Ronny Haraldsvik, CMO of BelAir Networks, tells Keith Dyer that as operators deploy denser networks, with smaller cell sizes, they will need to be pragmatic as to how they support their access and backhaul needs.
They will also need flexible technology solutions that can support this pragmatic approach.
For more on BelAir’s solutions for this sector, including the launch of its integrated WiFi/3G/LTE 2100 Metrocell, see http://www.belairnetworks.com.
(This is a sponsored video)
Ronny Haraldsvik, CMO of BelAir Networks, tells Keith Dyer that as operators deploy denser networks, with smaller cell sizes, they will need to be pragmatic as to how they support their access and backhaul needs.
They will also need flexible technology solutions that can support this pragmatic approach.
For more on BelAir’s solutions for this sector, including the launch of its integrated WiFi/3G/LTE 2100 Metrocell, see http://www.belairnetworks.com.
(This is a sponsored video)
The Mobile Money Network (MMN) has launched its Simply Tap mobile payments application and service.
Carphone Warehouse (CEO Andrew Harrison pictured) is one of the first retailers to have offered customers the option to pay by Simply Tap, along with Thorntons, Goldsmiths, thehut.com, Pretty Green and moreTvicar.com.
Simply Tap, built on a payments platform developed by Monitise — one of the founder companies of the MMN — does not use NFC. Instead, it requires a customer to go through a one-off registration process to input information such as card details and delivery address.
Customers can use the Simply Tap service on their phones to order products wherever they see a product with a SimplyTap code attached by tapping that code into their mobile phone. The product code could be online, in-store or on an advert.
“This initial launch phase is all about gathering as much intelligence as possible,” John Milliken, Managing Director of The Mobile Money Network, said. “We expect to learn an enormous amount about how consumers want to use their mobiles to shop. We are already developing the second version of the app where you can expect to see image recognition as a major feature.”
Andrew Harrison, CEO of Best Buy Europe and Carphone Warehouse added, “Simply Tap will provide retailers with compelling new options when it comes to marketing and selling products. Customers want to be able to pay for goods via any device and on any network. Today is evidence of a shared vision amongst UK retailers and we look forward to our staff and partners being the first in the world to use this genuinely unique service.”
Nick Holland, Senior Analyst at Yankee Group said, “Mobile payments are about far more than a financial transaction and this service will enable retailers to capitalise on the fusion of physical and virtual worlds using mobile technology as a conduit.”
On Android: http://bit.ly/vCQ1vQ
From the Apple App Store: http://bit.ly/tyjpq9
Canadian company DragonWave is to buy Nokia Siemens Networks’ (NSN) microwave business for €15 million in cash and shares, to boost its microwave backhaul and transport business.
The NSN deal, scheduled to close in Q1 2012, will see NSN retain responsibility for its existing solutions sales and services for microwave transport, while DragonWave will be responsible for the product line, including R&D, product management and operations functions. The companies expect approximately 360 NSN employees, mainly based in Milan, Italy and Shanghai, China, to transfer to DragonWave.
Marc Rouanne, head of Network Systems, NSN, said that this “strategic relationship” approach would mean “customers would continue to receive high-quality services and sales support from Nokia Siemens Networks, while DragonWave’s best of breed products would ensure they have access to industry leading technology.”
Another way of looking at the deal is that DragonWave, a company hit by reduction in orders from major client Clearwire, has bought into NSN’s customer stream.
DragonWave’s revenue for the second quarter of fiscal year 2012 was $13.6 million, compared with $27.2 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 2011 and $11.0 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2012. The company has cut its workforce by 10% over 2011.
Significantly, therefore, a statement from DragonWave said that the planned deal would “substantially broaden and strengthen DragonWave’s product presence in major mobile operators throughout the world through Nokia Siemens Networks’ extensive global sales channel”.
Peter Allen, president & chief executive officer of DragonWave, said, “This relationship is transformational, giving us the ability to serve customers who want to access an integrated solution. In addition, it provides DragonWave an expanded technology base to address those customers who wish to purchase stand-alone best-in-breed products.”
A recent report from Infonetics placed NSN in fifth place by market share (see chart above) whilst an operator survey also carried out by Infonetics rated NSN joint second (tied with Ericsson, behind NEC) for microwave technology leadership.
In October 2010 DragonWave paid $9.5 million cash for pseudowire specialist Axerra Networks. (http://mobileeurope.co.uk/news/press-wire/8193-dragonwave-buys-axerra)
Lumata, a mobile marketing business formed by the spin off of Buongiorno’s B2B divisions into an entity backed by Francisco Partners, has begun commercial operations.
Lumata, which counts Orange, T-Mobile, Telecom Italia Mobile, Verizon, Airtel, MTS & Telefonica as clients, is the result of a €110 million deal announced by Buongiorno and private equity company Francisco Partners in August 2011. At that time, the companies said it would have ongoing revenues of €50 million.
Lumata, 40% owned by Buongiorno, combines Buongiorno’s operator, brand and manufacturer focused businesses within one company and is currently operating from 15 offices with 500 employees. The company said it plans to “focus on expanding the tools and services that its customers use to explore and seize new ways of interacting with their consumers”.
Former Clearwire executive and Match.com CEO Thomas Enraght-Moony will head the business.
Mauro Del Rio, founder and Chairman of Buongiorno and Board member of Lumata Group, said, “The Buongiorno B2B team has built a solid foundation. The combination of this team and Francisco Partners investment expertise makes this focused stand-alone company an incredibly exciting and logical next step in the businesses evolution. It will undoubtedly be the recipe for growth and success.”
All Android devices are not created equal and mobile operators need to be aware that certain devices may cost them in the long run, especially if they are mismatched at the point of sale to the customer.
That is the message from customer care and device support specialist, WDS, after it analysed 600,000 calls received to its customer care teams over the past year. WDS found that Android devices suffered a higher level of faults, or perceived faults, due to hardware quality than devices based on other smartphone OS.
WDS found that 14% of technical support calls on Android relate to hardware, versus 11% for Windows Phone, 7% for iOS and 6% for BlackBerry OS.
Tim Deluca-Smith, Vice President of Marketing at WDS, said that because there is a much wider variety of manufacturers developing on Android, there is therefore a wider disparity in the types and quality of hardware being used. Although it offers flexibility to operators, the lack of centralised control over components is also driving cost into their businesses, Deluca-Smith said.
WDS’ findings about Android returns are released in the same week as Kantar WorldPanel numbers showing that Android now holds a 49.9% share of the UK market, and is now “clearly” the number one OS across Europe.
Smartphones also accounted for 69.1% of all UK handset sales in the UK in the past quarter, so the costs of supporting smartphone devices are now more relevant than ever.
“There’s a naivety that Android is Android,” he said, “but operators need to be aware of the fragmentation issue and be aware of how that impacts the customer experience. You might get a new Android phone with a year old version of the OS, and no capability to upgrade because of hardware constraints.
“Operators need to consider the total lifecycle cost of devices, and that means carrying out more testing of devices, as well as making sure they are matching consumers to the right types of devices.”
That means that operators must be aware that when sales staff sell devices they are correctly matching them to the usage profile of the customer. A low-end phone in the wrong hands will under perform, for instance by not rendering graphics adequately, and may be returned as faulty as a result.
Each return, Deluca-Smith said, costs an operator on average $100 to handle (not including the cost or a replacement phone). With 5-10% of Android phones being returned, WDS came up with a $2 billion cost to operators globally, just in terms of supporting returned Android devices.
Interestingly, Deluca-Smith said that certain manufacturers tend to display certain faults. Apple devices tend to trend high in faulty mics and speakers. Blackberry has problems with button performance, while some manufacturers are more predisposed to touch screen faults.
As items such as screens, mics and buttons are commoditised across device ranges, a high end phone from one OEM may display the same fault in hardware as a low end phone – so it’s not just the case that cheap phones fail more often.
Additionally, a good feature phone may be preferable to a poorly performing smartphone.
“Operators are beginning to say that they wish they had more feature phones still to sell,” Deluca-Smith said.
You can access a download of the full WDS report, Controlling the Android, here: http://www.wds.co/enlightened/whitepaper.asp
LTE promises greatly accelerated data rates — even when mobile users are travelling at hundreds of kilometers per hour. However, as LTE moves from the labs into actual deployments, debates over the glaring gap in delivering voice over an LTE network are growing.
Voice is the major revenue generator for operators, and voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) is now being touted as the technology of choice for delivering voice to LTE networks.
In this webinar EXFO’s LTE experts examine the benefits of VoLTE, and the challenges (both pre-deployment and post-deployment) faced by manufacturers and operators developing and deploying VoLTE networks.
Learn more about:
• Why VoLTE and why now?
• How operators can guarantee call quality that meets and exceeds expectations of end-users
• The challenges of interoperating with legacy networks (UMTS, GSM, CDMA, etc.)
• The co-existence of data and voice over a shared network
• Monitoring, troubleshooting and analysing a deployed VoLTE network
Date: Wednesday, 2nd November 2011, 2pm GMT
Host: Keith Dyer, Editor, Mobile Europe
Presenters: Murat Bilgic, Director of Wireless Technology, CTO Office, EXFO: Alvin Francis, Director, Simulator Business Unit, EXFO: Wayne Davis, Service Assurance Product Manager, EXFO
Nokia is investing in a 26 site trial of free public WiFi hotspots in London. The company has funded the installation of 26 access points across central London, siting equipment in public telephone boxes owned by Spectrum Interactive, a UK WiFi service provider.
The trial is live from today, and will run until the end of December. Nokia will assess the results at that point, to see how it wants to progress. Any WiFi enabled device can log-on to the sites, as long as the user accepts the T’s& C’s on the landing page.
There were few commercial details available today, although with the trial limited to just 26 sites, there would be little requirement for anything other than straight sponsorship from Nokia. However, as the stated aim is to roll out many more spots, in other cities and countries, there will clearly need to be some revenue model behind a service expansion – with advertising the most likely candidate.
John Nichols, of Nokia, said that the company was exploring an ad-funded model. The two companies are working with a third company, Selective Media, to assess advertising monetisation models for free at the point of use WiFi sites. Nichols added that the company would be assessing what types of device attach to the sites, what data usage looks like, and making decisions based on that.
He added that the provision of free public WiFi is completely in line with Nokia’s overall strategy. The company plans to include the hotspot sites in its mapping products, so that Nokia Maps users can see where free WiFi hotspots exist.
Mobile operators are also exploring the rollout of public WiFi, with usage included as free with users' data packages, or similar. To support an automatic sign-on plus roaming use case, standards that allow SIM-based authentication of the user are being developed. Nokia's trial is of a more traditional sign-on nature, although once a user has been authenticated once, a device will automactically attach to any other Nokia hotspot SSIDs.
Simon Alberga, Chairman of Spectrum Interactive, said the sites would limit users to 1Mbps download and 0.5Mbps upload, with 20Mbps DSL lines serving each phone box. Spectrum Interactive owns 1800 payphone sites across London, Alberga said. The company uses Access Points and Controllers from HP, Alberga told Mobile Europe.
“The possibility of the mobile ecosystem becoming as unsafe as the internet threatens to become a reality unless consumers and operators alike take up their respective role in the fight against messaging abuse,” says Alan Ranger, vice president of mobile marketing at Cloudmark.
In this guest post for Mobile Europe, Ranger discusses the increase in mobile security threats to consumers, and says that both operators and consumers have their roles to play in combatting them.
App-ocalypse now
Spam and phishing attacks via smartphones are already well-documented, and recent news in the UK has cast a spotlight on the type of spam and phishing attacks that consumers have recently fallen victim to.
Examples include fake insurance claims and unsolicited pharmaceutical discounts to name but two. Not only is the deluge of mobile spam becoming increasingly harder to bear, but now hacking and viruses are also beginning to rise in frequency. Recently, Trojan, spyware and malware threats are being detected at an alarming rate and increasing across a number of platforms.
Such instances are relatively low in comparison to desktop PC attacks. However, a lack of awareness and the fact that the implementation of safeguards on mobile devices has not been considered a priority by many users, suggests that the mobile platform will continue to be a target for hackers. Whereas consumers are cognisant about email spam and malware on their computers, mobile users have an inherent trust in their devices, putting them in a precarious position and making them even more susceptible to attack.
The threat
Recent pilot results from the GSMA Spam Reporting Service (SRS), powered by Cloudmark, highlighted the growing prevalence of mobile spam and the risks it poses to end-users. According to these findings, 70 per cent of subscribers’ reports of messaging abuse were acts of attempted financial fraud, reinforcing why mobile security has come into such sharp focus.
The most recent and worrying threat on the mobile security horizon is the ‘rogue’ app – a nasty mobile application dressed up as a legitimate app that aims to siphon off your cash or access personal information. There have already been instances of mobile apps infected with rootkits making their way into the Android Market earlier this year, and security experts expect this to continue. Recent news in the UK media this month alone has reported malicious apps, disguised as productivity apps or e-book readers that are causing further problems for consumers. With the smartphone
user unaware of what they are downloading in such instances, these smartphone applications are extremely dangerous in that they are able to access and compromise a significant amount of personal data stored and entered on mobile devices.
Consumers’ own role
So, what can be done to help consumers avoid falling into the scam trap? The consumer needs to exercise caution and common sense when it comes to the websites they access and the information they share and download on their mobile device. With the wealth of information on security available online, consumers should arm themselves with the necessary knowledge and where possible, report any suspicious activity. They can also consult their carrier’s website or support line to see if there is a means (such as a short code) for reporting unsolicited SMS and MMS messages (mobile spam). By taking note of the security industry’s warnings, consumers will be able to more quickly identify specific smartphone threats. As a general rule of thumb, consumers should be as cautious on their mobile devices as they have been trained to be on their desktop computer.
If in doubt of an application or a received message, don’t download, open or respond. Apps should only be downloaded from reputable app stores. By becoming familiar with your preferred app store’s policies, how they bring apps from the developer to the end-user and how apps are monitored, consumers can protect themselves from unknowingly downloading malicious malware onto their device.
The operator role
The operator also has a vital role to play in the fight against mobile messaging abuse. By regularly assessing their network and ensuring they are confident in the security measures they have implemented to protect their customers, operators can continue to allow consumers to take full advantage of the increasing number of mobile services made available to them. Operators also need to make sure that consumers are informed of any expected threats to their devices and where possible, set up easy reporting methods so that consumers can alert their provider of any abuse occurring on the mobile platform.
Consumer vigilance, put alongside industry-wide efforts to tighten up security in the smartphone/tablet ecosystem, will play an important part in making the mobile channel more secure, so the productivity and efficiency benefits upon which we are becoming so reliant can continue to be enjoyed. With mobile becoming a primary gateway to data access, threats directed at this channel will naturally increase.
Although the potential for operators to drive new revenue streams within the mobile ecosystem is great, it is by no means guaranteed. If operators fail to safeguard the security and trusted status of the mobile device, not only will it affect their bottom-line, but they may also have a security app-ocalypse to deal with.
The possibility of the mobile ecosystem becoming as unsafe as the internet threatens to become a reality unless consumers and operators alike take up their respective role in the fight against messaging abuse.
About the author: Alan Range is Vice President of Mobile Marketing at Cloudmark
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Simply tapping up the small cell opportunity
There was no newsletter last week as your willing team was in the air returning from 4G World in Chicago, an event that we last visited in 2008 when it was called WiMax World and located in Munich.
This time around, organising company Yankee Group flung some interesting, if tangential, content at the show, with m-payments and Customer Experience Management receiving their day’s workout in pre-conference conferences.
But really the show was all about LTE — from an operator point of view Verizon, Sprint and MetroPCS all expanded on their LTE plan — and it was about small cells and backhaul, with all three being intimately related. One company addressing this confluence was BelAir Networks, fresh from having picked up “silicon valley veteran “ (their words, not mine) Ronny Haraldsvik as its CMO from Byte Mobile.
Now, BelAir has been talking for a while about the need for a pragmatic approach to deploying networks, using the appropriate technology. With this in mind it has produced a combined WiFi, 3G, LTE small cell. Other companies looking at this space were Ruckus Wireless and DragonWave, with the latter launching a product called Avenue that combines space for RAN units plus microwave antennas for backhaul in the same box.
You can hear a little more about BelAir and how it views small cell deployments here. (more of DragonWave later)
BelAir has been running WiFi hotspots for AT&T in the USA, to provide extra capacity in spots of high use. And one notable aspect for a UK visitor to Chicago was the ubiquity of free WiFi. Every bar and restaurant, seemingly, offered free access WiFi. This contrasts to the very patchy situation in the UK, where you may be offered free WiFi, but you are just as likely to run into
So it was interesting, on return this week, to be bade to the centre of London to hear from Nokia about a trial to provide free WiFi “on the streets”. Nokia is sponsoring a project that is seeing Spectrum Interactive, the company that provides WiFi services to BA Lounges, Premier Inns and Travelodge, install WiFi access points on 26 payphone boxes across London.
Nokia hopes to tie this free WiFi provision into usage of its Nokia Maps product so that they can be easily located, and it was easy to see why as a group of journalists, never the most of intuitive of beasts as a collective, meandered around the Oxford Circus area pointing their phones at payphone boxes, hoping to find the Nokia SSID pop up in their WiFi settings. Your brave reporter, having an aversion to wild goose chases, made his excuses and left. But he is reliably informed that a little later the gaggle of tech press did indeed hunt down a working WiFi zone, and managed to authenticate.
So success and kudos, of sorts, to Nokia. Yet this is a small trial, and to provide large scale free WiFi access, even to transient, light users will not come cheaply. The idea is that advertising might make up the shortfall, although you have to doubt the user experience of an ad-supported, drop-in/drop-out WiFi hotspot offering. Operators need not quake yet.
In “different kind of small cells on phone boxes news”, Vodafone confirmed its reputation as the most bullish operator for femtocells, by announcing that it wants more trial sites for the “rural femtocell” trials it is running with Alcatel-Lucent in the UK. The news was appositely timed to coincide with Ofcom figures showing there are still swathes of the country unserved by broadband – many of them rural areas.
If rural femto does work in closing that coverage gap, then you may be looking at increased microwave backhaul investments to follow, given the general lack of fibre to small, rural villages across Europe. Perhaps that lay behind DragonWave’s decision to buy into NSN’s customer channel for microwave. This deal looks like a win for both sides. Nokia gets to offload 300 plus employees, with $10 million worth of liabilities (ie if DragonWave makes them redundant, DragonWave pays, not NSN), DragonWave gets a potential sales pipeline to NSN’s operator customers.
One microwave company we spoke to recently was keen to see its products OEM’d by the likes of and Ericsson (OK, then, it was Siklu). Now here’s another company in the same space buying the appropriate unit of a major NEP to, in effect, secure just such a relationship.
Finally, and stepping away from small cells, a service launch in mobile payments. This launch, called Simply Tap, is designed to let users pay via mobile for items that have a Simply Tap code attached. Users don’t need to scan anything, or swipe an NFC reader, and a code can be attached to a physical or digital item. Some major retailers are on board, and Monitise, which began the week by announcing a hefty strategic investment from Visa Europe, is providing the payments platform.
Although the French operators are doing something similar with Buyster, Simply Tap has pretty much nothing to do with the operators. Distribution is through the app stores; payments technology is provided by Monitise and the banks and card issuers, while uptake is driven by the retailers. It’s not obvious what value operators could add to such an approach, unless direct billing is attractive. NFC, with its security, architecture, distribution challenges, pretty much mandates operator involvement to achieve mass. But approaches like this do not, and that is why delays to NFC roll outs are a strategic threat to the mobile operator.
I’m off now to see if any of the local bars are interested in signing up to Simply [Beer] Tap. Have a good weekend,
Keith Dyer
Webinar now available to view:
Why VoLTE and why now?