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Ericsson IPX to become NFC Trusted Services Manager

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Ericsson IPX, the Ericsson business that acts as a payments, messaging and services broker between operators and service providers, has said that it wants to become a Trusted Service Manager (TSM) for mobile NFC payments.

Mattias Johansson, Product Manager, Ericsson IPX, said, “We will launch a TSM brokering service in Europe in 2011. We have some pilots that we are workng with in different markets, and service providers are building proof of concept, but technically we are ready to go.”

A Trusted Service Manager (TSM) in NFC payments is an entity in the ecosystem that sits independent of the mobile operators, and of the banks and financial institutions. Its role is to distribute, provision and activate the applications and services of service providers (such as a credit card application on a device) over mobile networks, but without taking part in the actual transactions themselves.

The idea of the TSM is that it will free up the service providers and the operators from individual contracts, but also conflicts of interest over control over services.

Johansson said that Ericsson IPX, which already acts as a pSMS, MMS and Online Payments provider, is in an ideal position to become a TSM in the NFC payments market – when it goes commercial.

So far, most of the players who are providing, or have said they intend to provide, TSM services have come from the smartcard community, such as Gemalto, or from the payment processing market. Johansson said that he thinks that Ericsson IPX is the first IPX provider to state that it will enter the NFC TSM market.

“We are looking at expanding our family of brokering services, and we see 2011 being the year for NFC launches in Europe,” he said. “There have been a couple of false starts on NFC, but from a standards point of view most of the missing pieces have been defined.”

“The last missing piece is if you are a service provider and you want to launch a service to reach a market, to put an app on the SIM card you need to integrate with all the operators in a single market, and that’s the problem that Ericsson IPX is solving in other industries, currently. So we see ourselves expanding on the IPX role to build on our existing relationships and offer them a single integration and single contract to reach all the operators on the market. It’s a way to make it easier for service providers and for operators to launch NFC services.”

Ericsson IPX currently has connections with 100 mobile operators in 26 countries, and a thousand customers.

The European Payments Council (EPC) and the GSMA recently published a joint paper titled ‘Mobile Contactless Payments Service Management Roles – Requirements and Specifications’. The paper included an outline of the role of the Trusted Service Manager, which is to support banks and mobile operators aiming to promote mobile contactless payments. It also defined a minimum set of requirements for a TSM to interface with banks and mobile operators.

Tekelec launches enhanced Performance Management Solution for 3G and LTE mobile data

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Tekelec, a broadband data management company, today launched its enhanced network performance management system, Performance Intelligence Center Release 7.0.  The solution is said to give service providers new abilities to cost-effectively improve surveillance, troubleshooting and reporting across networks, services and subscribers in 3G and Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks.

Release 7.0 incorporates Tekelec’s Intelligent Data Management (IDM) approach to cost efficiently monitor the explosion of mobile data traffic in a ‘flexible and dynamic way’.  Yankee Group forecasts that by 2013, mobile data traffic will swell to nearly 18 times 2009 levels – while mobile data revenues remain essentially flat – requiring new solutions to manage both subscribers’ quality of experience (QoE) and the data explosion, says Tekelec. 

IDM provides visibility to all mobile data activities through traffic characterization and mobile data analysis.  With IDM, service providers can also tune the system to provide deep traffic analysis for subsets of traffic deemed most important – such as all traffic for certain users, traffic related to a particular service, troubleshooting a particular error, or general sampling across the subscriber base, says Tekelec.

“Intelligent Data Management increases network efficiency, lowers operational costs and proactively combats subscriber churn by identifying issues before they reach the customer service desk,” said Ted Julian, principal analyst in Yankee Group’s Anywhere Network research group.  “Tekelec is introducing new intelligence to measure service, device and network performance so service providers can better enable the high quality of service that subscribers require.”

Performance Intelligence Center, previously called the Integrated Applications Solution (IAS), acts as a central vantage point for service providers to view, manage and optimize their networks, services and the customer experience.  The Performance Intelligence solution collects data and provides analytics reports across a variety of network technologies including SIGTRAN/SS7, GSM, GPRS, UMTS, VoIP, IMS and LTE networks to identify potential trouble spots, understand usage patterns and provide actionable intelligence. 

The solution integrates with Tekelec’s EAGLE 5 session management platform and its Diameter Signaling Router (DSR) to provide efficient and scalable probeless monitoring. When deployed in tandem with Tekelec’s Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF), the Performance Intelligence Center creates a feedback loop to continually optimize the network performance based on dynamic business and policy rules, says the company.

 
Other enhancements to Release 7.0 include:

Detailed on-demand analysis of subscriber usage for customer troubleshooting resolution, configured to a set time period.  This allows operators to temporarily dedicate additional resources on individual subscriber to identify problems and confirm when they are resolved.

Continuous detailed monitoring of VIP subscribers or high-value services, as defined by service providers.

Improved data visualization and usability with the addition of critical reporting analytics features, including the:

Global Roaming Quality (GRQ)-certified roaming intelligence portfolio, which provides visibility into the performance and volume of voice, data and SMS roaming activities.  The solution also supports the identification of roaming steering activities to monitor if subscribers are registered to preferred carriers when roaming out of their home networks.

Interconnect intelligence portfolio, which manages high-value, revenue-generating inter-carrier traffic.

Improved SIGTRAN visibility through efficient integrated monitoring with Tekelec’s session management products.  This gives service providers new abilities to measure available SIGTRAN capacity, bandwidth and network reliability to more efficiently manage next generation core network infrastructure.

Broadband for Niepolomice Community in Poland

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NextiraOne, a European specialist in communications services, has announced that it has signed a contract with the Town and Community of Niepolomice in Southern Poland to deploy a wireless broadband network. The investment “Internet Access for a Better Future” is implemented under the “Innovative Economy” Operational Programme for Poland and is co-funded by the EU’s European Regional Development Fund.

Under the contract, NextiraOne will provide, install and commission base stations and subscriber stations, and radio links between the network base stations. In addition, NextiraOne will provide computers to selected households and connect them to the Internet using the new broadband network, and also prepare documentation of the project. NextiraOne will also prepare and obtain on behalf of the customer all the permits and decisions necessary to run the network.

“The agreement with the Community of Niepolomice is another project involving the construction of a wireless broadband network for a local government organisation carried out by our team. The project requires excellent organisational skills from our team because of the specific procedures resulting from the implementation of projects using investment that has been financed from EU funds. I know that our experience will help us to implement this project with the utmost care and in accordance with the contract.” said Marek Kobielski General Manager, NextiraOne Poland.

The Niepolomice Community is one of the fastest-growing communities in Poland. With a good infrastructure, favourable location and the support of local government activities, more than 20 large companies and corporations such as Coca-Cola, MAN and DHL have established themselves in the area. The investment in wireless Internet access is an initiative implemented within the framework of the “Information Society” and “Preventing Digital Exclusion”.

“We hope to provide our citizens with IT services at the highest level,” said Roman Ptak, Mayor of Niepolomice City and Community. “Working with NextiraOne, which has a wealth of experience in this field, is a good sign of the success we can expect. I want to see computerisation and the provision of Internet services to people who are digitally excluded for various reasons. This will enable them to look into the future with greater hope and confidence.”

Monitise announces joint venture to deliver mobile marketing and payments network

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Monitise, the global specialist in mobile money, today announced a new joint venture to form the ‘Mobile Money Network.’ The joint venture has been created by Monitise, Best Buy Europe and the personal backing of Charles Dunstone, founder of The Carphone Warehouse. Monitise will hold 40% ownership in the venture which has been created following previous discussions in December 2009.

The network will launch in 2011 with a range of products and services to enable people to get the most from ‘Mobile Money on the move’. It’s said the network will be an independent, trusted and secure one-stop shop for mobile services.

Charles Dunstone said: “Every year we see hundreds of exciting ideas in the space of mobile shopping, banking, payments and marketing, but what is required is a central, independent and trusted network to make it come alive. We believe we have the track record to play this role.”

Alastair Lukies, Chief Executive of Monitise added: “Mobile banking and mobile payments are taking off at light speed, showing consumer appetite for convenient and secure services for their ‘always with me’ device.”

The new joint venture will leverage the retail experience of Charles Dunstone together with Monitise’s bank-grade mobile technology. Monitise’s services are used worldwide, with Monitise Europe providing access to its technology to more than 55% of the UK retail banking market; Monitise is also a key partner of Visa.

In addition, Best Buy Europe will not only become the first retail partner but also make an investment in the venture as part of its belief in the growth of mobile commerce over the coming years.

Andrew Harrison, Chief Operating Officer of Best Buy Europe said: “Retailers need to be at the forefront of how consumers are using technology. And so we are really excited to be the first retail partner of the Mobile Money Network.  We have 800 stores in the UK but can now open up another 60m plus mobile phone based virtual storefronts through this venture”

The Mobile Money Network says it will make further announcements over the coming weeks and is already said to be working with a large number of high street brands and financial service providers to join the network.

Number of commercial mobile HD Voice networks reach double figures, says new GSA report

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A report published today by the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) has confirmed that the number of commercial mobile HD Voice networks has reached double figures. According to the report, HD Voice service is now commercially launched on 10 mobile networks in Asia, Europe, and MEA in the following nine countries: Armenia, Belgium, Egypt, France, India, Moldova, Russia, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Mobile HD Voice is based on the AMR (Adaptive Multi Rate) Wideband technology (W-AMR) and is standardized by 3GPP, and is said to enable high-quality voice calls in mobile networks and an improved user experience. It provides significantly higher voice quality for calls between mobile phones supporting the feature, and can be implemented in GSM and WCDMA (UMTS) networks. The first mobile HD Voice service was launched in September 2009.

Alan Hadden, President of GSA said: “HD Voice on mobile networks is taking off around the world. Several more operators are trialling or deploying the HD Voice feature on their networks. There is also a good choice and availability of HD Voice-capable phones already on the market today. Several more HD Voice network launches are expected in the coming months.”

UK mobile broadband network upgrade to LTE not economically viable until 2015 – report

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It is not economically viable to upgrade current UK mobile broadband networks to address traffic demands and improve user experience until 2015, according to the latest research from Informa Telecoms & Media.

Due to the dense deployment needed to meet coverage requirements, UK HSPA networks will be able to handle current and future traffic demands in the medium-term. Informa says it does not expect traffic congestion to start appearing until 2013 and even then only in certain hotspot areas. As such, large-scale LTE deployments do not offer an economically viable solution to meet traffic demand, unless user behaviour changes significantly, putting additional strain on mobile broadband networks, it says.

“UK mobile broadband operators are faced with fierce competition while margins from voice are shrinking. Even though there is growing demand for mobile data by smartphones and USB modems, current UK mobile network deployments are so dense that it would make the introduction of LTE both an investment heavy and somewhat unjustifiable decision,” said Dimitris Mavrakis, a senior analyst for Informa Telecoms & Media. “By upgrading current HSPA networks, UK mobile operators will be able to meet traffic demands and alleviate capacity constraints until 2015, after which the upgrade to LTE may be justifiable since economies of scale for hardware will have reduced infrastructure costs. Plus, a complete LTE ecosystem will be established, including handsets and portable devices”.

Informa estimates that a new LTE deployment will cost an additional US$58 million compared to upgrading existing networks, assuming that the LTE deployment begins during 2013. The cost of each gigabyte (cost/GB) of traffic on the network is US$6.5 during 2011, gradually declining to under US$2 during 2015. Given that network deployment is primarily coverage driven and networks are densely deployed, there is significant unused capacity in the network throughout the forecast period, increasing cost/GB above average values, says Informa.

Informa says it has developed a mobile broadband network planning tool that allows modelling of mobile broadband networks in order to calculate Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and cost to transfer a GB (cost/GB) over the mobile broadband network. The tool also allows the identification of cost drivers in the mobile broadband network and provides visibility for a variety of upgrades, showing the most cost effective way to upgrade in order to meet traffic demands and proactively act to maintain high standards on user experience. Informa’s new software sits alongside its wealth of market data and forecasts to assist its operator and infrastructure clients in effective forward planning.

Wholesale applications community membership reaches fifty seven

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The Wholesale Applications Community (WAC), an alliance of telecommunications companies committed to building an open applications platform, today announced an additional nine new members to the organisation, including two significant new OEMs as well as companies from the mobile community, bringing the total membership to 57. New members to the organisation include Aepona, Camber Tech Inc (BVI) Limited, GClue, Gemalto, Infraware, KT Innotz, Sharp and Sony Ericsson as Associate members while the Russian operator VimpelCom has joined as an Operator Member.

Additionally, the GSMA’s OneAPI has also been confirmed as the standard to be used by WAC operators for the exposure of network APIs.

Peters Suh, CEO of WAC, commented “We’re of course delighted to see more members joining WAC – it continues to demonstrate the very strong interest that we’re seeing from companies across the ecosystem in providing their customers with choice.”
The GSMA OneAPI is a commonly supported set of lightweight and Web-friendly APIs to allow mobile and other network operators to expose useful network information and capabilities to Web application developers. It is designed to reduce the effort and time needed to create applications and content that are portable across mobile operators and is critical in enabling WAC developers to quickly and effectively develop web-based applications that span platforms, devices and operators.

Suh continued, “The GSMA OneAPI makes it easier for web-centric developers to use the information and capabilities provided by mobile operators to create network-enriched applications and services – and exactly meets the WAC requirements for simplicity and effectiveness.”

Graham Trickey, Senior Director, GSMA, commented, “The selection of GSMA OneAPI will guarantee its exposure by WAC operators and encourage widespread exposure by other operators, allowing Web application developers to use a common set of network enablers to reach more subscribers more easily. Operator billing is a key feature of GSMA OneAPI, enabling the development of additional revenue opportunities for operators and developers.”

Two WAC executives will be delivering presentations at the Mobile Asia Congress, being held this week in Hong Kong.  Peters Suh will be taking part in the panel session ‘Turning WAC into Cash’ on 16th November the App Planet Forum at Mobile Asia Congress, while Erik De Kroon, Vice President, Devices and Products, WAC will be leading a developer work stream in the App Bytes ADCs on 18th November. Presentations on the GSMA OneAPI by TELUS and Axiata will also feature in the Mobile Asia Congress conference programme, and will be included in demonstrations at Stand E50, Hall 3

Survey of global operators said to reveal picture future mobile subscriber

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Despite the rising importance of advanced mobile applications like mobile social networking, SMS messaging and voice calls will continue to be among the most commonly used forms of communications by the mobile consumer of the future, according to an independent survey of 31 leading global operators commissioned by Airwide Solutions.

In the survey, conducted by wireless analyst firm mobileSQUARED, operators were asked to choose what they thought would be the top five most popular forms of communication in 2015. While 94% of operators believe that social networking will be the most popular form of communication by 2015, 87% and 81% of operators believe messaging and voice (respectively) will continue to play an important role in communications, predicting that they will remain in the top three most heavily used forms of communication in 2015. The study also revealed that these forms of communication will be complemented rather than replaced by rising mobile internet usage, particularly from mobile social networking. The results show that mobile social networking will not only be primarily responsible for the continuing rise in mobile internet usage in the future, but it will be elevated to one of the core forms of communication. 

This increased use of mobile internet-based services will add pressure to existing operator networks. As a result of this trend the survey also revealed that operators are keen to ensure increases in traffic do not negatively impact their networks. 74% of operators believe that network quality will be critical to fostering loyalty with subscribers.

Looking to the future of innovation, the survey also asked mobile operators what they felt would be key drivers of innovation in messaging. Entertainment led the responses with 65% of operators believing that entertainment-based applications and services would act as a catalyst for messaging growth. Following entertainment, 48% of respondents selected healthcare while 36% cited education and finance. In emerging markets, innovation in messaging is most likely to be driven by mobile financial services, mobile health and mobile education-based initiatives. It is in these regions, such as Africa and the Middle East, where mobile phones are being used not only as communications tools but also as catalysts for social change.

In addition, operators believe that in developed markets alternative forms of messaging will primarily be driven by enterprise services and machine-to-machine (M2M) messaging. 76% of operators feel enterprise services will be either important or extremely important, while 64% think the same is true for M2M messaging.

Jay Seaton, Chief Marketing Officer at Airwide Solutions commented, “The survey has shown that while the mobile subscriber of the future is changing, its core mode of communication (text and voice) is likely to remain the same. Traditional forms of messaging will not be replaced. In fact, services such as SMS are becoming an integral part of social networking, and they will also underpin future innovation, particularly in areas such as mobile entertainment, mobile financial services, mobile healthcare and mobile education.”

Other key survey findings include:

–          94% of operators believe that social networking will be the most popular form of mobile communication in 2015.

–          87% and 81% of operators expect that messaging and voice (respectively) will follow social networking in the top three of most heavily used forms of communication in 2015.

–          The time users spend on mobile web sites is expected to increase from less than one minute per day to in excess of 10 minutes. This increase in mobile internet usage will place additional pressure on operator networks to guarantee excellent network quality for subscribers, with 74% of operators believing network quality will be key to fostering loyalty with their subscribers.

–          Innovation in messaging will be led by entertainment, with 65% of operators stating that the area will inspire the advancement of messaging.

–          Alternative forms of messaging will be primarily driven by enterprise services and machine-to-machine (M2M) messaging. 76% of operators believe enterprise services will be either important or extremely important to the growth of messaging. 64% think the same is true for M2M.

Managing your network for maximum profitability

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Managing your network for maximum profitability

Learn new methods to optimise your network end to end

On 2 December, Mobile Europe will hold a live webinar, Mobile End to End: Maximise the Business Performance of your Network, that explores how operators can introduce new network monitoring approaches to optimise their networks in the most profitable manner.

The lead speaker will be Francesco Pumelli, Product Manager for Mobile Business Intelligence solutions at CommProve, and a former radio network optimisation manager for Wind Italy. Keith Dyer, Editor of Mobile Europe and host of the webinar, asked Francesco what information and knowledge the webinar will share with attendees.

Keith:
Francesco, what can we expect from this webinar?

It looks like the focus will be on how to align network monitoring in a new dimension to focus on mobile operator business priorities.

Francesco:
Yes, what I’d really like to do is highlight the importance of getting the right balance between the quality of a network and the profits made. Mobile operators are looking for efficient business drivers for CAPEX and OPEX usage, hitting the sweet spot on the optimum performance for profitability.

Keith:
Why do you think these are important issues currently for mobile operators?

Francesco:
Today, operators have tools which are capable of monitoring a wide set of interfaces in real-time — but only at certain points of the network and not correlated end to end. They also have powerful protocol analysis tools for trouble-shooting their networks — but not on a real time, network wide basis. What they need is a 24×7 tool that helps them make the right decisions on where to invest in the network to obtain maximum profit on performance and capacity to hit the sweet spot.

Keith:
Do you think you will be presenting something new for mobile operators, some new insights into how they can solve those issues you mentioned?

Francesco:
Yes, we will provide a new approach to network-wide, end to end, correlated monitoring, leading to a complete view of resource, user, network performance and usage, allowing a business centric approach to network improvements.

Keith:
Will we see some real world examples of how operators can benefit from the end to end, real time approach you have mentioned?

Francesco:
Yes, but they will be anonymous until we have legal release from our customers. But we have extensive examples of where real business benefits can be achieved with our new approach.

Keith:
What about your own background in this area? Tell us what experience you will be bringing to the webinar, working in this field.

Francesco:
I joined CommProve in 2006, where, by now, I am lead product manager for mobile business intelligence applications. I’m also responsible for the product and application strategy definition within marketing. Prior to CommProve, I worked for Wind Italy in Network planning and Radio Network Optimisation. Before that I collaborated with Rome University within a European wide project.

REGISTER HERE

Aspiro to deliver white label streaming music solution in Portugal

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Aspiro, a provider of white labelled music services to operators and ISPs, has announced that it has entered into an agreement with NMusic SA to deliver a game-changing music service available to customers of a Portuguese operator.

The service is based on Aspiro’s customizable and scalable media platform and includes both streaming of music on PC/Mac and mobile phones, as well as MP3 downloads.

”Our flexible end-to-end capacity and competitive business model makes it possible for operators to launch music services with low capex and short time-to-market. We are absolutely delighted to add Portugal to our portfolio, as we aim to expand further. We expect launch with this partner within shortly and are currently in concrete discussions with several additional partners,” says Gunnar Sellæg, CEO of Aspiro.

Aspiro currently runs several similar music services in Norway, Denmark and Sweden.

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