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The winners and losers in 2011 – have your say

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This week’s email takes the form of a plea.

Over the weeks and months, you have been kind enough to glance, for however many minutes it takes to boil the kettle, at my own ramblings. Now I would like to ask you for a moment to send me your own opinions.

For our end of year issue we often include predictions and forecasts from industry figures, and this year we would like to broaden that our to our wider readership. So we’re asking if you would take a minute to fill in our brief survey.

Tell us what you think the big successes and failures will be in 2011, and which companies and personalities will have the most impact on the European mobile scene. Get your pet peeve off your chest, and see if you can make it into our 2011 Rant Box.

All the results of our survey, plus of course some considered analysis from leading industry trackers and forecasters, will be collated into our Ones to Follow in 2011 issue – which will break down the key areas to, er, follow in 2011. If you take part in the survey, we’ll even send you a free copy of our report. How exciting is that?

It’s only ten questions, and none of them take any particular time, so please do consider helping us out.

Many thanks,

Keith Dyer
Editor
Mobile Europe

 

http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/news-anaylsis/8245-vodafone-and-o2-get-spectrum-re-farming-go-ahead

http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/news-anaylsis/8244-telmap-adds-tweets-to-street-deets

http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/news-anaylsis/8239-option-joins-forces-with-chief-competitor-huawei

http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/webinars/upcoming-webinars

 

Smartphones account for almost 65% of mobile traffic worldwide, says research

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Smartphone users are generating two-thirds of total mobile cellular traffic worldwide despite the fact that only 13% of mobile subscribers use smartphones, according to the latest research from Informa Telecoms & Media. And as these smartphone users spend more time on the Internet, the traffic that each one generates – their average traffic per user (ATPU) – will increase by 700% over the next five years, it says.

Informa estimates that ATPU per smartphone currently averages 85MB per month. The iPhone is the highest-traffic-generating device followed by Android devices. It will retain this lead, Informa believes, because Android devices will be spread across high-, mid- and low-user segments.

ATPU is said ot be a new metric devised by Informa to help the mobile industry measure the potential of new services and revenue streams such as mobile advertising. ATPU could also be used by operators as a key differentiating parameter for judging the popularity of different OS platforms and related ecosystems.

“The traffic disparity between smartphone and non-smartphone is most pronounced in North America where 86% of mobile data traffic is currently generated by smartphone users, notably those using an iPhone or high-end Android devices,” notes Malik Kamal-Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media. Smartphone ATPU here is forecast to reach a staggering 776MB/month by 2015.

Western Europe will also enjoy rapid growth and the smartphone ATPU in the region will increase almost 17 times to over 736MB/month in 2015 from under 44MB/month in 2009. The rapid growth in these regions will be driven by both the fast migration of subscribers to higher-speed mobile networks, the proliferation of flat rate data plans, and the availability of wide range of smartphones targeting different consumer groups with different lifestyles, which will enable users to consume content and services most relevant to them, says Informa.

However, the highest smartphone ATPU will continue to come from South Korea and Japan with respective values of 271MB/month and 199MB/month expected in 2010, which is 2-3 times higher than the global average.

In contrast, smartphones remain a status symbol for the majority of users in emerging markets who still use cellular networks largely for voice and SMS rather than to access mobile data services. As a result, ATPU in these regions is not expected to exceed 43MB/Month in 2010 and could be as low as 13MB/month in some African countries. The low penetration of mobile broadband networks, the lack of compelling local content and the proliferation of prepaid subscribers are among the reasons why smartphone ATPU in emerging markets will lag behind this in developed regions.

There will be also a significant difference in the ATPU associated with the different OS platforms. iPhone will continue to lead the smartphone ATPU thanks to its superior user experience, says Informa. Also, because the iPhone will continue to target premium users with high ARPUs, it is likely to remain leading the ATPU worldwide with an estimated value of 196MB/month in 2010.

However, other platforms, mainly Android and Microsoft Windows Phone, will catch up as the gap in terms of user experience is narrowing quite rapidly, it says. Android ATPU is currentIy at 148MB/month and likely to exceed 757MB/month by 2015. Android ATPU seems to be lower than that of the iPhone largely because Android is diluted across all market segments from low- to high-end smartphones. However, ATPU of the iPhone has been already surpassed by ATPU associated with some heavy-weight Android models that have recorded ATPUs exceeding the 200MB/month mark.

Vodafone and O2 get spectrum re-farming go ahead

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No conditions to be attached to 900MHz re-use

Ofcom has given the go-ahead for Vodafone and O2 to re-use their 900MHz spectrum for 3G without the requirement for them to release a block of spectrum to other operators.

Ofcom said that it had changed its mind principally because the T-Mobile/Orange merger that created EverythingEverywhere’s (EE) shared network had considerably reduced the competitive impact of allowing the 900MHz operators to open up the spectrum for 3G.

EE now has enough sites and spectrum to offset the advantage Vodafone and O2 would have from 900MHz coverage, Ofcom has found.

“Overall we now consider the risk and extent of any competitive advantage for O2 or Vodafone arising from liberalisation of the 900MHz spectrum for UMTS to be low and significantly less than our analysis suggested in February 2009,” a statement from the regulator said.

Additionally, Ofcom now thinks that it will be more expensive than previously thought for Vodafone and O2 to release spectrum. Along with the implementation challenges of allowing other operators access to the 900MHz spectrum, the negatives would outweigh the benefits.

Vodafone and O2 will pay annual licence fees for the spectrum that “reflect the full market value of that spectrum ” Ofcom said. This would “mitigate if not entirely eliminate” any distortion. Furthermore, even if annual licence fees were not accurately to reflect full market value (and in particular the differential in value between 900MHz and higher frequency spectrum) Ofcom considered the likely impact on consumers to be limited.

Somewhat more surprisingly, Ofcom has taken the view that the 900Mhz operators will not gain a significant in-building advantage by re-farming the spectrum for 3G. Fedback in response to Ofcom’s February 2009 consultation, suggested that a UMTS 900MHz network deployed by O2 or Vodafone would provide improved quality of coverage to some indoor locations when compared to 2100MHz.

However, Ofcom said “the extent of the improved quality of coverage is relatively small”. The regulator found that the extent of this advantage will be dependent on the construction of buildings and the location of the user within the building.

“Little or no advantage would exist in many easier to serve indoor locations. In addition, other ways of dealing with poor indoor coverage, such as in-building repeaters and femtocells have become a more plausible strategy for EE/H3G to address residual areas of coverage disadvantage since our February 2009 consultation,” the regulator’s statement said.

The regulator also gave the nod to EE to free up the 1800MHz spectrum the merged operator holds, if it wants to. EE agreed to divest 2x15MHz blocks of spectrum at the time of the merger, to satisfy EC demands.

 

Telmap adds Tweets to street deets

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Telmap adds Tweets to street deets

Telmap, a company that provides mobile location and navigation solutions, has made available a location-aware Twitter Widget as part of its mobile search, mapping and navigation solution.

The widget shows Telmap users public tweets, and tweets by people they follow, that have a nearby location attached to them. Users need to choose the Twitter Widget from the Widgets Carousel, and all relevant nearby tweets will be presented on the map. Users will be able to select a specific tweet, view and reply to it, as well as navigate to the location attached to it. In addition, when searching for a specific location or point of interest, users can view tweets around that specific location.

Ronen Soffer, Chief Technology Officer, said that Telmap is not trying to compete with any of the other social networking or check-in (FourSquare) services; rather it would look to implement those elements within the Telmap application – adding their content to the user’s experience of a location.
As Telmap support many mobile operators in their location services strategies, the widget gives operators a way to add another layer of information to their location services.
“We see the widget acting to enhance the location and navigation app with information and content from users’ own social networks, and from other location enabled sources. This provides better content exploration as well as higher level of trust and comfort in the service,” he said.

 

Carlyle Group to Buy Syniverse Technologies in $2.6 Billion Transaction

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Syniverse Technologies has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by The Carlyle Group for approximately $2.6 billion, resulting in Syniverse becoming a private company.
Carlyle will acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Syniverse for $31.00 per share in cash representing a premium of approximately 35% over Syniverse’s average closing share price during the 30 trading days ended October 26, 2010. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011.

Syniverse provides a full portfolio of mobile roaming, messaging and network solutions to more than 800 mobile operators, cable and Internet providers, and enterprises in over 160 countries. By relying on Syniverse, these companies are able to deliver the mobile services their subscribers demand — including voice, data, messaging and more — anywhere in the world.
The Syniverse board of directors unanimously approved the transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval of Syniverse stockholders and various regulatory organizations, but is not subject to any financing conditions. The transaction has fully committed financing, consisting of equity provided by Carlyle Partners V, a $13.7 billion U.S. buyout fund, and debt provided by Barclays Capital and Credit Suisse.
“After careful and diligent analysis, together with our independent advisers, the board of directors and I are proud to enter into this agreement with Carlyle,” said Bob Marino, chairman of Syniverse. “The acquisition provides validation of the results we have achieved through our sound strategy, strong management team, and expert employee base, and provides our stockholders with a significant cash premium for their investment.”
A special meeting of Syniverse’s stockholders will be held after the preparation and filing of a proxy statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission and subsequent mailing to shareholders. Upon completion of the acquisition, Syniverse will become a private company, wholly owned by an affiliate of The Carlyle Group.
James Attwood, Carlyle managing director, added “Syniverse is an outstanding business that plays a vital role in the mobile ecosystem globally. We are impressed with the multi-faceted business that has been built under the leadership of Tony Holcombe, and are excited at the prospect of working with him and the senior management team to drive continued growth and market leadership.”
“Syniverse is leading the way in the mobile space with our roaming, messaging and network solutions,” said Tony Holcombe, president and CEO, Syniverse. “The Carlyle Group recognizes the potential of both Syniverse and mobile communications, and it is committed to supporting our ability to better serve our customers, grow our business around the world, and provide long-term opportunities for our employees. As a private company we believe Syniverse will have the ability to better focus on the long term strategic direction of our customers and our industry.”

French operators to share 3G at 900MHz

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SFR, Orange and Bouygues target rural mobile broadband

SFR plans to work with Nokia Siemens Networks to build an enhanced mobile voice and data network in rural France, and share the service with subscribers of two other operators – Orange and Bouygues.

The operator has selected Nokia Siemens Networks to modernize and expand its 3G/HSPA+ radio access network. The project is the first example of 3G (HSPA+ at 900 Mhz) Radio Access Network (RAN) sharing and will enable more people to enjoy the benefits of extended mobile broadband.

“One of the main reasons we’ve been selected was the simple, versatile yet cost effective option that we have in the form of our Flexi Multiradio Base Station,” says Sampsa Lahtinen, Nokia Siemens Networks. “It is optimized to facilitate active radio network sharing, along with helping SFR meet its expansion targets on time.”

Under the scope of the three-year deal, Nokia Siemens Networks will deliver its Flexi Multiradio Base Station, offering energy savings, while deploying 3G/HSPA+ and modernizing SFR’s existing GSM network. The vendor will also provide network implementation and managed services as part of the contract.

 

Vodafone rejects NSN claims of LTE “first” in Germany

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Vodafone has responded to NSN’s claims that it is helping Deutsche Telekom become the first operator to deploy in LTE digital dividend spectrum.

An NSN release last week claimed that the operator was “to be first for commercial roll-out of LTE in digital dividend spectrum”.

But that seemed to conflict with earlier news from Vodafone which has stated it has a live network in Germany already, with more to come. Vodafone Germany has already published tariffs on its website for LTE, whereas DT is yet to go public with its pricing.

A Vodafone statement to Mobile Europe said, “Yes, Vodafone has already deployed several LTE locations, one of them being Heiligendamm at the Baltic Sea. We have also started locations in Lower Saxony, three in total, the fourth is about to go ‘live’ in a few weeks.”

With German operators said to be discussing network sharing for LTE for rural coverage (the whole point of LTE at 800MHz), is such squabbling really necessary?

 

 

Icera partners with Teleca to develop Android Radio Interface Layer

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Icera and Teleca have announced that Teleca will help develop an Android radio interface layer for Icera´s Espresso 4xx smartphone platform family based on its Livanto ICE806x baseband chips.

Pete Cumming, Icera´s VP Systems Engineering said, “Teleca´s extensive experience in developing Android solutions along with their proven track record for Android RIL, in particular, made them a compelling partner. The Android RIL being developed by Teleca will be a key component in Icera´s plan to launch Android solutions in 2011. We are looking forward to Teleca providing integration and customization support to our customers.”

“With a highly differentiated offering in software defined modems, Icera is emerging as a strong player in the highly competitive semiconductor market,” said Andrew Till, SVP Solutions Marketing, at Teleca. “We expect this to be the beginning of a long term relationship. Teleca has experienced very strong growth in its Android based solution sales to both the traditional mobile device market and to the consumer electronics and automotive sectors. This latest project adds a new and significant client to Teleca´s customer base and further strengthens Teleca´s leadership in developing Android RIL implementations for new platforms and products.”

Option joins forces with chief competitor Huawei

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If you can’t beat them, join them

Data modem and dongle manufacturer Option has struck a licensing deal with one of its chief tormenters – Huawei – and agreed to drop anti-dumping and anti-subsidy complaints as a result.

The company has agreed to license its connection manager software to Huawei, with the first year of the license valued at €27 million. The agreement also includes the potential for an extension of the license for an amount of up to EUR 33 million over the next 18 months.

Option will also sell its wholly owned semiconductor company M4S for approximately €8 million. M4S is developing a next generation Radio Frequency chipset to be used in 4G devices.

The companies have also agreed, in principle, to work on joint Research & Development projects to stimulate innovation in the telecoms industry. Both companies are also exploring the establishment of a joint R&D centre in Belgium, as well as ways of contributing resources to develop new wireless broadband solutions and software.

As a result of the deal, Option has withdrawn its anti-dumping and anti-subsidy complaints against imports of wireless wide area networking modems from China, asked the Belgian government to withdraw its safeguard request, and asked the European Commission to close all three investigations.

Option, during the first quarter of 2010, generated revenue of €13.1 million, showing a marked decline from €50.8 million in Q1 2009 and €76.8million in the first quarter of 2008. The company has blamed competitive pressure from Chinese competitors as being amongst the reasons for sales decline.

Option’s CEO Jan Callewaert said the deal was “is in the best interest of all stakeholders”.

“The collaboration aims to improve our respective products and solutions and will offer long term benefits to our customers. The software license agreement is a big step forward in one of our key pillars of our strategy,” Callewaert, said.

Gaining trust on mobile payments

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There was some interesting news last week in the mobile payments space that shows that progress is being made in developing what could be a key business function – that of the Trusted Service Manager.

The European Payments Council (EPC), the decision-making and coordination body of the European banking industry in relation to payments, and the GSMA have published a joint paper titled ‘Mobile Contactless Payments Service Management Roles – Requirements and Specifications’.

It sounds dry as dust but the implications could be interesting. The trusted service manager is the glue between the banks and the mobile operators, and as such can also work to open up contactless phones to other applications and uses. Mobile payments are something that operators could exploit, and seem a natural add-on to the hundreds of existing services already out there. But development has largely been held back by a lack of understanding between banks and operators.

The paper’s authors hope that it now offers a means to close an existing gap in the new Near Field Communication (NFC) ecosystem and also defines a minimum set of requirements for a TSM to interface with banks and mobile operators. TSMs facilitate the distribution, configuration and activation of the bank’s payment application on the Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC, also known as a SIM card) within bank customers’ NFC handsets.

“This is an important step forward as it is the first time that mobile operators and banks have worked together on a common vision which will ease the way for contactless payments,” said Alex Sinclair, Chief Technical Officer and Chief Strategy Officer, GSMA.

What is interesting about this is that it doesn’t have to be a card provider that becomes the TSM. In our next Mobile Europe Insight Report, published on Monday of next week, our report writers looked at the issue of the TSM. Here’s an excerpt of what they had to say:

As the role of the TSM has become better defined, a number of companies are now starting to provide these as a product offering. Whilst some are well established companies that have been involved within the Credit Card manufacturing industry or payment processing industries, Companies such as Gemalto, Venyon (part of G&D), Cassis and Vivotech all offer TSM services with differing company backgrounds. Venyon and Cassis both have strong backgrounds in Telcos, Gemalto with Financial Services and Vivotech with retail merchants and acquiring banks. None have a lead on any of the others with so few deployments so far, but each has its own view of how they should be deployed when compared to others.
This clearly shows that the role of the TSM covers two distinct areas – the Mobile Operator and the Card Issuer or Bank, and each clearly needs to maintain its own information relating to the user. Whilst this segmented model is one that is becoming the preferred model throughout Europe, with one or two exceptions, it is not without risk as both parties seek to control the key relationships with the end-user. Whether this model is correct or not and which model of TSM use becomes the norm is yet to be decided. However, what is clear is that the TSM should be neutral from the mobile operator and the card provider or bank.

The specifications published last week can help define those two roles and the required neutrality, and open the space for the benefit of all – banks and operators. It could be a small but key step in the development of mobile payments services in Europe.

If you would like to find out more about how the NFC payments market is evolving, then do look out for our Report next week.

Keith Dyer
Editor
Mobile Europe

 

 

http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/news-anaylsis/8231-elisa-targets-lte-at-1800mhz-by-2012

http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/press-wire/8229-itu-paves-way-for-next-generation-4g-mobile-technologies

http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/press-wire/8230-european-payments-council-releases-trusted-service-management-specifications-for-mobile-contactless-payments

http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/press-wire/8237-vocalink-says-research-shows-demand-for-new-mobile-payments-proposition

http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/blog/8235-seenearly-creates-your-own-mobile-history

http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/blog/8233-how-much-extra-coverage-does-digital-dividend-spectrum-give-you

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