the connected backhaul is four times faster than the others. We see that already. We looked at the competitive dynamics and the marketplace. Our plan is the only one that is a robust, consistent approach designed to give the customer the most elegant and consistent mobile broadband experience. We will have 4G speeds on our HSPA+ network as we build out the network, and we will get faster with LTE.

Our major competitors didn't have a choice. They had to go to LTE. There was no HSPA+ evolution for them.

So consistent with AT&T and our belief in standards and the  global scale of the standards, we feel we have an elegant path and we have to market it that way.