A Look Inside the Cloud

Everything's changed, nothing's changed

2011-12-19T17:21:00.000Z

So after a protracted absence away from writing this blog I thought 2012 should be the year to reinvigorate it and so have dipped back into it today. And then it struck me. This blog is called "A Look Inside the Cloud" ... a title I gave it back in 2008 in homage to the "intro to telecoms" mini-lecture I give newbies when they start on the team here and which always begins with the drawing of a cloud on a whiteboard.

But now, in the embers of 2011, some three years since I first started this blog, the title could be taken to mean something very different.

So let's be clear, this is not a blog about Cloud Computing, or indeed any other virtualised cloud-based marketing slogan.

It's a blog about the 'cloud' itself ... that is to say the real infrastructure behind the virtual (some might say vapourware) thing that is 'the cloud'. It's about the ecosystem that makes it all possible. It's about the experience we derive from it. And it's about how businesses can make money from it.

Call me old fashioned, but I call all that stuff 'telecoms'.

On the subject of advertising...

2009-09-16T08:40:00.004+01:00

While I'm on the subject of advertising and whether the promises mobile operators make and their partners really are accurate, you really can't help but love this spoof iPhone commercial.

Of course, the iPhone commercials in the UK have themselves been the focus of Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) rulings on the grounds that they are "not quite true" (which to you and me means they are misleading). They've been hit for claiming users can access the "whole Internet" (you can't) and for exaggerating the speed of the apps and webpages being loaded.

Between the ASA and OFCOM, maybe mobile phone users will start to get a fairer - and more honest and straightforward - deal from the mobile industry.

"I'm on the train!... [click]"

2009-09-16T08:28:00.005+01:00

On the day that OFCOM has released new guidelines to stop mis-selling of their products and services or from "engaging in dishonest, misleading or deceptive conduct", for once I'm not going to pick on them. On the contrary, I'm going to pick on Virgin Trains. Yes, I know this is a blog about the telecoms industry, but that's precisely it.

Yesterday I had the joy of a trip to Milton Keynes with a client, so we took the train. A direct service, and we wanted to be able to work, so we even paid the little bit extra and went first class. Now, in first class they have apparently "enhanced mobile coverage"... another reason for spending the extra so you can do business calls and make the travel time a bit more productive.

So, just how many times do you think my poor client's call got dropped due to poor coverage? Once? Twice? ... FIVE times in a 30 minute journey.

If that's enhanced mobile coverage, what the service is like in cattle class at the back of the train I dare not imagine.

It's timely then that OFCOM have decided it's time to clamp down on dodgy sales tactics ... maybe they can sort out the inflated claims and promises operators and their partners make at the same time too.

Why Orange/T-Mobile merger means less subscriber choice

2009-09-08T09:45:00.006+01:00

The big news today is undoubtedly that of the merger between Orange and T-Mobile, to create the UK's biggest operator with 28.4 million subscribers. Of course, the companies are lauding it as bringing "substantial benefits to UK customers", but will it really?

Consider this. Vodafone and O2 have already announced a network sharing deal (essentially this means that they will consolidate 2G and 3G cellsites, but they'll keep their own Node Bs, RNCs etc.). T-Mobile is similarly already the host for '3' and for MVNOs such as Virgin Mobile.

So, merge Orange and T-Mobile and the subscriber really is down to a choice of just two networks.

Sure, they'll have their own OSS/BSS and equipment at the edge of the network, but if mobile is about anything, it's about the RAN. It's about coverage, quality of service and (call me old fashioned) being able to get a dial-tone and make a call. You can have all the choice of price plans and shiny devices in the world, but if you keep dropping a call, can't get coverage in your home, or have a painfully slow mobile data experience, what's the point? And if you can't switch network to one with better coverage, where's the consumer choice?

As we saw earlier this year from OFCOM's coverage map, 3G coverage remains far from nationwide. Merging Orange and T-Mobile may save over £3.5 billion "over time" (a helpful comment that gives no indication of timescale), but will these savings be invested in extending mobile broadband coverage?

The simple situation seems to be that while UK subscribers may have lots of brand choice in terms of which operator they choose, ultimately they will have the choice of only two networks.

Doesn't this sound like something that should excite OFCOM?

It's the end of the world as we know it

2009-09-03T17:38:00.004+01:00

If like me you thought MWC 2008 was too big and actually quite enjoyed the more manageable and businesslike atmosphere of this year's Congress, then you'll probably mixed emotions at the news that Nokia will not be exhibiting at MWC 2010.

While the GSMA has tried to reassure other exhibtors that Nokia "remains committed" to MWC and the GSMA itself, it really is a sign of changing times.

Let's be honest. MWC is unrecognisable from the cosy industry get-together that was 3GSM in Cannes. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. The show (and I mean 'show', not 'Congress') was starting to become preoccupied with mobile entertainment and consumer devices. But it's not a consumer show, it's an industry event.

While sad news for the GSMA, it's perhaps reassuring news for the mobile industry. Maybe now it can get back to focusing on the business and the technology that powers it, and lose the fixation with celebrity keynotes. And anything that makes it easier to find catch a taxi in Barcelona in February can only be a good thing.

Finally, someone who REALLY appreciates mobile phones!

2009-09-01T17:08:00.000+01:00

In proof that 2G certainly isn't dead and can still bring unbounded joy to people's lives, the Pacific island of Nauru has declared today a public holiday in celebration of the launch of its first mobile phone network, courtesy of Digicel.

Admittedly, it is unlikely to set the world alight with its subscriber numbers (Nauru is the world's smallest independent nation with just 10,000 inhabitants), but it nevertheless is a good reminder of what mobile communications is really about, while the rest of us get caught up in hype around 4G and how mobile is going to save the world. Realistically, will this stop Nauru from disappearing into the sea as the oceans rise due to global warming? Well, no, of course it won't.

Mobile communications aren't going to save the world, but they can improve the quality of life by bringing access to otherwise disconnected communities. Indeed, maybe Nauru should go back to its previous name, now that it really is a Pleasant Island.

How to complain

2009-08-28T17:21:00.003+01:00

OK, so the English are renowned for our manners, our politeness and our stiff upper lip. Which is clearly why OFCOM has felt it necessary to produce a video guide for consumers about how to complain about your telecoms provider.

The complaints procedure as it is today, is itself a cause for much complaint. A neighbour of my mum's signed up to Talk Talk in the Asda carpark (yes, I know signing up to anything in the Asda carpark is rarely a good idea) and then had to endure a month of intermittent service and the constant frustration of having to contact the call centre (using her prepaid mobile) and re-explain her situation on every occassion. Three visits by engineers later, and a failed attempt by Talk Talk to get her to pay "thousands" to get the fault fixed as it was on her property (even though the previous engineer had said the fault was kerbside) and she finally has a service. Oh, and was it fixed by Talk Talk? No, of course not. It was fixed by a good old BT engineer.

Today, you have to endure 12 weeks of this before you can complain to OFCOM for 'Alternative Dispute Resolution', but under new plans coming into force on the 1st September, this will come down to eight weeks. Still not good enough to help my neighbour Lorna, but a start.

So, if like me you're too English and really hate to create a scene, here's some helpful advice from your friendly OFCOM:

PS. TalkTalkHell has a helpful guide on how to complain here ... and three years on, and it seems they are no better at customer service.

The dawn of recovery in UK telecoms market?

2009-08-21T10:43:00.005+01:00

So it seems I took the last bit of OFCOM advice to heart and kept myself safe online, by being offline! Anyway, I'm back, and so is OFCOM ...

This week they've released two more 'guides', both aimed to help consumers survive in these 'credit crunch' times. Obviously the publication is perfectly timed given that this is also the week that the IMF declared that the global recession is over and recovery has begun. (Though sadly not here, but luckily this isn't a political blog so I don't have to rant about the debt we are saddled with as a nation...).

OFCOM's first report - a consumer guide on the cost of calling different numbers - aims to dymystify the different codes, helping separate the 03s from the 08s. In theory a very useful guide it is too ... did you know that every time you phone your GP on their 'local rate' 0845 number, they are actually making money by getting a kick-back from using a non-geographic number. And who said the NHS is free at the point of delivery ... sorry, veered back on to politics again.

However, the bit I liked was the caveat that "The prices in the guide are based on the cost of calls from a BT landline and other providers’ prices may vary". Given that OFCOM this month revealed that the number of local loop unbundled (LLU) lines is now over six million, that's 6,000.000 households etc. for whom the guide isn't really that much use. Oh well. They tried.

The second report, out the same day, is a guide to how to stay connected in case your ISP goes bust. Again, in light of news that France, Germany and Japan are all emerging into the bright dawn of recovery, it's not an encouraging sign that the UK regulator has decided now is the time to put plans in place for UK service providers going out of business.

Maybe I'm being unduly harsh and negative (well, the sun has hardly shone all summer, so who can blame me), but talk of a recovery in the UK telecoms sector seems some way off, if the runes of the OFCOM reports are being read correctly.

How to be safe online this summer ... get yourself outside instead!

2009-07-17T12:30:00.009+01:00

With summer holidays now upon us (well, if you're 14 maybe but not if you have to work for your living), OFCOM has launched an online safety campaign.

According to OFCOM:

Two-thirds of 5-7 year olds now use the internet at home, rising to over three-quarters of 8-11 year olds and over four-fifths of 12-15s.
Of these, one fifth of 5-7 year olds use the internet without an adult present, as do almost half of 8-11 year olds and two-thirds of 12-15s.
12-15 year olds say they spend an average of nearly 14 hours a week online.
Over a third of 12-15 year olds say they mostly access the internet in their bedroom. During this time they could encounter inappropriate or even potentially harmful content.

Their advice video is here:

Though surely the better advice is that handed out by that classic children's television, "Why Don't You ... just switch off the television [or computer], go outside and do something less boring instead."

Mobile broadband spectrum battles

2009-07-13T15:12:00.005+01:00

Following on from Viviane Reding's comments last week, the European Commission has formally opened a consultation period on how the digital switchover spectrum should be managed on a pan-EU level. Predictably, given the success of GSM, they are trying a repeat performance with mobile broadband.

Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and, of course, Finland have already committed to releasing some of the digital dividend spectrum for mobile broadband... and as we've seen from the Digital Britain report, the UK is heading in a similar direction too.

However, the point isn't that regulators are making spectrum available for mobile broadband, the point is what spectrum is available. We're seeing auctions at 2.6Ghz, refarming of 900mhz and now 790-862mhz (the so-called 'digital dividend' band).

You can see why the Commission is claiming that at extra €30 billion in economic benefits could be realised through continued EU co-ordination.

However, this all brings me back to a point I raised last month - who manages the spectrum? Is it the national regulator (you only need to look at Finland to see a regulator happy to plough their own furrow)? Is it the ITU? Well, it should be the ITU. Afterall, its of limited use having an LTE dongle that only works in the. We may as well go back to CDMA v. GSM battle of yesteryear.

So you can see why the European Commission is getting involved. But there are much bigger stakes to play for than just what happens to the old analogue TV spectrum. If mobile broadband is going to deliver real economic benefits, we need to think much bigger. And the ITU needs to step up to the mark.

Digital switchover spectrum worth €200 billion - Reding

2009-07-10T11:12:00.004+01:00

It looks like Viviane Reding is alive and kicking at the European Commission after being nominated for another five year term and issuing her customary rallying call to governments and the telecom industry to move faster down the path of liberalisation.

Less than a month after the UK government released it's Digital Britain report restating it's ambition to complete the digital switchover from analogue TV by 2012, Reding has urged European government's to bring forward plans and not wait until 2012. What's more, Reding reckons the EU-wide switchover would increase the value of spectrum by between €150 billion and €200 billion.

That's a hefty sum, although just how much operators are able and/or willing to pay for spectrum right now is a different matter. Indeed, the tone coming out of the Digital Britain report was far more about maximising coverage rather than maximising the monies generated by any spectrum auctions... which when you consider the still poor 3G coverage in the UK, is probably a sensible move.

OFCOM releases UK 3G coverage map

2009-07-08T09:23:00.005+01:00

OFCOM has today released its first UK maps of 3G mobile network coverage, and it makes interesting reading.

The maps come with some caveats. The benchmark they've used is already pretty low, that is to say the signal strength needed to count as 'coverage' was just 10% of maximum transmit power and this had to be exceeded for 50% of the locations for 50% of the time. Oh, and it only measures outdoor coverage, not indoor where signal strength degrades even further. So it's a very conservative map, designed to give the operators the best chance of succeeding you might say.

And who comes out looking best? Well, H3G is the clear winner when it comes to nationwide coverage (although if you're Welsh, Scottish or from Norfolk you can still forget it). Orange comes a credible second. Quite frankly though, for all the naming and shaming, O2 is still pathetic. You can maybe drive from London to Liverpool and have 3G the whole way, but you'd have to pick your route damn carefully. The one that surprised me though was Vodafone. I expected better (and to use the same 'test' as for O2 as above, you can't even do London-Liverpool and stay within Voda 3G coverage because of a 'Not-Spot' that looks to be around the Northampton area!).

But all is not lost, because while the nationwide 3G coverage is still poor for many operators, the coastal coverage is excellent! That's right, if you want to sail from Margate to Falmouth, 8 out of 10 sailors say their yachts prefer Vodafone!

Intel/Nokia tie-up - what does it mean for Qualcomm and connected devices?

2009-06-25T09:29:00.007+01:00

The news that Nokia and Intel have teamed up to “define a new mobile platform beyond today’s smartphones, notebooks and netbooks” raises interesting questions about who the winners will be in the brave new all-IP world that is LTE. Or, more pertinently, what will this mean for the previous goliath of mobile chipsets and licencing - Qualcomm?

In May, Qualcomm 'launched' a new category of device (if you can launch a category) called the "Smartbook". Ostensibly, this is “the smartphone experience in a larger form factor” and based on QCOM's Snapdragon chipset, which apparently "as a single chip solution combining GPS, multimedia, the processor, wifi and 3G on one chip, promises to make smartbooks lighter, thinner, cheaper and give them a longer battery life". The thing is, I'm not entirely convinced by this form factor... indeed, the clue is in QCOM's own description ... it's larger than a smartphone but does the same stuff. Well, that's a winner.

The Intel/Nokia tie up in many ways looks to the same inspiration, but with a difference. Intel knows how to make computing devices; Nokia knows how to make mobile phones. Crucially, they are talking about the devices being "pocketable" (and hopefully they're not working on the assumption that everyone in 2010 is going to be wearing baggy cargo pants!). The details are still vague but there are a few things that the tie-up suggests:

First, it's a real shot in the arm for mobile Linux and other open source projects. Potentially, it's not good news for Symbian, although you could argue that it's already given up the fight now that it has also gone the route of reinventing itself as the Symbian Foundation.

Furthermore, the implications go further than this deal because of Intel's acquisition of Wind River earlier this month. This really could be the beginning of something big in the broader connected devices market. As we're already seeing with devices such as TomTom embedding connectivity into them, more and more consumer electronics devices are being connected. This isn't about Smartphone functionality in a device as big as book, it's about taking devices we already use and connecting them to new services and creating new revenue streams for operators. The combination of Intel, Wind River and Nokia is potentially a powerful one here especially.

At the moment, the deal gives Intel an HSPA 3G licence but continue the line of thought and the Intel/Nokia tie-up is bad news for Qualcomm. The new mobile platform that it creates goes far beyond netbook and smartbooks. It potentially sets the scene for a much bigger play in the wider consumer electronics market, leaving Snapdragon on the sidelines.

So it's just struck me, substitute Snapdragon for Puff the magic dragon in the well known ditty, and you get a sense of what the future may hold:

Qualcomm, the snapdragon lived by the sea*
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called honah lee,
Qualcomm, the snapdragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called honah lee.

A dragon lives forever but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.
One grey night it happened, jackie paper came no more
And snap that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.

And all together now ...

* [Ed note: San Diego is by the sea, so it works!]

Femtocells go commercial

2009-06-24T16:14:00.007+01:00

All of a sudden, the world seems to have gone femto-crazy ... or more accurately, operators have finally decided to bite the bullet and deploy services. Disapppointingly, this seems to mean that my big brave prediction for 2009 has been shot down only six months into the year. I still maintain that LTE will be the bigger opportunity for femtocells, but nevertheless the news that Vodafone and AT&T are launching commercial services this year goes to show that there is some immediate and real opportunity as well.

However, looking deeper into the news and you get a sense of some of the underlying themes which will now start to come to the fore.

Quality of Service: Suffice it to say, if I used a Voda femto in my flat in London, I would struggle to get more than three words out so bad is my Tiscali broadband. The simple fact is an operator can never guarantee QoS. In a conventional network, they can guarantee it throughout the core as far as the cell site, but as soon as it hits the RAN, there are so many environmental variables (pesky things like buildings that get in the way) that the operator can only then do a best effort. Now, in theory, femtocells solve this problem - it fixes the in-building RF problem. But, if operators such as Vodafone then use the subscribers' own DSL connection to backhaul the call, they have again surrendered control over QoS. In fact, they've taken a step back. While they can optimise the RAN, they have no control over the ISP.
The Form Factor: At the moment, AT&T and Vodafone are planning to go to market with standalone femtocells. The marketing wizards at AT&T have branded theirs a '3G microcell, clearly expecting the US consumer to be tech-savvy, while Vodafone have gone the route of calling it an 'Access Gateway' (access to what, you can already hear consumers asking). However, AT&T has also alluded to 'integrated femtocells' coming later, and this is perhaps where it becomes a real consumer market. I sat in a briefing by Continuous Computing* with Ovum this week and this point came up. Although a lot of the details are still under wraps, Continuous Computing said that not only are about half of their femtocell design wins are with set-top box manufacturers and the like, but that we should be seeing the first integrated femtocell products shipping around late 2009 / early 2010.
The Pricing: Well, this really is the big one, isn't it. The pricing from Voda has that the femtocell with be free on selected tariffs (so operator subsidised like handsets) and also bundled in some phone packages. If you buy the femtocell as a standalone, you're looking at £160 or £5 per month. I won't even try and digest the different phone packages since I've always maintained their are designed solely to confuse but it's clear that the subscriber is going to have to pay extra to solve a coverage problem which you can be pretty sure they weren't warned about when they first bought their shinny 3G handset.

But let's not be churlish. Femtocells are going commercial with two tier 1 operators and for an industry that has invested time, money and effort in creating the market, that can only be a good thing. Well, provided they work and deliver on the subscribers' expectations that is ...

* Continuous Computing is an AxiCom client

Mobile comms on Olympic starting line

2009-06-18T15:00:00.003+01:00

London 2012 is already starting to have an impact on the infrastructure of London, and that includes communications.

OFCOM today "published proposals under section 107(6) of the Communications Act 2003 to extend Airwave Solutions Limited's powers under the electronic communications code to enable it to rollout a private mobile radio network for The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralmypic Games."

It seems like every company in the land is fighting for its share of public money sloshing around in East London right now, so who might be some of the winners?

TETRA ... despite having over 150 organisations from 35 countries (according to the TETRA Association) backing the standard, it never has exactly hit the big time. But as the OFCOM news suggests, there's still life in the old dog yet.

Mobile TV ... every major global sporting event seems to spur an innovation in broadcasting. If the Beijing Olympics saw HD going mainstream (the 2006 FIFA World Cup was the first to be broadcast in HD), then what price London 2012 being the one to reignite mobile TV? The BBC is one of the few broadcasters with the resources to innovate and deliver it, and then there's that L-band spectrum that Qualcomm bought that's lying dormant ...

NFC ... the BT team responsible for the communications at London 2012 are apparently looking at NFC for micro-payments of under £10 within the Olympic Park. While the Oyster card is a success for Londoners already, this could be the spur to start seeing NFC embedded into more handsets and to see retailers equiped with NFC-enabled mobile terminals

.. and then of course there's everything else that comes with it ... the network planning, the extra base stations, the mobile apps (both officially sanctioned and those trying to pull a fast one), the list goes on. Hell, we may even have LTE and universal broadband by then ;-)

Digital Britain - what it means for mobile operators

2009-06-17T15:42:00.006+01:00

Yesterday's publication of the Digital Britain report has predictably been met with headlines about the imposition of a broadband ‘levy’ (or ‘tax’ to you and me) to help fund the future investment in a national high speed internet infrastructure. But, as the appointment of Martha Lane Fox as ‘Digital Inclusion Champion’ perhaps mischievously suggests, is this all a little bit of a lastminute strategy?

There are some interesting points contained within the report (Martha's appointment not being one of them!), not least the news that ISPs are going to be made responsible for policing their own subscribers. This is maybe not such good news for the ISPs, but for anyone selling DPI-related products, it can only be a good thing ... but more on this in a later post.

One area that hasn't received much attention thus far has been what it had to say about mobile networks. There has been some moaning that mobile is just being seen as a stop-gap solution until fixed networks can sort themselves out and deliver the requisite speeds (a heady 2Mbps) to the more remote, broadband-deprived parts of the country. However, I think that's a bit harsh, to be honest.

The report not only acknowledges that next generation mobile networks will be able to deliver data rates of up to 100Mbps, but clearly says that both 3G and LTE have a key role to play in delivering the goal of universal broadband coverage.

What is of perhaps more significance though is:

WiMAX is essentially dead in the UK. While it advocates "the immediate release of WiMAX-suitable 2.6Ghz unpaired TDD spectrum for auction", the reports lays its cards on the table and states that there is "an encouraging consensus amongst incumbent mobile operators for the mobile broadband networks to be based on either 3G or LTE. This does not preclude a new entrant using other technologies, such as WiMAX, but in the highly competitive UK mobile radio market it is highly unlikely that such a new entrant would have the market power to de-stabilise the vital standardisation that underpins national and international mobile roaming for UK users."

The 'Big Auction' for 2.6Ghz paired FDD spectrum (i.e. the spectrum for LTE) is set for mid-2010. But, there is still a big debate to be had over spectrum refarming before this can happen. Essentially, if Vodafone or O2 (who occcupy 900Mhz spectrum for their GSM services) want any 800Mhz spectrum for future mobile broadband services they will have to trade in their 2G spectrum. The reason, simply, is that the economic advantages of 900Mhz over 1800Mhz (greater cell coverage etc.) are such that the regulator has to balance it out so T-Mo and Orange aren't penalised. So the auction of 800Mhz and deployment of LTE rests on how easily 900Mhz can be refarmed.

In a bid to drive universal mobile broadband coverage and so get 3G services as nationwide as 2G, the terms of the 3G licences are going to change from time limited to indefinite in order to give operators a chance to see an ROI from extending their 3G coverage. What's more, the Digital Britain report seems to favour network sharing in the sub-1Ghz spectrum as a way of expediting this network expansion, not least because lowering the cost of delivering broadband coverage to the last 10% of the UK is critical given that they are so well dispersed and "not a viable market" on their own.

Overall, the Digital Britain report seems positive for mobile operators. I've heard murmurings of people saying LTE could solve all the problems and so we wouldn't need to pay the 'broadband tax' to bankroll building a nationwide high speed fixed network, but realistically this was never going to be the case. Any anyway, the economics of delivering mobile broadband in remote areas is still something that needs help from the regulator to balance.

Either way, with several important spectrum issues to be resolved over the next 12 months, it's clear that there is still much to play for in the role mobile networks will have in policies to finally deliver a universal high speed internet in the UK.

Digital Britain Report

2009-06-16T16:14:00.003+01:00

The Digital Britain White Paper has just been published... Analysis to follow once I've read all 245 pages, but according to the Dept of Media and Culture's press release, Digital Britain measures include:

Communications Infrastructure
Steps to strengthen and modernise the UK’s Digital Infrastructure so the UK can compete and lead globally

* Universal access to today’s broadband by 2012, creating equal access for all and a fairer digital future
* A fund for investment in the next generation of superfast broadband to ensure it is available to the whole country, not just some of it
* Digital Radio Upgrade by 2015
* Accelerating current and next generation mobile coverage and services
* Proposed new role for sectoral regulator Ofcom to carry out a full assessment of the UK’s communications infrastructure every two years

Digital Participation
Steps to ensure that everyone can share in the benefits of Digital Britain

* Three year National Plan to improve Digital Participation
* Programme of Digital Switchover in public services
* A new Digital Inclusion Champion: Martha Lane Fox
* Revised Digital remit for Channel 4 and key role for BBC
* Guaranteed funding for three years for targeted marketing and outreach

Digital content
Steps to make the UK one of the world’s main creative capitals

* Robust legal and regulatory framework to combat Digital Piracy
* Digital Test Beds to promote innovation, experimentation and learning around creation and monetization of digital content
* TV Licence Fee: consultation on contained contestability, primarily to secure news in the nations, regions and locally
* A new direction for Channel 4, championing new talent across all digital media
* Guidance note and clarification on the media merger regime and an enhanced evidence role for the regulator in local mergers
* Support for Independently Funded News Consortia

Resources:

Synopsis of report here

Full report here

And the Digital Britain Impact Assessment is here.

Chinese vendors set to dominate infrastructure market

2009-06-16T14:06:00.004+01:00

The contention that Chinese infrastructure vendors (namely ZTE* and Huawei) are going to dominate the market has gathered more momentum. Tarek A. Robbiati, CEO of Hong Kong's number one mobile operator CSL said in London today that “Further consolidation will come in the next three to five years. In the end there will be only three [infrastructure vendors] left, and two of them will be Chinese. The European vendors are just too slow.”

Perhaps even more significantly, according to Telecoms.com who met with Robbiati today (Robbiati is in London with ZTE to discuss their work together in deploying an HSPA+ all-IP SDR network) he also argued that ZTE and Huawei can no longer be viewed as competing only on price - an accusation that has been levelled at the two vendors in the past. Price remained important, he said, but technical performance was the deal maker.

As this blog discussed back in March, ZTE is "confident" that it can maintain double digit growth in 2009 and, with a $15 billion line of credit from Chinese banks, drive market growth in the infrastructure market in Western Europe.

The combination of financial muscle, a production capability that can continue to thrive in an increasingly commoditised market, and a growing track record for innovation and R&D is a powerful one. Not least because there are some competitors who are reporting poor financials, are struggling to keep costs under control and are being driven to outsource more and more of their R&D and software development.

Well, they say the customer is always right ... and ZTE will be hoping that this one most certainly is.

* ZTE is an AxiCom client

Is Broadband a Utilty - the conclusion?

2009-06-16T11:28:00.004+01:00

As Lord Carter prepares to unveil his Digital Britain report today, Gordon Brown has already gone on the record in The Times stating that the internet is a"as vital as water and gas".

Watch this space for an analysis on the Digital Britain report once it's published, but in the interim, check out the story so far on whether broadband should be considered a utility:

Part 1: OFCOM opens the door

Part 2: Lessons from Australia

Part 3: Open Access?

Part 4: Consumer survey by OFCOM

Is broadband a utility? (part 4) - UK consumers say "Yes"

2009-06-04T09:29:00.011+01:00

For a while now I've been banging on about whether Broadband should be considered a 'utility', particularly in light of the decision by the Australian Government to invest in building a 'National Broadband Network'. Well, it seems as if we finally have an answer ... Yes, it should be.

A survey by OFCOM's Communications Consumer Panel has found that 73% of those questioned described a high-speed connection as important, even ranking it above a mobile phone in their list of necessities on the basis that people who did not have broadband would be at a disadvantage, missing out on services such as shopping, banking and public services as they were increasingly being delivered online.

According to Anna Bradley, the chair of the Communications Consumer Panel: "The key message is that people think broadband is at a tipping point. It's fantastically useful for everyone, essential for some now, but will be essential for everyone in the near future. It is being compared by consumers to gas and electricity - things which they think we all ought to have access to, almost as a right."

Consumers questioned in the survey supported broadband access for all and said that:

It should be possible to have broadband at home, regardless of where people live (84% agree, 46% agree strongly).
It is everyone's right to be able to have broadband at home (81% agree, 42% agree strongly).
It should be possible also for people to gain the confidence and skills to make full use of broadband at home (80% agree, 32% agree strongly).
It should be possible to access broadband at home, even if they have a low income (73% agree, 32% agree strongly).

But, if we do indeed consider broadband to be a utility that should be available to all, the UK has some way to go both compared to its peers internationally but also domestically.

While Lord Carter in his interim recommendations for Digital Britain, has proposed a Universal Service for broadband, with a recommended 2Mbps which the government has backed, the reality is that much of the UK remains disconnected.

According to research commissioned by the BBC, about three million homes in the UK have broadband speeds of less than the magic 2Mbps. What's more, the physical distance of many homes from the local exchange mean it is practically impossible for them to get anywhere nears this speed.

The map of these so-called Broadband NotSpots put the scale of the problem in context (check out ThinkBroadband and SamKnows for their NotSpot maps).

As soon as you drop below the 2Mbps, the access to content and services drops off dramatically ... heck, you won't even be able to watch the re-run of the Apprentice on iPlayer ... it's THAT bad.

Who manages the spectrum?

2009-06-01T09:53:00.004+01:00

Spectrum is again dominating the headlines but this time it is the regulators themselves who are in the news. As a child, I was always told that children should be seen but not heard - and I can't help thinking regulators should be the same. Their impact should be seen, but they should never be the headline makers themselves.

In a week when Europe goes to the polls to choose who will the lucky passengers to board the EU gravy train, sorry, I mean be elected to represent us in the bastion of democracy and freedom that is the EU, it seems only right to have a look at the role the European Commission has to play in the great spectrum debate. In particular, where does their role begin and end?

The regulatory landscape used to be quite simple. The ITU would be responsible for the global management of the radio-frequency spectrum and satellite orbits, while on a national level each country's regulator would be responsible to managing spectrum usage. But things have got a bit more confused now that the EU has waded in and positioned itself as a supraregulator.

The issue has come to a head with the decision of the EU to award Inmarsat Ventures and Solaris Mobile enough radio spectrum to run trans-Europe satellite data networks, effectively forcing the hand of national regulator such as Ofcom who in theory still have the final say over how much each operator will have to run their network down to the UK's street level.

According to The Register, the spectrum concerned, two blocks around 2GHz, has been allocated to satellite data services by every country in Europe. The EU has been deciding, by beauty contest, who would offer the best connectivity to the remotest parts of the EU, and it's come down to Inmarsat and Solaris, but they'll still have to do regional deals with the regulators in each country, with Ofcom presenting one of the more serious obstacles.

But does the EU actually have the legal authority to make trans-national spectrum awards? And what will happen to the companies not awarded the right to operate a satellite service in the S-band spectrum? Well, they'll fight the decision in the courts, claiming the the European Commission does not have cross-border jurisdiction over spectrum. According to ICO Global Communications, the US satellite operator and one of the losers of the EU's beauty parade, only the ITU has the authority to allocate and manage spectrum and orbit resources on an international basis.

However, LTE spectrum auctions start to finally take place this year, you can see the EU wanting to poke its nose in more and more. Keen to replicate the success of GSM, which provided a consistent pan-European cellular coverage and enabled easy roaming between states, you can see the EU trying to influence spectrum auctions so that there is a similar pan-European mobile broadband coverage.

One route seems to be to simply open up the existing GSM spectrum for use by UMTS-based systems. Back in April, the EU amended the GSM Directive to open it up for HSPA deployment (see my earlier blog on this) in a policy known as spectrum refarming. National regulators are following suit with Swiss regulator ComCom announcing that it is enabling all three licensees to use their existing 900MHz frequency also for UMTS applications (although obviously they're not in the EU!).

So, taken together, we can arguably see that not only is the 900MHz spectrum being lined up for mobile broadband, but also that the European Commission is prepared to be increasingly activist in issues of EU spectrum and so may even go as far as mandating it.

Where does this leave the ITU? Well, I had the privilege of meeting the ITU a couple of month's ago and I must admit I left feeling a little underwhelmed as to whether they actually have any clear vision of what they are doing. It seems as if they are content to leave regional spectrum issues to the appropriate regional governmental authorities and instead focus on the more worthy issues of communications poverty in disconnected parts of the world.

The way seems to be clear for the EU to take a lead on European spectrum issues - pending, of course, the legal challenge mounted by ICO.

LTE gets a voice

2009-05-21T12:57:00.004+01:00

The jigsaw pieces are all falling into place for LTE following this week's LTE World Summit in Germany. However, according to Rethink Research, "significant technical barriers still need to be crossed before most cellcos will commit to firm mass roll-out dates; and new approaches, notably femtocells, will be important to maximize return on investment".

One of the big questions around LTE is what is it actually for... is it a nice big fat data pipe or will it be the network for all services including voice? While Orange see it as a solution for mobile data, T-Mobile's Klaus-Juergen Krath, senior VP of radio networks development is adamant that "I don't think we should push LTE as a wireless DSL technology - it has much more than that. That's why we push heavily for early availability of all services, most importantly voice and SMS over LTE." According to Unstrung, 3 Group's technology director, Ed Candy, went even further commenting at the Summit that "In these difficult times, to go ahead with a technology that's service-limited is crazy. We don't know how this financial crisis is going to play out. I would be against [using] any technology that has fundamental holes in it."

It's this question of voice that is perplexing the industry right now, and given the comment above it's perhaps not surprising that T-Mobile, through the VoLGA Forum, is leading the charge to find the answer to the question of how to migrate voice services across to LTE. Backed by vendors such as Kineto Wireless, Ericsson and ZTE,* the VoLGA Forum is aiming to define the 3GPP solution for delivering Voice Over LTE (and done so via Generic Access technology, to complete the spelling out of the acronym).

While Orange's stance is understandable, given that there is a perfectly good network in the form of 3G that can handle voice so LTE can focus on data, the fact is that this approach would require the operator to maintain two distinct network architectures. The sprectral efficiency of LTE is such that there are already savings for operators simply by moving data traffic from 3G to LTE, but the big savings come when they can start to manage just one network. The VoLGA initiative is interesting simply because it aims to address the missing step ... i.e. how to actually manage the migration of voice and messaging services to LTE, without jeopardising the quality, experience and revenue currently yielded by voice services.

While the WiMAX faction fight an increasingly desperate rear-guard action, it seems clear that LTE has won this particular battle. However, it's equally clear the battle on what the peace looks like is already warming up.

* Ericsson, Kineto Wireless and ZTE are AxiCom clients. AxiCom handled the launch of the VoLGA Forum in March 2009.

UK invests (kind of) in ultra-fast broadband

2009-05-19T19:10:00.004+01:00

It seems a bit mean to criticise, but what the heck ... I've written a bit here about how the Australian government is investing billions in national broadband network, promising speeds of up to 100mbps and asked why hasn't the UK government done similar.

Well, they have. Kind of. Yesterday they announced an investment to support UK businesses developing 'ultra fast broadband' technologies. The sum? ... Wait for it ... one million pounds! (now try saying it again, but in a Dr Evil voice ... it's still a paltry sum, but the "mwah hah hah" at the end at least gives it a bit of an edge!).

There are 13 projects, each of which will get between £30,000 and £100,000 ... or in today's currency, the equivalent of a second home for between 1-5 MPs.

Is broadband a utility (part 3) - Open Access?

2009-05-13T11:49:00.005+01:00

Last month, I asked the question whether more governments should follow the Australian lead and take the lead in investing in a next generation broadband network.

The latest is this saga is that the Australian government has earmarked an 'initial investment' $3.6 billion into its National Broadband Network. The NBN promises Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) delivering 100Mbps broadband to 90% of Australian homes and businesses. The model of the NBN will be that of an open access wholesale carrier.

The question of open access is one that is creating a lot of debate right now. In the UK, for example, you have BT building out its NGN and Virgin Media, the only cableco after the implosion of Telewest and NTL, both coming under pressure to open up access to their network. In the US, the debate is even more fierce because the closed cableco networks are still the dominant providers of high speed internet.

The big question is though (and this is the argument used by regulators like the FCC), why should telephone companies invest in high speed internet infrastructure, if all they are going to end up being is relegated to wholesale providers of commoditised bandwidth to other ISPs?

It will be interesting to see how the BT 21CN wholesale model pans out. Just what will the terms be for ISPs looking to use the network? Will BT continue to make the process of choosing an ISP other than themselves so much harder and more tortuous as to incur the wrath of the regulator? Or will the regulator say fair's fair, they made the investment so they need to make the money back?

Ultimately, it really does seem as if the Australian model is the way to go. Competition of course drives innovation ... but only if it delivers differentiation and advantage. Where's the value in investing and innovating if others can just come along and stick their own label over the top?

Spectrum auctions - the Finnish start

2009-04-27T14:23:00.004+01:00

There's something about the Finns, that means they always have to do things differently from everyone else. Rethink Wireless puts this down to a 'progressive' regulator, but you could also say that they're just a bit contrary. Not only have they been the first to auction off spectrum for LTE, but they've gone ahead and gone for a freequency different from what the rest of Europe looks like standardising on.

In many ways, this shouldn't be a surprise. Afterall, this is the same country that in June 2005 allowed Digita to deploy FLASH-OFDM in 450Mhz spectrum. FLASH-OFDM, remember, was the technology from Flarion* (and subsequently acquired by Qualcomm) that really defined what mobile broadband should look like ... the only downside was, EU regulations meant it couldn't be deployed in the licenced spectrum as that was reserved for WCDMA.

There's an interesting parallel in the recent Finnish decision around LTE spectrum (not least that OFDMA, the technology to emerge out of the ashes of FLASH-OFDM is fighting to be part of of the LTE standard). The driver for both decisions around spectrum was the need to deliver a rural mobile broadband coverage (afterall, when the Finns go to their summer houses by the lakes in the of the country, they still want to be able to watch their SlingBox!).

Of course, the major advantage of 1.8Ghz over 2.6Ghz is the fact that the cell size will be bigger, so it's marginally more suited for rural areas ... though truth be told, still no where near the cell sizes delivered by 450Mhz.

The choice of spectrum, and whether the regulator will define the technology that must be deployed in it, is on of the big debates that will define the industry over the next two years.

What is a 'fair price' for the spectrum? What technology is best? Will the world end up with patchwork quilt of spectrum that means 'global' LTE roaming will be well nigh impossible? And what will all this mean for the services being deployed?

All big questions. This year we'll see not only 2.6Ghz spectrum auctions for LTE, but also the refarming of 900mhz spectrum. With HSPA+, LTE and (still just about) WiMAX all fighting for their market share, there are some political, rather than technology, decisions that need to be made. Oh, and add in the matter of mobile TV and the battle between DVB-H, DMB, IMB and MediaFLO and the regulators are going to be getting alot of calls from interested parties... but more on Mobile TV later.

* Flarion was an AxiCom client until its acquisition by Qualcomm

EU cuts roaming charges, but subscribers still need more

2009-04-23T11:05:00.002+01:00

Yesterday's decision by the European Commission to impose a cap on roaming charges for data and SMS will force mobile operators to cut their roaming charges ahead of us heading off for a bit of sun, sand and sangria.

As EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding put it: “Today’s vote marks the definite end of the roaming rip off in Europe. Thanks to the strong support of the European Parliament and the Council, the new roaming rules were agreed in the record time of just 7 months. Just in time for the summer holidays, European citizens will now be able to see the single market without borders on their phone bills.”

However, while cutting the roaming charges is certainly welcome from a subscriber perspective, it's still only going part way. What the charges are still remain a mystery to most of us.

Talking to mobileip, Openet's CMO Mike Manzo explained. “The EU’s decision to introduce a cap for roaming texts/data is going to be welcomed by consumers planning their holidays, especially those that have previously been surprised by a bill after returning home from abroad. But that is only part of the issue - today consumers have very little visibility into charging and usage.

"Consumers don’t want nasty surprises, they want to know how much they are paying for services and what their balance is. That means that operators need to shift from the traditional post-billing model to offering real-time visibility to subscribers. While it is great for consumers that their roaming charges in the EU are going to be lower, the operators that are going to be the real consumer champions will be the ones that give their subscribers the knowledge and power to control their mobile bill.”

The EU has made a valiant attempt to give citizens a bit more information, with a list of what the roaming charges will be in each country.

In a nutshell, you can't afford to go on holiday if you're a T-Mobile customer! Their roaming charges are nearly double those of both 3 and O2. Which if you happened to be visiting Germany on Tuesday would have been fine, as the network was down so you couldn't have made calls anyway, but otherwise makes it an expensive choice of operator.

So, much as it pains me to say it, good work EU. But come on operators, don't stop there. Don't hide behind confused billing and poor advice of charge to milk subscribers.

Actually, thinking it through, if you switched from T-Mobile to O2 and sent just 10 SMS messages on holiday, you've probablly saved enough for an extra Sangria!

T-Mobile Germany network in nationwide collapse

2009-04-22T10:05:00.009+01:00

40 million Germans were left with no mobile phone coverage yesterday when the nationwide T-Mobile network in Germany collapsed leaving them with no voice or SMS service.

Coming on the same day that Deutsche Telekom slashed its earnings forecasts for 2009 and saw its share price tumble by over 7%, the network failure has been blamed on a ‘software glitch’, according to an early Reuters report. Emerging details suggest the HLR (the database that holds every subscribers number and location and so is critical to the ability to make and receive calls) was the problem, reports suggesting that two of the three HLR servers fell over suggesting that it was a load issue that pushed the software beyond its tested scalability limits.

Although details are still emerging, it seems likely that this complete network collapse could have been at least minimised, if not avoided, if early warning signs had been spotted. With a typical tier 1 network generating over 10s of terabytes of network data in a single day, the sheer volume of information network engineers have to process makes it increasingly difficult for them to separate the terminal problems from those that are just an irritant.

As T-Mobile grapples with the challenge of bringing its nationwide network back to life, they will have to process massive amounts of network data just to be able to ensure even a basic service is resumed. The problem of identifying, prioritizing and solving network status issues is only going to be even harder as they race to restore full service.

It's also worth bearing in mind that the last time there was a major HLR failure was 2005 and it was Bouygues in France that suffered ... or more accurately, Tekelec after the operator sued them for 'economic damages'. Based on T-Mobile Germany's annual turnover, you could probably make a gu'estimate that yesterday's network collapse has cost them in the region of $100 million in direct call losses. Not the sort of news you need when you've already had to lower your profit forecasts.

The lawyers will be rubbing their hands ... as will Vodafone ;-)

UPDATE: It's now been confirmed that it was NSN's HLR that crashed. NSN acquired Apertio (who developed this HLR) in January last year for $206 million.

Unstrung quotes Chris Larmour, chief marketing officer at Actix*, who believes the severity of T-Mobile's network outage yesterday could have been limited: "Some of this could have been avoided. It went wrong and no one was able to manage it. It took them four hours to figure it out. It will take them months to get back to normal."

* Actix is an AxiCom client

Oracle / Sun - ironic or perceptive?

2009-04-20T14:45:00.003+01:00

OK, so it's not really the focus of this blog, but I did think this was an unfortunate error message for the Oracle press room to have when I went to check out the statement on its acquisition of Sun!

Picking a Winning Technology

2009-04-20T10:01:00.004+01:00

The telecoms industry, along with the wider technology industry, is littered with great ideas that failed, seemingly pointless technologies that have somehow managed to find a use and become irreplaceable, and vociferous debates as interested parties battle for their technology to become the 'standard'.

But what makes a winning technology? The Betamax v VHS story is perhaps a bit long in the tooth these days, but still incredibly relevant. Indeed, this month Nokia has tried to dismiss WiMAX as a "wireless Betamax" and that while it will linger around, it will be LTE (the "VHS" in the analogy) that will win the standards war and dominate the market. However, as the article in the Financial Times goes on to correctly qualify, while VHS dominated the consumer market, Betacam was generally recognised to the the 'better' technology and indeed became the standard used by broadcast professionals.

Fundamentally, what this argument comes down to is not which is the better technology. Sadly, that seems to have naff all to do with it. In fact, it comes down to something called the 'Social Construction of Technology'. To boil it down to one key point, it's not a case of which is the 'best' technology, but rather who is saying it's the best technology. It comes down to the stakeholders, the social momentum behind the technology that determines the 'winner'.

So, VHS beat Betamax, BluRay beat HD DVD ... go far enough back, and the chain-driven 'safety bicycle' eventually dominated while the Penny Farthing was consigned to history and AC beat DC as the standard for electricity generation.

To win a standards war, therefore, it's not enough to win the technology battle. Technology does not exist in a vacuum - technology that exists for the sake of technology invariably fails, while the technology that solves a problem, that actually does something is the one that survives and thrives. Understanding the context of a technology is critical to being able to pick a winner ... choices about technology are shaped by the society in which it exists.

So, look at the LTE v WiMAX battle from another perspective - not in terms of which is the 'better' technology, but rather which has the weight of special interest groups and social momentum to define the rules of the battlefield?

OFCOM on how to save money on your mobile abroad - don't use it!

2009-04-08T12:10:00.004+01:00

The holiday season must be kicking off ... OFCOM has just released a video with consumer advice on how to save money on your mobile phone bill when travelling abroad ...

View the video here.

Is broadband a utility? (part 2)

2009-04-08T09:47:00.002+01:00

Back in March, I posed the question as to whether broadband should be considered a utility and, as such, whether the UK government should backroll the construction of a nationwide NGN infrastructure. At the time, Ed Richards, the OFCOM CEO, had said that there were no regulatory obstacles in the way of companies investing in 'super-fast broadband' and that, in effect, they should just get on with it.

However, with the current credit crunch still biting, the idea that companies are going to willingly bury billions under the ground is a bit of a leap so instead, the UK ends up falling further behind and very infrastructure that could help the UK economy find its way out of recession remains a pipe-dream.

So, news today that the Australian government is going to just do it themselves and spend A$43 billion on building a national broadband network is a major step. The route taken by them is to create a new company, with the government as the major shareholder, not just connecting the whole country to a 100Mbs network, but also creating 25,000 jobs.

And it's not like there aren't other broadband alternatives in the country ... through Telstra's HSPA+ network, they already hold the Guinness world record for the fastest national mobile broadband network!

So, is there a lesson here that other countries need to look at? At economies have to realign themselves and find new areas of comparative advantage, it is clear that underpinning it all will be a communications infrastructure that really can cope with the challenges of the modern global economy. While I suspect not many governments will want to stump up the cash that the Australian government is lavishing on a nationwide super-fast broadband network, they have certainly thrown down the gauntlet to other governments and economies to invest and build, or wither and stagnate.

Is Skype finally challenging operators' voice revenues?

2009-04-06T15:24:00.010+01:00

The news that there has been over 1 million downloads of Skype to iPhones in just two days is challenging mobile operators to face up to the fact that their voice revenues – which for better or for worse are still the bedrock of their financial health, despite all the talk of data services – may be truly coming under threat at last. While consumer advocacy groups (and VoIP providers) are arguing for operators to open up their network (so called ‘net neutrality’), mobile operators are looking to block Skype in the name of ‘network efficiency’ and ‘non-compliance’ of the application with their network.

The VON Coalition Europe (a group that includes Internet giants like Google, Microsoft, Skype and Intel) claims that operators are blocking or degrading of content, services or applications “for motives that extend beyond efficient traffic management.” With a typical Skype call normally only using 8 to 20kbps, which can be compared to the download of an average web page, Skype in many respects is considered a low bandwidth application. However, make a Skype video call rather than a basic voice call, and the impact on the network could be very different…

With so many claims and counter-claims flying around on the true impact of services such as VoIP on a mobile network, it can be hard to see what the true picture is. Are operators justified in blocking Skype because of the impact on their network? Or is this just a cover for their deep rooted fear that Skype is about to slay the sacred cow of voice revenues?

It perhaps takes companies like Actix* provide real insight into what the real impact of services such as Skype on a mobile operator’s network performance. Working with tier one operators in North America, Europe and Asia, Actix is at the heart of operators’ network status management systems, processing over 1 terrabyte of data every day on a typical tier network.

While there is a certain inevitability about VoIP as operators look towards LTE and an all-IP network, data loads are increasing over 3G (and more so with HSPA), pushing the cost-per-bit for ever higher. With the advent of LTE, mature operators will be left with at least three overlaying Radio Access Networks (RAN) to manage - 2G, 3G and 3.9/4G networks. With a large portion of the delivery cost of every bit being RAN-related, the challenging economics of mobile broadband will enforce the need for a much sharper focus on delivery cost per data bit if operators are to remain profitable.

So maybe both sides are telling the truth ... operators are fighting a rear-guard action because they fear the impact of opening up their network to yet more data which they cannot directly monetise, while VoIP advocates are right in pointing a figure at operators' basic revenue concerns as the real motivation for their opposition.

* Actix is an AxiCom client

Putting GSM out to grass?

2009-04-02T20:50:00.004+01:00

The decision of the European Parliament to amend the GSM Directive on what technology can be used in the 900Mhz band of spectrum seems to have passed unnoticed by much of the media. The reality is, however, that after years of lobbying, it is a potentially a very significant decision that deserves more attention (and I don't often say positive things like that about EU decisions!).

The GSA has gone on the record as saying that "this groundbreaking spectrum agreement in Brussels enables more Europeans to benefit from mobile broadband services. It is a clear signal to all regulators to prepare the path in their respective markets for a new wave of HSPA deployments in the 900 MHz band." 'Spectrum refarming' as the policy is known will finally enable the rollout of mobile broadband to rural and semi-urban areas because (and excuse my idiot's attempt at physics), the lower frequency of the 900Mhz waves mean they travel further, and so the cells are bigger.

So it's all good news right? The digital divide is going to be bridged.

Well, yes and no. Look at the GSMA site and you'd think all is hunkydory. According to the GSMA, spectrum refarming has a number of potential benefits more mobile operators, including changing the economics of rural mobile broadband, stimulating capital investment (like operators are keen on CAPEX right now) and improved in-building penetration.

Oh, that's right. Weren't femtocells meant to solve the problem of poor in-building coverage with 3G? Well, at 900Mhz, it's not a problem any more. But that's ok, because there's still LTE femtocells...

Or maybe not. The GSA and GSMA both predict a new wave of HSPA deployments in the 900Mhz band ... it begs the question, with HSPA deployed at 900Mhz, the CAPEX has got to be lower than rolling out LTE. Sure, LTE maybe more efficient but if you can deliver mobile broadband services in two bands, the crunch point in capacity where LTE becomes a no-brainer is pushed further out.

The decision over spectrum refarming is important. But the ramifications are perhaps more far-reaching than some are admitting and the law of unexpected consequences will still hold true.

Big is beautiful

2009-03-26T09:16:00.006Z

Yesterday the guys here put on a great press conference for ZTE, and certainly the content seems to have struck the mood of the current climate. The Financial Times has reported on ZTE's "confidence" that it can maintain double digit growth in 2009 and, with a $15 billion line of credit from Chinese banks, can really drive market growth in the infrastructure market in Western Europe.

Indeed, it's this ability to offer vendor financing that Reuters picked up on as being the secret sauce for ZTE right now. With possible deals ranging from $100 million to $1 billion, it really is a game changer. If you can provide access to [affordable] financing, you're way ahead of the game.

The rationale behind the Chinese banks using ZTE as a route to overseas investments is fascinating yet simple ... Chinese banks have foreign currency which the government insists has to be invested overseas. But they don't know the international markets. They haven't got the presence, the heritage, the local understanding so how do they identify those investements? Simple. Partner with a company who does know the market, who understands the operators in the region and who can act as a channel.

While ZTE also launched a new touchscreen handset with T-Mobile UK yesterday (see pic on left) and reinforced its growing strength in the handset market (currently 6th, but targeting top three in next five years) it was a simple statistic which really brought home to me why the Chinese market is so fundamental to the shape of the telecoms landscape.

There are currently about 600,000 3G base stations globally (22,000'ish in the UK), and it took about five years to get to this number. China Unicom in the first phase of its 3G network roll-out will have 100,000 3G base stations.

This scale changes the economics. A 3G base station will become commoditised and the unit price will innevitably fall through the floor as vendors scale up production lines to meet this massive increase in demand. Oh, and ZTE is the largest 3G infrastructure vendor in the Chinese market. Do you see where this is all pointing ...

Follow the money

2009-03-17T15:58:00.003Z

All of a sudden, mobile banking seems to be coming of age. Juniper Research has just put out a study predicting that the number of mobile phone users that use their phone for mobile banking transactions will exceed 150 million by 2011.

According to Juniper Research, mobile banking market is currently most advanced in the Far East, but that growing numbers of mobile banking services are being offered in North America and Western Europe. The developed nations of the Far East, North America and Western Europe are forecast to account for over 70% of the user base by 2011.

Also this week, and indicating that mobile banking isn't just about saturated mobile markets, MTN has announced plans to launch SIM-based mobile banking services in 21 countries across Africa. While regulators locally are a challenge they need to overcome in terms of agreeing just how these services will operate, the biggest issue is making the service usable and intuitive for the average subscriber.

So it's the user experience which is critical in driving mobile banking and mobile payments subscriber adoption... and with this we're seeing new companies like Pocit and Masabi emerging who are helping to change the rules of the way mobile phones can be used.

Developed by Aricent*, the mobile component of the Pocit application allows anyone with a credit card or bank account to make payments directly from the mobile application via a cell phone without having to know the recipient's specific banking details. Once registered with Pocit, a user can receive, send, request and store money. Optimising the processing and memory limitations of older devices while maximizing the features of new devices such as touch screens is no mean feat, but a critical factor if the app is going to be actually usable.

Masabi designs and builds secure applications mobile phones and is the leading developer of transactional software for the constrained environments of today's mass market mobile handsets. It's team of usability and security experts are working with national and international organisations in transport, banking & finance, theme parks & events, gaming and car parking in the provision of transactional payment and ticketing applications. Indeed, when it comes to using the mobile phone as a mechanism for micro-payments, the possibilities seem endless. (If you want a sense of what usability means in the world of mobile payments, check out the video of the Masabi mobile ticketing system.)

So with all the signs pointing towards mobile banking and payments technology maturing to the point of being ready for the average subscriber, it really is time (as MTN put it) to make the service available to as many consumers as possible and see what happens!

* Aricent is an AxiCom client

Here we go again

2009-03-16T11:40:00.004Z

It's like a bad case of deja vu. As if we've learned nothing from the past, NTT Do Co Mo is trumpeting its success in pumping an LTE test network up to the point where it can deliver 120 Mbs.

Amazing. Brilliant. Mobile broadband will never be the same again, right?

Well, maybe. But don't expect that speed on a network anywhere near you soon ... or indeed on any commercial network. The incredible speeds were realised in a "special testing area", using base stations straight out of the lab (not off the shelf) and only to a single device. Not exactly 'real world' now, is it.

It's an already accepted rule of thumb that in a commercial network the most a user will ever get is about half of the advertised 'peak rate'.

So while the headline lab-test speeds are great headlines, for a subscriber it is a still a bit of a moot point. Fixed line DSL guys have already got in trouble for failing to deliver on their broadband speeds, so mobile operators would do well to be realistic and tempered in the language they use to describe their own capabilities now that they are talking the language of mobile broadband.

Google-everything

2009-03-13T10:55:00.006Z

Is there no end to it? Is there nothing Google won't touch? The launch of Google Voice signals the aptly named "web monster's" next move as it munches its way pacman like through anything that comes within even a whiff of the Internet.

The technology behind it is Grand Central, and when Google acquired them in 2007, it certainly gave an indication what was to come. And while eBay may have failed to work out what to do with Skype, that's because it was a service without an application. Skype is cheap voice ... and when I'm selling stuff on eBay, the last thing I want is people calling me. If I wanted to do that, I'd advertise in the local newsagent.

But Grand Central is different. It's an application. The hosted PBX model is almost limitless in the sort of applications it can let users access, giving the user complete control over almost every aspect of their experience, from ring-back tones to voicemail, from a single number that follows you across mobile, home and work phones to permissions and profiling of different caller IDs.

Ultimately, this is what it comes down to. If VoIP is just about trashing the cost of calls, then Skype is your answer ... and operators will hate it as they have no response. But if VoIP is about applications, about wrapping additional service wrappers around the basic call, then all is not lost for the operator. They have a way to fight back against Google Voice ... afterall, when it comes to voice, no-one knows that better than a telco.

What's a network operator without a network?

2009-03-12T21:48:00.005Z

It seems like a stupid question. I mean, if a network operator doesn't actually operate their own network, what's the point?

News today that Vodafone and O2 may be about to strike a network sharing deal means that there could in effect only be two mobile networks in the UK.

Such is the pressure on margins - and the cost of building and maintaining a network - the network sharing seems to be an innevitable endgame in markets such as the UK. With new spectrum auctions looming for '4G' services and the cost of LTE network build-out already causing nervousness among mobile operators, it seems the obvious thing to do.

But what does it all mean? One can't help thinking that by surrendering even a little control over the network, the operators are simultaneously surrendering some control over their own destinies. Will innovation run at the same pace? Will we end up stuck with a lowest common denominator network?

With evidence from people like Actix* suggesting that operators can slash OPEX by up to 30% through automating network status management and, ultimately, moving towards a self-optimising network, are things really so bad that operators have no alternative but to share networks?

OK, as in life, there may well be degrees of sharing (what's yours is mine, what's mine is mine etc.), but for network equipment vendors and landlords of tall buildings currently seeing a base station as their best bet for a tenant in the current economic climate, it's probably not the best of news.

* Actix is an AxiCom client

Another one bites the dust

2009-03-04T14:56:00.003Z

It's always a sad day when a favourite brand bites the dust, and the demise tod a y of RCR Wireless in the US is one such occassion.

After 25 years, in which it's covered pretty much everything that the telecoms industry could throw at it, RCR has shut up shop with immediate effect. On the day that ITV has announced worse than expected job losses, it's a sobering time for anyone in the media as the fall in advertising spending starts to bite.

Of course, in the case of RCR, there's also the double whammy of the shift from print to online and the fact that they were now facing a plethora of new information sources. How we consume our news is undoubtedly changing and publishers, just like the advertisers and PR peoople, have to move with the times.

Is broadband a utility?

2009-03-03T19:00:00.004Z

The news today at OFCOM has given a green light to so-called "ultra high speed" and "super fast" broadband in the UK is long overdue. Not only has apparently been the norm for a long time in places as far flung as Corsica, but the fact is that even "average" or "walk paced" broadband would be a start for many in this country.

In fact, last time I did a broadband speed check at home, I registered the almighty speed of 90kbs. Oh yes. Dial-up speeds. And that's when I can even get my beloved Tiscali DSL connection to work.

However, while OFCOM CEO Ed Richards goes on the record as saying there are now "no regulatory in the way of investment in super-fast broadband", it's not really that easy, is it. For while the regulator may be waving the green light, or whatever the correct analogy is, the market needs to bite the bullet and make that investment.

BT's 21CN is of course, the first play to this end. And the growth of a wholesale market off the back of it will open up the market, are we seriously going to see the return of companies raising millions in capital to only then bury it under the street and hope that demand will be arrive before their money runs out.

At the end of the day, broadband access really is becoming a core utility. It's like your gas or electric ... a modern home can't operate 'off grid'. So while the government is busy pumping billions into saving the banks, maybe it's time they looked somewhere else to find the investment that will help pull the country out of recession and provide a launch pad for recovery.

Government investment in the Internet infrastructure of the country anyone?

Has Nokia lost its way?

2009-03-02T15:46:00.006Z

It never used to be this way. They were unassailable. The undisputed grand fromage of mobile handsets.

So news today that Nokia has had to pull its new flagship device, the Nokia 5800 with touchscreen that was touted as the response to the iPhone, really is a sign that the times are a changing. The problem, it seems, is with connection to US 3G networks. While Nokia has never really had quite the same penetration in the US as in Europe, this is clearly a blow to a company suddenly playing catch-up in a market it had always led.

As if that isn't enough, operators are also losing faith in Nokia. Orange and O2 are, apparently, both "furious" at Nokia's plans to preload Skype on the upcoming N97. While some commentators venture that this may just be posturing by O2 which is obviously an iPhone house, just the fact that the operators are publicly lambasting Nokia is a sign of the times. Personally, I still struggle to see Skype on the handset as being a major threat to operator revenues, but it is definitely a sign of the wolves at the door for the operators.

So where now for Nokia? Well, the move into the music services play (again looking to play Apple at its own game) seems to be where they're heading. It has always been a battle of the brands between Nokia and the operators, but the battle for the subscribers' cash is also hotting up.

WhyMAX?

2009-03-01T19:13:00.002Z

WiMAX is fighting back. In-Stat has forecast that for at least the next few years, WiMAX will outpace LTE as fixed wireless operators come to market first with broadband services. Similarly, ZTE* has gone on record as predicting a WiMAX 'boom' in 2009, despite some of other major equipment vendors exiting the market.

That WiMAX will do better than LTE in 2009 is, of course, something of a truism. With the exception of Verizon which is ploughing on, operators are putting LTE roll-out plans on ice as the reality of the network build-out CAPEX hits home.

In-Stat reckons that HSPA+ will end up being WiMAX' biggest challenge ... and the same could be said of LTE. With Telstra already delivering 21Mbs and promising 42Mbs mobile broadband, the case for LTE from a pure speed perspective seems moot. OK, so the spectral efficiency of LTE means that ultimately, as mobile data traffic grows, they will have to migrate to LTE or else face diminishing returns as the cost of keeping the HSPA+ network at full throttle outweighs the revenue it enables... but at the moment, that's a problem of which operators can still only dream.

* ZTE is an AxiCom client

2009-02-27T10:53:00.000Z

"I'm on the plane!"

Brilliant. Just brilliant. Now I'm not a fan of budget airlines and I make no apology for that. I like to do my online check-in, have a boarding pass and choose my seat. If I wanted to feel like I was taking the bus somewhere, I'd take the bus, not fly.

And if RyanAir wasn't already a traumatic experience enough, now I'm going to have to put up with booze Britain in the seat next to me, yelling down his mobile about his holiday conquests while I try to stave of DVT by getting some sleep.

We've all known that the safety reasons against using your mobile phone while on a plane are largely fictional (though I appreciate putting it down and listening to the safety briefing is a minimum requirement), but that's not really the point. Who actually wants inflight mobile phone coverage?

Inflight broadband, fair enough (although please block Skype!) ... but making calls? No thanks.

Oh, and while I'm at it ... it costs HOW MUCH? Low cost airline maybe, low cost phone calls they certainly are not.

2009-02-25T18:16:00.005Z

Engineers v Consumers

Back from MWC away from the hype, you need to cast around for a sense of perspective that helps put it all in place. It's all too easy to get caught up in the excitement, the buzz, the group think that sweeps the Fira. So occassionally you have to take a deep breath and ask that all important question: "So what?"

Arguably none come bigger that femtocells when it comes to hype. If all you hear is the industry press, there's a tendancy to take as read all the vendor promises and operator trials and see them as indicating that all is rosey in the 3G garden.

However, a great post on the blog Is this thing switched on? got me thinking. Is the user being forgotten about in all this hullaballoo about indoor coverage, RAN off-load and a mobile broadband future?

Who are the important people - the engineers who come up with this stuff, or the subscribers who have to use it?

From a consumer perspective, do they really want yet another box in the front room? The WiFi router guys are way ahead, as you'd expect, in terms of design and making the kit 'living room friendly' and considering it as a piece of furniture and not just a piece of networking equipment. But that took how long for the design gurus to wrestle control out of the hands of the engineers?

It's not enough for femtocells to solve a technology problem - that's an operator issue. To win over the subscriber and work their way into the home, they need to do more than just provide better coverage, or cheaper faster data. They need to fit into the home and into the modern digital lifestyle.

2009-02-20T14:29:00.004Z

MWC wrap-up

So that's it for another year [sound of loud sigh reverberates around the room]. The annual mobile industry love-in is over and normal hostilities can be restored.

Overall impression on the show? Well, the word we all agreed on as we stood in line at the airport waiting for our Easyjet flight home was "solid". Sure, overall attendance was down on both the delegate and press side. But the number of meetings held solid, and the quality of the meetings actually seemed higher. If you were relying on stand traffic then you'd have been disappointed, but quite frankly if you're relying on 'drop-bys' it just means you haven't done your pre-event legwork.

There was some big news coming out of the show ... Verizon saying it was full-steam ahead on LTE, only a day after the FT claimed LTE plans were being put on ice by European operators; Telstra announcing (together with Ericsson, Qualcomm and Sierra Wireless*) that it's HSPA+ network was capable of 21Mbs and that they are targetting 42Mbs; and of course, the solar-powered low cost handset from ZTE*.

That all said, there was also a sense of deja vu about the show. It felt a little like an industry bracing itself for a storm ahead and realising that now is the time for doing real business, not just hyping a future.

* Sierra Wireless and ZTE are AxiCom clients

2009-02-17T19:00:00.003Z

MWC - Day Two

I'm confused. Seriously confused. Either that, or everyone is telling porkies. You read the papers and all the headlines talk of doom and gloom. But today I've asked everyone of my clients how business is; how are they coping in the maelstrom that is the world economic meltdown.

Well, apparently, very well thank you very much.

The consistent answer seems to be that business is still strong. The sales cycle may be a bit longer, but fundamentally business is still good.

But then on the other hand, everyone is preparing for the worst. Being cautious with expenditure Battening down the hatches for a stormy year ahead.

So is what we read in the papers real? Or is it just a media invented storm? Of course it's real (very real if you're a banker) but the way in which it is contaminating the rest of the economy seems to be as much mental as anything else. Confidence is shot. Everyone is told to expect a meltdown so they trim expenditure. And guess what, reduced spending means we end up with ... yep ... the promised meltdown.

Maybe it just is that telecoms is a bit protected from turbulence. The industry had its own recession only a few years ago so is already relatively lean. The mobile phone is no longer a luxury, but instead an essential. And as one client put it, whatever the state of the economy three things will remain intact ... health care, petrol (hell, even at $150 we still filled our cars) and the need for people to communicate.

So, if it is a case of "I'm alright Jack" ... just make sure you keep communicating it, because then we'll all end up OK. Or drinking petrol from a hospital bed.

2009-02-16T22:02:00.005Z

MWC - Day One

Well it all got off to a slightly downbeat start in Barcelona today. Normally, when you arrive and see there's no queue it would be a cause for celebration. But the lack of any first day morning queue at the registration desk was a dead giveaway that this year numbers are down.

It wasn't then helped by the Financial Times running a front page story predicting that LTE rollouts will be delayed until 2012 because operators just don't have the CAPEX available.

The thing is, while the GSMA may think they've been terribly clever in creating a branding campaign around 'mobile broadband', what they've actually done is negate any need for the consumer to be aware of LTE, 4G, or anything of the sort. If it looks like mobile broadband, it is mobile broadband. And operators don't need to spend billions to get to it.

The announcement by Telstra today, together with QCOM, Ericsson and Sierra Wireless*, of the launch of the world's first HSPA+ network shows just why operators can afford to wait for LTE for a while longer. Peak downlink speeds of 21Mbps (so about 7Mbps in a real world deployment) are undeniably broadband. In fact, compared to my woeful Tiscali DSL service at home, its the stuff dreams are made of.

Now ok, LTE may be more spectrally efficient and, if the operators are actually successful in driving up data usage, the HSPA+ radio network and backhaul will soon creak, the cost/performance ratio will start to become inverted and operators will have no choice but to throttle bandwidth and enforce tighter policies ... but in a world where CAPEX is hard to come by ... well, it's easy to see why HSPA+ is being seen as a real option.

* Sierra Wireless is an AxiCom client

2009-02-14T11:00:00.006Z

A new dawn?

Two days to go to MWC and themes are already emerging... HSPA+ is going to be big, with commercial deployments delivering speeds that may question just why is there such a rush for LTE. However, one theme has emerged which has seemingly come from no where ... solar-powered handsets!

With Samsung set to launch its 'eco-phone' dubbed 'Blue Earth', one could be forgiven for burying your head in your hands, shaking it in despair, and cursing Al Gore for unleashing a storm of eco-everything as companies jump on the bandwagon.

However, rumours abound that ZTE* will be launching the first low cost solar-powered phone at MWC.

Now, this really is a different story from the Samsung play. This isn't about making celebs feel better about themselves by giving them a trendy (and expensive) solar-powered phone that will only work if you live in the sun drenched Beverly Hills.

Bringing solar-power technology to an ultra-low cost handset will arguably do more to connect the two billion people who live in areas with limited or no electricity than anything else.

Watch this space ...

* ZTE is an AxiCom client at Mobile World Congress

2009-02-11T14:30:00.003Z

Boiler broken? Call the Cisco plumber

News that Cisco has gone to the debt market to raise $4 billion has got tongues wagging and minds thinking. Not only is its ability to raise finance in this environment newsworthy in itself in this economic climate, but it is innevitably prompting speculation that it is ready to launch M&A raids.

The NYT has highlighted the "usual suspects" of EMC, Red Hat, Sun, BMC or NetApp in the enterprise space, but pointed a possible finger towards Skype given Cisco's stated desire to get more into consumer electronics. Start embedding Skype in set-top boxes or WiFi appliances to and you start to get an idea of how it might play in them a household's (internet) plumbing.

The FT takes a similar stab in the dark and reports that Cisco is on the hunt for consumer video, virtualisation software, cloud computing and data centre technology.

As everything moves inexorably into the 'cloud', the network is the computer so anything that supports that trend is bound to be on their hitlist... and with $4 billion, you've got to figure there's quite a long list of possible targets.

2009-02-09T13:59:00.005Z

It's more than just a matter of grammar

As we enter the death-throws of the final run-in into this year's Mobile World Congress, it's almost innevitable that we see the obligatory speculation about Microsoft and their great play to seize the mobile market. Afterall, they monopolised the desktop, so why not extend that dominance to the mobile device?

Rumours now seem to be focused on what is more than just a grammatical battle between the iPhone (Apple) and MyPhone (Microsoft). If VNUnet is right, we'll see the launch of an online app store. Well hoo-bloody-rah. Just what the world needs, another app store. Or not.

M$ has had what can best be described as a mixed track record in the mobile world. They've lost the mobile email battle to Blackberry; the mobile OS war is no nearer conclusion with Android and Linux all now weighing in; and some of the smartphones have been, well, of mixed quality, shall we say.

Where Microsoft seems to struggle is in the belief that they can simply replicate what they did on the desktop in other markets. But with mobile operators already forcing handset vendors to play by their rules and use their User Interface etc., it's not really a Microsoft-style market. It's not a market they can define and monopolise. OK, so they're picking up some mobile search deals, but you've got to imagine there are some hefty backroom deals being done on the commercial side.

And I guess that's the difference ... Apple comes in with the iPhone and it's the operators bending over backwards, surrendering the margins, to win the exclusive rights for their market. Microsoft, meanwhile, is still stuck playing catch-up.

So, MyPhone or iPhone? Well, one may be better grammar, but sadly for Microsoft they don't teach grammar at schools anymore.

2009-02-06T12:50:00.000Z

Testing! Testing! One! Two!

The 'digital dividend' is back in the news again with OFCOM apparently planning to make a wider band of spectrum available for mobile broadband services than originally proposed. Predictably, mobile operators are in unison applauding the announcement because it will in theory kick-start mobile broadband by harmonising spectrum across Europe and so lower equipment costs.

However, DJs, social clubs and rock bands are set up be up in arms as sound checks the length of the country end up being silenced (and with it about £100m worth of kit) as their spectrum is taken.

While the case for harmonising spectrum across Europe makes sense, it does still beg the question as to whether the available spectrum is being used as efficiently as it should be. Already we're seeing the timetable for the switch-over to digital TV being driven by the need to free up spectrum for mobile services.

Planning and optimising the spectrum is a perpetual challenge that is only going to get harder for operators as the plethora of mobile technologies in the RAN become ever more complex.

2009-02-02T10:14:00.001Z

Let it Snow!

A bit of inclement weather and the country grinds to a halt! I mean, seriously, the worst snow in 18 years and suddenly the whole national infrastructure falls over.

And I mean the WHOLE national infrastructure ... even the mobile phone network!

OK, so I expect the websites of the rail companies to struggle with the traffic (I mean, if they can't run a train network, why should their IT network be any different), but getting a "network busy" signal on my mobile when I tried to make a call? Well, that's just not on.

It seems ludicrous that the mobile phone network can't cope with spikes in traffic, but then when you consider the complexity of planning a radio network and the fact that for many operators the management of it is still not automated and maybe it's not a surprise. If the network engineers can't get into work, how can they fix it when it starts to creak under the strain?

At the end of last year I picked 'Self-Optimising Networks' as a theme for 2009, and you can see why. If an operator had SON, then as soon as a cell starts to creak, neighbouring cells can turn-up their power and take some of the strain. Similarly, the network could prioritise certain traffic to ensure that voice calls still go through. Actix* is one of the companies that is leading the charge in SON and automated Network Status Management (NSM) ... and you have to say, any more snow and they'll be quids in!

* Actix is an AxiCom client

2009-01-29T08:33:00.000Z

The Wireless Internet - a way of life, not a technology!

I moderated a great roundtable yesterday put on by our Consumer Tech practice on ""WiFi rejuvination in 2009", run on behalf of Devicescape and in partnership with The Cloud and Trustive.

One of the main conclusions to come out the debate between the panelists and the journalists, bloggers and analysts that attended was that when it comes to 'Wireless Internet', definitions come down not to technology, but to user expectation, demographic, usage scenarios and applications. It's not, as the adage (kind of) goes, how fast it is, but what you do with it that matters.

Devicescape had commissioned some research of its global user base to try and find out some end user perceptions of WiFi and 3G. What was apparent from it is that the Smartphone - and in particular the iPhone - has been a complete game changer in how WiFi is seen and used. As The Cloud observed, free WiFi in retail locations such as McDonalds is not only driving footfall for the retailer, but also indicative of the way consumers are using Wireless Internet. Social networking, Internet browsing and instant messaging are the applications that the 18-24 demographic is using ... and they're not opening up their laptops in McDonalds so they can type away with their ketchup-covered fingers, but rather using their Nokia or iPhone/iPod Touch to update their Facebook status.

When it came to the age-old WiFi v 3G debate, Trustive made an interesting argument that 3G is a back-up for WiFi coverage, not vice versa. Indeed, when you consider the still extortionate 3G data roaming costs, you can see the user case. It's also clear that transparency in charging is critical to the user. Where paid-for WiFi hotspots have gone wrong is that it's a fixed charge for a use-it-or-lose-it period of time ... £5 for an hour's usage, for example. However, in no way will a user pay that if all they want to do is a quick bit of browsing or just download their emails (unless they can expense it back, of course!). Trustive's take on it is charge by the second, and apply your pool of credit to their international coverage. So that's 30 seconds in McD's to update my Facebook; 8 minutes at the train station checking directions to my next destination; and 32 minutes at the hotel looking up detox diets online to recover from the burger! And the user still has credit left. By charging by the second, it is all that much more transparent ... I'm sorry, call me stupid but I don't really know how big a MB of data is, so don't charge me by the MB. I can tell the time, but I can't look at an online app and know that the poorly designed UI will eat up 1MB of data.

So, what did we learn? Well, the debate finished where it started ... the Wireless Internet is about the user experience. And while WiFi goes along way towards addressing it and providing a real alternative to 3G (both in terms of speed and cost), the user really doesn't care - and nor should they - what technology they are using. They just want it to work. To this end, Devicescape seems to be on to a winner by providing the automatic WiFi connection that means that the Wireless Internet just happens.

The roundtable was held at The Hospital near Covent Garden, and one couldn't help but think that with a title ' WiFi rejuvination' the choice of location wasn't all that auspicious. But in fact, coming out of the event, there was a sense of optimism coupled with an acute awareness that there is still alot of work to be done. With the GSMA confusing matters with their 'mobile broadband' branding campaign, explaining to the consumer what the wireless Internet experience should be will remain a constant challenge.

2009-01-20T11:02:00.000Z

Is mobile the way out of the recession?

Well, no, of course it's not. But, the latest research out of India has found that increased mobile penetration boosts economic growth. According to the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). When investigating the socio-economic impact of mobile technology, the researchers found that Indian states with 10 per cent higher mobile phone penetration enjoy an annual average growth rate 1.2 per cent higher than those with a lower teledensity, according to an interesting article on Telecoms.com.

But this shouldn't be a surprise. As my post on January 4th commented, you can see a real link between mobile penetration and the state of socio-economic development. For all the noise around how mobile phones can increase economic, as well as just physical, mobility in 'developing' markets, it's always interesting when the boffins actually manage to quantify it!

2009-01-15T08:00:00.000Z

RIP Nortel?

So Nortel has finally filed for Chapter 11. It's being called the first major tech casualty of the global recession, but the reality is Nortel has been on a life support machine for years. In fact, from a PR perspective, it's been dead for what seems like an eternity. They suffered the biggest problem of all for a company ... they became boring.

There's no excuse for that really. When you look at their heritage, the companies they've acquired over the years, the technology they have, the global reach they can deliver, they should be at the top of the pile, or as damn well near it. But the reality couldn't be further away. They've lacked a compelling story. No-one knew what they stood for, what their vision was, where they were lookign to take themselves and their customers in the future.

On the plus side, at least we now do know where they're heading.

So what does the future hold for Nortel? Well, rumours about the possible hiving off of technology have long circulated, with the Metro Ethernet business looking to be the first to go.

Nortel could re-emerge from the ashes and become, as I once described another company we were pitching, a "corpse with a vision"*, but someone I'm doubting it. Not only is there consensus among analysts is that the parts are more valuable than the sum, but you have to question what equity there is left in the Nortel brand.

Oh, and the "corpse with a vision"? We actually won the client, so the analogy can't be that bad!

2009-01-05T03:50:00.000Z

Mobility - social, economic and physical

When you read about mobile adoption and penetration, it's just numbers. It doesn't necessary mean anything real. But here's an observation as my Christmas and New Year break in India draws to a close... when I I last came out to India three years ago, the inlaws all had mobiles, but that was about it. We swapped mobile numbers, showed the aunts how to send an SMS and thought all was good.

However, now not only do all the inlaws have mobiles (and some of them have a Blackberry as well), but so do the servants and drivers! Now if you want a cup of tea, you don't shout out (or worse still actually get up off the chair you're lounging in!), you just phone one of the servants on their prepaid mobiles. When you're in the city and arranging with the driver when to pick you up (parking is a nightmare), no longer are you saying "see you back here in two hours" ... now you just take their number, give them a missed call to makesure you entered it right, and head off on the basis that you can just summon them when needed.

As if that's not enough, the roaming charges are also seeing people using multiple SIMs. Once you are 'out of station' (for example, you live in Bangalore but are in Calcutta for a couple of weeks for a family wedding as was the case for us), you just pop a local prepaid SIM into your phone so the innumerable wedding planning calls flying about are all at the local rate. In-country roaming is, therefore, also inflating subscriber numbers. Similarly the variation in coverage meaning that a phone that works well in the jungle of Tamil Nadu (typically CDMA WLL) isn't the best phone for use in the metropolis of Bangalore where GSM dominates, and vice versa.

The challenge, one suspects, will be in the success of operators in moving subscribers from prepaid to contract and in building a genuinely national mobile phone network where one phone and one SIM really will be all that people need. So while subscription numbers in total will continue to rise, a key metric to track will be the number of contracts a subscriber has, and the proportion of prepaid therein.

2008-12-17T11:40:00.000Z

2009 predictions (well, everyone else is at it!)

As the year winds down with yet more gloom (though whether Voda's decision to stop sponsoring the England cricket team is credit crunch driven, or a result of their woeful result against India this week, it's hard to be sure), looking forward to 2009 has to be a bit more cheerful ... doesn't it?

So, in no particular order, what will be some of the themes for 2009...

1. Femtocells will be revealed as the emperor with no clothes. It's all the rage, all very trendy, but anyone actually have any idea on how the price point will come down to where it can be a consumer product? Will they actually solve the technical issues that are starting to come out of the woodwork as operator trials come to a close? They've been great PR fodder this year, but 2009 will see femtocells starting to talk the LTE story. Surely recognition that they've missed this first boat and are having to refocus on a technology that is still another couple of years off. Which means theme two will be ...

2. Start-ups running out of cash. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecies, but Sequioa seems to have single-handedly frozen the whole VC market. If companies were expecting revenue this year but see this pushed out, we'll surely see some bright ideas staying as just bright ideas and never coming to market.

3. Self-optimising networks (SON) have been talked about for a while, but now operators are starting to join in. Cutting OPEX will be a key focus in 2009 and, with the RAN accounting for the single largest expense, operators will look to move SON from theory as they look cut costs out of their business, while still delivering a true mobile broadband experience for subscribers.

4. LTE-this, LTE-that ... the down in the weeds techies will have their moment in the sun in 2009 as the underlying protocols on which LTE is built get their airing. From DPI to GAN, we'll see three letter acronyms flooding the market to explain other three letter acronyms. What's not to love about telecoms!

5. Mini-notebooks ... already a growing phenonoma, this new form factor will become the mobile broadband device. Embedding HSPA into the devices and bundling them with operator contracts will become the norm.

2008-12-12T18:14:00.000Z

We're doomed Captain!

I was optimistic for a while (or is that naive?) ... when the big bad credit crunch hit I made the argument that the mobile sector would be relatively protected. Afterall, after the last telecoms crash cut out the fat in the industry so it's already lean and mean. Also, the research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in July claimed that a mobile phone had now now from being a 'luxury' to an 'essential' item in people's lives. Getting rid of your mobile phone just isn't an option.

But of course it cuts deeper than that and the news today that AlcaLu is cutting jobs is all part of the general doom and gloom.

So what does it all mean? Well, we're all going to have to work alot harder to make the case for the business benefits of technology. In a recession, you have to cut costs out of a business and technology is the path. Hence we're seeing debates around, for example, Unified Communications develop from being focused on productivity gains to have a clear recession-busting slant.

How technology plays into these 'new economics' will be the key battleground, I suspect, of 2009. And as we know, if you frame the debate, you have a much better chance of winning the debate!

2008-12-11T09:47:00.000Z

Top 10 Mobile Brands

Today, Mobile Communications International has published a list of the "most valuable operator brands". In many ways, it's a list of the usual suspects, Voda is #2, followed by the T-Mo's, Oranges and Verizon's of the world. However, seeing China Mobile at #1 struck me as interesting ... and I can't help thinking it's a bit skewed. Yes, China Mobile has got a growing list of subsidiaries around the world (for example in Pakistan), but ranking a brand by value when the quirk of fate has it operating in the largest market in the world does seem to distort things.

So, what's the unscientific 'top 10'? The list of the top 10 operators who are 'most interesting'?

#1 - T-Mobile US ... forced to act like the new entrant, their 3G roll-out has happened at world record speed and are using UMA technology to deliver aggressive homezone priving and services to grab market share. Oh, and don't forget they're right out there at the forefront with the Google phone.
#2 - Orange ... they're pioneering FMC strategies and, with services like Unik, at the bleeding edge of technology
#3 - Softbank ... to be honest, I don't know much about these guys apart from the fact that if there's something new to try (e.g. femtocells), they're bound to be at the head of the queue of operators trying to work out how the hell they can make money from it!
#4 - China Mobile ... ok, ok, I'll defer to the 'pros' and put them high up the list. They're big. They're the 800lb gorilla to watch. So they're on this list because we should forget about them at our peril!
#5 - Sprint Nextel ... bless 'em, they're trying to build a business case for WiMAX. They deserve points for at least trying, don't they? Certainly by the criteria of are they "interesting", they certainly make the list.
#6 - NTT DoCoMo ... the Frank Sinatra of the industry ... yep, you got it, they'll do it their way!
#7 - Reliance ... anyone of a host of the Indian operators could make the list, but Reliance have always been the ones to grab my attention at least. Real innovators in some of the services they're delivering, making massive strides in terms of growth and definitely one to watch.
#8 - O2, AT&T (and any other operator who took the iPhone) ... if you're making enough money to be able to give a huge chunk of change to Apple, good luck to you. But when you look at some of the stats coming back (certainly from AT&T whose network has been crushed by the data usage driven by the iPhone) they are demanding attention
#9 - Telefonica ...They could (they should?) be up there with Orange / FT ... they've got it all, the mobile, the fixed, the geographies ... a sleeping giant
#10 - Vodafone ... maybe I'm just deliberately contrary, but god are Vodafone boring. Technology innovators? Hell no. Most interesting as a brand because increasingly that seems to be all they are. And just who are they competing against?

You may quible (and I'm sure you will) with who's in the list and where, but the point is this... if you're looking at who the innovators are, who are the operators who are leading, rather than following, you start to see a different list.

Leadership can obviously be defined in all manner of ways. But what ever definition you use, when you put your PR hat on, there's only one measure that matters ... are you interesting!

2008-12-03T10:45:00.000Z

Better late than never?

Finally. Nokia has come out with what is purported to be its response to the iPhone. Oh, and its response to the Android-based G1 from T-Mobile/Google. Oh, and to the Samsung touch screen phones. Oh, and to the ...

Can you see what it is yet, as Rolf Harris would say?

For a company that is the market leader, Nokia's complacency has been stunning in many respects. It seems to have been either blindsided by Apple and Google, or just been unable to demonstrate the rapid innovation that propelled it to its current position. While Nokia has nailed the business market with the E and N series, in the consumer market the threat from the new guys has been a sharp one.

There are clearly some constants emerging across all these devices that point towards where the mobile industry sees (hopes) mobile data will come from. No longer is video the great hope. Social networking and widget-based applications are now the big thing.

If you look at the sort of data usage being reported back from operators who are supporting (and that also means bankrolling giving the slice of cash they have to hand over to Apple), it's clear that these devices are the catalyst for a dramatically increased data usage by subscribers.

Of course, Nokia is making a much bigger play that just shipping shiny phones. Just looking at the other announcements it made at its Barcelona event where it unveiled the N97, and there is news around Nokia Maps, Nokia Messaging and its acquisition of Symbian.

Google v Nokia. It's an OS war. It's a handset war. It's a content war. And looking at the pace of innovation in both companies and their ability to really understand the consumer and where they are heading ... you'd be crazy not to have at least an each way bet on Google to win.

2008-12-02T09:42:00.000Z

Mobile set to beat enterprise VoIP to the punch

Interesting report out today from Analysys Mason which claims that as businesses look to cut their communication costs, it is fixed-mobile substitution and not enterprise VoIP that will hold sway.

Interestingly though, we're not looking at WiFi voice (ie enterprise FMC services) here, but rather mobile operators slashing their wholesale costs so the rates for large business customers are plummeting.

According to analyst Margaret Hopkins: “As fixed–mobile substitution continues, enterprise interest in FMC is still being driven by a desire to reduce mobile bills, especially for calls from fixed to mobile, and for roaming charges. The opportunity for integrating Wi-Fi and cellular voice depends on these charges remaining high.”

So, mobile operators are responding to the challenge of VoIP. Well, that's a good thing, isn't it?

Yes and no. They're responding by cutting margins not by cutting their costs. If Analysys Mason is right, the fixed line guys like BT will continue to struggle and the mobile operators will win the battle for the building. But at what cost?

Mobile operators need to do more than just cut call charges ... that's all a bit too much like the dot.com fetish with 'eyeballs' and to hell with what the revenue ie. And we all know where that ended.

But if they can be a bit more innovative then they really can land the sucker punch. Maybe it's a case of extending UMA-based services from the consumer to the business market? Or maybe offloading traffic on to the enterprise network so they can reduce their costs by using the customers IP network instead of their own backhaul. If the operators are winning this battle, it's a good sign for the companies in the business of these sort of technologies.

For the vendors doing enterprise VoIP though, well, it's a less promising lookout.

2008-11-28T13:52:00.000Z

EU Roaming ... but what about the fraud?

The EU has finally bitten the bullet today and announced it will introduce measures that will slash the cost of sending a text while abroad and reform the way phone operators charge for data calls made when customers roam.

For the subscriber, this is clearly great news. But for the operators? What does it mean?

Well, if you look at the issue of roaming fraud, it soon becomes clear that squeezing the margins on roaming could have a significant impact. Roaming fraud represents one of the most prevalent forms of revenue leakage for mobile operators today. A constantly growing and mobile population of subscribers is incurring losses for operators largely down to outdated roaming processes. A ccording to a GSMA survey in 2007, operators are routinely suffering losses in the region of EURO11.1 million over a two-year period, making it a very real threat to an operator’s bottom line.

A retail cap of €0.11 per roamed text message (down from an average of €0.29) on the 2.5 billion text messages sent every year by roaming customers in the EU is bad enough. Add to that the wholesale cap of €1 per megabyte of roamed data also announced and it’s clear that operators need to get their houses in order and put in place the revenue assurance systems that will enable to them to wring every last cent out before the revenue stream is throttled.

2008-11-28T09:45:00.001Z

India ... some good news on a bad news day

While the world's attention is focused on the shocking events in Mumbai, it's easy to be drawn into a spiral of doom and gloom. India is a country I know well and love even more. A country full of diversity in all the best and worst that that implies. But it's richness is something one can't deny.

The potential of the country is similarly unarguable.

The Telecoms Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has just announced that 10.42 million mobile subscribers were added in October alone. This follows on from 10+ million in September and over 9 million in August ... making a staggering 92.1 million new mobile subscribers in 2008 so far and a total of well over 325 million nationally.

It's easy to see both why the likes of Vodafone and Telenor are making big moves on the market ... and on the flip side why behemoths like Tata are now undisputed global companies.

Ultra-low cost handsets will undoubtedly further drive the unquenchable growth in Indian mobile subscribers. But is that enough? Is it enough to just add more and more subscribers ... especially when the ARPU per subscriber is going to get ever smaller as less well off communities become connected?

India, however, can also give us much to learn about mobile content ... a continent with such a passion for music, where Bollywood stars make the Hello Magazine faces of the West seem anonymous in comparison; with such a passion for sport, where cricketers are not only megastars in the true definition of the word but are reinventing a sport and, despite the poverty in parts of the country, contributing over 70 percent of the money in the sport globally ... such a market is going to offer up rich potential for mobile content.

Well, provided the networks can cope, the pricing and business models make sense, and the right sort devices are in the hands of subscribers.

So, while there is understandable concern about the recent violence in Mumbai (and don't get me started on that ... Indian history and politics is my first love and I could wax lyrical for hours!) the potential of India remains undimmed.

2008-11-27T18:31:00.001Z

It was only a matter of time ... the great branding machine that is Apple has been pulled up by the regulator. Only its the advertisting regulator (the ASA) not the telecoms one (OFCOM) that's done the deed.

Apple may be redefining the mobile user experience with the iPhone but it's also had to finally accept that it can't control the whole experience. It's dependent on the mobile operator and their network.

So what does this all mean? Well, Apple is taking a risk with its brand. Suddenly, the Apple experience (or is that the "i-xperience"?) isn't controlled end-to-end by Stevie J. There's a crucial link - the mobile network - which has a massive impact on the user experience and is beyond their control.

Not only that, but if you look at the stats being reported back by the likes of ATandT about the impact the iPhone is having on their network, and you realise that the mobile network is creaking under the strain. The mobile operator's getting hammered. The iPhone experience is getting hammered. And now, finally, the regulator has stepped in and pointed out to Apple that there is a real world out there, inhabited by real people who are using the iPhone to do real things.

So let's applaud Apple for doing what they do best ... creating and sharing a dream. But let's also remember that dreams can be interpreted in multiple ways. And how the subscriber interprets it will depend on the quality of service on the mobile network to which they are subscribed.