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The shoehorns, tie-ins and told you so’s of the iPad2

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Companies that have contacted Mobile Europe, so far, about the launch of a tablet yesterday.

The tie-ins:

“Personal media company” TigerSpike: Consumers will use it more…enterprises will use it more because of FaceTime and the introduction of iOS4.3 update…brands and publishers will develop more iPad apps and content because apps will be better and there will be more html5 sites.

SVOX: “Unfortunately it doesn’t have speech or voice recognition on it, but some people thought that it might, and that is evidence enough that embedded speech and voice recognition will be the next big thing.”

Ciena: Operators need to invest in Ethernet backhaul infrastructure because tablets like the iPad2 will mean a lot more network traffic”

Mobile Entertainment Forum: “Mobile becomes the preferred platform for using an ever-widening number of services…Competition…consumer choice…business model … ecosystem”

That don’t impress me much…

In-Stat: “As expected….typical upgrade… still does not support external memory upgrades, a changeable battery, or the ability to run Flash…”

InformaTM: “Without the pressure of strong competition in the tablet market, are they getting complacent in Cupertino? Indeed, it seems that the iPad 2 is more of an iPad 1.5, with the real innovations still to come in future iterations.”

ABI Research: “How will the new iPad attract new customers in an increasingly competitive media tablet market? What features has Apple left out that give others a competitive advantage? Is Apple missing the prosumer and business professional market with its continued focus on consumers and home style? ABI Research does not expect Apple to maintain its 2010 market share indefinitely”

iPad2 FTW, FNow…

Forrester: The competing products we’ve seen announced so far from Motorola, RIM, HP, and others, while impressive, have fatally flawed price and distribution strategies… for now, Apple still defines the tablet market, with a product consumers will desire at a price that’s hard to beat.”

Tablets, get yer tablets…

Phones4U: “It looks nice, but don’t forget other tablets like the Playbook and especially the Android ones like the Galaxy Tab are available at Phones4U”

Orange UK: “We’re selling it.”

T-Mobile UK: “So are we”

 

 

Mobile network operators need new approaches to make data profitable, says report

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Mobile network operators need to develop a smarter approach to managing their network and charging for data usage to allow them to drive profits, manage costs and secure customer loyalty, according to a new study from Ovum.

In the report the independent telecoms analyst finds that MNOs need to use customer data held in the business support system with network policy management and control, if they are to manage soaring traffic loads, drive profits, personalise the customer experience and increase their agility and response times.

Clare McCarthy, Ovum principal analyst and author of the report, said: “The phenomenal growth in 3G-enabled devices and smartphones has seen mobile broadband data volumes soar, and penetration is only set to increase. This is putting intense pressure on limited network capacity and spectrum, and profits are not keeping pace with traffic volumes.

“By expanding policy management and controls, operators can develop smarter charging plans that will provide them with a sustainable revenue stream, improved customer service and the ability to shape traffic on their mobile broadband networks.”

According to forecasts by Ovum, mobile broadband users are set to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 28 per cent over five years to 2015. 3G dongles and smartphones will drive demand for broadband data applications, while smartphone and tablet users will increasingly use their devices for video services.

McCarthy continued: “Some MNOs have already adopted plans with options such as discounted evening and weekend use or monthly data caps. However, this approach doesn’t go far enough and only addresses one part of the equation. It doesn’t maximise revenue potential with high-value customers.

“Segmented data plans are one way of increasing revenues, and they can also help deliver a better customer experience. For example, an enterprise is more likely than a family to pay for guaranteed bandwidth, priority service availability and predefined access controls.

“MNOs can also encourage spend in the consumer sector by promoting ‘bite size’ access to specific applications, which can work well in emerging markets. If an MNO offers access to social networking services during a defined period at a lower cost, it can make its service more affordable and attractive to users, move traffic to off-peak periods and increase quality of service and customer experience across its operation.”

Volubill and Sandvine team up on policy management

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Volubill, a provider of real-time policy management and charging solutions, today announced that the company has completed interoperability testing with Sandvine, a provider of Network Policy Control solutions for fixed and mobile operators, to create a solution that gives network operators the understanding of network traffic required to deliver more dynamic and contextualized data service plans.

The fully tested and pre-integrated solution will allow operators to put in place a real-time policy enforcement and policy management engine with proven capabilities, while benefiting from deployment cost reduction and higher speeds of implementation. The announcement is said to build on the successful deployments of Volubill’s online charging system at various Orange subsidiaries and at Movistar Venezuela, to support prepaid charging models.

“Volubill is focused on providing solutions that will enable network operators to take advantage of the mobile data services revenue opportunity,” said John Aalbers, CEO Volubill.  “By delivering an interoperable solution that optimizes 3GPP standards, we can help network operators to better understand network traffic behavior and to use that information to improve the personalization of subscriber services and pricing plans while enhancing customer quality of experience.”

Volubill’s CONTROL IT policy management solution has been tested and pre-integrated with Sandvine’s Policy Traffic Switch policy control and enforcement solution to meet 3GPP Diameter Gx and 3GPP Diameter Gy protocol requirements.

“Deploying the joint Sandvine and Volubill solution gives network operators better visibility and understanding of network traffic, and the means to dynamically manage that traffic with full context-awareness. These capabilities are critical to a network operator’s ability to implement optimized, differentiated, and easy-to-manage customer offerings,” said Tom Donnelly, EVP Marketing and Sales, Sandvine.

Mobile infrastructure market rebounded to highest level since 2008 in Q4 – report

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In a recently published report by Dell’Oro Group, a specialist in market information on the networking and telecommunications industries, mobile infrastructure market revenues increased 33 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 to $11.2 billion. The report indicates that the market expansion was a result of continued strong WCDMA sales, as well as a pick up in the 2G market. In addition, vendors started recognizing significant LTE infrastructure revenues during the fourth quarter, it says.

“The demand for mobile broadband is spreading throughout the world, and we saw strong WCDMA performance in all regions as the massive growth in data traffic resulted in operators worldwide investing in their 3G networks,” commented Stefan Pongratz, Analyst of Mobile Infrastructure research at Dell’Oro Group. “The fourth quarter marked the first period of significant LTE revenues. While the U.S. operators led in terms of covered LTE population, it was the European vendors who took the lead in the LTE infrastructure market. Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens in particular, accounted for 80 percent of LTE infrastructure revenues during the quarter,” continued Pongratz.

The report indicates that the positive momentum seen during the fourth quarter will continue in 2011, as the total mobile infrastructure market is forecast to grow 5 percent next year, with the WCDMA and LTE markets forecast to show significant expansions.

Telefonica to provide second number web service through fonYou

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fonYou, the internet-based telephony company that has operated as an MVNO in Spain since 2008, has signed a deal that will see Telefonica provide mobile cloud communications services direct to its customers.

Telefonica will use fonYou’s  OMT-9000 platform to provide a second number service to users. fonYou provides a web-based front end to users that allows them to control their contacts, and access advanced services, online such as visual voicemail, real-time call register and advanced filtering and blocking functions for incoming calls. Users of Telefonica’s Second Line service will be able to use the second number to access the web-based service.

fonYou has been calling for operator-based innovation in cloud and web-based comms for a while now. Last year it proposed a Facebook application for its web-based telephony services, and it also stated that it was looking for operators to see the potential of the service for combating OTT voice providers. At that point, it positioned the service as a customer retention tool for operators faced with strong OTT competition.

Telefonica, already a partner, is the first major operator to have committed to launch in Europe. The operator is developing a name for itself in innovating in IP and cloud communications, as evidenced by the acquisition of Jajah and the promotion of its CEO Trevor Healey to a chief innovation officer post with the Telefonica group. Telefonica Spain also has a major cloud invesment programme ongoing with NEC.

The difference between Jajah and fonYou is that fonYou does not offer IP telephony as such, which Jajah does. fonYou’s second number services still offers access over the mobile operator’s network through the phone’s SIM, but backs it up with a web-based front end through which the user controls, and in some cases accesses, services such as voicemail and messaging.

 

Mobile entertainment service revenues to reach $54bn by 2015, says new report

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A new report from Juniper Research has valued the Mobile Entertainment market at $33bn for last year, rising to $54bn in 2015 – driven by the continuing escalation in smartphone adoption and the attendant increase in downloads of consumer-oriented applications, it says.

Juniper’s latest Mobile Entertainment report observed that the combination of app stores and smartphones had created an unprecendented level of awareness and usage of services such as social media, games, video and streamed music. At the same time, the transition from the “walled garden” business model to an open mobile Internet had created greater opportunities for D2C players in niche areas such as gambling and adult services.

In addition, the report noted that the rise in consumer adoption of rich media content had prompted unprecedented interest in mobile channels from major brands, which are allocating increasing proportions of digital budget to mobile. As a result, content providers in particular are benefitting from the additional revenue stream created through in-app advertising.

According to report author Dr Windsor Holden, “We’ve witnessed a quite dramatic evolution of the mobile entertainment market over the past few years, in terms of type of content, scale of content and how that content is monetised. The challenge for the players across the redefined mobile  ecosystem is to recognise how best to leverage their strengths to ensure that their respective revenue streams are optimised.”

Other key findings from the report include:

·         Despite the erosion of the ringtone market, mobile music will remain the largest single contributor to mobile entertainment content revenues over the next five years

·         The fastest growing product sector will be mobile gambling, followed by social media

·         On a regional basis, Far East & China will continue to account for the largest share of revenues, followed by Western Europe

Funambol targets operators with white-label Android sync

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Funambol has launched a sync service for Android devices, and is hoping telcos will be interested in offering the service to users as an operator-based service.

Called mm4android (‘MobileMe for Android’), Funambol said that the app allows users to sync contacts, calendars, tasks, notes and pictures with any Android device.

For those that don’t want to hold their breath waiting for their operator to offer the service to them, mm4Android is available on the Android Marketplace on a direct to consumer basis, but Funambol is also hoping that operators will be interested in taking the service on a white label basis. Funambol says that by offering the sync service to subscribers, operators could have an alternative to device-specific sync solutions that cannot work across different brands of device.

mm4android syncs PIM data with Outlook and photos with cloud services such as Facebook, Flickr and Picasa as well as other mobile phones and computers. It syncs data and content in the cloud with Android and non-Android devices. Its basic plan provides a small amount of free storage before users are prompted to upgrade.

Funambol is pinning its hopes on the growing range of Android devices, namechecking the Motorola Xoom, HTC Facebook Phone and Apple iPad2 in its press release, and on the growing tendency of users to have any combination of a phone, notebook, tablet, laptop or PC. It argues that as a result, users will need a simpler way to sync between devices.

So will operators be interested in offering a service that sync’s users’ data and pictures? Some do already, of course, but there is still very limited penetration of a service that would seem to lend itself well to the operator subscription billing model.

Hal Steger, Funambol’s VP of Worldwide Marketing, told Mobile Europe during February’s Mobile World Congress that operators “are coming around to thinking” about offering such services.

“They can’t just sit there and let Google, Android, Facebook, steal their users,” he said. “Operators like the fact that they have a story they can tell to their subscribers, to be the trusted digital vault of a user’s personal space in the cloud, working with all their different devices.”

There is an argument that there is a latent consumer demand for such services. Steger said that when Funambol launched its sync solution for Blackberry, it saw ten thousand users sign up over the first two weeks – without the solution being pushed through official Blackberry channels. In that case Funambol offered a free service for the first 50Mb of storage.

 

iPass report finds strong adoption of tablets in enterprise

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iPass, a provider of enterprise mobility services, today published its quarterly Mobile Workforce Report. The report is said to have found that 27 percent of mobile employees surveyed are using a tablet, typically an iPad, for work. While most mobile employees think that in the next five years there will be just one über device, that same mobile employee is carrying 2.68 devices for work today. iPass is calling these multiple devices the mobile stack, the new unit of computing that includes a laptop, a smartphone, and also a tablet.

“Tablet and smartphone use in the enterprise is being driven by the growth of cloud-based applications, in addition to the availability of these devices being reasonably priced,” said Steven Wastie, senior vice president marketing and product management at iPass. “User experience and economics drive this mobile stack phenomenon which shows every sign of expanding rapidly amongst the mobilocracy – a powerful class of worker who relies on mobile devices for greater productivity – as cloud computing finds a greater foothold with users both on a professional and personal level.”

The report, which drew from the experiences of more than 3,500 mobile employees at 1,100 enterprises worldwide, also found a 10 percent decline in preference for laptops as mobile employees increasingly prefer smartphones and tablets. The survey also uncovered:

·         20 percent of mobile workers selected a tablet as their one device of choice, while 49 percent selected the smartphone (down from 63 percent in 2010), compared to 27 percent who prefer a laptop (down from 37 percent).

·         The tablet market is also experiencing phenomenal growth, especially among mobile employees. 65 percent of mobile workers surveyed reported that they use a tablet for applications like sending and receiving email, surfing the Internet, watching video content and reading electronic books, newspapers and magazines. 27 percent report that they use a tablet for work.

·         59 percent of mobile workers use Wi-Fi on their smartphone at least one hour a day. 57 percent are satisfied with their mobile operator’s network coverage but 22 percent are dissatisfied with the cellular network speed.

·         71 percent of mobile workers would go on a data diet if wireless carriers increased charges for cellular data access – 29 percent would not change their behavior mostly because their employer pays the phone bill, while 22 percent would limit use to critical access.

·         94 percent of mobile workers will troubleshoot a problem themselves, while 13 percent will not contact the IT help desk at all when they have a technical problem. These results are in line with last year’s prediction that a mobilocracy will rise in today’s workplace.

·         Those 35 and older feel more productive working outside of the office, in contrast with those 34 and under who feel most productive working in the office – not the generation gap that most would think.

Mobile marketing and the operator

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Maja Lapcevic from mobile marketing services provider Internteq talks about advances over the past year in mobile marketing, and what operators should be doing to benefit from the mobile marketing opportunity.

“Brands are dedicating a lot more budget and paying a lot more attention to the mobile channel,” she says. “Mobile operators have a huge opportunity. They have their subscriber bases in their hands and it’s up to them to cultivate that asset by offering partners a chance to utilise this opt-in database, and to profile their subscribers so they are able to offer them relevant products and services.”

But what should the operators’ role be? “Operators provide excellent service in terms of communication and data but when it comes to marketing, I think they should really leave it up to marketers to do the job.” Working in this manner is to the benefit of all parties, Lapcevic says.

For example, Internetq’s audience profiling can provide operators with a segmented database to allow them to drive further marketing opportunities, such as third party direct response campaigns, loyalty programmes and the building of mobile communities.

(This is a sponsored video)

Tiscali partners with ZTE to develop IMS network in Italy

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ZTE, a global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, has announced the signing of an agreement with Tiscali for the development of an IMS network, a platform that can improve the multimedia functionalities of IP services and is compliant with every network technology. ZTE and Tiscali plan to launch  the first three commercial sites in Cagliari, Roma and Milano by the end of May and the migration of Tiscali subscribers to the new IMS platform by the end of the year.

ZTE will install a single platform in place of the two platforms currently utilised by Tiscali. By implementing the ZTE solution, Tiscali will make its network management easier and more efficient, reducing energy consumption and optimising operational costs.

“We are glad to build our partnership with ZTE by choosing the IMS platform,” said Luca Scano, Tiscali General Director. “With the introduction of this unique platform, we will manage to optimise time, resources and results on all our IP communications services, from mobile and fixed phone calls to internet access, from social networks to email, giving our customers a big advantage in terms of price and quality of service. Again, our strategic orientation is towards fixed-mobile convergence and this leads us to choose solutions which make communication freedom the focus of our products,” said Scano.

“With the transition to multimedia services and an all-IP network, operators can go beyond the concept of providing users with simple network supply, thus increasing their control over the services. The introduction of IMS technology offers operators the power and flexibility to provide customers with a complete range of services, keeping an advanced position compared to traditional operators or to internet service providers,” commented Jeffrey Fan, General Manager of ZTE Italy. “Our strong commitment to innovation and our constant investment in research and development show that ZTE is in the forefront of the development and implementation of cutting-edge technologies. It is an honour to widen our partnership with Tiscali and to demonstrate to the Italian market the advantages that ZTE’s technological know-how can bring.”

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is built on IP-CAN (IP Connectivity Access Network), a 3GPP technology architecture, which is considered an ideal network architecture, as well as being a key medium for fixed-mobile convergence. The intent of IP-CAN is to bring the traditional telecom model to IP networks, making it chargeable, controllable and manageable. As one of the few suppliers that have the ability to provide an end-to-end solution, ZTE sets great emphasis on IMS technology and has adopted the IMS system solution as a strategic next generation product.

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