The T-Mobile group's business continued its positive course in the third quarter of 2007. Revenue climbed 8.6 percent year-on-year to EUR 8.88 billion; earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose by 9.5 percent to EUR 2.94 billion. This brought the group's EBITDA margin up to 33.1 percent. Adjusted for exchange rate effects, the increase would have been even greater: T-Mobile USA recorded an EBITDA increase in dollar terms of 15.2 percent compared with the third quarter of 2006. Measured in euros, however, this increase was only 6.7 percent.
 
All national companies contributed to the customer growth of 24.1 percent in the past quarter to 113.7 million customers. The main factors behind this development were the Polish company PTC, that was not consolidated at the same time last year, with 12.7 million customers and the continued strong growth at T-Mobile USA, where the customer base increased by more than 3.5 million year-on-year. Use of the mobile Internet is becoming more and more significant. The number of users of the web‚n‚walk mobile Internet service in Europe increase by more than 400,000 in a single quarter to 2.8 million. 
 
"We have demonstrated once again that we generate first-class results in a tough market environment and despite unfavorable currency effects," declared Hamid Akhavan, CEO of T-Mobile International and Member of the Board of Management of Deutsche Telekom. "With innovations such as the iPhone, which will be launched in Germany tomorrow exclusively by T-Mobile, and the launch of MyFaves in several countries we will continue our growth and innovation story."
 
T-Mobile Deutschland recorded 577,000 new contract customers between January and September of this year, almost 40 percent more than in the same period last year. This was primarily attributable to the Max flat rate tariff, which once again recorded a considerable customer growth: At the end of September a total of 811,000 customers were on this rate. T-Mobile recorded a drop in revenue in the third quarter of 2007 of 3.0 percent year-on-year to EUR 2.06 billion. The 13.0 percent drop in EBITDA to EUR 777 million is primarily attributable to price decline on the intensely competitive German mobile communications market. 
 
T-Mobile UK recorded increases in revenues and profit in the third quarter. While revenue increased by 7.4 percent to EUR 1.25 billion, EBITDA rose by 12.0 percent to EUR 365 million. As a result, the EBITDA margin was 29.2 percent. The total number of customers exceeded 17 million, in particular due to the increase of 9.5 percent in the contract customer segment in the prior year. The successful customer acquisition for the Flext rate plan continues. The number of Flext customers has doubled compared with the end of September 2006 to 2 million.
 
Other national companies contributed to the growth story as well. Highlights include contract customer growth of 21.2 percent at the Polish company PTC. The Czech subsidiary T-Mobile CZ increased the number of its customers in this lucrative segment by more than 30 percent. T-Mobile CZ also recorded double-digit growth rates in revenue and EBITDA in the third quarter.

Ericsson and Finnish operator Elisa have activated the operator's WCDMA/HSPA network addition in the 900MHz frequency band. The new part of the network is said to be seamlessly integrated in Elisa's existing WCDMA/HSPA network in the 2.1GHz band. Ericsson's WCDMA/HSPA portfolio for the 900MHz band offers Elisa a cost-efficient way to further expand the coverage of its WCDMA/HSPA network in sparsely inhabited areas of Finland.

As announced earlier this year, Elisa chose Ericsson to deliver network equipment and related services for a substantial expansion of its WCDMA/HSPA network. Today's activation of Ericsson's WCDMA/HSPA 900MHz technology improves the cost-efficient and fast way the operator can cover large geographical areas without compromising HSPA performance, which offers high bit rates, low latency and full mobility.

Ericsson's WCDMA/HSPA solution for the 900MHz band provides more coverage because of the improved radio wave propagation at lower frequencies, making it easier to provide low-cost mobile broadband services in rural areas as well as improved indoor coverage in urban areas. Ericsson's solution is built on its existing portfolio of radio base stations, which provides commercial mobile broadband services with up to 14.4Mbps download speeds in more than 70 commercial networks.

Veli-Matti Mattila, President and CEO at Elisa, says: "Our objective in adding radio base stations for the 900MHz band to our WCDMA/HSPA network is, as always, an improved customer experience.  We are now able to cover substantially larger geographical areas; eventually making our fast and attractive mobile services available for every Finn."

Janne Laitala, President, Ericsson Finland, says: "As the technology leader in mobile broadband, Ericsson is proud to support Elisa on its journey to build nationwide WCDMA/HSPA coverage. Access to innovative mobile broadband services, anywhere and anytime, opens new and exciting opportunities for consumers and business users."

Ericsson says its WCDMA/HSPA technology is now commercially deployed in the 850, 900, 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100MHz frequency bands and, as announced previously, deployment in the 2.6GHz frequency band will start shortly.

Vodafone and Nokia have agreed to launch an integrated suite of Vodafone services combined with Nokia Ovi Services on a range of Nokia handsets. The services will offer customers a greater choice of communications, Internet services, content and browsing through a range of premium handsets on high speed 3G and 3G broadband networks. Vodafone and Nokia also have agreed that a number of these handsets will be exclusive to Vodafone.

Customers will get faster and easier access to all of Vodafone's Internet and entertainment services as well as all of Ovi from Nokia services on a wide range of handsets. Vodafone customers will be able to access the widest and most attractive choice of Internet services.

Vodafone and Nokia will make it easier to access the Internet quickly at the click of a button. Customers will get the full suite of communications, content, Internet services and browsing, through seamlessly integrated Vodafone services on Nokia handsets. 

Vodafone and Nokia will also deliver greater choice in music for customers, by making both the Vodafone music service and the Nokia Music Store available on Nokia's 2008 handsets.

"We're pleased do be working with Nokia in leading the industry to bring customers a complete suite of Vodafone communications, browsing, content and Internet services" said Frank Rovekamp, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Vodafone Group. "This is a logical step for Vodafone to make, further improving our customer experience with many of the services already launched with leading Internet partners."

"Web2.0 is all about social networking and enabling people to connect with each other in new ways. Bringing location and context awareness to web2.0 services is the next stage in the web development and Nokia multimedia computers enable people to participate to their favourite internet services on-the-go", said Executive Vice President and General Manager Nokia Multimedia Anssi Vanjoki. "We're excited to work with Vodafone to provide consumers with internet services like navigation, music, games and communities to make their life richer and more enjoyable, independent of time and place."

The increasing popularity of casual gaming, combined with a steadily increasing variety of gaming-friendly handsets offering high quality 3D graphics aimed at core gamers, will help to push end-user generated revenues from mobile games to nearly $10bn by 2009, according to a new report by Juniper Research.

In total, more than 460m mobile users are expected to download games by 2009, representing more than a double increase on the current number. Much of this growth is expected in emerging markets such as the Indian sub-continent, where the number of users will rise from 10m in 2007 to nearly 40m in 2009.

 According to report author Dr Windsor Holden, "Game downloads have already overtaken those of ringtones in a number of Western European markets, while mobile handsets are now the de facto games console in many developing countries."

However, the Juniper Research report cautioned that the high cost of browsing and downloading services and content combined with opaque pricing structures were continuing to act as a disincentive to service adoption. It also welcomed the fact that there were an increasing number of products targeting female gamers, although added that more needed to be done to widen the mobile gaming demographic.

"Essentially, the proportion of leading titles focusing on action and adventure has not altered discernibly over the past two years," said Holden. "While these are popular within the traditional gaming demographic, there is a major opportunity to attract casual gamers by enhancing a portfolio mix with more titles from alternative genres."

 Other findings from the Juniper report include:

—  China and the Far East will remain the largest regional market for mobile games throughout the period covered by the report, with revenues rising from nearly $2.7bn in 2007 to $5.7bn by 2012
—  Global revenues from in-game advertising will rise from just $90m in 007 to more than $1.2bn in 2012
—  Operators and publishers should expand the number of games they offer on a free trial basis: with the entry price barrier removed, a greater number of consumers may play the game and ultimately convert to being paid customers

Juniper Research has assessed the current and future status of mobile games based on interviews, case studies and analysis from representatives of some of the leading organisations in the growing mobile games industry.

Elisa has chosen to deploy the Nokia Siemens Networks MSC Server solution in an agreement that enhances Nokia Siemens Networks' position as Elisa's circuit core network vendor. Deployment of the 3GPP-compliant mobile softswitching solution has been completed and the solution, which includes MSC Servers and Multimedia Gateways, is already operational in Elisa's network.

Elisa undertook the upgrade of its switching infrastructure in order to meet growing demand and recognized the MSC Server System as the best and most cost effective means to boost switching capacity. The MSC Server was implemented as an upgrade to Elisa's existing MSC switches previously supplied by Nokia.

"The development of our core network is crucial to Elisa's future success as our call traffic continues to increase," says Kirsi Valtari, Vice President for Production, Elisa. "Implementing a 3GPP Release 4 architecture will improve our overall network capacity, and optimize the costs of providing voice services."

 "We're extremely pleased to be continuing as Elisa's supplier of core network infrastructure," says Jürgen Walter, head of Service Core and Applications, Nokia Siemens Networks. "For us, it's a clear endorsement of Nokia Siemens Networks' strong offering in this space, especially our MSC Server System, which also lays the groundwork for the evolution toward IP-based networks."

Under the agreement, Nokia Siemens Networks supplies its MSC Server System, which supports 3GPP Release 4, 5 and 6 features which provide support for SIP services, interworking with IP Multimedia Subsystem, and convergence voice services such as VoIP over WiFi or broadband access.

Software maintenance and hardware repair services are also included in the deal. These services are designed to safeguard Elisa's network investment with proper incident management and issue resolution as well as to ensure optimum platform health, allowing the network to stay competitive and reliable by keeping all network equipment operating.

Traditional telecom carriers can no longer rely on conventional competitive tactics such as price cuts, promotions and basic product bundling to maintain their edge in the consumer segment, has warned Gartner.  Speaking at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, Gartner analysts said that non-traditional telecom players like Apple, Google and Nokia, which have a strong understanding of consumers, are adopting new business models that are forcing carriers to reassess their approach and service delivery. Faced with this competition, traditional telecom carriers will attempt to transform themselves by primarily exploiting content, but Gartner predicts that more than 80 per cent will fail.
 
"The players that will be among the successful 20 per cent will be the ones that provide a consumer-centric experience, for example through interactive TV, where users will be able to chat online while watching their favourite TV programmes," said Martin Gutberlet, research vice-president.
 
Owning infrastructure initially gives telecom carriers some competitive edge but this is mitigated by non-traditional competitors that don't own a network but bundle their services attractively. "As demonstrated by Apple and Google, three new attributes are coming into play and driving change in the marketplace that the traditional telecom players must embrace to become successful content enablers, which create and/or deliver content. They are trust, usability and an exciting customer experience," said Mr Gutberlet. "If customers trust your services, they are willing to grant you access to their personal life. Ultimately, improving the customer experience will increase customer loyalty."
 
In this changing landscape, the winners will be those companies that understand consumers' needs, focusing on usability and actually giving control back to the users. The losers will be the ones that focus on overly technical product differentiation that the majority of consumers will not understand and therefore not use.
 
Telecom companies need to make some strategic decisions, says Gartner, predicting that by 2012, half of the 20 largest carriers will establish new lines of business outside telecom, such as media entertainment, advertising and managed services, but more than half will fail. Further, leading carriers in developed markets such as Vodafone and BT will be able to derive at least 15 per cent of revenue from such non-traditional sources. "To uncover adjacent markets, carriers must leverage their unique assets, in areas such as billing, secure authentication and quality of service, and develop multiple partnerships to add creative talent to existing operational expertise.
 
According to Gartner, three business models are emerging that will help carriers remain competitive through 2012:
 
1. Content Innovator – Entering the Media Market: Embracing this model, content innovators produce and own their content and will use exclusive content to differentiate themselves. For example, France Telecom is investing in film production while SK Telecom acquired a record label. The risk of this model is a temptation to focus purely on content ownership at the expense of providing customer experience.
 
2. Aggregator: Unlike the content innovator model, the aggregator model will not involve the creation of content, rather the sourcing and packaging of it. Carriers that adopt this model realise that much future content will come from the internet. Their aim will be to make it as accessible as possible, given the constraints of networks and devices, especially mobile phones. Aggregators will engage in content location, rendering, billing, advertising insertion and customer care and, as such, will have the opportunity to offer comprehensive bundled packages. Examples include T Mobile's collaboration with Google for mobile search and Hutchinson's Xseries which embraces internet services such as Skype and eBay.
 
Gartner advises that a partnership or joint venture approach offers the best balance between risk and opportunity for carriers. They would have to establish themselves by teaming with content owners, producers, developers, distributors and media buyers.  BT is a good example of a traditional carrier that successfully understands and leverages wider media offerings. 
 
3. Bit Pipe Carrier: This represents a stable business model based purely on connectivity as a utility but with both lower revenue and lower margins than today. Rather than emphasising content and services, the bit pipe model is driven by operational excellence. In order to maintain profits amidst declining revenues, carriers that adopt a bit pipe approach are expected to reduce their core operational staff by at least 20 per cent by 2012, driven by internet protocol (IP) technology, infrastructure consolidation, process automation, operational outsourcing and cutthroat competition. "The risk of this model is making the wrong network investment decision," Mr Gutberlet said.
 
He added, "We envisage that carriers will use any combination of the three business models. A company that has successfully deployed this approach is Telefonica, which was once a content innovator and following its sale of Endemol became an aggregator and a bit pipe carrier."
 
"The telecom industry in 2012 will be very different from the one we know today. Developing strong partnership skills, focusing on customer user groups, embracing internet services and starting to talk the language of Web 2.0 will enable the carriers to thrive well into the future," concluded Mr Gutberlet.

iO global, the provider of integrated digital retail solutions, has appointed Paul Davis as VP Operations to lead the service design, project implementation and in-life support activities for the iO Mobile Experience platform. Davisl will utilise his technology, strategy and operations execution experience to ensure that new mobile content services can be effectively delivered to help accelerate revenue realization for iO global's customer base, from service providers and advertisers through to content producers. 

Prior to joining iO global, Davis developed a long and successful career with British Telecommunications, where his last role was as Business Engagement Director. He was directly responsible for managing the IT relationship and delivery for BT's £2.3 Billion contract with the NHS.

The foundation of his career was built at BT over a period of 27 years where, for the majority of his time there, he held senior customer facing positions, building a successful portfolio of deployments throughout the world, including placements in New Zealand, Middle East, Africa and India.

Comments Paul Davis on his appointment: "iO global is continually striving to deliver innovative digital retail solutions that ultimately help provide an enhanced mobile experience to consumers and as such has a great industry reputation.  As a company that I believe to be a market innovator, I am extremely excited to join iO global as it continues to advance in the market. I thrive in a dynamic environment and as a result, I look forward to working closely with the team over the coming months to help further develop the company's service offerings."

Comments Martin Knestrick, CEO, iO global: "As the mobile content space continues to evolve at such a rapid pace, it is vital to have an highly knowledgeable and experienced team that can help drive the business forward to another level.  Paul is an excellent addition to our team here at iO global, bringing with him a wealth of in-depth industry knowledge and product experience that can only help the business develop further."

Seeker Wireless, the zone detection technology provider, has today announced the launch of a cannibalisation calculator and a detailed study to highlight the loss in revenues operators can suffer as a result of inaccurate location technology. Seeker Wireless worked closely with a number of mobile operators and a telecom pricing data provider to ensure that the analysis was an accurate reflection of Fixed Mobile Substitution (FMS) trends worldwide. The calculator and study are designed to help operators effectively plan their FMS solutions.

Saturated markets in developed countries and rapid expansion in developing countries have led a number of operators to turn to FMS to expand their markets and drive revenues, offering consumers a single mobile handset for use at home and while out and about. HomeZones have become a key component of many operator FMS strategies; offering mobile subscribers competitive tariffs based on their location. Most HomeZone solutions however, have been based on network Cell-ID technology and this has delivered poor accuracy and significant cannibalisation of revenue.

The Seeker Wireless study found that with Cell-ID, up to 30% of calls are incorrectly tariffed as "at home" when users are actually outside the vicinity of their home, compared to as little as 3% with an advanced zone detection solution. The result is massive revenue cannibalisation with Cell-ID systems. The cannibalisation calculator allows operators to study their subscriber data and business case by country and compare the financial implication of deploying different technologies for HomeZone solutions.

Carrie Pawsey, Senior Wireless Analyst at Ovum comments: "Our research also shows that without increased accuracy, operators could experience significant revenue cannibalisation with traditional HomeZone solutions.
For FMS to be profitable, operators need the right technology to ensure an accurate service that delivers value and meets consumer expectations."

Dr Chris Drane, Chief Executive Officer at Seeker Wireless says: "The voice market is increasingly shifting from the traditional fixed-line towards a mobile future, and our study is further testament to our efforts to raise the bar on accuracy in location technology to make FMS truly profitable for operators. All too often operators considered accuracy to be the Achilles' heel in location technology; our study quantifies the impact of using network Cell-ID and demonstrates that the technology now exists to make location a real business driver."

Creativity Software has reported that its Rough Guides Mobile travel application is now on 5 million mobile phones throughout Europe .

Rough Guides Mobile is a mobile application which provides travel content through a navigable map interface, allowing consumers to access useful travel information on more than 200 cities in 33 European countries. It is embedded on all new Motorola handsets sold through retail in Europe and it is also offered by Samsung through its Fun Club portal in the UK .

The news comes as a recent spate of acquisitions clearly signals the intention of some large mobile players to begin delivering travel guide content across mobile devices – Tom Tom, the supplier of GPS personal navigation devices have acquired TeleAtlas, the second biggest supplier of maps in the world; and Nokia have acquired Navteq, the biggest supplier of digital maps in the world.

Saul Olivares, Marketing Manager of Creativity Software commented, "We're very pleased with the tremendous success of Rough Guides Mobile. While many companies are aligning their strategies to ensure they are able to offer valuable content to mobile phone users, we are already present in more than 5 million phones throughout Europe . Mobile device manufacturers are realising the importance to deliver branded and rated travel content to their consumers and this is exactly what Rough Guides Mobile offers".

Liz Statham, Marketing and PR Director of Rough Guides, added: "Today's traveller wants travel information that they can trust available to them in whatever format best meets their needs. Rough Guides are known for telling it like it is and we are delighted that our travel information can now be accessed by million of mobile phone users, many of whom will already be loyal Rough Guide book buyers"

The FLO Forum, a body of over 90 global wireless industry leaders dedicated to the open standardization of FLOTM (Forward Link-Only) technology for mobile multimedia broadcast, today announced the completion of the Open Conditional Access (or OpenCA) Key Management System Framework, creating a standards-based environment that enables multiple vendors to implement content security systems within the FLO architecture.
 
The OpenCA framework provides a standard interface for CA systems to interoperate, ensuring that FLO network operators do not become dependent on a particular vendor. Instead, they can replace an entire CA system seamlessly with another system, or run multiple systems concurrently in a "Simulcrypt" setting. This provides operators with increased flexibility in response to new security demands or business model requirements. The framework also enables content providers to offer a wider choice of premium content on mobile without the risk of piracy, helping to create a compelling end-user mobile TV experience.
 
The OpenCA framework was an initiative driven by the FLO Forum membership. Three European members were instrumental in authoring the specification; Irdeto, Nagravision and NDS all contributed via the FLO Forum's Content & Services and Technical Committees, applying their extensive experience of working with the DVB Open Security Framework (OSF) to devise an equivalent solution for FLO technology. Further members, including Newport Media, Verimatrix and Widevine Technologies, also contributed to the review and approval of the framework.
 
"Content security is a fundamental requirement for all digital TV services and its effectiveness in mobile TV will be under close scrutiny as the market expands," commented Charles Lo, Chair, FLO Forum Technical Committee. "Flexible, secure conditional access systems will be key not only in assuring revenues for operators, but also in encouraging content owners to offer high quality content – which, in turn, will drive consumer uptake. As such, the OpenCA framework is a crucial step in ensuring a secure and profitable future for all parties within the FLO ecosystem – from CA vendors, to operators, to content owners."
 
 "The opportunity to leverage standardized conditional access systems on top of FLO technology was identified by several of the FLO Forum's members," said Dr. Kamil Grajski, President, FLO Forum. "These members took the initiative in "porting" to FLO the DVB OSF, taking advantage of previous implementations, and quickening the introduction of open CA-based FLO networks in future. The FLO Forum prides itself on being a member-driven organization and, as with all FLO standards to date, our members have been extremely active in working collaboratively to develop the OpenCA framework. The completion of the framework highlights yet again the global, multi-company momentum behind FLO technology for mobile broadcast TV."