the future of wireless ISSUE 163 FEBRUARY 2010

Traffic Jam
featuring
Social networking: What
do you get when social
SMARTPHONES, DONGLES AND THE DATA BOOM networks go mobile? Some
very big numbers indeed.

Matthew Key:
The CEO of Telefónica Europe
talks exclusively to MCI.

MCI163_Cover.indd 1 1/2/10 09:34:59

 Front

Editorial 02
contents february10
News 04
Orange unveils its advertising strategy, the result
of a partnership with Blyk, while browser specialist
Opera makes a mobile advertising move of its own.
Vodafone puts a new shine on its femtocell proposal
in a bid to shift more units and Palm overhauls its
Pre handset with a new hotspot feature. A new
ecological initiative, the Green Touch brings together
a range of players and Indian carrier Bharti moves
into Bangladesh.

30 | networks and
the data boom
The surge in mobile broadband
traffic might well be what the carrier
community has long been waiting
for, but its arrival has proven a double
edged sword as networks have groaned
under the strain. What can be done to
alleviate the pressure?
34 | mobile Social
networking
It’s a proven service on the fixed web
and the move to mobile seems a natural
evolution. What happens when the
worlds of mobile telephony and social
networking collide?
Analysis 12
18 months after its acquisition of mapping and
navigation firm Navteq, Nokia is making its entire
offering free to owners of its handsets in a bid to
make Ovi Maps a contextual platform at the centre
of a range of apps. Coming right back at the Finnish
vendor, meanwhile, Google has finally launched its
own-branded handset; the Nexus One.
Interview

Matthew Key 18
The CEO of Telefónica Europe talks exclusively to
MCI about the challenges faced across his portfolio,

| Global Events 2010

his future plans and the evolving shape of the
industry.

LTE World Summit 2010 Interview

18th-20th May, Hotel Okura, Amsterdam, Netherlands
www.lteconference.com
With a number of operator LTE trials
underway, the telecoms industry is
more keen than ever to learn about
deployment options, associated
costs, the business case and potential
services that LTE could enable. LTE
World Summit is a unique event, as it
brings together leading operators from
across the globe, as it is specifically
dedicated to discussing the path to LTE.
East Africa Com
27th – 28th April 2010
Nairobi, Kenya
www.comworldseries.com/eafrica
Michael O’Hara 26
The chief marketing officer of the GSMA gives the
Keynotes from top tier one operators heads up on the 2010 Mobile World Congress as the
include: NTT DoCoMo, TeliaSonera, hand of cooperation is extended to external players
China Mobile, Net4Mobility, T-Mobile like Google.
International and MetroPCS. The event
will also feature in depth workshops for
Features
delegates to learn about technologies
and potential strategies, making this
conference relevant to delegates
with either technical or strategic Networks and the data boom 30
background.
Social networking on mobile 34
Broadband Global Summit
8th –10th March 2010 The decade ahead 41
Dubai, UAE
www.broadbandglobalsummit.com

IMS 2.0 World Forum

The Informer
West Africa Com
16th –17th June 2010 27th – 29th April 2010
Dakar, Senegal Barcelona, Spain The internet’s awash with cooing… it can only mean 48
www.comworldseries.com/wcafrica www.ims-conference.com one thing. There’s a new Apple on the block. It’s not
a laptop, and it’s not a smartphone. It’s better than
both, says Steve Jobs, as the Informer has a look at
the iPad.

Telecoms.com just got smarter.... Subscribe to MCI today!

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Visit www.telecoms.com www.mobilecomms.com

Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business 01

01_MCI163.indd 1 1/2/10 09:36:47

 EDITORIALFEBRUARY10

mike.hibberd@informa.com
Future gazing

I
n this month’s feature on the decade ahead There are big question marks for some over HEAD OFFICE
Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street,
(beginning on p41) we have a look at some whether mobile operators are best placed London, W1T 3JH
of the industry developments that the next to match these behaviours, though, and the Tel: +44 (0)20 7017 5000
Fax: +44 (0) 20 701 75647
ten years might bring. Developments over debate as to the carrier’s role in the value
EDITORIAL
such a time span are not easy to predict in an chain, which was lively in 2000, has only Please send all press releases to support@telecoms.com
industry that can be marked by such a fero- gained intensity over the decade. Whether Editorial Director
cious pace of development as this one. How or not operators will be able to build exper- Mike Hibberd
Email: mike.hibberd@informa.com
many of us, if we’re honest, would have been tise in software platforms and application Tel: +44 (0)20 701 75201
able to paint an accurate picture of today’s development fast enough to catch up to the Deputy Editor
industry back in the year 2000? established players remains to be seen and James Middleton
Email: james.middleton@informa.com
It’s worth having a go, though, because it their attempts will prove definitive, one way Tel: +44 (0)20 701 75257
forces you to look at the greatest pressures or another. Correspondents:
that are acting on the industry today. What We’re creating a space on telecoms.com The Informer

lies in store ten years down the line, after all, to enable this debate to unfold and expand ADVERTISING
Sales Managers:
will emerge from the tensions that currently in whatever direction the industry thinks it
Michael Butcher
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Mobile Communications International is the ing comment and predictions from a wide Suki Bains
Email: suki.bains@informa.com
jostling for position in which all players are variety of industry experts, participants and Tel: +44 (0)20 701 7
engaged. Everyone wants to maintain the observers and all opinion is welcome. Japanese Sales Enquires:
customer relationship and companies from all Please join the debate by going to www.tel- Media Communications Inc
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edition) to see the lengths to which various Mike Hibberd PUBLISHER

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02_MCI163.indd 2 1/2/10 09:45:58

Untitled-3 1 26/1/10 15:33:50
 NEWS February2010

Search our archive at: www.telecoms.com

Orange calls Shots with mobile advertising plan

In late January, UK
operator Orange revealed
what it’s been up to with
failed-MVNO-turned-
managed-services-
provider Blyk, marking
the launch of Blyk’s first
offering in its new guise.
Blyk closed the doors
on its MVNO operation at
the end of August 2009,
having notched up some
200,000 end users. The
firm re-launched itself as
an advertising services
provider and since
September Orange has
been testing the platform
with its own content and
brands including 4Music,
Ubisoft, COI and Snickers.
Having launched full
commercial service on
February 1st, Orange Shots
will initially be available
to brands who want to
interact with an audience
of 100,000 customers from
part of Orange’s Pay As You
Go Monkey customer base,
which offers free music and
texts to customers when
they top up.
The Orange Shots
service works across SMS
and MMS, and like Blyk’s
original model, encourages
customers to message
back and give views and
opinions. After testing,
Orange is claiming response
rates of between 21-39 per
cent and said it will slowly
roll out the Shots platform
to the rest of its subscriber
base. Unanimis UK is the
partner advertising agency.
Orange assures its
customers that they have
the opportunity to opt out
at any stage, and customer
data will not be shared
externally to third parties.
Blyk’s original model
relied on revenues from
advertising customers
being used to subsidise
voice and text usage for
16 - 24 year-old end users
(or ‘members’ as Blyk
prefered to describe
them). But, although
initial uptake was
quicker than the
firm had forecast,
the service was not a
commercial success.
While the firm’s
advertising response
rates remained
high at 25 per
cent, it lacked the
kind of reach that
advertisers are used
to buying through
more established
media. And the
volume of free usage
made available to
end users through
advertising
subsidies was simply
insufficient.
Yet Blyk maintains
that this was the
plan all along, and
that the MVNO was a
temporary channel to test that the company will soon Netherlands and India,
that the platforms works. be launching operations which will be directly
A Bly spokeswoman said of a different kind in the consumer facing.

Opera buys mobile advertising platform

It certainly looks like a
good time to be in the
mobile advertising business
as companies are being
snapped up like hot cakes. In
mid-January mobile browser
leader Opera acquired
AdMarvel for a reported
$8m in cash and the promise
of a further $15m if targets
are met. AdMarvel, based in
California, is a startup firm
running a mobile advertising
ecosystem with service
offerings including mobile
web, WAP, SMS and in
application advertising.
Opera intends to combine
AdMarvel’s monetisation
and analytics platform with
the Opera browser and
widget platform to offer
advertising options to mobile
operators and content
partners on any Java-capable
handset including Symbian,
BlackBerry, Palm, Windows
Mobile and various flavours
of Linux.
“In our fast-growing
industry, mobile advertising
represents an interesting
long-term revenue
opportunity. Every month,
nearly 50 million people
access the web using Opera
on their mobile phones,”
said Lars Boilesen, CEO of
Opera.
Earlier in the month
Apple acquired mobile
advertising firm Quattro
Wireless for somewhere
between $250m and $275m,
perhaps paving the way for
Apple to offer an advertising
platform to its App Store
and iPhone customers.
Apple was also blowing
its trumpet about the fact
that more than three billion
apps have been downloaded
from its App Store in the 18
months since the shop front
opened its doors.
The Quattro advertising
network offers display
advertising, SMS/MMS/
shortcodes, rich media,
video and custom programs
including in-app advertising.
The company has its own
Q Deliver ad server, Q
Elevation targeting platform
and Q Analytics analytics
engine, which may suggest
that Apple has plans to
encroach upon Google’s
territory in the mobile
advertising space.
In late 2009 Google
upped its game in the
mobile space with the
purchase of AdMob for
$750m. Google and AdMob
currently specialise in
different areas, with
Google’s focus on mobile
search ads, while AdMob’s
focus is mobile display
ads and in-application
ads. According to Google,
the deal will bring new
innovation and competition
to the nascent mobile
advertising market, and will
lead to more effective tools
for creating, serving, and
analysing emerging mobile
ads formats.

04

04-08_MCI163.indd 4 1/2/10 08:25:10

 Changing Lives
Comviva is committed to changing lives with mobile technology. We are creating lifestyle-enriching solutions to
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 NEWS February2010

Search our archive at: www.telecoms.com

Vodafone tries again with femtocell proposal

Just days after launching
the iPhone in the UK
market, mobile operator
Vodafone revisited an
initiative to get mobile
data off its macro
network and onto the
fixed line pipes.
The UK operator
renamed its femtocell
offering, reinforcing
speculation that the
concept is difficult to
market to consumers. The
new name is Vodafone
Sure Signal, which is
certainly friendlier
than Vodafone Access
Gateway.
The femtocell is a
small base station that
plugs into a broadband
line and improves indoor
mobile coverage by
boosting the signal. But
it also has the added
benefit, for operators
at least, of moving that
voice and data traffic
off the cellular network
and onto the fixed
line network, which in
many cases is provided
by another operator
entirely.
This is an interesting
operator strategy and
one that is likely to
become more popular as
mobile networks become
increasingly congested
with traffic from data-
hungry smartphones and
dongles. On January 14th
Vodafone began selling
the iPhone in the UK,
making it the third carrier
out of the big five to offer
the device.
Vodafone was the first
European carrier to make
femtocells available
in July 2009 under the
name of the Access
Gateway, at which time
Mike Roberts, principal
analyst for Informa
Telecoms & Media, noted a one off charge, or £5
the move as a showing a month for 12 months
of support for the on price plans of £25 or
femtocell concept. “This more; or £120 in a one off
is huge for the femtocell cost, or £5 a month for 24
industry. A launch by a months on price plans of
major operator in tough less than £25, making it
economic times shows only available to contract
they’re convinced there’s customers. The devices
a strong business case are probably quite heavily
for femtocells, initially subsidised but it remains
for providing better to be seen if consumers
voice and data coverage will bite at these prices.
in homes, with more Still, it’s in the operator’s
advanced applications best interests if they can
and services to come,” effectively shift some of
he said. their traffic onto another
The newly rebranded provider’s network with
Sure Signal costs £50 in no associated cost.

Palm overhauls Pre with hotspot feature

While there is a lot of noise
in the industry about using
femtocells to move traffic off
the macro network, there
seems to be a growing interest
in mobile broadband hotspots.
In the US, some carriers seem
intent on using wifi-enabled
devices to shift traffic on to the
macro network.
Verizon Wireless is rolling
out enhanced, beefier
versions of the Palm Pre and
Pixi—now adorned with the
‘Plus’ suffix—both of which
have hotspot capability.
The overhauled devices
have double the storage of
their predecessors (16GB
for the Pre Plus, 8GB for
the Pixi Plus) and increased
application processing
power, but it’s the Palm
mobile hotspot, a webOS
app, that’s really of interest.
This turns the device into
a wifi hotspot, allowing up
to five wifi-enabled devices
such as notebooks, netbooks,
cameras, gaming devices or
portable media players to
share the Palm device’s 3G
connection to the internet.
At the same time, local rival
Sprint Nextel unveiled a 3G/4G
mobile broadband hotspot
made by Sierra Wireless. The
Overdrive allows up to five
wifi devices to be connected
at any one time and backhauls
the connection over Sprint/
Clearwire’s WiMAX network,
defaulting to the provider’s
EV-DO network when out of
WiMAX coverage.
The WiMAX connectivity
is the selling point in this
case and Sprint’s not shy
about telling users what they
can do with that bandwidth,
referencing such connection
intensive applications as HD
movie streaming, mobile TV,
music streaming and gaming.
The Overdrive will be
available from January 10th
for $99.99 after a $50 mail-
in-rebate with a two-year
service agreement.
The Overdrive is similar
in concept to the MiFi,
manufactured by Novatel,
which is a pocket-sized box
powered by batteries or a
mains supply that can connect
up to five wifi-enabled devices
with a cellular backhaul
connection.
MCI has been playing with
one of the Novatel devices
recently and is impressed by
the concept, which is more
user friendly than a dongle
because, with no software to
install, everything is accessed
via a web interface. But the
main benefit is that the user
can move the unit to an
optimum coverage position—
by the window, say—and
leave their laptop or other
wifi-capable devices on the
desk or a more comfortable
location. Palm handset

06

04-08_MCI163.indd 6 1/2/10 08:25:48

 NEWS February2010
Search our archive at: www.telecoms.com
Bharti moves into Bangladesh
Indian operator Bharti
Airtel agreed in early
January to acquire a
70 per cent stake in
Bangladeshi service
provider Warid Telecom
backed by an investment
totalling $1bn. Airtel will
purchase 70 per cent of
Warid from its current
owners the Dhabi Group,
leaving Dhabi with the
remaining 30 per cent. As
part of the transaction,
Bharti will invest $300m
to rapidly expand Warid’s
operations and increase
coverage and capacity.
Over the next few years,
Bharti’s overall investment
in the company will be in
the region of $1bn, making
it difficult to see how much
Networks going green
Alcatel-Lucent’s research
division, Bell Labs,
spearheaded the launch
of a global consortium
of academics, operators
and vendors, tasked with
the remit of developing
technologies capable
of making the global
communications network
1,000 times more energy
efficient than it is today.
The Green Touch initiative
brought together boffins
from industry, academia
and government labs,
and proposed to invent
and deliver radical new
approaches to energy
efficiency that will sit at the
heart of sustainable networks
for decades to come.
Introducing the initiative,
Jeong Kim, president of Bell
Labs, said the end game of
08
04-08_MCI163.indd 8
the Indian firm paid for
the stake.
The move is thought to
be the largest investment
in Bangladesh by an Indian
company, and will give
Bharti access to the 64
districts of Bangladesh
where Warid serves a total
customer base of over 2.9
million.
Sunil Bharti Mittal,
chairman and managing
director of Bharti Airtel,
said the deal underlines
the company’s “intent
to further expand our
operations to international
markets.”
With a population
of over 160 million and
teledensity of 32 per cent,
Mittal said Bangladesh is
a 1,000 fold reduction is
roughly equivalent to being
able to power the world’s
communications networks,
including the internet, for
three years using the same
amount of energy that it
currently takes to run them
for a single day. But this kind
of shift requires a redesign
of the global network’s
infrastructure components
from the ground up.
“From time to time we
need to make a system level
change, and not just make
incremental advancements to
existing technology,” Kim said.
“But in order to do this, we
need collaboration between
engineers and scientists.”
Green Touch has set itself
a five-year agenda in which
to come up with the enabling
technologies to deliver
a very promising market
for telecom services. The
purchase marks Bharti’s
second operation outside of
India. The company launched
its mobile services in Sri
Lanka in January 2009.
Meanwhile, Indian
communications
infrastructure operator GTL
Infrastructure is to take
over the tower assets of
local carrier Aircel in a deal
valued at $1.84bn. Under
the agreement, GTL will
take over 17,500 existing
towers and will take over
rights to roll out 20,000
more.
Aircel’s move is expected
to be replicated by other
operators across the Indian
mobile industry as they
this 1,000—fold increase
in energy efficiency, most
of which will come from
advancements in wireless.
But the main obstacle,
apart from the fact these
technologies have yet to be
developed, will be getting
the operator community on
board—the companies buying
this energy efficient kit.
Bell Labs acknowledges
that the network being
talked about is very different
from today’s networks,
which are optimised around
performance and not
efficiency—naturally so, in
order to satisfy the growth
explosion. But the Green
Touch network would be
optimised around energy
efficiency, raising some
concerns that at first, this
might result in increases
attempt to drum up funds
to participate the country’s
forthcoming auction of 3G
spectrum. The latest official
date given for the auction
is for this month, but after
numerous delays this may
be postponed yet again.
It seems Aircel’s plans
to capitalise on 3G data
services are already
underway. In January,
the operator tapped up
application services firm
Infosys to build it an
application store catering
to Aircel’s almost 30 million
mobile subscribers. Infosys
will use its white label
app store platform Flypp
to power the shop front,
which will host mobile
applications drawn from an
in price or losses in
performance.
This dilemma was
acknowledged by Ben
Verwaayen, CEO of Alcatel-
Lucent, who said that the
technologies developed
Infosys-managed ecosystem
of independent software
vendors.
But until 3G penetration
becomes significant, it’s
unlikely that the types of
applications in Aircel’s store
will be anything like those
now common to the iPhone
and Android app stores,
seeing as all of Aircel’s
subscribers are currently
equipped with 2G GSM
handsets and generate a
monthly ARPU of $2.36,
according to Informa’s WCIS
database. Instead we can
expect to see mobile money
and SMS-based m-payment
applications, which are
already driving data
revenues in the emerging
markets.
will compete on price and
performance and efficiency.
“It will be affordable, but not
so much that this change will
happen overnight,” he said.
“But ultimately it will be an
and-and, not an or-or world.”
1/2/10 08:28:21
11559HSL 277mmx204mmv2.pdf 13/1/10 14:49:50

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 vendor view
SPONSORED AND WRITTEN BY
Data Mediation & Analytics: Helping
Operators Realise the Full Potential
of the Mobile Internet
I
t goes without saying that mobile inter-
net usage has experienced significant
growth over the past couple of years
and has become an integral, irreplace-
able part of many people’s lives. Analyst
firm Forrester predicts that 125 million
Europeans will access the mobile internet
by 2013, more than tripling today’s users.
On a more global scale, Cisco Systems esti-
mates that mobile data traffic will double
every year through 2013, reaching over
two exabytes per month by 2013 .
On the one hand mobile data usage is
being driven by our changing professional
and social lifestyles: consumers expect
faster, simple and omnipresent access to the
internet. On the other hand, the rise in usage
is a direct result of the way in which mobile
operators, device manufacturers and all
the other associated players in the industry
make the web available to us on the go.
Increasingly, we are seeing user-
friendly payment options for mobile
broadband with bundled-rate and pay-as-
you-go billing models; faster and higher
bandwidth networks; and continuous im-
provements in mobile device capabilities.
The regular churn of new device models
entering the consumer market is driving
the range and quality of key features and
functionalities; particularly in the area
of user interface (touch-sensitive screens
are the most obvious).
More traffic is good news for mobile
operators and their bottom lines, but
too much of a good thing can create
significant challenges as operators
struggle to fortify their networks for the
growing number of transactions. Failure
to prepare for this growth can have a
dramatic effect. If operators are unable
to accurately predict future growth in
10-11_MCI163.indd 10
data volumes, they could miss out on the
inevitable increase in ARPU.
‘One Web’ Experience
Bringing a high quality web experience
on mobile devices has historically proven
to be a challenging feat, specifically with
regards to harnessing the power of a
system that was designed to be used and
viewed on personal computers with large
screens and at broadband speeds. The
launch of the iPhone changed everything
– moving the industry toward a unified
one web experience where the web expe-
rience on a mobile became tantamount
to the PC.
Whether or not you bought an iPhone
or one of its many clones, you understood
what was possible. Mobile operators un-
derstood as well; one by one, their walled
garden internet portals came down.
They quickly realised that they could not
sustain their revenue growth – let alone
increase it - if they were to prevent access
to off-net services. Their subscribers
would just churn over to an operator that
allowed open internet access.
New Rules for a New Game
Of course the f lipside of embracing a
more open approach to off-net content
is the risk of losing control of subscrib-
ers. Traditional WAP1 or WAP2 feature
phones go through an intermediary
proxy gateway owned by the opera-
tor for authentication, access control,
transcoding (if applicable) and poten-
tially other value-added services. This
model allows the operator to maintain
control of the user experience, and by
suitable manipulation of proxy server
logs, access a wealth of knowledge
about users’ online behavior. This
includes trends relating to most popular
sites, device types and average brows-
ing duration.
Smartphones typically do not have
proxy settings pointing to the inter-
mediary gateway. They are similar
to laptops in that their data traffic
goes directly to the internet unaided.
More importantly, most of the mobile
internet traffic comes from smartphone
users. According to comScore, in the
UK nearly 80 percent of iPhone owners
accessed news and other information
via a browser, nearly four times the rate
for all mobile phone users, and mobile
e-mail was used by 75 per cent of Brit-
ish iPhone owners, making it the most
popular type of mobile content con-
sumed on the device .
Translation: operators are seeing a
short term gain in data ARPU as a result
of increased mobile internet usage, but
they have far less visibility into what
these high value subscribers are doing.
The question is: how can these opera-
tors monetise the increasing amount of
off-net traffic? The answer lies in regain-
ing that bird’s-eye view of subscribers’
online behavior so they can offer them
revenue-generating services which are
deemed relevant and useful to each
individual user.
The Role of Analytics
Operational Analytics
Mobile analytics services provide
operators with business intelligence
and reporting that not only describes
what is happening in their network, but
also provides insightful information as
to why it is happening. The Holy Grail
1/2/10 08:30:21

The Holy Grail for analytics will be its
ability to form predictions of what is
likely to happen in the near future, based
on historical and circumstantial facts.
for analytics will be its ability to form
predictions of what is likely to happen
in the near future, based on historical
and circumstantial factors. One of the
major benefits of this type of service is
its capability to provide early identifica-
tion of mobile data trends and proac-
tively help operators avoid potential
bottlenecks.
Operators can leverage analytics to
assist with critical operational func-
tions such as network and capacity
planning. This helps operators identify
network congestion areas and predict
trends where congestion is most likely
to occur in the coming months. By
proactive capacity planning, operators
can defer CAPEX/OPEX costs and use
bandwidth management solutions to
address capacity problems.
Marketing Analytics
An in-network mobile analytics solution
can turn the raw data on an operator’s
network into actionable intelligence to
help improve traffic flow and monetise
traffic. Mobile analytics solutions can
provide aggregate data that allows op-
erators to understand what is occurring
in their networks, both on-portal and
off-portal, at a more granular level, so
they can build a 360-degree view of the
mobile subscriber.
Using the 360-degree-view of the
customer, operators can understand the
subscriber and the effectiveness of serv-
ices by asking:
• What are the subscriber’s interests?
• What is the subscriber’s demographic
profile?
• Which products has the customer sub-
scribed to and how are they being used?
10-11_MCI163.indd 11
• Is the subscriber on contract or pay-as-
you-go?
• Which products does the subscriber
use while at home or at work?
Once the subscriber is profiled, mobile
analytics can enable up-selling of new
services and service bundling. For up-
selling, operators should analyse the
subscriber’s product preferences, their
needs and spending threshold in relation
to their particular segment.
For example:
• Is the new service pricing within the
subscriber’s spending limits?
• Does the device provide a superior user
experience?
• Can the subscriber share the same
services within his/her social network?
• Does the network have sufficient ca-
pacity to offer good quality of service?
Successful service bundles are those
that are tailored to address the subscrib-
ers’ specific needs. Using mobile analyt-
ics, operators can analyze usage patterns
of subscriber segments and then develop
highly targeted services for those seg-
ments, driving increased ARPU.
Ecosystem Analytics
Mobile analytics offers real business
value to competitive markets. It is critical
to ensuring successful targeting by oper-
ators wishing to promote their own serv-
ices. It also provides valuable information
for advertisers. Besides increasing ARPU
and improving customer satisfaction,
mobile analytics can turn operators into
information brokers engaged in powerful
partnerships with advertisers, content
publishers, and Web 2.0 companies who
vendor view
Ken Denham
CEO at Openwave
Email: Ken.denman@openwave.com
Website: www.openwave.com
will pay a premium to reach a specific
audience to create new revenue streams.
Using mobile analytics, an operator can
aggregate, anonymise and sell access to
consumer data to ecosystem partners as a
subscription service.
The mobile operator continues to oc-
cupy the ideal position in relation to the
consumer who is also a mobile internet
user. From their vantage point the operator
uniquely collects the knowledge that is
key to monetising the mobile internet. The
more an operator can understand about
their subscribers, the more they will be able
to determine, and then provide, services
that are not only relevant, but ones which
subscribers might be willing to pay for.
The Time is Now
With mobile internet usage continu-
ing to rise unabated through 2010, it is
clear to us that the scale of the challenge
facing the mobile industry is immense,
but so is the opportunity. Leveraging
the mobile operator’s network owner-
ship and direct relationship with the
consumer can deliver a fast, safe and
seamless user experience, while provid-
ing operators with the monitoring tools
to manage traffic and effectively market
their services.
It is therefore paramount that operators
embrace the situation head-on, invest in
capacity and begin to develop services
that will protect these investments and
make the most of the coming opportuni-
ties. Some are already doing this, but if
the industry and consumers are to really
benefit, more need to follow. n
Visit Openwave at Mobile World Congress
2010, Hospitality Suite AV97, The Avenue,
Fira Exhibition Centre Montjuïc.
1/2/10 08:30:21
 NEWS Analysis
Going places
Eighteen months after its acquisiton of mapping and navigation
firm Navteq, Nokia aims to make Ovi Maps a contextual platform
at the centre of a variety of mobile applications.
I
n mid-January Finnish handset vendor Nokia revealed
what it’s been up to with location and mapping firm
Navteq, which it bought in 2008 for $8.1bn. It turns
out that the world’s biggest handset vendor is shaking up
the mobile space by making mapping and turn-by-turn
navigation available for free to a potential 83 million users.
At a London launch event hosted by Anssi Vanjoki,
executive vice president of Nokia, the company removed all
costs associated with its Ovi Maps offering, for which it had
previously charged up to €59.99 per year for a European
Maps 3 Drive licence.
Besides the price, the big attraction with the revamped
service is that the maps are available in both on- and offline
mode. They can either be downloaded on the fly over
cellular or wifi, or sideloaded in advance from the PC. Any
maps that are downloaded are also cached so they don’t
need to be downloaded again, and this goes for all the maps
available for 180 countries. The service also features car
and pedestrian navigation features, such as turn-by-turn
voice guidance for 74 countries in 46 languages, and traffic
information for over ten countries.
Through a partnership with Facebook, Nokia has also
introduced a ‘share my location’ feature to use with the
social networking service. The offering will also include free
Lonely Planet and Michelin guides as standard.
Nokia’s proposal allows the user to sidestep
heavy data roaming charges by preloading
maps before they visit a county and just
using GPS, which is free, rather than the data
network to find their location when abroad.
Already ten Nokia models are able to download the new
version of Ovi Maps as a free update; the N97 mini, 5800
XpressMusic, 5800 Navigation Edition, E52, E55, E72, 5230,
6710 Navigator, 6730 classic and X6. Going forward, all
Symbian S60 devices released by Nokia will boast this same
functionality and the vendor will later make Maps available
on its Linux-based Maemo platform. Devices will come
preloaded with the relevant regional maps out of the box.
Research firm Gartner estimates that, globally, 26 per
cent of mobile devices were GPS-enabled in 2009, with the
figure leaping to 76 per cent for North America. In Europe
the number is more moderate, at 30 per cent, while Asia
Pacific is a long way off the pace at 13 per cent. Still, Nokia’s
move threatens to take a chunk out of the PND (portable
navigation device) market, and also sticks the boot into
any other paid for navigation offerings. It also makes an
12
12-16_MCI163.indd 12
james.middleton@informa.com
attractive alternative to offerings like the iPhone, which
boasts native mapping using Google Maps, but does not
allow for caching or offline usage. In this respect Ovi Maps
provides a far greater range of data and services than
Google’s Maps Navigation offers, which is, for now, limited
to the US.
Gavin Byrne, research analyst at Informa, notes: “Clearly,
Nokia has one eye on developments in Mountain View, CA.
Google’s announcement of Google Maps Navigation Beta
for Android 2.0 in August 2009 was a shot across Nokia’s
bows. That danger became all the more imminent in late
November when Google announced that it had backported
the application to Android 1.6. Suddenly it could become
available to a host of in-market devices, such as the G1,
Magic and Motorola Dext.”
Nokia’s proposal allows the user to sidestep heavy data
roaming charges by preloading maps before they visit a
county and just using GPS, which is free, rather than the
data network to find their location when abroad.
While the Maps application is free, data charges will
apply to users downloading maps on the fly over the cellular
network. For many this may be included in their data plan,
but prepay users may get hit by charges. Still, Nokia claims
that the vector mapping technology used by its platform is
ten times more efficient than the bitmap-based offerings
from other providers. An innovative feature is the inclusion
of 3D landmarks on the maps, to better help the user with
orientation.
Vanjoki indicated that, in the long term, Nokia hopes to
gain greater revenues through the widespread adoption of
Ovi Maps as a contextual platform for mobile applications,
which will, of course, be sold through the Ovi store. Vanjoki
said that Nokia believes the map should become “the
user interface to our life,” marking another step toward
positioning its mapping data and technologies as a key
platform at the centre of applications.
And when asked about the potential revenue loss from
making features such as turn by turn available for free,
Vanjoki said the intention was to make a little money from a
much bigger pool of users, rather than taking a lot of money
from a smaller base. He also hinted, however, that in the long
term, the platform would be good for mobile advertising,
suggesting another, much hyped, revenue stream.
In September of 2009, Navteq acquired location based
advertising firm Acuity Mobile for an undisclosed sum.
Navteq and Acuity are long-term partners with a jointly
developed interactive advertising platform already deployed
by the mapping firm. Navteq launched the LocationPoint
advertising platform early in 2009, using Acuity’s precise
location targeted advertising.
“The acquisition of Acuity Mobile further strengthens
our eight plus years in location-based advertising and
interactive advertising,” said Chris Rothey, vice president
of advertising, at Navteq at the time of the purchase.
“Our research indicates that the more finely we target
advertising, the higher value it brings to consumers and
advertisers alike.” n
Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
1/2/10 09:38:14
Advert_template_MCI.indd 1 25/1/10 11:36:56
 NEWS Analysis
If you want something done right…
The much discussed ‘Google phone’ became a commercial reality
at the beginning of the year, when the web giant unveiled the
first of its own-brand devices—the Nexus One. The announcement
raised a number of eyebrows and even more questions.
T
raditional handset vendors got no let-up from the
sector’s upstarts in the opening days of 2010. Before
Apple had introduced us to a niche within a niche
with its iPad as January drew to a close (see p48), internet
heavyweight Google had thrown its hat into the ring with
the launch of the Nexus One. This, the firm promised,
would be the first of many Google-branded handsets, the
arrival of which had been mooted since the firm bought
Android in 2005.
Until January, Google had seemed content to let
its handset manufacturing partners shoulder the
developmental burden, relying on competition between
them to generate to drive the most innovation from
the Android platform. There were at least 20 Android
handsets in the market at the close of 2009 and that
number is likely to more than double in 2010. Perhaps
Google was disappointed with the progress its partners
had made, though.
Google sees these devices as a means to an
end. And that end is to build a large user
base for Google’s mobile services; to expose
that user base to advertising; and to collect
the data its user base generates
The argument that pitches open source competition
against a closed dictatorship will probably never be
satisfactorily answered. But given that Google’s play
with Android is all about driving more people to Google’s
ever-expanding suite of internet based services and
applications, it is perhaps not surprising that the firm
should look to exert a little more control than it was
able to muster by simply lobbing a new OS into the
development arena.
Manufactured by HTC, the Nexus One features a
3.7″ OLED display, five megapixel camera and a 1GHz
Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. It runs on Android 2.1,
the newest version of Eclair, and boasts features like a
voice-enabled ‘keyboard’ allowing users to speak into
any text field. It also comes with a host of popular Google
applications, including Gmail, Google Voice and Google
Maps Navigation.
IDC’s research director John Delaney described the
Nexus One as “the best Android phone to hit the market
so far,” so perhaps the firm has achieved its goal in that
14
12-16_MCI163.indd 14
james.middleton@informa.com
respect. But the price of the unit, and the choice of sales
channel, have been set in a way that might not necessarily
encourage uptake in huge volumes. It was thought that
perhaps Google would try and undercut Apple with its
pricing, but that was not the case.
On its own, the phone retails for $529, which drops to
$179 with a T-Mobile USA Even More plan, which starts at
$39.99 per month. But the only place to buy the phone,
either unlocked or on the T-Mobile network, is from the
online Google store. Interested parties cannot get the
handset from T-Mobile, which means that it cannot be
sold as an upgrade to existing customers. Nevertheless,
the operators seem to be on board. Google has promised
partnerships with Verizon Wireless in the US and Vodafone
in Europe in the near future.
So why is Google entering the phone business so
directly at all? Delaney believes that Google sees these
devices as a means to an end. And that end is to build a
large user base for Google’s mobile services; to expose
that user base to advertising; and to collect the data its
user base generates. “In other words, Google wants to
be everyone’s starting point when they use the mobile
internet,” Delaney said.
The reality, however, may turn out different to the
ambition. Google won’t be launching its own-brand
Android devices into the vast and fast growing Chinese
market. Indeed, the web services firm is threatening to
pull its local search engine amid censorship concerns
and allegations that Chinese hackers broke into Google’s
email services and gained access to the email accounts of
Chinese human rights activists.
Yet Android will find its way into the Chinese market
by another route. Resurgent US vendor Motorola will
launch its recently unveiled MotoRoi Android-based device
in China via China Unicom and will also release OPhone
devices based on China Mobile’s own Android-based
platform.
The home grown OPhone open source platform is really
just another branch of the Android operating system. The
OPhone SDK 1.5 is compatible with Android SDK 1.5, so
developers can use both OPhone APIs and Android APIs to
develop OPhone applications.
To accompany the launch of the MotoRoi, Motorola
recently opened the doors of its Android focused app store
in China. The Shop4Apps, or Zhi-Jian-Yuan, which means
“Place for Apps Wisdom” in Chinese, will allow users
to download apps and customise their Android-based
handsets with new services including a search provider of
their own choice. The search providers available are the
government sanctioned local providers like Baidu, and are
likely exclude the likes of Google.
Motorola said Shop4Apps will give developers a path
to promote their applications in the market through
MotoDev, Motorola’s global developer program, and
through other Android development ecosystems like
OPhone. n
Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
1/2/10 09:39:38
MCI_Ad.indd 1 29/1/10 19:09:39
 NEWS Analysis
Head in the clouds
The mobile web applications development environment is
emerging as an alternative to native applications, driven by the
adoption of cloud-capable mobile platforms.
D
espite the proliferation of smartphones and efforts
of promoting native development and runtime
platforms, web-based services are emerging as
cost-effective challengers that could take application
runtime to the web environment. Not only will this allow
the development of cheaper and advanced applications,
but it could also shift computing resources and their
management from the device to the cloud, which could in
turn lower the barriers for enabling advanced applications
over non-smartphone terminals.
In recent years, the mobile industry has moved from
proprietary to open, allowing for continued improvements
in device hardware and more innovation at the application
level through the creation of developer communities and
application distribution mechanisms. This trend has attracted
the majority of device vendors and operating system (OS)
developers as well as the mobile operators, which are now
eager to offer their own branded app store and subsequently
an immersive user experience and advanced mobile
applications to their customers. As a result, there has been
a strong increase in smartphone OS handset shipments,
estimated by Informa Telecoms & Media at 216.3 million units
in 2009, up 34 per cent on the previous year. By 2014, sales of
smartphones will reach 572.5 million units, representing 40
per cent of total handset sales.
By increasing the reliance of end users on the
web and cloud applications, new business
models will emerge and revenues will be
diversified from multiple sources
This trend is actually encouraging developers to create
applications that are targeted at different platforms and
native runtime environments. There are many advantages
in developing mobile applications natively, including better
integration with the device functionality, high-performance,
always-available capabilities, and access to greater support
from device vendors through the availability of advanced
tools and developer programs.
However, there are also many challenges facing native
application developers, which include: code complexity,
which could affect the cost of the application development
and time to market; application portability across a wide
range of devices to achieve economies of scale; and
restricted application distribution to operators and OEMs’
channels. Moreover, in the case of Apple, application
approval has been a contested topic that has alienated
16
12-16_MCI163.indd 16
james.middleton@informa.com
several high-profile app developers from Apple’s App Store.
The fragmentation of operating systems, user interfaces
(UIs) and runtimes and associated developer programs
are also likely to hamper any advantage gained from open
mobile applications development.
Meanwhile, the mobile web applications development
environment is an emerging alternative to native
applications. This shift is best illustrated by the rush of
operators and handset vendors to provide their own
widget ecosystems which use web technologies to facilitate
mobile applications development and lower the overall
development cost. It could also enable mobile operators
and vendors to tap into the wealth of the Internet and
address their customers with contextual applications that
are more relevant to them.
The trend towards the adoption of the web as a
mobile applications development environment is likely to
intensify thanks to both the emergence of mobile cloud
computing and the low latency of the next-generation
access networks, which include LTE, HSPA+ and WiMAX.
In addition, this trend will help to shift processing and
storage resources to the cloud, which means advanced
applications could be accessed by more resource-
constrained devices. This could in turn widen the
addressable market for the cloud applications beyond the
smartphone market.
By increasing the reliance of end users on the web and
cloud applications, new business models will emerge and
revenues will be diversified from multiple sources that
include advertising, network API charges to third-party
service providers and the creation of premium services for
the enterprise market. In addition, the migration to a web
development environment could increase traffic around
hosted services such as email, VoIP, online office, calendar,
online gaming and social networking.
Several device vendors have been pre-installing key
widgets in their devices but the trend now is to reorient
their software platform strategies towards the creation
of widget ecosystems for the development, distribution,
lifecycle management, discoverability and monetization of
widgets and web applications in general. These applications
are generally easy to create, fast to distribute and serve a
plethora of niche markets on the Internet.
The aim of major operators is to move away from
pipe services based on flat rates towards the creation
of content-based service plans that will enable them to
address different consumer groups with relevant real-time
contextual applications and services.
In this context, vendors of mobile widget solutions
could facilitate the work of operators by enabling them to
bridge the gap between the web and mobile applications
development. These vendors already propose a suite of
applications that could include a widget player, idle screen
replacement, ODP and a white-label application store.
These products could be deployed either individually or as
part of an end-to-end widget development, distribution,
presentation and monetization ecosystem. n
Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
1/2/10 09:40:25
Advert_template_MCI.indd 1 25/1/10 16:37:43
 MCI interview

MCI interview

The Key Notes

Matthew Key, CEO of Telefónica Europe, talks exclusively to MCI about the challenges
faced across his portfolio, his future plans and the new shape of the mobile industry.

T
he O2 brand that was born
when UK incumbent BT spun
out its cellular arm almost eight
years ago remains visible within its
markets of operation. But behind the
bubbles the carrier is now Telefónica
to the marrow, says Matthew Key,
chief executive of Telefónica Europe,
the stable that comprises the O2 op-
erations in the UK, Germany, Ireland,
Czech Republic and Slovakia.
O2 has now been part of Telefónica
for as long—four years—as it was
independent of BT before the Spanish
player snapped it up. These last four
years seem to have passed quicker
than the previous four, a perception
that exists internally as well as exter-
nally, Key says. Today, he adds, staff
at offices across the five markets for
which he is responsible, are more
likely to talk about being part of
Telefónica than they are about being
bought by the firm.
And they certainly are part of some- Matthew Key, pictured in the seats at the O2 in London
thing bigger. Telefonica is the fourth
largest carrier in the world by pro-
portionate subscriptions, with 181.9 amount from Telefónica in terms of offering useful guidance for the rest
million subscribers across a range of their disciplines, their financial driv- of the portfolio.
markets in Q309, according to Informa ing, their purchasing power, their Things are a little more complicated
Telecoms & Media’s World Cellular scale. But it’s really been a two-way in Ireland and the Czech Republic
Investors service. The firm’s revenue process and they’ve taken things on (through which Telefónica entered
powerhouse is Latin America, where from us; the level of focus on the cus- Slovakia, where it had a little over half
it has operations in 13 markets, most tomer across the whole organisation a million subscribers at the end of last
of which are wholly owned. is much higher now.” year). Here, says Key, the aim for the
Key’s markets totalled 43 million What the Telefónica financial mus- carrier is to dig its heels in.
proportionate customers in Q309 ac- cle will not be doing, however, is fund- “In Ireland we’ll just continue to
cording to Informa (Telefónica owns ing further expansion of the European operate as best we can,” he says. “It’s
69.4 per cent of the Czech and Slovak footprint. The firm’s watchword for a very difficult market; GDP is still
operations) and represent 26 per growth in Europe is ‘organic’ and struggling and our view is that Ireland
cent of the group’s overall customer Germany—Europe’s largest market will probably recover 12 months after
base in January 2010, when Key is where O2 sits fourth and last (15.4 a lot of the other Northern European
speaking to MCI. His unit’s revenue million subscribers at Q309)—is top economies. In the Czech Reuplic we’ve
contribution is slightly higher than of the list for development. got a fantastic product range but a
that, he says, while his share of OI- Key says maintaining the perform- very difficult economy. The economy
BDA is slightly lower. Spain, which ance of the flagship UK operation (first has gone minus five or minus six and,
operates as a separate division within place, with 21.9 million subscribers at as the largest network, we’ve been
Telefónica, is the leading market by Q309) while building up the German disproportionately impacted by the
this metric. operation, are his priorities. The UK drop in inbound roaming.
Four years into life as part of Tel- is of particular importance, he says, “It’s made even more difficult for
efónica, Key says the relationship has because it is the market in which Tel- us because we have a very large share
borne fruit: “We’ve taken on a huge efónica Europe’s trends emerge first, of the corporate and government »

18 Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business

18-22_MCI163.indd 18 1/2/10 08:32:22

 vendor view
SPONSORED AND WRITTEN BY
Modern USSD market: Clues to USSD
development in the next decade and impact on
the telecom cloud and smartphones
by Opencode Systems, the creator of the original USSD Center, Feb 15th 2010, Barcelona, Mobile World Congress
Modern USSD changing the telecom
cloud to a services cloud
Over the last 10 years the USSD services
market has been transformed from a niche
that catered mostly to the needs of prepaid
services into a mainstream service adopt-
ed by the mobile mass market, operators
and service providers. Modern interactive
and real-time USSD services, together
with excellent compatibility with all mo-
bile terminals (from the oldest handsets to
the newest smart phones) have all played
a role in enabling this transformation.
But the biggest contributor to progress
has been new USSD network equipment,
called USSD Center (USSDC), which is
totally open and able to integrate instantly
with any telecommunication and infor-
mation system and Internet.
Today USSD Centers offer revolution-
ary network service creation and power-
fully engineered application servers and
gateways, making new services available
to millions of users in a few hours or days
where before long months and years were
needed for adoption. This ease of design
and implementation has stimulated new
application ideas and driven creativity
back to operators and services providers.
Today the pace for introducing killer
USSD network services is faster and faster.
These include operators’ commercializa-
tion of 4 and 5-digit USSD short codes and
their operation by third parties (such as
service providers, banks and enterprises),
Roaming USSD Portals, Pre-call and Post-
call USSD Flashes, USSD Sponsoring, USSD
Campaigning and Voting, USSD Call-Fil-
tering and Presence, Location based USSD
Services, USSD Gaming and Betting, User
Managed USSD Applications and Content,
a few to name popular new USSD services.
All of these USSD services are chargeable
on-the-fly, subscription-based, commis-
19_MCI193_Opencode.indd 19
sioned or billed as designed by the operator.
From the core network to Internet,
modern USSD services reach is large and
rapidly transforming the telecom cloud
into a services cloud.
The transformation from the telecom
cloud to services cloud is clearly valued by
users. Modern USSD services operators
see their stature quickly changing from
mobile line providers to innovation super-
market with always available new and
fresh network services and applications.
Standardization of new USSD
client for smartphones
USSD applications have been longtime of
interest for different industries. End-to-
end encryption of USSD communications
for example, continues to be a fascinating
topic for financial as well as other institu-
tions and enterprises.
Today the device landscape is also
rapidly changing, and although smart
phone competition looks quite open
and the longevity of different players is
unpredictable, smart phones are the way
of the future.
With rich media user interfaces, smart
phones bring new layers of ergonomic
complexity when it comes to user experi-
ence of USSD mobile services.
The goals are two-fold: address-
ing the growing USSD market for new
services and features, and ensuring the
user-friendliness of USSD experience on
smart-phones and other mobile devices.
All mobile devices, from the simplest
handset to the most sophisticated smart
phone, provide the same standardized
USSD Client capabilities from end of 90-s
GSM specifications. In a decade of grow-
ing popularity, the fast-evolving USSD
ecosystem has shown a multitude of new
USSD Client requirements.
Opencode
Network Innovation Workgroup
Email: info@opencode.com
Website: www.opencode.com
At Opencode Systems we have worked
several years on the new USSD Client lead
by our global USSD Center footprint and
experience. Today new generation stand
alone USSD Client is available offering
smart phones new USSD ergonomics and
features. This new USSD Client, called U-
Browser, is a network agnostic, on-device
smart USSD browser that brings with it
new USSD user experience and features
such as USSD session encryption, USSD
ringing control, automatic USSD naviga-
tion, rich USSD display, USSD session
history, and many others.
The largest handset manufacturers
have shown interest in U-Browser and
while USSD Client standardization is
progressing, mobile operators demon-
strate strong demand for deploying mass
and vertical U-Browser assisted USSD
services.
Given the growing interest for the
new USSD client, Opencode Systems is
actively working on U-Browser improve-
ments and commercial deployments.
The new USSD Client is available via
www.u-browser.com and www.ussdclient.com.
About Opencode Systems
Opencode Systems (www.opencode.com)
is a telecommunications solution provider,
dedicated to open systems for the mo-
bile network. Opencode makes network
technology that is invisible to consumers
but underlies many of the mobile services
they use. Opencode core network centered
solutions are deployed by major operators
worldwide. Opencode USSD Center and
Multi-Services Open SCP are the world’s #1
selling open mobile network platforms. n
At the Mobile World Congress 2010,
Opencode is exhibiting at Hall 2 Level 1
Stand B51.
29/1/10 14:33:01
 MCI interview
MCI interview
segment. There’s an interim Govern-
ment in the Czech Republic that will
probably be in place until next May.
They’re not placing any forward or-
ders, or creating consumer confidence,”
he says. Key stresses, though, that
Telefónica remains committed to the
Czech Republic, where it leads the
market in mobile, fixed and DSL.
The economic downturn has forced
international operators to renew
focus on a smaller number of core
markets, Key says, quoting Vodafone
CEO Vittorio Colao’s assertion last
year that he has five essential opera-
tions in Europe and question marks
over all the rest. “The economic is-
sues we’ve all had have accelerated
natural patterns,” he says. “The weak
players have become weaker, so the
thinking they’re doing about their
model has been accelerated. So you
get things like the T-Mobile/Orange
merger in the UK as businesses
question their future in different
markets.”
In Germany, O2 is clearly the weaker
player. O2 had 15 per cent of the
market at end Q309, with less than
half the subscribers of market leader
T-Mobile and close second Vodafone.
But with the market one of three pub-
licly earmarked for major investment
by Telefónica group (the other two are
Mexico and Brazil) Key is expecting
this to change.
Until the end of last year, O2’s Ger-
man network was still roaming onto
T-Mobile to fill gaps in its national
coverage but this is no longer neces-
sary. Network investment has taken
the firm to comparable levels to the
first and second players in Germany,
according to independent performance
ratings, Key says, leaving E-Plus off
the pace. Telefónica has installed a
new German CEO, and is in the proc-
ess of acquiring fixed player Hansenet.
Overtaking E-Plus should be achiev-
able for Key’s team this year, but mak-
ing ground on Vodafone and T-Mobile
is a far stiffer challenge.
20
18-22_MCI163.indd 20
In Germany Key may no longer In Germany, he says, the two firms
be reliant on national roaming with are “on track” but he reveals that in
T-Mobile but, across the portfolio, markets where there is disparity be-
Telefónica Europe has acknowledged tween the sizes of the two networks
the need for joint efforts. In March last (Telefónica is much smaller in Ger-
year the firm struck a portfolio-wide, many and much larger in Spain) the
passive network sharing deal with exercise is “more difficult”.
Vodafone that sees the two companies If symmetry is important, it is at
now sharing what Key describes as least more readily available in the UK,
“steel and concrete”; sites, masts and where the network share deal is most
antennas, and the like. advanced, Key says. His team has 1,700
Key says that, since the deal was new sites planned for the UK and 80
announced, he has learned two les- per cent of these will be shared with
sons above all: “First you have to be Vodafone. The two carriers have not
strategically aligned at the top and yet declared the number of shared
as corporations and, second, deriv- sites that have gone live and Key says
ing benefits from this sort of project that it is still too early to claim that
takes quite a while.” Key is a former there has been a step-change in the
Vodafone employee, although he didn’t customer experience across the board
work with the firm’s European CEO as a result of the programme.
Michel Combes, with whom he struck Key is one of the less gung-ho
the network share deal last year. carrier CEOs when it comes to the
And, while they didn’t cross paths at issue of network sharing. While some
Vodafone, Key knew Vodafone’s group people have suggested that a single
CTO Steve Pusey from Pusey’s days at network is all a market needs, with
Canadian vendor Nortel. operators competing on service and
While this smoothed the path of the offering, Key still believes the network
deal, it hasn’t been without its issues. is an essential differentiator—and the
Again, says Key, Ireland has proven a kind of passive share that he has with
problem. “In Ireland we’ve been a bit Vodafone is an economic necessity
slow to get off the mark,” he concedes, rather than an admission that the
“which is disappointing. It’s been industry has moved beyond network
about corporate focus; we’ve needed competition, he says.
to get both companies focused on that “In this industry we’ve seen a ten per
being one of the priorities.” cent per annum price reduction to »
Telefónica Europe Subscribers by market
Dec 2007 Market share Sept 2009 Market share
Czech Republic 5,242,000 39.7% 5,103,200 37.3%
Ireland 1,646,000 32.8% 1,717,500 32.5%
Germany 12,472,000 13.5% 15,400,300 15%
Slovak Republic 274,000 5% 463,000 8.2%
UK 19,295,600 27% 21,980,800 28.6%
Source: Informa Telecoms & Media World Cellular
Information Service www.wcisplus.com
Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
1/2/10 08:33:08

Smoothing the way to LTE
LTE services have now started live operations in the TeliaSonera Sweden and Norway networks.
In 2010, a further nineteen – including Verizon and NTT-DoCoMo - are expected. With the promise
of delivering higher-rate broadband speeds and lower latency in a mobile environment to a large
subscriber base, this is a thrilling time for the wireless industry and its customers.
L
ike most things in life, commercial op-
portunities and technical advancement are
not easily won. The LTE generation will
be no exception. LTE standards are a significant
technical challenge for device manufacturers,
platform/protocol stack vendors and network
operators who are once again relying on leading
test-vendor, Anite, to deliver the best-in-class
wireless testing tools to help smooth the way to
a successful LTE offering and accelerate time-
to-market of mobile devices.
LTE is an evolution in the 3GPP standards
and is a major step towards achieving the goals
of 4G. The air-interface technology is different
to 3G and uses Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiple Access (OFDMA) modulation, which
significantly increases the spectral efficiency
(also referred to as bit per Hertz), and includes
a scalable bandwidth allocation. Frequency
diverse technologies such as OFDMA are well
suited for imperfect radio conditions, but have
a high loading on the signal processing lower
layer controls. For many operators the LTE
spectrum allocation will have to fit closely
to other radio service bands including digital
TV and MediaFlo™. The 3GPP core network
has gone through a major upgrade for LTE,
employing a simplified all-IP architecture that
can support the IP-Multimedia Subsystem
protocols. The challenge for the LTE device
manufacturer is immense: adopting the new
radio and protocols defined by 3GPP as well
as the requirement for devices to support the
legacy GSM and WCDMA standards which
operate across many radio bands. It’s clear to
see that manufacturers need help.
Anite commands a leading position in LTE
protocol and interoperability test coverage,
platform flexibility, system scalability and
the easiest to use Graphical User Interfaces
(GUI’s). This has enabled us to assist device
manufacturers and network operators for nearly
two decades. The Anite portfolio consists of
three product lines that address the full wireless
device product development lifecycle. “Devel-
opment Toolset”, “Conformance Toolset” and
“SAS” cover early functional development and
integration testing through to formal conform-
ance approvals and interoperability testing
21_MCI193_Anite.indd 3
using the network operator scenarios. All three
solutions execute on a common platform, com-
prising the complete 3GPP family of standards
from GSM, GPRS, EDGE to WCDMA, HSPA,
HSPA+ and now the LTE standards. This ap-
proach gives the unrivalled benefits of system
re-use and a scalable and upgradable path for
existing and new customers who need complete
LTE and legacy standard test solutions.
Anite’s Development Toolset solution cov-
ers a broad range of development and design
verification tasks, recognising the parallel way
in which system level components for handsets
are developed. From pre-silicon and host-based
protocol development tools - which help you to
test designs before the final chipset hardware
is ready - to advanced development tools to
aid in design-verification testing. Development
Toolset is positioned at the leading edge of the
LTE development curve and already supports
LTE FDD/TDD and multi-RAT features in both
target and protocol host configurations. The
LTE Toolset also includes ready-to-use C++
samples from layers 1 to 3 and the Non-Access
Stratum (NAS) layer. Development Toolset
is complemented by Anite’s leading protocol
analysis tools, which are also common to other
Anite applications.
Conformance Toolset tests the individual
protocol stack layers in a wireless device to
ensure compliance with the latest industry
standards. Anite’s conformance test solutions
incorporate comprehensive campaign manage-
ment and analysis tools to assess the quality of
devices under evaluation, as well as extensive
automation and a remote control interface to
help maximise test throughput. In the autumn
of 2009, Anite and LG Electronics (LG) an-
nounced an important milestone for the 3GPP
LTE standards development with the successful
verification of the industry’s first LTE protocol
conformance test cases.
Interoperability testing and network simula-
tion has been offered by Anite under the brand
name “SAS”. “SAS” makes it possible to carry
out detailed, repeatable interoperability tests in
the laboratory thus reducing the variability in
dynamic or immature networks like LTE. By
creating, or importing and modifying ‘real-life’
advertisement feature
network scenarios, these versatile platforms
enable users to test and analyse device perform-
ance without the travel or cost of field trials.
Anite’s market-leading Network Simulator tool
has been adopted by major global Network
Operators as an integral part of their handset
acceptance programs. “SAS” now supports the
LTE standard and users can benefit from the
easy scripting environment, which requires no
programming knowledge, and an interactive
real-time testing GUI.
An essential requirement for testing LTE
devices will be a complete device automa-
tion and campaign management facility. At
a simplistic level, and assuming that adding
another radio technology to a wireless device
to the legacy radio’s will increase testing by at
least one-third, device manufacturers need to
find efficient testing processes to accommo-
date this test increase. All Anite applications
(Development, Conformance, Interoperabil-
ity) support full automation and use common
tools such as “Terminal Automation Gateway”
which can not only automate the device but
also other third party tools such as SIM card
emulators or web-cams that might be required
in testing.
With its unique LTE and 3GPP wireless
product portfolio, and experience in protocol
and interoperability testing, Anite will continue
to bring considerable advantages to its custom-
ers and maintain its leadership in this highly
competitive field. n
To learn more on any of our market leading
solutions, please visit the Anite stand at
Mobile World Congress (1H21) or contact us:
Tel: +44 (0)1252 775200
Email: wireless@anite.com
Web: www.anite.com/wireless
28/1/10 18:46:22
 MCI interview
MCI interview
the consumer. Not many industries can
go through that and not take a good,
hard look at their cost base. But are we
naturally cautious of giving away the
crown jewels of customer experience?
Yes we are,” he says.
Key argues that, while the first
wave of network competition—based
on coverage—has passed in many
markets, a new phase, based on ca-
pacity and performance, has begun.
For him, this makes the network an
asset that must be owned, controlled,
and protected. “We’re now going into
the next stage of the industry where
network will again start to be a dif-
ferentiator, because of throughput.
So it’s really important to be able to
control your own roadmap of how
fast you’re investing, and where. So
if you are going to share, you have to
be partnering with somebody who is
very like-minded on investment.”
Performance has been a prickly is-
sue for O2 in the UK, particularly in
London, where Key says the network
share deal will be less in evidence.
The firm faced a good deal of criti-
cism from angry customers last year
as network performance in the UK
capital took a dive. UK CEO Ronan
Dunne even made an apology to af-
fected users.
The finger of blame has been pointed
at the carrier’s much trumpeted exclu-
sivity deal for Apple’s iPhone, which
has seen data usage rocket while the
network has at times failed to keep
pace. “Did the explosion in data usage
take us by surprise? Yes it did,” he says.
“Any company that has a through-
put increase that doubles every three
months is going to struggle to manage,”
he adds by way of mitigation.
The boom in traffic wasn’t the
only learning curve, with the way
that the devices interact with the
network proving to be “something
that we’d never seen before, ”he says.
The clustering of iPhone users in
London, where the press and analysts
are also found in greatest density, he
22
18-22_MCI163.indd 22
says, exposed O2 to criticism. “We
had problems in London. Did we have
them outside London? Not such that
you would notice.”
If the exclusivity of the iPhone
proved a double-edged sword for O2 in
the UK—drawing a multitude of cus-
tomers but generating serious network
headaches—then it is at least no longer
an issue. Apple ended its exclusivity
deals during 2009 and all eyes are on
the continued performance of those few
anointed networks that were given first
option on the iconic device.
Key is a little cagey on the topic,
refusing to admit to real concern over
the loss of exclusivity. “Would I have
liked to keep exclusivity? Yes,” he says.
“Was it a key differentiator for the two
years we had it? Yes. Have we seen a
significant downturn in our volumes
since Orange took it on? No.”
It is an open secret in the industry
that carriers have had to kick back
a percentage of iPhone related data
revenues to the device vendor, an issue
on which Key offers neither comment
nor denial. But he says it has not
affected his relationship with other
handset vendors. Exclusivity deals
remain important to O2, evidenced by
the high profile deal with resurgent
vendor Palm for its Pre device.
“If a handset is going to be a dif-
ferentiator in the market, exclusives
are important. But we think it has to
work for both partners,” he says. “So
with the iPhone and the Pre we could
give real clarity and focus around
the product. We haven’t declared any
numbers on the Pre yet but, are we
happy with the sales? Yes—customer
satisfaction is very high.” The Pre is
going to the kind of users who were
the first to adopt the iPhone, he says,
and he describes the phone as having
“fantastic capabilities”. He doesn’t
believe, however, that the Pre will be
the iPhone killer whose arrival some
within the industry seem intent on
heralding. “Do I think the Pre will be
as big as the iPhone? No,” he says.
Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
The likes of Apple and Google (through
Android) have altered the landscape of
the handset space irreversibly and those
players that were once at the vanguard
find themselves struggling to innovate.
Their greatest challenge, says Key, is to
build the kind of integrated ecosystem
that has given the iPhone such a power-
ful hold over consumers.
But this challenge is not limited to
the vendors; carriers are also under
pressure to create their own space in
this new value chain, with some believ-
ing that nurturing their own ecosystem
is the best way to retain the customer
relationship. And in much the same
way as he views the network as the
“crown jewels of customer experience”,
Key is in no mood to relax his grip on
the customer relationship.
“It is part of our raison d’être to
maintain a customer relationship and
that customer advocacy is at the heart
of how we operate,” he says. “How the
industry plays out over the next two
or three years will be fascinating be-
cause if you can create value that the
customer perceives, they will maintain
their relationship with you.
“But we’ve always said that we’ll be
very flexible with our business model.
Where we need to partner with the
best, we’ll do so. Where we can do it
ourselves, well do so. You shouldn’t be
dogmatic about drawing a line between
different types of player,” he says.
Telefónica has no intention of get-
ting involved in hardware platforms,
he says, but the software and ap-
plication space is something that he
describes as a “natural place for us
to be looking at; all the operators are
looking at it.” Just because all the
operators are looking at it doesn’t
make it the right thing to be looking
at, of course, and Key poses the most
crucial question of all when he says:
“What we need to figure out is how we
turn it into a success.”
In searching for the answer to this
conundrum, of course, Matthew Key
is not alone. n
1/2/10 08:33:32
 advertisement feature

cover story handsets

Digital Dividend Impacts

European Market
Written by ZTE Yu Luo

Overview
Deployment of LTE (Long Term Evolu-
tion) is now underway, as pioneer operators
begin the journey into the fourth genera-
tion. But there are clear challenges, even at
this early stage. These include:

• The economic crisis, which is impeding

investment in the system.
• Spectrum allocation. 2.6GHz has suf-
ficient bandwidth but worse propaga-
tion characteristics, which affects the
strength of the LTE signal.
• The need to consider the evolution of
traditional voice and SMS (Short Mes-
sage Service) services must be con-
sidered. Which is the best option—CS
Fallback, IMS or VoLGA?
• The creation of a bottleneck in the
backhaul network when throughputs of
100Mbps per site are reached
• The availability of compatible handsets
in sufficient number to enable large scale
uptake.

The majority of operators have already

recognized these challenges and adjusted
their deployment strategies accordingly.
Because only when these challenges are
overcome can the era of LTE truly arrive.
Digital Dividend Band
790~862MHz is a part of UHF band
which is using for DVB in Europe. Due
to improvements in the spectral efficiency
of DVB channels, part of the channel can
be released and be re-farmed for use in
mobile communication applications. This
is the DD (Digital Dividend) band.
In Europe, the DD band is expected to
be released in early 2012. But in Germany,
the first steps were taken almost a year ago:
• The DD band was used for the wireless
microphones in theaters. This band will
be put for the auction in 2Q2010
• It will be used as ‘wireless DSL’
spectrum, initially in rural parts of the
country, and the commercial launch is
expected before Christmas 2010
• All of the German operators will choose
LTE as the bearer technology in the DD
band
• Vodafone Group has the strategy of moving
to the HSPA+ and then evolving to LTE.

Table 1: German Operators’ LTE Progress

Operator 2.6GHz LTE DD Band LTE
T-Mobile Early 2011 End 2010
Vodafone D2 After 2012 End 2010
e-plus Unknown Unknown
O2 Unknown Unknown

24-25_MCI163_ZTE advertorial.indd 24 1/2/10 10:16:01


Table 2: 790~862MHz Digital Dividend Band FDD
61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69
790-798 798-806 806-814 814-822 822-830 830-838 838-846 846-854 854-862
Downlink Duplex gap Uplink
30 MHz (6 blocks of 5 MHz) 12 MHz 30 MHz (6 blocks of 5 MHz)
• T-Mobile had an early deployment plan
for LTE at the beginning of 2010. But
this has been set back because of the im-
maturity of the technology and because
the carrier wants to wait for the DD band
release
• e-plus has already tested DD band HSPA
and learned from it. Now the operator is
preparing its DD LTE trial
The 790~862MHz DD band has re-
versed duplex direction with a 12MHz gap.
It belongs to the 61~69 blocks in the band
plan. Compared to the other bands, DD
LTE has a number of advantages:
• DD band has a very good coverage
capabilities, and a single site is expected
to have a range of at least 8km in rural
areas. In dense urban deployments, it
also offers good penetration into the
buildings.
• DD LTE is only for the rural data usage
initially in Germany, while the CS serv-
ice could not be considered.
• Bigger size CPE terminals are allowed in
the initial stage.
The German deployment model, which
requires that LTE is deployed initially in
the DD band could serve as an example to
all the operators.
When the DD band LTE comes next
year, the reasonable LTE application sce-
narios in the future could be:
• Rural: 10MHz DD band for coverage
24-25_MCI163_ZTE advertorial.indd 25
• Urban: 10MHz DD band for penetration
• CBD: 20MH 2.6GHz/2.1GHz/1800MHz
for performance
The sufficient bandwidth of higher
frequencies could be an important capacity
and performance supplement to the DD
band. Operators will get the benefits from
the DD LTE because:
• Base station numbers will be greatly de-
creased – 10.10Km range with DD and
1.61Km range with 2.6GHz according
to the UL link budget with 3GPP HATA
rural model
• The operation and maintenance cost will
be greatly reduced due to less complexity
Economies affected by the global finan-
cial crisis will not make a speedy recovery.
With the constraints that will be placed
on operator CAPEX, LTE in the DD band
comes at the perfect time.
European Countries’ Consideration
In the UK, blocks 61, 62 and 69 are oc-
cupied. It is planned that the occupants will
be switched to the other channels to enable
alignment with other European countries.
Meanwhile the French government is also
involved in cleaning up its spectrum, with
availability of the DD band scheduled for
2012.
Challenges
The DD band has much to recommend it
over the other bands. Nonetheless there are
advertisement feature
still challenges that the industry must face.
These include:
• How to deal with the millions of wire-
less microphones in theatres
• Interference from the adjacent DVB
channel
• availability of terminal chipsets
ZTE Corporation committed itself to DD
LTE at the beginning of 2009. The first DD
LTE showcase will be ready in the October
of this year.
Not only do we have strengths on the
system side, ZTE also works extremely
closely with many terminal chipset manu-
facturers. The first commercial DD LTE
dongle will be ready in May 2010.
With a US$25bn credit line available
from state banks for customer finance and
R&D investment, ZTE has a very attractive
offer to all operators, both technically and
commercially.
Because of the Digital Dividend, LTE
can be a reality sooner rather than later. It
will not simply be a showcase; it will really
make the profit for the operators. n
1/2/10 10:16:01
 MCI interview
MCI interview
Show and tell
As the Mobile World Congress rolls around once again, the GSMA’s chief marketing
officer, Michael O’Hara, talks to MCI about the leading themes of this year’s event.
I
f you want to take the temperature
of the sector, there are worse places
to do it than the Mobile World
Congress; the industry’s largest get
together. Financially, attendance and
exhibitor numbers offer a decent
indicator of confidence and, strategi-
cally, the headline discussion topics
generally reflect the issues that are
exercising the carrier community most
vigorously.The headline speakers from
outside the immediate cellular world,
meanwhile, offer an insight into the
kinds of people and organisations
with whom show organiser the GSMA
wants to be seen to be cultivating
relationships.
For the past two years the organisa-
tion has gone for Hollywood heavy-
weights with its top speaker slots,
hosting the actors Robert Redford in
2008 and Kevin Spacey in 2009. This
desire to rub shoulders with the glit-
terati reflected a sense that had been
growing within the carrier community
that it needed to position itself away
from the engineering-led, utility heritage
of the communications industry and
towards the 21st century glamour of the
content and media industry. But if the
past two years have been about making
toothsome new friends, 2010 could be
interpreted as an exercise in the Associa-
tion keeping its enemies closer.
The talk may all be of partnership
but it seems clear that the greatest
threat to the cellular community’s
relationship with the customer comes
from the large internet and software
platform players whose logos are
increasingly prominent on the mobile
phones once branded exclusively by
the carriers themselves. So it’s no sur-
prise that this year’s keynote speaker
is Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Adobe, BBC Future Media, Microsoft
and Spotify are also represented at
a high level, along with the biggest
names from within the industry who
are the more traditional speakers. The
central thrust of this year’s show is
to get these people together and get
26
24-26_MCI163.indd 26
Michael O'Hara, chief marketing officer, GSMA
them collaborating. “It’s an interesting
year because we’re bringing a bunch
of these leaders from outside of our
industry and really getting them en-
gaged,” says GSMA chief marketing
officer Michael O’Hara. “I think it’s
going to be really positive.”
The GSMA has its roots in bringing
competing organisations together in
the name of a common goal. It’s early
labours involved the creation of roam-
ing agreements between international
carriers and it moved onto push for
SMS interconnection so that sub-
scribers on rival carriers’ networks
could send one another text messages.
MMS interconnection was a similar
crusade a little further down the line.
Clearly the body feels that it is ideally
positioned to stimulate inter-working
between potential competitors in this
new world.
“It’s all about how we actually act
as the bridge to unite some of these
islands that are developing. They’re
vertically integrated islands of ap-
Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
plications; the Google community, the
Nokia community, the Microsoft and
Blackberry communities. It’s about
how we do something that brings all
of this stuff together and creates that
‘GSM effect’ we had with SMS; a com-
mon standard that allows applications
to be deployed globally.”
With SMS interoperability, though,
the companies involved, while in
some cases competitors, shared an
identity. SMS meant the same thing
to each of them, and they all stood
to benefit from enabling intercon-
nection. It’s not self evident that the
various players in today’s complex
mobile value chain recognise par-
ity between the links, or view their
markets as limited by an absence of
centralised co-operation.
As O’Hara points out, though, the
carriers are motivated to take the lead
in trying to create this co-operation
because, as it stands, it is their role
that most requires definition. “This is
the key issue for carriers,” he says. “It’s
very clear that they have the traffic but
they have to find a way to play in that
value chain. So I would point to a lot of
work being done on standards around
applications and how operators can
expose their assets into the applica-
tion world to get a share of the revenue
play as a very key initiative.”
Being so determined to keep the
carrier front and centre in the
application-led world, O’Hara is
more downbeat about the model,
proposed by some analysts, that sees
carriers retreating to a transport-
based model, concentrating more on
enabling than interfacing directly
with the end user. “I have heard that
argument, but I think that challenges
the potential of the operator to play
a full part in the revenue chain.
Having said that, if someone has a
business where they think they can
be more of a pipe then who are we
to query it? I’m sure in some of the
lower ARPU markets you’ll definitely
see that,” he says. »
1/2/10 08:35:18
 advertisement feature
When the Bandwidth Boom
cover story handsets
met the Backhaul Bottleneck
2009 will be remembered as the year operators encountered major issues with capacity limita-
tions, driven by demand for new consumer devices. Many failed to take notice of early warning
signs and networks struggled with the increased data demand.
O
ne year later, backhaul is at the front
line in the battle to upgrade networks to
support demand for high speed mobile
broadband data. Furthermore, it will pave the
way to the eventual introduction of LTE.
For the first time, mobile phone subscrib-
ers are starting to see the practical impact of
the huge growth in demand for data on legacy
mobile backhaul networks: poor and unreliable
coverage; dropped calls; slow downloads. As
a result everyone wants to talk about backhaul,
including mainstream media.
Backhaul never before an issue
Until recently, backhaul was invisible. Second
and early third generation (2G and 3G) mobile
networks had plenty of backhaul bandwidth to
cope with the growth in regular voice calls, SMS
and low speed data downloads. Backhaul networks
were built using a variety of media, such as copper
leased lines, microwave links and fibre. What these
all had in common was their use of TDM (Time
Division Multiplexing) circuit-switched transport
technology: both 2G voice and 3G ATM data were
transported over multiple E1/DS1 circuits in the
access portion of the backhaul network, and over
SDH/SONET in the metro/core. Some operators
deployed optimisation using timeslot grooming to
reduce backhaul requirements, but in many net-
works each base station had one or often multiple
dedicated E1/DS1 circuits, from the network edge
to the BSC/MSC in the core.
While traffic patterns were relatively predictable
and growth contained, this TDM transport model
could handle the data demand. Even with the
introduction of HSPA and the USB dongle, traffic
was manageable since adoption of these new
high bandwidth data devices was limited to small
numbers of business users. When the Smartphone
arrived, everything changed. Old traffic models
instantly became redundant with handsets, such as
the iPhone, offering millions of consumers high
bandwidth data services and data-rich applications
that hadn’t previously been available.
Operators who led the way in introducing
Smartphones relied on backhaul networks built
largely upon either copper leased lines in the US
or a variety of contemporary and aging micro-
wave systems in Europe. There was also fibre
in the core of some networks. In the case of the
leased circuits and older microwave gear, adding
capacity is not as simple as turning the dial up
25_MCI193_Aviat.indd 27
a few notches, but involved investment in ad-
ditional leased circuits (with the resulting term
commitments) or swapping out transmission
equipment, at a time of extremely tight budgets
in a declining economic environment.
The mobile data explosion
Operators at the forefront of this trend, such as
AT&T in the US, struggled with negative media
coverage and reports that network infrastructure
was unable to keep up with the demand from traf-
fic growth. For AT&T this growth had exceeded
6,000% in little over 3 years[1]. In the UK, O2
was not far behind having experienced an 18-
fold increase in data demand in less than twelve
months thanks to the introduction of the iPhone.
Operators were forced to provide a degraded
service and apologise to their customers [2].
Ordinarily success of this nature would be
welcomed by operators, but over-whelming
demand turned the opportunity into a PR
nightmare, and significant competitive threat. In
the US, Verizon capitalised on AT&T’s woes by
launching their controversial ‘There’s a map for
that’ campaign, causing an advertising war over
who had the better 3G network. Verizon had two
advantages in this battle – no iPhone to support
(yet), and a backhaul network that was less reli-
ant on ‘sipping straw’ leased copper circuits.
Getting ready for LTE
In addition to rapidly upgrading backhaul networks
to handle the new demand, operators now need
to prepare their networks for the next genera-
tion of mobile download speeds supported by
LTE. Industry-wide there is an increased sense of
urgency to switch backhaul networks to all-packet
or all-IP transport. This transition will cut the cost
per megabyte of transport by taking advantage of
cost-effective Ethernet switches and making more
efficient use of available backhaul capacity.
However, operators must continue to support
high quality voice services to minimise subscriber
churn and maintain revenues. A hybrid approach
will enable operators to leverage existing TDM
backhaul investment, while gracefully introduc-
ing new network packet transport architectures
that can then be scaled as data demand increases.
What does a fourth generation backhaul
network look like?
Backhaul capacity needs for a high-demand
urban cellsite is expected to reach 129% CAGR,
advertisement feature
growing from around 25 Mb/s today to 300 Mb/s
in 3 years [3]. Ideally this capacity would be pro-
vided by fibre which supports almost unlimited
bandwidth growth, but this is costly in terms of
leasing and installation. In addition, copper tech-
nologies, such as DSL and copper bonding do not
promise the capacity scalability needed to support
the backhaul evolution for LTE.
A practical approach is needed for an
alternative method of connecting base stations
where fibre cannot economically reach. Hybrid
transport networks utilise available fibre where
possible, along with a high speed microwave
radio, to provide the most cost-efficient solution.
For over 20 years microwave radio has been
the solution of choice for operators rapidly rolling
out cost-effective backhaul infrastructure, with
over 50% of the world’s mobile base stations now
connected using microwave. Today, microwave is
selected for its speed of deployment and ability to
meet new costs and capacity challenges
Microwave for 4G backhaul
Microwave radio provides an ideal solution for
4G/LTE backhaul, combining support for very
high link capacities up to 2Gb/s with reduced
costs and incredible flexibility. Microwave also
supports ultra low latency to exceed the stringent
requirements of LTE, with hybrid transport of
TDM traffic alongside new packet-based data to
enable the smooth, low cost and low risk migra-
tion of today’s mobile backhaul networks to LTE.
As new, faster mobile broadband services and
richer content hit the market, networks based
on modern microwave systems will be well
equipped to scale and hence meet demand.
To find out more about how Aviat Networks is
enabling the 4G/LTE future, visit us at Mobile
World Congress 2010 in Barcelona, 15-18 February,
Booth #2F27, or go to www.aviatnetworks.com.
References:
1. Ralph de la Vega, AT&T, New York December 9, 2009.
2. ‘O2 says sorry for snags in London network’, By Andrew
Parker, Telecoms Editor, FT.com, December 29 2009.
3. Morgan Stanley, The Mobile Internet Report, December 15, 2009.
29/1/10 12:50:04
 MCI interview

MCI interview

At last year’s event there were mur-

murings about LTE being delayed for
financial reasons and, while there have
been one or two deadlines hit already,
showcases in Sweden and Norway,
for example, it no longer looks as if
2010 will be the year of LTE, as was
once expected.
The GSMA was once upon a time
concerned primarily with lobbying on
behalf of the ‘GSM Family’ of stand-
ards in competition with the CDMA
camp. But with the two sides largely
reconciled over their fourth generation
technology selections, O’Hara says
the LTE torch will be picked up by
the Association’s one-time adversar-
ies. “You’ll certainly get companies
like Verizon coming across onto LTE
soon because it’s their leapfrog onto
the GSM family,” he says. “There’s
a compelling reason for them to do
that so I’d expect them to be at the
forefront.
“Other players do have a choice.
They can go to HSPA, then HSPA plus
instead of making the step to a new
technology. There’ll be a mix, it’s an
operator by operator conversation. board quickly and take advantage can we expect this year? Will attend-
But I do think that some firms will of the scale across the globe. There ance reflect renewed economic as-
make that step quite quickly as a will be a series of announcements suredness? Visitor numbers fell last
competitive differentiator, maybe of- in that area.” year, according to the GSMA’s own
fering a greater bandwidth in cities He is also keen to emphasise that figures, from 55,000 in 2008 to 47,000
initially,” he says. the Association’s drive into emerging in 2009. Exhibitor numbers stayed
Mobile broadband subscriptions markets—which was the organisa- flat, though, at 1,300. We may be over
will break through the 200 million tion’s lead project a few years ago as the worst of the economic downturn
mark around the time of the show, the magic one billion subscriber mark but confidence is not going to return
he says, giving further momentum was being closed in on—remains a with a boom and O’Hara says that
to the LTE push. He also believes priority. “We’re continuing to focus on matching last year’s visitor numbers
that the GSMA needs to get involved how we take services to the developing is “a reasonable estimate for this year.”
in pushing new technologies and world in an environmentally respon- Exhibition bookings, he says, are up
the capabilities they enable into key sible way,” he says. “We launched our by about four per cent.
professional sectors. green manifesto in Hong Kong last The mobile industry community
“There will be a lot of talk at the year and I would expect there to be a can only keep on growing in breadth
show about how we get the verticals lot of conversations around that at the and depth, as more types of organi-
on board; healthcare, transport and show. We’ll also see some discussions sation find ways to contribute to its
utilities, for example,” he says. There on the universal charger and our com- development. It will be interesting to
is a clear role there for us to make mitment to reducing emissions across see whether the likes of Google have
sure that we roll these technologies the mobile industry,” he says. messages that chime with the tradi-
into other industries in a common As always, there will be much to tional inhabitants of the mobile sector.
fashion. We need to create one sys- discuss when the industry descends It will be all smiles for the cameras, of
tem that allows everyone to get on upon Barcelona. But what size event that much we can be sure. n

28 Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business

24-26_MCI163.indd 28 1/2/10 08:35:39

204x277_MCI Mag_Mise en page 1 28/01/10 10:37 Page1

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 feature optimisation

Tight squeeze
The surge in mobile data and broadband traffic in advanced markets over the
last couple of years is something of a double-edged sword. While it has finally
validated carriers’ long-held strategic thinking, it has exposed gaps in their network
performance.

By Mike Hibberd

30 Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business

28-32_MCI163.indd 30 1/2/10 09:12:43


T
he world of popular storytelling is full
of tales that caution the reader to be
careful what they wish for. After all,
they might just get it. Since the 3G auctions
began a decade ago amid a cycle of hype
that, ten years on, looks like a kind of mass
hysteria, the wish of mobile operators in the
most advanced markets has been for sufficient
uptake of mobile data services to justify the
enthusiasm with which they snapped up 3G
licences.
It’s been a long time coming and, now that
it’s here, it is proving to be something of a
mixed blessing. While the arrival of genuine
mobile broadband capability is a cause for
celebration, some carriers have been caught
short by the sheer scale of uptake. Victims of
their own marketing push—offering ‘unlim-
ited’ data usage for relatively low subscrip-
tion charges—and the unforeseeable impact
on users of the iPhone and the devices it has
subsequently influenced, carriers have been
overtaken by events.
High profile headlines have seen US carrier
and iPhone pioneer AT&T castigated for fail-
ing to deliver a sufficiently robust network
to cope with the handset’s uptake, and UK
player O2 making public apologies for similar
shortcomings.
Figures from Informa Telecoms & Me-
dia show that total mobile traffic in 2008
measured 1.1 exabytes (trillion megabytes)
worldwide. This is forecast to grow to 2.5EB
in 2010 and 18EB in 2014. While some of that
will be traditional, circuit-switched voice
traffic, mobile broadband is set to explode,
surpassing 14EB during 2014.
By the end of 2010, mobile broadband
subscribers worldwide will number 450
million, which will represent a 45 per cent
share of the global broadband market. In
2011, though, the mobile broadband market
will overtake the fixed segment, growing to
near 670 million subscribers and a 51.8 per
cent market share. Despite a healthy CAGR
of 12 per cent between 2008 and 2013, In-
forma says, the fixed market’s share of global
broadband subscribers will drop by half
over the forecast period from 70 per cent
to 35 per cent.
Carriers have won what they wished for,
and the problem of provisioning capacity
for the data boom is clearly not going to
disappear any time soon. Mobile users vote
with their feet and poor network perform-
ance is something to which they assign great
value. Application performance specialist
Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
28-32_MCI163.indd 31
Compuware recently conducted a survey of
senior executives at 22 mobile broadband
operators from around the world in a bid to
gauge their visibility of customer experience
and satisfaction. The results, according to
Jerry Witcowicz, product manager for Com-
puware’s Vantage for Mobile solution, make
for a sobering read.
“All of the executives we interviewed said
that experiencing a poor performance in data
service is the top reason for their customers
to churn,” Witcowicz says. One interviewee
revealed that, “when we introduced the iPhone
our traffic spiked by 30 per cent and the
capacity did not keep up.” Another revealed:
“We expect the network traffic to increase 50
times in the next few years.”
The two mobile broadband segments—
dongle/embedded laptop (portable) and
smartphone (mobile)—are each problematic.
Portable usage accounts, and will continue
to account, for the overwhelming majority of
mobile broadband usage. Informa figures for
global mobile network traffic show portable
usage at 1EB in 2010, almost 90 per cent of
traffic. By 2014 this will have grown to 14EB,
representing 93 per cent of traffic.
But this does not mean that portable traffic
represents the only challenge. UK carrier O2
has been deliberately slow into the dongle
market but has been hard hit by uptake of the
iPhone. And mobile broadband-capable hand-
sets are going to grow in number enormously
over the next four years as technology gets
pushed further down device ranges.
According to Dave Nowicki, vice president
for marketing and product management at
US network and femtocell provider Airvana,
smartphones have their own particular is-
sues. Studies conducted by Airvana on EVDO
networks in the US and Asia, he says, have
found that smartphones place a far higher
signalling burden on the network than dongles
and embedded laptops—a problem he says
has just as much relevance to carriers using
3GPP standards.
“We found that there was this amazing ac-
celeration in signalling traffic. On measuring
it what we noticed was that while a dongle or
data card was using 25 times more data than
a smartphone, the signalling ratio was only
three to one,” he says. “Which means that, for
every bit it sends, the smartphone is pumping
out eight times more signalling traffic.”
Nowicki argues that this requires a shift in
the way networks are dimensioned, with car-
riers needing more radio network controllers.
optimisation feature
“It’s not so much a spectral efficiency issue,”
he says, “it’s more about the cost per megabyte
increasing. The cost to deliver a megabyte to
somebody is no longer defined just by how
many megabytes you’re sending. It’s no longer
a common number, it’s now influenced by the
mix of your traffic.”
It’s almost a tradition in this industry to
look to the dawn of the next major technologi-
cal era as the answer to everyone’s problems.
But in these straitened times many operators
have conceded that LTE, the champion of the
fourth generation, may be slower to arrive
than originally anticipated. So what can
carriers do?
A variety of options are open to them, some
network based and some more strategic than
technical. Perhaps the most obvious solution
is simply to put in more cell sites. It’s the
kind of response that enables an operator
to show contrition to disgruntled users as
well as a willingness to roll up its sleeves
and solve the problem.
At the end of 2009, O2 UK made just such
an announcement in the wake of its iPhone-
induced network issues. The firm promised
to build out 1,500 new network sites in 2010,
with 200 planned for London, where the
iPhone (along with critics from the press
and analyst communities) is present in the
greatest concentration. The firm said its in-
vestment would run to hundreds of millions
of pounds, and followed a £500m payout
over the previous two years in order to meet
increased demand for data.
Such a response has its detractors, though.
John Spindler, vice president of product
management at ADC argues that traditional
behaviours require a rethink. “Things have
to change in the way that carriers look at the
network architectures and network topolo-
gies,” he says. “The old days of throwing up
cell towers and doing what we used to refer
to as ‘spray and pray’ just isn’t going to be
adequate. It’s becoming impossible.”
Even those who back the effectiveness of
such a strategy concede that there are ob-
stacles. Land is a finite resource and, in the
kind of dense, urban areas in which capacity
boosts are most sorely required to accom-
modate data surges, sites are at a particular
premium. Such build-outs are also arguably
the most costly form of improvement upon
which an operator can embark.
But, says Mike Roberts, senior analyst at
Informa Telecoms & Media, the cost need not
necessarily be prohibitive. “When you get »
31
1/2/10 09:12:43
 feature optimisation
It’s an irony particular to
the mobile data boom
that wireless carriers,
for so long motivated by
drawing business away
from the fixed line, are now
scrambling to dump their
own traffic back onto it
wherever it’s available
32
28-32_MCI163.indd 32
down to the network itself, it can just be ten
or 15 per cent of your base stations that are
generating the vast majority of your traffic,”
he says. “So it might not be a massive invest-
ment programme that you’ll need to undertake
to add capacity to the base stations that are
overloaded. From that point of view it can be
a manageable problem,” he says.
Roberts’ assessment of geographical
load differentials chimes with a statement
made late in 2009 by Ralph de la Vega, chief
executive at US carrier AT&T. Q309 saw
record activations of the iPhone for AT&T
but, said de la Vega, just three per cent of his
customers were generating 40 per cent of his
data traffic.
But some argue that although major net-
work deployments may offer a solid capacity
solution, the time involved in making them
happen lessens their effectiveness in dealing
with a problem that requires an immediate
solution. Capacity in other forms is already
in place, they say, and can be used to alleviate
the pressure more promptly.
These people are proponents of offload
strategies, using either wifi or femtocell
technologies as a release valve for congested
mobile data networks. It’s an irony particular
to the mobile data boom that wireless carriers,
for so long motivated by drawing business
away from the fixed line, are now scrambling
to dump their own traffic back onto it wher-
ever it’s available.
“Offloading to wifi is great for us and great
for the customer,” says Matthew Key, CEO of
Telefónica Europe (read the full, exclusive
interview with Key on p18). “The customer
gets a better experience and it takes the traf-
fic off of our network,” he adds, in the kind
of statement that might almost have been
unthinkable from a large cellular carrier just
a few years ago.
“We’ve got agreements with The Cloud
and BT in the UK but we’re also going
through an educational process with us-
ers about how to make use of wifi in their
home. The vast majority of people now have
broadband in their home, with a wireless
router,” he says.
Key’s last point highlights the relevance of
offload strategies in a world where a great
deal of mobile broadband usage is happen-
ing in the home. Airvana’s research, says
Dave Nowicki, shows that the peak time for
mobile data traffic is the evening. Given that
that peak traffic remains on the one cell, and
that most people are home in the evenings,
Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
that traffic must be coming from the home,
he says. The total share of home-based mo-
bile broadband could be as high as 50 per
cent, he adds.
Most laptops today ship with wifi embed-
ded and most smartphones, too. As Stephen
Rayment, chief technical officer at Belair
Networks, a specialist in wifi offload, argues:
“The problem and solution lies in the palm of
our hand. More than 1.5 billion wifi chipsets
have been shipped to date and we’re looking
at one billion run rates in four or five years.
Wifi is pervasive and is a very effective way
of getting some of that data traffic off the
mobile networks.”
Rayment argues that wifi makes sense for
wide area capacity relief for two reasons
likely to prick up the ears of any carrier
with a capacity issue; the ease and speed
with which it can be deployed, and the cost.
Historically the firm’s customers have been
owners of large venues like sports arenas
and shopping complexes, as well as fixed
broadband players looking to add nomadic
wireless access to their portfolio as a sweet-
ener. Rayment says wireless carrier deals are
in the offing for the first half of this year.
“The big advantage for mobile carriers is
that they can deploy this offload at anywhere
from one third to one tenth the cost of de-
ploying wholesale upgrades to their mobile
network,” he says. “You can deploy wifi in
a targeted fashion; where the 3G carriers’
subscribers are congregating and where
the cell towers are glowing red hot. Plus
the devices are already here. We all know
LTE is coming but we don’t have to wait for
it.” Furthermore, he says, the wifi networks
can be plugged into a carrier’s network op-
erations centre, and can be managed using
existing tools.
Not everyone is convinced, though. “The
thing about wifi,” says ADC’s John Spindler,
“is that it was never designed for wide area
use. From the attempts that we’ve seen to
put in metropolitan wifi networks we’ve seen
that it doesn’t work. Most have failed miser-
ably. It’s really designed for smaller coverage
areas and has a limited number of channels
on the access points that you can actually
deploy. It’s good as a hotpsot technology for
coffee shops, but not for wide area. Plus it
operates in unlicensed spectrum so you get
more interference.”
Rayment concedes that, three or four years
ago, it was all but impossible to take a wifi
offload solution to a mobile carrier “without
1/2/10 09:12:45

being ridiculed”. Central to carriers’ objec-
tions, he ways, was the problem of operating
in unlicensed spectrum; something he says
has now been overcome. “I think they’re begin-
ning to see that you can do some pretty good
networks with unlicensed spectrum. Plus
there are so many pressures on the mobile
carriers—the loads on the networks are driv-
ing them to do this.”
The offload alternative to wifi in the home
is the femtocell. Having occupied the ‘next
big thing’ slot on the mobile networks agenda
for some time, femtocells are now starting
to gain traction. SFR, Vodafone, Sprint and
AT&T are just some of the operators to have
made high profile moves in the space. But to
date most carrier uptake has been driven by
coverage issues in a bid to address indoor
signal performance, says Dave Nowicki of
Airvana, supplier to Sprint.
“Coverage is the pain spot that everyone
really understands at the moment,” he says.
“But people are realising now that there’s
a capacity pain point as well, and I expect
that capacity femto deployments will be the
next phase.”
But femtocells, like all solutions, generate
issues of their own. Some detractors sug-
gest that femtocells could create problems
with interference, and that users on the
macro network could experience perform-
ance problems when in proximity to a
femtocell. But it seems the most serious
sticking points could be commercial rather
than technical.
The last thing cellular carriers need is
another expensive device to subsidise into
consumers, and asking subscribers to pay
out for something to improve a service for
which they are already paying is a difficult
proposition to work. Vodafone, which was the
first European carrier to launch femtocells
in July 2009, revised its offering in January
2010, giving added weight to the view that
femtocells are a tough sell.
The first move was to change the name of
the offering from Vodafone Access Gateway—
a network-based name if ever there was
one—to Vodafone Sure Signal. Prices were
cut with the rebrand and now the product
costs £50 in a one off charge, or £5/month
for 12 months on price plans of £25 or more.
If customers spend less than £25/month, the
price is £120 in a one off cost, or £5/month
for 24 months.
While he agrees that femtocells are a solid
proposition for domestic usage, ADC’s John
Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
28-32_MCI163.indd 33
Some carriers are putting
software into their networks
that throttles back the speed
available to subscribers who
have exceeded their fair
usage caps
Spindler believes that, like wifi, they are not
suitable for use as a capacity enhancement
in the wide area. ADC favours distributed
antenna systems that use fibre to connect
smaller cells to the macro base station,
generating what Spindler claims is more
efficient use of spectrum and a reduction in
practical hassles.
“When you aggregate a BSS location like
this, you’re talking about eliminating a lot of
the cost of real estate acquisition, eliminating
a lot of the time involved, lowering power and
HVAC requirements and enabling easier main-
tenance because all the upgrades are done at
the central BSS location,” he says.
What all of these solutions have in com-
mon is that they are designed to ease the
strain on the radio access network. But the
RAN is not the only part of the network
that requires attention. “Backhaul is a huge
focus for all operators,” says Bradley Mead,
vice president for services and multimedia
at Ericsson, whose responsibilities include
managing the network owned by T-Mobile
and 3UK’s MBNL joint venture.
“You have to get enough coverage and ca-
pacity into the RAN to be able to deliver the
service, but then the bottleneck moves up to
the backhaul. Because if the backhaul’s not
there to support the RAN, there’ll be a big
problem.”
Lance Hiley, vice president for market
strategy at microwave backhaul special-
ist Cambridge Broadband Networks, takes
a similar view. Backhaul provisioning is
complicated by the same issues as RAN pro-
visioning, namely the difficulty, involved in
predicting where the traffic surges are going
to appear, and providing enough capacity to
cope with them.
The ideal solution for backhaul, Hiley con-
cedes, is fibre, which has limitations far beyond
those of the network elements it is being used
to connect.The problem, as always, is cost.The
answer, says Hiley, is microwave.
optimisation feature
“You probably have enough credit on your
Mastercard to buy a point-to-point micro-
wave link that could backhaul 100Mbps over
2km,” he says. “But you’d probably have to
take out a second mortgage on your house if
you wanted to do the same thing with fibre.
In Western Europe we have fewer than 30
per cent of cell sites connected by fibre. If
you think about how many cell sites there
are in Western Europe and what it would
take to connect the remaining 70 per cent
by fibre. It would put the UK trade deficit
in the shade.”
The enthusiasm for microwave is driving
saturation of the spectrum that’s reserved
for backhaul, he says, which is why point
to multipoint backhaul architectures are
coming increasingly to the fore. “With point
to multipoint you can deliver a much better
quality of service because you’re dynamically
allocating resources, while at the same time
making the most efficient use of spectrum
resources,” he says.
The reality is that most carriers will use
a range of technical methods to help them
deal with the boom in mobile data traffic. In
the meantime, the issue of tiered service is
rearing its head. Some carriers—Vodafone
Portugal is one—are putting software into
their networks that throttles back the speed
available to subscribers who have exceeded
their fair usage caps. Others, AT&T included,
are introducing price hikes to dissuade cus-
tomers from excessive usage.
It’s a divisive strategy. ADC’s John Spin-
dler describes price caps as “a crazy busi-
ness model.” Compuware’s Jerry Witcowicz,
meanwhile, says that “what we hear from
customers is that the unlimited usage offer
is a losing proposition. You can’t afford to
offer unlimited usage, operators have to
have caps.”
Telefónica Europe CEO Matthew Key says
he is undecided, and that a policy is being
thrashed out within the group at the mo-
ment. “How many industry that are relatively
capital intensive can live with a model that
says ‘pay one fee and it doesn’t matter how
much you consume’? People who are using
multiple gigabytes each month are paying the
same as somebody who’s using one megabyte.
The key is to get a balance between the two,
and that’s a live strategic debate for us at
the moment.”
And, one suspects, for many other car-
riers watching the sudden boom in mobile
data usage. n
33
1/2/10 09:12:45
 feature social networking

Social services
Social networking has already proven its appeal, if not its
worth, on the fixed line internet—and the move to mobile
seems a natural evolution. So what happens when these
worlds collide? Some very big numbers indeed.

By James Middleton

T
he mobile telecoms market is no
stranger to big numbers. Global mo-
bile services generate close to $1tn in
revenues, putting the market up there with
the worldwide automotive, food and weapons
industries. Global mobile subscribers are on
their way to five billion and the world’s big-
gest mobile operator, China Mobile, has close
to half a billion customers in its domestic
market alone.
In the fixed line internet space, social
networking—a phenomenon that has taken
the PC world by storm—is generating some
big numbers of its own. It’s impossible to
tell how many subscribers there are to social
networks worldwide, or indeed how many
social networks exist. But if we look at some
of the leading players—Facebook with 350
million active users, China’s QQ with 300 mil-
lion, MySpace with about half as many and
LinkedIn with about half as many again—the
traction of the medium is obvious. So what
happens when social networks go mobile?
Some very big numbers indeed, accord-
ing to industry analyst Informa Telecoms
& Media. The research house is bullish on
the subject, believing that the importance
of mobile social networking will escalate
exponentially over the next five years,
creating a much larger industry. Informa

34 Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business

34-38_MCI163.indd 34 1/2/10 08:46:45

 social networking feature

says there is sufficient diversity within the
social network arena that, in a high growth
scenario, nearly 25 per cent of total mobile
subscribers worldwide will be attracted to
and participating in mobile social network-
ing by 2013.
The forecast is encouraging, with Informa
using three scenarios to forecast mobile
social networking user base growth as a
fraction of the total addressable market.
According to the analyst there were approxi-
mately 92.5 million mobile social networking
users globally at the end of 2008, or around
three per cent of the total mobile subscriber
base. By the end of 2013, Informa predicts
that the global mobile social networking
user population could rise to between
641.6 million—the most conservative growth
scenario—and 873.1 million, or 22 per cent
of the total mobile subscriber base, in the
high-growth scenario.
But where will this staggering growth in
subscriber numbers come from? The mobi-
lisation of existing PC-centric communities
is the most obvious source, providing further
confirmation that the mobile model is robust,
allowing users to access their communities
when all they have with them is a mobile
handset. It is natural that people who value
immediacy and contextual relevance in their
communications would seek to have them
when they are not in front of their PC. After
all, your social life doesn’t happen while you’re
sitting at your desk, so the mobile allows users
to report on things that are happening now,
without having to wait until they get back to
the computer.
Mobile social networking encompasses a
diverse portfolio of technologies and services,
ranging from simple chat applications to
multimedia-rich environments and content
generating and sharing communities which
persist after the user logs off. It is, more
so than anything that has gone before, a
reflection of the breadth of both ecosystem
participants and users.
But at the same time, the boundaries of
this industry are getting more difficult to
define systematically and accurately. Social
networking is creeping into and changing the
nature of many other non-community based
services, making precise service category
definitions much more difficult to reach. Just
as the differences between PC-centric and
mobile-centric are eroding, it is also getting
more difficult to cleanly distinguish a mobile
social networking service with value added
content from a service that has social net-
working features added in order to increase
the stickiness to end users.
Different users are motivated by different
needs and have vastly different ways and
means of experiencing their mobile com-
munities. Early adopters are using more
powerful, community-centric handsets and
services for finding and communicating with
others, quickly adapting their lifestyles to
the benefits provided by the services. While
in parallel, tens, and soon hundreds of mil-
lions of new mobile community members
are registering with community services
for the first time.
According to Shane Lennon, senior vice
president of marketing and product manage-
ment at mobile social network Gypsii, there’s
a sea change happening on three levels—the
consumer level, the device level and the
distribution level. “Consumers have been
looking to do more on mobile, particularly
in emerging markets where they don’t have
access to the internet via a PC,” Lennon says.
“Even two years ago you saw people trying to
use WAP to mobilise Facebook and MySpace.
If you think about social networking and the
things you do throughout the day, most of
the things that are important happen while
you’re physically away from the PC, so there’s
an inherent business case there.”
While Gypsii’s presence is global, its
largest market is China, where the company
operates in partnership with China Unicom,
targeting the carrier’s 148 million mobile
subscribers. “China still has massive white
space,” says Lennon, “There’s the potential
to sell 300 or 400 million phones to new
users. And operators are now pushing data
services. There’s China Unicom with the
iPhone and China Mobile with the [Android-
based] OPhone platform. Social networking
is expected to drive the data business and
Chinese operators are learning fast about
how much consumers are willing to pay. I
think you will soon see data plans in China
mirroring those in Japan and Korea.”
One of the greatest influences on social
networking is cultural conventions, espe-
cially where those conventions are in a state
of change. Lennon notes that Chinese users
are “ferocious” social networkers, clock-
ing up about ten times more activity than
Gypsii users in Europe and the US. “Chinese
users are coming out of a closed society so
there is a lot of curiosity as well as a mas-
sive migration from rural to urban areas.
This is stimulating a natural embrace of the
platform—Chinese users actually want to
make friends,” he says.
Social networking makes as interesting an
anthropological case study as it does a busi-
ness one, because of the evolutionary demands
it places on social etiquette. Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg recently stated: “Privacy
is no longer a social norm.” That may be an
overstated remark, but it’s indicative of how
our concept of privacy has changed.
Because users are the lifeblood of an online
society, social networks are almost universally
viewed as organic communities that oper-
ate in autonomy. But China, with its strict
internet constraints raises an interesting
question on the subject of control over these
communities.
At present there is a three-way struggle
going on for ‘ownership’ of the community,
which perhaps more importantly trans-
lates into a struggle for ownership of the
user. In one corner we have the traditional
PC-centric networks, Facebook, MySpace,
LinkedIn et al, while in the other there are
the operator portals and co-branded or
white label offerings, like Gypsii or Zyb, »

Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business 35

34-38_MCI163.indd 35 1/2/10 08:46:49

 feature social networking
designed to keep the carrier where it tradi-
tionally expects to be—the gateway to the
user experience. But there’s also a contender
emerging from the devices space, where the
proliferation of mobile applications stores
is allowing handset vendors to reconstruct
the walled gardens of the last decade.
Nokia’s Ovi is a good example of how
social networking creep has added value
to another service model. In the same way
that Amazon really started out as a social
network that just happened to sell books,
the Finnish vendor set up Ovi to extend
its relationship with hundreds of millions
of Nokia device owners around the world
beyond the lump of shiny plastic in their
hands. Nokia launched the Mosh environ-
ment in 2007, a dedicated social network
giving users a place to communicate and
share their content, as well as to make
requests for content not yet available. But
the firm closed the service down in 2009
in favour of the Ovi Store after it became
increasingly problematic to police Mosh,
which had become riddled with pirated
content.
Piracy is a problem but, in combination
with the app stores, Lennon claims that social
networking features will drive viral uptake
of mobile applications. He points to the suc-
cess that Apple and Android have had in this
regard, but states that “no other provider has
come close.” It’s a telling statement. A few
years ago Apple and Android were names that
had no place in a conversation about mobile
technology; nowadays it’s almost impossible
to avoid mentioning them.
Branding seems to be the key here. To de-
scribe Apple with the iPhone, and Android,
with its connections to Google, as “well
known” would be an understatement. And
something they’re both very good at is getting
their brands in front of eyeballs. “If you have
an iPhone and you’re in the US, you barely
know you’re on the AT&T network because
Apple branding is everywhere,” says Carsten
Brinkshulte, CEO of mobile messaging firm
Synchronica, “It’s the same thing with Android
and Google.”
36
34-38_MCI163.indd 36
One of the direct consequences of the mobilisation of
PC-centric social networks is increased choice. There are
millions of new users of PC-centric community services
visiting the community areas of their operator portals
The suggestion here is that it’s better to
partner with the big brands. “Nokia’s Ovi
and RIM’s BlackBerry services are also
going down same route; they want to be a
VAS (value added services) provider to the
end user,” says Brinkshulte. But does that
mean partnering with the known players in
a given space—say Facebook or MySpace in
the social networking market? It’s certainly
one option. “Handset manufacturers could
offer exclusivity for whatever service they’re
associated with, just like Apple did with
the iPhone,” adds Brinkshulte. “But when
the exclusivity period is up the competitive
advantage disappears again. If carriers just
give up and partner with MySpace in order
to offer a mobile MySpace, they only gain a
short term advantage, because another op-
erator will partner with the same company
a month later. Facebook’s not going to do an
exclusive deal with any carrier. So the carrier
will be further pushed down into being a
dumb pipe,” Brinkshulte concludes.
The term “dumb pipe” was bandied around
a lot in 2009. It has clear negative connota-
tions but it’s not a model that everyone dis-
misses. “Some operators will happily choose
to be dumb pipes,” says Anu Shah, head of
mobile services provider IMImobile Europe.
“Operators do not launch services quickly
enough for a consumer centric market. They
shouldn’t offer single services, but instead
offer building blocks—phonebook, location,
billing services—to make differentiated serv-
ice offerings. At the moment operators are
trying to do it all in house, but they should
look to partnerships and become a consumer
services provider.”
While it may seem like many social net-
works just appeared overnight, Shah main-
tains a certain skill set is required to launch a
successful social network. “Operators should
enhance and enrich a service rather than just
compete directly with it,” he says.
One of the direct consequences of the
mobilisation of PC-centric social networks
is increased choice. There are millions of
new users of PC-centric community services
visiting the community areas of their operator
Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
portals as well as seeing new announcements
and invitations to join mobile-centric com-
munities. So while on the one hand mobile
subscribers are now aware of the community
service options available to them, they also
have less time to spend on each community.
Informa found that time spent on community
services is increasing, but not as rapidly as the
number of different communities with which
a single subscriber is registered, resulting in
reduced time and page impressions in markets
where large PC-centric networks have recently
been mobilised.
The more open-minded operators have
made some attempts to exploit this phe-
nomenon, as well as to hedge their bets
about which social networks to partner
with by launching aggregation platforms.
These offerings, like Vodafone 360, bring
together all contacts and content in one
place on the device, allowing customers ac-
cess to different networking sites including
Facebook, Windows Live Messenger and
Google Talk. Users can also create different
contact groups across social networks, so as
to share different information with different
groups of people.
This, according to all the companies MCI
contacted for this feature, is the smart move
for operators because they have access to
one thing that the device manufacturers
and online service providers don’t have—
at least not yet—the user’s contacts book.
The address book is the one area where
consumers interact with their mobiles on
a daily basis, and, according to Shah: “A
rich address book is a jumping off point
for social networking activities, for email
activities, for IM activities. It could allow
you to share a music playlist to your con-
tacts right from the address book, and also
allows you to create events and send them
to contacts either via a client app, on WAP
or over the web.”
Shah believes this approach can be ex-
tended to keeping a user’s contacts in the
cloud, backing up their address book and
personal content and at the same time
keeping them close to the operator bosom. »
1/2/10 08:46:55
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 feature social networking
Subscription fees are talked
about in hushed tones
by the social networking
community, because it’s
well known that users are a
fickle bunch at best
38
34-38_MCI163.indd 38
“It’s still an astonishing problem that people
have when they change their phone—how do
they move their contacts and content to the
new device? Lots of operators have solutions
but the consumers don’t really know how to
find them,” Shah says.
To paraphrase entrepreneur Victor Kiam,
VAS provider Critical Path liked the idea so
much it bought the company. The company
in this case was social media platform
Shozu which allows users to push and get
content from multiple social networks as
well as to backup and sync their content
and contacts. “The social address book, this
is the way an operator can play a big part
in the social networking phenomenon,” says
Mark Paloma, CEO of Critical Path. “People
don’t connect to one social network, they
may connect to four or five and the big
challenge the consumer faces is how to keep
everything in sync and easily navigate the
different social networks.”
Paloma refers to Japan and Korea as coun-
tries that have had success in this area, “but
adds: Those phones are highly configured
because they’re controlled by the operator
in those markets.” This is a statement that
lends further credence to the argument that
operators should maintain control of the
customer. “The challenge with going through
one interface from one social network to
another is that you don’t know how other
users want to be contacted. In the end the
consumer just wants the information, just
wants the message, he doesn’t care about
the medium,” says Paloma.
It is this level of customer knowledge and
insight that is one of the few remaining assets,
along with the phonebook, location and bill-
ing, that the operator can still leverage. And
as location-centric Gypsii has proven, they
are assets that can be successfully exploited.
Comforting news for Nokia, which in 2008
acquired mapping firm Navteq for $8.1bn—it’s
single biggest acquisition to date—and last
year bought travel focused social network
Dopplr among a raft of other social network-
ing related purchases including cloud-based
social media sharing and messaging service
Plum, Cellity, Bit-Side, Plazes and Twango.
Nokia can afford it, but $8.1bn is still a lot
of money to spend on a medium that has yet
to prove itself as a money-maker. The market
values of Facebook and Twitter have been
artificially over inflated by the same sort of
hysteria seen in the dotcom boom days, but
acquisitions have not been forthcoming,
Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
mainly because these companies are infamous
for an absence of revenue model.
Subscription fees are talked about in hushed
tones by the social networking community,
because it’s well known that users are a fickle
bunch at best and even the guys who sell the
social network platforms to service providers
pitch them as a value added service rather than
a premium feature. This might be one route to
the money, as Informa notes that models for
generating revenue from mobile social network-
ing are also evolving, with new business models
built on cross network mash ups, where social
networking is pitched as a VAS to another, more
easily monetised, feature.
You could also do worse than look to the
big disruptors in the space for direction. Both
Google and Apple have recently made purchas-
es in the mobile advertising space. In early
January Apple acquired mobile advertising
firm Quattro Wireless for somewhere between
$250m and $275m, perhaps paving the way for
Apple to offer an advertising platform to its
App Store and iPhone customers. While late
last year, Google upped its game in the mobile
space with the purchase of AdMob for $750m.
Google and AdMob currently specialise in
different areas, with Google’s focus on mobile
search ads, while AdMob’s focus is mobile
display ads and in-application ads.
“Device manufacturers, Apple and Google
have a solution in advertising,” says Gypsii’s
Lennon. “They currently take a share of rev-
enues from all applications sold and in the
future will want to supply advertising. So our
ultimate model, our long term goal, is adver-
tising revenues. E-commerce is now mobile
commerce and you will also see premium
content services. We will see lots of talk around
advertising in the social networking space.”
But for this to happen, the media agencies
need to mature, says IMImobile’s Shah. “It’s
not the product that’s the issue, but at present
it’s not easy enough for media agencies to buy
mobile inventory,” he says. However, advertising
in this sense might not take form as we might
expect. Lennon believes that users will actually
search for adverts, or have them pushed out by
the social network. It’s a different proposition
to the kind of research you might do on Google
at the PC, “But when looking for vouchers, for
a restaurant for example, the natural place to
do this is on the mobile,” he says, where the
viral element can be exploited.
On this, the proponents agree. Social net-
working should be used as an enabler—the
money is in the mash-ups. n
1/2/10 08:47:00
Advert_template_MCI.indd 1 14/1/10 12:05:30
Advert_template_MCI.indd 1 27/1/10 14:27:17
 deCade ahead feature

2020 vision
Ten years is a long time in any industry, but especially in one that moves as fast
as the mobile sector. The last decade has seen the industry ride out by far its
toughest times and still manage to turn out truly world-changing products and
services. Here we take a look at what we can expect to happen in the ten years
that stretches ahead of us.

By Mike Hibberd

T
en years ago, the newly merged Vo-
dafone Airtouch was sealing its hos-
tile takeover of German carrier Man-
nesmann, a move which CEO Chris Gent
promised would create “the world’s leading
mobile multimedia operator”. Virgin Mobile,
the world’s first MVNO had just announced
its launch, and the must-have handset was
the Nokia 7110—attractive not so much for
its rudimentary WAP capabilities as for the
spring-release cover that enabled its owner
to answer calls in a way that briefly emulated
Neo from box office smash The Matrix.
The year 2000 had been hailed by some as
the ‘year of mobile data’ in what would soon
prove to be a hopelessly optimistic assess-
ment. That year’s GSM World Congress saw
the first prototype GPRS network on display
from Ericsson, including a much vaunted
prototype handset. As onlookers applauded
this achievement it is doubtful that they
could have imagined the post-iPhone indus-
try that would be gathering in Barcelona ten
years hence.
In many ways, of course, it was a drastically
different world from the one we know today.
But a look back at a post World Congress
report from the March 2000 issue of Mobile
Communications International reveals that,
while much of the technology has evolved,
some core concerns remain unaltered.
As speakers and delegates contemplated
services and business models based on WAP,
they were asking: “What is the consumer ready
to pay for? How can every organisation in the
value chain realise their share of the money?”
And in an observation of worries that proved de-
cidedly well placed, MCI noted: “Mobile internet
services seemed to be at the forefront of many
delegates’ minds. But many were concerned
about the impact of fixed internet companies
moving into the mobile environment.”
George Schmitt, a stalwart of the conference
sessions during those years, and the head of
US carrier Omnipoint (to be absorbed by T-
Mobile down the line) also had his finger on
a crucial point: “Our networks have their elec-
tronic eyes on everyone with a GSM handset, »

Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business 41

41-46_MCI193.indd 41 1/2/10 09:26:09

 feature decade ahead
If we take the Nokia 7110 practically pinpointing our subscribers’ every
move to within a couple of metres” he said. “It’s
as an emblem of 2000 important that we use this power for good.”
Today it is network functionality like location
and the iPhone 3GS as an that operators are having to exploit for their
emblem of 2010, what own good, never mind anyone else’s.
Clearly the industry has made huge strides
might be used to represent over the past ten years. But what kind of evolu-
tion can we expect to see over the next ten? To
2020? How about a put it another way: If we take the Nokia 7110
as an emblem of 2000 and the iPhone 3GS as
refrigerator? an emblem of 2010, what might be used to
represent 2020?
How about a refrigerator? Or an electricity
meter? There seems to be an industry consen-
sus that the next decade will see the creation
of the “internet of things”. It can be summed
up by Ericsson’s prediction that, by 2020,
there will be 50 billion devices connected to
wireless networks worldwide. The majority
of this surge in connections will come from
machine to machine applications, says John
Cunliffe, chief technical officer at Ericsson UK.
And this could have benefits beyond revenues
for the cellular industry, he says.
“The ITC industry is responsible for two
per cent of carbon emissions globally and
we need to tackle that small chunk directly,”
he says. “But the big benefit we can bring
is to use our technology smartly and start
to address the other 98 per cent from other
industries. Ericsson predicts that this 98
per cent can be cut by 15 per cent through
advances in telecoms. A smart meter, for
example, could turn off a refrigerator for 15
minutes to avoid peaks in power demand on
the grid,” he suggests.
42 Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
41-46_MCI193.indd 42
And in a similar vein to Cunliffe’s eco-
motivated application of technology, a service
that was much on the industry’s mind ten
years ago is being given another nod. “Mobile
video calling will take off as companies and
consumers start to see the benefit—both en-
vironmental and financial—of finding other
ways to keep in contact over long distances
without having to travel,” says Tom Alexander,
CEO of Orange UK and, in 2000, the founding
chief executive of Virgin Mobile.
Video calling, of course, was the holy grail
of 3G and the headline service around which
it was launched. It soon become clear, how-
ever, that the experience was frustratingly
poor, partly due to the networks but mostly
because of the limitations of the handsets. It
became more white elephant than holy grail.
Today the handset technology is certainly in
place and the challenge is more sociological:
Can users be persuaded that video calling is
a desirable, practical and preferable alterna-
tive to voice or text? The question is really
no closer to being answered than it was a
decade ago.
Irrespective of the appeal of individual
applications, how can we expect the already
staggering capabilities of mobile handsets to
further evolve in the next ten years? Alexan-
der has a few ideas. “Video calling, as well as
other services, including digital pictures and
video, will also benefit from the advent of
projector-phone technology,” he says. “Being
able to screen your films or photos on the wall
next to you will be a new way of immediately
sharing experiences with friends, family and
colleagues. »
1/2/10 09:26:12
Untitled-1 1 29/1/10 16:16:59
 feature decade ahead
“Furthermore, developments in 3D tech-
nology will only mean greater multimedia
offerings for the consumers. With 3D films
already being produced and 3D TVs currently
a reality, it won’t be long before this technol-
ogy finds its way onto mobile—allowing us
to receive the full visualisation experience
wherever we are,” he says.
Today handsets have evolved to encompass
a huge variety of functionality. They serve
as personal media players, still and video
cameras, internet-capable computing devices,
gaming consoles and mores besides. The
telephony function is now just one of many
and the fact that they are still called ‘phones’
is a legacy rather than an accuracy.
In fact the telephone functionality could be
seen more as a limiting factor than anything
else, given that handsets still have to be of a
size and shape that allows them to be held to
the face, listened to and spoken into. But, says
Andrew Bud, chairman of mobile transaction
specialist mBlox, this constraint may lessen
as the decade draws on.
“The form factor of the handset will be
dictated by its use as a ‘personal information
terminal’, not a phone,” he says. “The trend to
use separate wireless headsets rather than
talking into the phone itself will continue and
will have a profound effect on phone shapes
and sizes. The personal information terminal
will become a central source for a user’s entire
access to culture, rendering obsolete the home
book, the DVD, game and music library—why
have collections on your shelf when you can
carry them round in your pocket? The terabyte
phone will see to that.”
The phone as storage device is one option,
but industry consultancy Ovum believes that the
future of applications and storage lies in ‘The
Cloud’. By 2020, the firm posits in the executive
summary of its industry wide ‘Telecoms in
2020’ report, most connected devices will have
“direct access to web-based cloud content and
applications through the widespread adoption
of core web technologies and a small number
of de facto standard RIA technologies on those
devices.”This expanded cloud, Ovum says, will
“act as both a source and store” for the huge
range of direct to consumer services.
In turn this will impact both carriers and
OEMs, Ovum suggests. Device-side software
fragmentation will push innovation into the
cloud, shifting responsibility for complex
application development to cloud platform
providers. These players will then sell their
platforms to services providers on a man-
44
41-46_MCI193.indd 44
The most advanced carriers
seem universally desperate
to retain their position
at the customer end of
the value chain and are
beginning to invest heavily
in their own software
platform programmes
aged services basis, drastically reducing the
spend that operators are required to make
in application platforms and development
of their own. In Ovum’s world view, the
OEMs will also cede responsibility in this
area, leaving them more focused on brand
and design competition, while their drop in
investment should negate the need for costly
device subsidies.
Nonetheless, there will be some constants,
according to Bengt Nordstrom, head of North-
stream Consulting. “In 2020, Nokia remains
the largest player [in the handset market]” he
predicts, “but it has been forced to surrender
considerable market share globally; to North
American players in the advanced device and
smartphone segment, and to Chinese vendors
in the midrange and low-end segments.”
One of the defining competitive battles of
the next decade will surely be for leadership
in this new software platform space. Winners
are doubtless already familiar faces within
the industry. Google, Facebook, Apple, Nokia,
Research in Motion and a number of carriers
are among those in contention. By way of il-
lustration, Nordstrom takes a punt on the 2020
Mobile World Congress awards. The event, he
suggests, will be happening in Beijing. “’Fa-
cebook Free Talk & Chat’, already the world’s
most popular voice and messaging service, also
wins a GSMA award,” he predicts (although it
will be surprising if the GSMA hasn’t had a
rebrand of its own by this stage).
The role of the operator in this new world is
a source of much debate. The most advanced
carriers seem universally desperate to retain
their position at the customer end of the value
chain and are beginning to invest heavily in
their own software platform programmes. Few
seem willing to focus primarily on excelling
Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
in what have been their historical core com-
petencies, as the shift to managed services—
which can only gather greater momentum as
the decade unfolds—clearly illustrates.
Ovum foresees two types of operator in
2020. SMART players (for Services Manage-
ment Applications Relationship and Technol-
ogy) play at the very front of the industry,
while LEAN players (Low-cost Enablers of
Agnostic Networks) represent the evolution
of what today might be called the ‘dumb pipe’
model. For mobile operators that have grown
up as the dynamic and glamorous element of
the telecoms industry, the LEAN proposition
offers insufficient flattery to the ego, says Tony
Cripps, a senior analyst at Ovum.
“In many instances this ego-led business
planning probably doesn’t make sense,” says
Cripps. “In general we think that the SMART
proposition is a difficult one because it is based
around competencies in software infrastruc-
ture and application development platforms
that the operators don’t really have.
“You hear about initiatives that operators
have that see them moving in this direction
but there’s a sense that the companies that
do this as a core competency are not just
already there—they’ve already moved on to
the next level,” he continues. “Typically, and
it may not even take ten years, it’s going to be
companies for whom software platforms are
already a core competence that will be likely
to dominate this space.”
It is unlikely that Ovum’s view will dis-
suade mobile operators from pursuing their
glorious dreams but the networks do remain
essential to all players in the mobile value
chain. Software platforms aren’t much use
if applications can’t be delivered to end us-
ers. So what will network competition look
like in 2020; will it even exist? After all, the
suggestion has been made more than once
that multiple carriers should be able to
compete using brand and proposition on a
single, shared network. As Mike Short, CTO
at Telefónica O2 Europe puts it: “Network as
the primary differentiator has already ceased
to be the main story in town.”
Ericsson’s John Cunliffe argues that regu-
latory pressures will ensure that multiple
network markets perpetuate throughout
the decade. “Maybe you could drop to two
or three networks in each market but not
one, because regulators will always want
to see some physical competition out there,”
he says. It follows that if the number of
networks in each market does drop that »
1/2/10 08:52:24
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 the informer
Apple’s clean slate
Netbook-schmetbook; Apple’s new piece of kit is a tablet that
looks like a Brobdingnagian iPhone. Behold… the iPad.
I
t used to be all about miniaturisation in this
industry. The smaller they could get the
phones, the better they were deemed to
be. Remember those tiny little Motorola things
people used to marvel at? Not any more, though.
Now it’s all about functionality rather than
portability and, in January, Apple launched what
looked for all the world like the biggest mobile
phone there’s ever been.
Except it wasn’t a phone, it was an iPad, a
naming decision that sent a giant e-snigger
across the web like some kind of comedic
Mexican wave as people compared the new
gadget’s moniker to certain feminine toiletries.
The Informer, it has to be said, was party to
that snigger.
The sacred tablet
Anyway, the iPad is here and, while it looks
like a great big iPhone, it lacks the killer app
that is voice functionality. In his introduction at
the unveiling ceremony (complete with cringe-
inducing whoops and wolf-whistles from the
crowd), Apple CEO Steve Jobs kept repeating
how brilliant the new device is, as if simply by
saying it over and over the sentiment would
be absorbed as fact by anyone watching. It
probably worked in the room. He promised that
it would deliver “the best browsing experience
you’ve ever had; way better than a laptop, way
better than a smartphone.”
He talked up the product’s excellence as a
photo display tool, movie viewer and music
player and, while there is a large virtual
keyboard that makes email and input possible,
it looked to the Informer as if it might be
difficult to use. Apple has also launched a
dock-keyboard peripheral for the iPad to solve
this problem. But if you were to buy that then
48
48_MCI163.indd 48
what you’d have, essentially, would be a laptop
without the hinges. No doubt the iHinge is in
the works.
Nope, the iPad seems to be primarily about
access and display; particularly when you
consider that Apple is going after the e-reader
market with its new slate.
There will be two connectivity options
available, one version with wifi and 3G cellular
and one with just the wifi. This latter version
will start shipping in late March, costing a
hefty $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the
32GB model, and $699 for the 64GB model.
The Informer’s not sure he sees the benefit in
a 16GB tablet designed to store lots of music,
movies and photos, but it’s probably a trade-
off to ensure there’s a model
that can compete on price with
Amazon’s Kindle.
The wifi and 3G models will be
available in April for $629 for the
16GB model, $729 for the 32GB
model and $829 for the 64GB
model, although users will then
need to buy a data plan from AT&T
in the US or whichever carriers
Apple has elected to partner with
internationally.
Apple will open up a new section
in the App Store to cater to the
iPad, although the device is also
able to use 140,000 existing iPhone and iPod
Touch applications. However, some have noted
that once some of these apps scale up to the
available resolution of the iPad (1024 by 768
pixels at 132 pixels per inch) they look a bit like
the blocky graphics you used to get on your
Commodore 64.
Cellular voice may be missing—and you’d
look a proper chump holding the iPad to
your face—but an interesting development
in the iPhone SDK was revealed just before
the product was launched that may pave
the way for VoIP on the device. Application
developer iCall said that the iPhone SDK has
been updated to allow VoIP calling from the
device over 3G networks. iCall now has a 3G
VoIP application available for the iPhone and
Google Voice is now expected to be allowed
onto the handset. Because the iPad can run
iPhone apps, it has also been suggested that
3G voice may work on the new gadget. n
Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
Join the debate
Have your say on the comings and
goings in the communications industry
by climbing onto the soapbox at: www.
telecoms.com/join-the-debate. Here’s
a selection of comments from the past
couple of weeks:
Orange’s decision to specifically target
consumers based on their personal interests
is certainly an innovative step in the evolution
of mobile marketing, but could throw up
additional, initial challenges to overcome.
Taking mobile marketing to such a granular
level relies on consumer trust more than ever,
and in a “spam-conscious” age, brands need
to ensure they are not turning away potential
leads through their very appearance.
Julie Strawson, Director of Marketing, Europe,
Monotype Imaging on Orange’s launch of
Orange Shots
The statistics make very promising reading
for Vodafone. However it will be interesting to
see how many people will stick with the model
that they have proposed, or if a competitor
can offer a more attractive model.
SimonTMV on Vodafone signing up 450,000
music fans
Femtocells are not just ‘home base stations’. I
have a friend who runs a bar in the basement
of an old stone building. The lack of phone
service drives some customers away. A
femtocell is the ideal solution for him since for
his customers the service will be transparent...
Nick on Vodafone’s revamping of its femtocell
offering
There are no operators considering using
WiMAX for backhaul for mobile networks as
far as I know, primarily due to the latency
performance over WiMAX. Rather mobile
operators are deploying WiMAX in parallel
with GSM base stations to deliver high
bandwidth ‘wireless DSL’ services to premium
customers to increase revenue and ARPU.
Stuart on MEA’s regional prospects for WiMAX
1/2/10 09:41:33
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