With 80% of traffic generated indoors, high quality in-building network performance is essential for operators’ future profitability and competitive advantage. Mario Bouchard, CEO of iBwave, tells Keith Dyer about his company’s new applications and services, and highlights the strategic importance of in-building network planning and operations. Finally, why is the in-building coverage so sketchy at a wireless industry trade show…?
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What requirements are network operators placing on the core enablers of their infrastructure equipment? LSI’s Troy Bailey tells Keith Dyer how his company helps operators take advantage of the mobile data and cloud services opportunity, and what technologies are driving LSI’s systems development.
(Video produced in association with Mobile Europe sponsor Radisys)
Manish Singh, CTO of Radisys, discusses the chief issues causing disruption for operators today: smart device proliferation, WiFi and small cells, hybrid LTE, LTE-Advanced and Voice over LTE.
(Produced in association with Mobile Europe sponsor Radisys)
Lyn Cantor, President of Tektronix Communications, tells Keith Dyer how operators can exploit their network and customer data to increase revenues and profitability.
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Mobile Europe wrote last week about Acision’s intention to change its business model to start marketing its access to operator SMS infrastructure directly to brands.
Acision’s view is that SMS is still the most ubiquitous form of messaging, and offers the most scale, certainty of delivery and interaction to brands and advertisers. Despite industry buzz around WhatsApp and Pinger and other “closed community” messaging apps, SMS still has the reach and ubqiquity that brands and advertisers need, in Acision’s view.
Brands running SMS campaigns at the moment need to deal with a middleman,
usually an aggregator or similar who has bought large volumes of SMS from the operator’s wholesale team. Acision, which has supplied many of the SMSCs that handle SMS delivery, wants to cut out that middleman, or effectively be the middleman itself.
It says to operators that it will pay them for access to their network, to the control, QoS and signalling information in the network. Then it wants to use that knowledge to sell on services to brands and agencies looking to run large scale messaging campaigns. The operator gets a share of those deals as well, Acision said. And it’s not just about SMS today, it’s also about next generation messaging tomorrow. Acision is looking to extend its business into cloud-based IP messaging, allowing delivery of messaging services similar to today’s App style services natively to the mass user base.
At the time that CEO Jorgen Nilsson told us of the opportunity, we asked how he would handle client management. Would Acision be selling directly to brands, forming a media sales unit?
Well, at MWC Acision presented jointly with mobile marketing company Soli on the enterprise messaging opportunity, and today Acision has formally announced that it has signed up with Soli, using the company as its mobile marketing channel for the delivery of “trusted” messaging services.
“This new partnership with Soli will unite the traditional telecoms community of carriers with global brands, enabling them to take advantage of the clear potential in mobile,” said Jorgen Nilsson in Acision’s press statement today. “Text messaging remains the most ubiquitous and highest revenue-generating service today and this partnership will stimulate the evolution of messaging as a whole, by guaranteeing the quick delivery and roll-out of messaging campaigns to consumers, and creating competitive advantage for all parties involved.”
Acision said that the partnership would give enterprises will have greater control and transparency over audience reach and the success of campaigns through standardisation of the delivery process and structure, increased global coverage and more sophisticated intelligence and reporting.
“Brands understand that their next billion consumers are living on their mobile phones and that they need a protected channel to engage their audience in conversation,” added Mark Kaplan, founder and CEO of Soli. “The Acision partnership will enable Soli to have that direct line to consumers, as well as enable local businesses to establish meaningful loyalty programs for the first time. Because of this partnership, mobile marketing can now deliver on its promise.”
Examples of the new service delivery models include integrated mobile couponing, SMS rewards, and promotions. Local businesses, for example, can leverage sponsor offers or create their own loyalty programs, while consumers can opt into channels and connect with the brands they love without concerns about their data being shared with unknown third parties. The platform provides an explicit opt-in/opt-out approach to campaigns from point of origination to termination, while maintaining the integrity of the consumer data.
Steven van Zanen, SVP Strategy and Marketing at Acision, said, “In the same way that Acision pioneered mobile messaging, working with Soli, we are once again at the forefront in driving the next phase of messaging to ensure its ongoing longevity and to help all players in the mobile marketing ecosystem to effectively capitalise on its enormous potential.”
I was mildly intrigued by a story late last week stating that Eurotunnel was, thanks to “new technology” from Alcatel-Lucent, on the brink of bringing mobile services to the 30 odd miles of the Channel Tunnel. As the reports were very vague, most mentioning the same form of words — that Al-Lu had managed to “link mobile signals to an undersea tunnel” (say what?) — I wondered what this “new technology” would be. Well, today, Eurotunnel and its partners released further details.
Here’s the relevant parts of the release:
In line with its ambition to innovate and to improve customer service, Eurotunnel will install a 2G (GSM 900,DCS1800) and 3G (UMTS 2100) GSM-P telephone system which will allow Le Shuttle and high speed passenger train customers to use their mobile telephones inside the Channel Tunnel, in time for the Olympic Games.
Offering a wi-fi service 100 metres below the Channel, to the almost 20 million customers who travel through the 53km of the Channel Tunnel every year is a world first.
The installation, which will cost of €14 million, has been made possible by the signature of an agreement, on 06 March 2012, at the French Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Industry by Eurotunnel and the telecoms operators in France, Bouygues Telecom, Orange SFR and Free.
The installation of this additional, mobile telecommunications service has been made possible as Eurotunnel is already in the process of installing the latest version of GSM-R1 railway signaling equipment. The choice of the same equipment supplier for both GSM-P and GSM-R, Alcatel-Lucent, will ensure the compatibility of the infrastructure and enable costs to be controlled whilst accelerating the installation.
The French operators will provide an extension of their 2G/3G coverage through the South running tunnel (running France-UK) via a radiating cable and repeaters positioned every 750 metres. The North running tunnel (UK-France) will be covered by British operators after the Olympic Games.
So, this “new technology” seems to be a result of deploying (fairly) traditional radiating feeder cable plus repeaters, with the added bonus of being able to use existing Alcatel-Lucent GSM-R signalling equipment, hence reducing the cost of installation.
Tell me in the comments if I’m wrong. I know you will.
(PS What’s also “quite interesting” about this is the multi-service (2G,3G,Wifi) aspect combined with the multi-operator part of the deal. It’s a model that many think could be a cost effective way of providing in-building and indoor coverage in other environments – effectively active network sharing where the active elements are owned by a third party (or proxy), such as a stadium or mall owner.)
(PPS: Also, I don’t understand why the France-UK tunnel is the south running tunnel. Shouldn’t it be the other way round?)
We’ve had a note from Rob Bruce, Axell Wireless’ EMEA Sales Director, confirming that Axell is providing the DAS (Distributed Antenna System) to the project. Bruce told us, “Axell Wireless is using a fibre optic Distributed Antenna System (DAS) to propagate mobile signals, both voice and data, throughout the tunnel.
“Both the Northbound tunnel, for which mobile phone access is controlled by French mobile operators, and the Southbound tunnel, controlled by UK mobile operators, are being equipped with coverage equipment supplied by Axell Wireless. Timing regarding the provisioning and operation of services is under the control of the relevant operators.
“Consumer mobile services in the Eurotunnel will operate on a separate system to the specialist railway communications network, known as GSM-R, which is also being enabled using Axell Wireless technology.”
END OF UPDATE/
UK operator Orange today re-attacked the home fixed-line broadband market with a tariff package that includes 500 inclusive call minutes to mobile phones. The £15 per month rate gives customers a 12 month home broadband price plan with no connection fee, unlimited broadband usage, inclusive anytime calls to landlines, 500 inclusive minutes to mobile phones and landline calls to 30 international countries.
Orange said it had introduced its new package to give customers “peace of mind when using their landline to call mobiles”.
The Broadband and Anytime Mobile Calls plan also comes with McAfee Anti-virus 2012 + Parental controls, a Bright Box wireless ‘n-series’ router, and access to Orange brand benefits such as Orange Wednesdays and Orange Films to Go. Orange pay monthly mobile customers taking up Orange home broadband and calls will also qualify for inclusive Wi-Fi hotspot access to over 200,000 locations across the country.
Sylvain Thevenot, Director of Marketing & Propositions, Orange Broadband said: “We have taken our plans to the next level and created the UK’s first ever package with inclusive mobile minutes. Our new plan continues to play a part in our commitment to offer our customers the most transparent and best value broadband deals across the country.”
The new plans will be supported with a Brighter Broadband marketing campaign, which includes digital and in-store placements, and direct marketing to existing customers, using the Orange Ninja creative.
Orange’s bundling of calls to mobiles with home broadband throws a light on the strategic importance “mobile only” operators attach to having an “in-home” presence. Not only can it be useful from a data offloading point of view, but it also extends the brand beyond mobile and allows a platform for other services – especially in content. Orange’s first efforts to offer consumers free or cheap voice came with a VoIP over Wireless offering through its livebox. This landline-to-mobile offering is a more traditional
The second possibility, more tactical, is that the margin loss for Orange on subsidising calls terminating to mobile networks is less, following cuts to mobile termination rates (MTRs). Whilst it suffers in terms of its own topline revenues, Orange can also take advantage of this in the wholesale market to offer its home broadband users inclusive calls to mobiles.
From summer 2012 all new BMW cars in Germany will be fitted with M2M SIMs supplied by Vodafone Germany. The Vodafone SIM will provide customers with access to in-car services such as the BMW Online Services, a concierge service for BMW drivers and an emergency call function.
The five-year agreement between Vodafone Germany and the BMW Group involves fitting SIM cards within the vehicles at the assembly plant. The service being provided by Vodafone is based on machine-to-machine technology, which allows different devices to communicate with each other.
A Vodafone press release said that in the futur this technology will become even more crucial for the automotive sector with the introduction of ‘eCall’ – the automatic vehicle emergency call system in that is being planned by the European Union. From 2015 onwards, all new cars will be fitted with latest mobile data connection and SIM card that automatically calls the emergency services in the event of an accident.
The Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance, an operator group that produces requirements and specifications to the mobile industry, has used Mobile World Congress to call for equipment providers to harmonise on multi-band LTE devices and on standardised OSS interfaces.
The first requirement is to produce a list of key essential radio bands that devices must support, so that devices will be able to roam globally on LTE networks that operate in different spectrum bands. At the moment, with operators operating in LTE spectrum from 700Mhz up to 2.6GHz, there are already 10 bands being used for LTE, Yuhong Huang, Deputy General Manager China Mobile Research Institute.
The mobile operators therefore see a need in the future for a single, global device platform, and through the NGMN Alliance have launched a “Multi-band multi-mode” project together with major chipset and device manufactures to work on a roadmap towards multi-band multi-mode devices.
Huang said, “The NGMN Alliance invites all device ecosystem vendors to join the MBMM activity to enable cost effective multi-band multi-mode global UE platform and ecosystem, significantly enhancing the economy of scale and seamless LTE global roaming”.
The Alliance has also called for the industry to allow operators to standardise and integrate their OSS, in the same manner as Deutsche Telekom has achieved.
Klaus-Jürgen Krath, SVP Radio Networks, Deutsche Telekom said that today’s operator have to manage a variety of network and service production infrastructures, from mobile and fixed network environments up to converged networks. This has an enormous impact on network operations, with high integration costs.
The NGMN project is intended to produce standardised interfaces between the Telco infrastructure and the OSS (Operations Support Systems) to reduce that.
“The detailed operations requirements, developed by the NGMN Alliance, have already been shared and reviewed with all leading Telco and IT vendors and involved industry organisations”, said Krath. “The NGMN operators encourage all these industry stakeholders to support in a joint effort the further enhancement of the requirements and, in particular, the implementation of NGCOR results in order to achieve the targeted benefits and savings. The deployment will be driven by operators putting the requirements in upcoming tenders.”
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