Listen up UK mobile operators! Your GPRS/3G pricing is ludicrous! Treat your roaming customers like this, and you're building up a future base of potential churn candidates like you wouldn't believe.....
I'm in the market for a new mobile tariff plan. I've decided I'm paying too much, and with a few foreign trips coming up I thought I'd see what's on offer. In particular, I want a plan which gives me vaguely-reasonable per-MB data charges to the "real Internet" both in the UK and from abroad. (No, not a portal. I want Google, Yahoo, my ISP Email & worldsbestbars.com when I'm on the road)
I'm not happy.
Firstly, trying to find data charges on operators' websites is almost impossible. "Check the fine print" is an understatement even for in-UK domestic rates. And I feel I deserve a Nobel Prize for actually daring to try to get to international data roaming fees.
And then the prices.
Overall, they are somewhere between 10x and 1000x reasonable figures.
For reference, let's look at what putting data onto the Internet costs. A quick burst on Google yields a few ISPs quoting $0.50 - $2.00 per gigabyte, not megabyte. Some fixed-broadband ISPs charge not much more "per incremental extra GB" downloaded on capped services, say $1-5 / GB. A not unreasonable premium vs. the scale economies of hosting.
So where do the 3 or 4 extra zeros go in the cellular network?
I'm not going to list all the tariffs here, but the typical "pay per use" domestic UK GPRS/3G tariff from a phone (ie not a laptop data card package) is around £2-3 ($3-5) per MB. Then there are bundles that give you say 10MB at 60p ($1) per MB.... but these aren't available on all phones/PDAs, or all voice plans.
So, let's say I want to get the O2-specific version of the HTC Wizard (which looks pretty ideal for web browsing over either 2.5G or WiFi).... I go through the purchase screens, and the only tariff options give me £3 per MB, with no option to select bundles, unless I want to restrict myself to on-portal use at O2 Active and i-Mode (NO!!! I WANT THE REAL INTERNET!!!!!)
T-Mobile at least gives a more general bundling offer, but we're still looking at stupid prices of around $1-2 per MB.
And then there's the killer. International data roaming.
Step forward Orange, and collect your prize for the most ludicrous tariff I've seen. Up to £25 per MB for some countries. That's $44. It's even £10 / MB to roam to Orange's home country, France. Play around with the "country select" screen here - maybe I've missed an even higher one.
Let's put that in perspective. It's cheaper to use a damn satellite connection. Or get a long-haul flight's worth of WiFi . Maybe I should do my email & browsing on the plane at 35000ft altitude rather than on the ground when I arrive.
Vodafone is a little better. They have some data roaming tariffs as "low" as £4.11 ($7) per MB, as long as you roam (and stay connected) to the right foreign operator. Wow. Or else it's back to £10/MB again.
T-Mobile's international roaming is at least simple at £7.50/MB for anywhere.
On average, maybe O2 is the "least worst".
The bottom line? Looks like I'm going to be signing up for WiFi hotspots a lot. Or using Internet cafes.
And waiting to churn to the first WiMAX / WiBro / Flash-OFDM / UMTS-TDD provider that has sensible roaming arrangements.
And I'm also wondering whether any of this could possibly be classed as "anticompetitive" and worthy of investigation by regulators. Any combative lawyers out there fancy pitching this to Ofcom or the European Commission?
Dean Bubley's Disruptive Wireless: Thought-leading wireless industry analysis
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Managing heterogeneity and multiple service providers
A lot of the new business models around fixed-mobile convergence, or triple/quad-play, seem to assume that a whole household will willingly switch to a single service provider.
I can certainly see why operators would dearly love this to occur - ARPU and margin uplift from bundling, customer lock-in, and easier support calls (no finger-pointing or 3rd party equipment).
But is this unreasonable? It strikes me that "in the real world" there's a whole host of reasons why operators may have to deal with heterogeneous, multi-provider households:
- One family member has a company-supplied mobile phone with a different operator
- Family members unwilling to switch ISP, owing to use of email addresses
- "Content lock-in" - eg if someone is silly enough to have their music collection tied to a specific operator's services
- A given market has two "dual-mode" operators, each providing their own home gateway, and two family members independently buy one of each
- Shared households of students / young professionals
- Increasing use of long-term contracts over 24 months inhibiting migration
- Regulatory reasons prohibiting "single phone number" or "fixed+mobile" services
- People moving home to areas with different DSL / cable availability
... and so on. All of these strike me as possible problems in reaching the "single operator utopia". Together, it wouldn't surprise me if this reduces the addressable market for such services to under 30% of what more optimistic planners may expect at first.
I can certainly see why operators would dearly love this to occur - ARPU and margin uplift from bundling, customer lock-in, and easier support calls (no finger-pointing or 3rd party equipment).
But is this unreasonable? It strikes me that "in the real world" there's a whole host of reasons why operators may have to deal with heterogeneous, multi-provider households:
- One family member has a company-supplied mobile phone with a different operator
- Family members unwilling to switch ISP, owing to use of email addresses
- "Content lock-in" - eg if someone is silly enough to have their music collection tied to a specific operator's services
- A given market has two "dual-mode" operators, each providing their own home gateway, and two family members independently buy one of each
- Shared households of students / young professionals
- Increasing use of long-term contracts over 24 months inhibiting migration
- Regulatory reasons prohibiting "single phone number" or "fixed+mobile" services
- People moving home to areas with different DSL / cable availability
... and so on. All of these strike me as possible problems in reaching the "single operator utopia". Together, it wouldn't surprise me if this reduces the addressable market for such services to under 30% of what more optimistic planners may expect at first.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Predictions - FMC launches in 2006
I was at the FMC Congress again today. After his keynote presentation, FMCA Chairman Ryan Jarvis was put on the spot by one questioner, who challenged him to take a punt on how many new FMC services would be launched this year (he counts "already launched" ones as KT's OnePhone, BT Fusion)
He reckoned:
2-4 based on Bluetooth Cordless Telephony Profile (CTP) - [ie similar to KT's services]. This isn't something I've really tracked, but I guess SKT and LGT in Korea have to be fair bets to be among these prospective operators.
4-5 more based UMA - my guesses are Cingular, T-Mobile US, France Telecom and Telstra, with an option on TeliaSonera
2-3 based on WiFi SIP - my guesses would be neufCegetel's BeautifulPhone (in trial) and T-Com in Germany.
He reckoned:
2-4 based on Bluetooth Cordless Telephony Profile (CTP) - [ie similar to KT's services]. This isn't something I've really tracked, but I guess SKT and LGT in Korea have to be fair bets to be among these prospective operators.
4-5 more based UMA - my guesses are Cingular, T-Mobile US, France Telecom and Telstra, with an option on TeliaSonera
2-3 based on WiFi SIP - my guesses would be neufCegetel's BeautifulPhone (in trial) and T-Com in Germany.
Make money out of your friends' incessant chatter.... or spammers... 3 WePay
I love the possibilities of 3 UK's new WePay tariff .
Personally, I'm very much a fan of the 4-second phone call: "Alright mate? Pub? 7 o'clock? Yep. Sorted. Seeya later". But I do have quite a lot of friends who would rather have their entire conversation on the phone, rather than talking in a civilised fashion an hour later, over a pint. Maybe knowing they were effectively buying me a drink before we got to the bar would make them change their behaviour....
Similarly, having a completely separate mobile number that I can dedicate to giving to organisations I suspect will spam me with SMSs is a great idea. I always avoid putting my mobile number into forms that I expect will generate marketing guff.
Actually, this is the first manifestation of something I've wanted and expected for ages - making the "marketing industry" pay for the privilege of marketing at me. Want to send me a piece of junk mail? You pay. Want my personal details in your database? You pay. Want to phone up and try and sell me stuff? You pay. Maybe if you've got a product & you're not wasting my time, I'll give you a refund against my future purchase. You're on commission selling me stuff? Share it.
Nice one 3, truly visionary. Now where do I send my invoice for having to see your appalling adverts on the tube?
Personally, I'm very much a fan of the 4-second phone call: "Alright mate? Pub? 7 o'clock? Yep. Sorted. Seeya later". But I do have quite a lot of friends who would rather have their entire conversation on the phone, rather than talking in a civilised fashion an hour later, over a pint. Maybe knowing they were effectively buying me a drink before we got to the bar would make them change their behaviour....
Similarly, having a completely separate mobile number that I can dedicate to giving to organisations I suspect will spam me with SMSs is a great idea. I always avoid putting my mobile number into forms that I expect will generate marketing guff.
Actually, this is the first manifestation of something I've wanted and expected for ages - making the "marketing industry" pay for the privilege of marketing at me. Want to send me a piece of junk mail? You pay. Want my personal details in your database? You pay. Want to phone up and try and sell me stuff? You pay. Maybe if you've got a product & you're not wasting my time, I'll give you a refund against my future purchase. You're on commission selling me stuff? Share it.
Nice one 3, truly visionary. Now where do I send my invoice for having to see your appalling adverts on the tube?
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Hosted Mobile PBXs. Yawn.
I'm staggered by the amount of blather I hear around the concept of hosted "mobile PBXs". Loads of operators are talking up the proposition, and Broadsoft, Speakanet & assorted others extolling the virtues to me in meetings & conference calls.
"Ditch your lump of Avaya or Nortel tin, and just use your normal mobile phones with some clever gimmickry in the network to set up call groups, easier hold & transfer, and if you're really lucky, cheaper on-net calls to your fellow employees"
My take? It's a niche of a niche.
Fixed variants of hosted PBX, IP Centrex, whatever you want to call it, is sort-of picking up in popularity, albeit from a very low base. Some companies like the idea of outsourcing their phone system to a carrier, with various types & levels of management. OK, fair enough, I can see the point for 10-20% of users at companies who don't want to hire another telecom administrator, or who have lots of remote sites for which PBX installation & management would be a pain.
But how many of these outsource absolutely everything? Not many. Most (especially large enterprises) will keep a lot of their telephony systems in-house, especially if they have call centres, or if they're integrating VoIP with enterprise applications like SAP or Siebel. Again, fair enough if you're using a carrier that has some IT systems integration expertise, perhaps BT's Global Solutions Division, or AT&T.
But a mobile operator, offering mobile centrex? Do you really expect them to support incremental migration from PBX to hosted mobile-based service over a couple of years? Do they have an PBX experts to help with this, or the various bits of IT integration? How will they deal with bits that have to be kept fixed (like call centre agents)? Will they be able to route calls over your shiny new IP-VPN to reduce international call charges? I don't think so.
OK, I can see the argument if you're a startup software company in Helsinki with 11 employees & no legacy PBX or key system. Or perhaps a chunk of your mobile sales force. But anything else? Maybe 1-4% of the overall enterprise marketplace (ie 10-20% of the 10-20% mentioned above).
Oh, and I'd like to see how these services work indoors in large buildings, especially if they use 3G.....
Last point. Any mobile operators out there that can honestly say they run their entire business on mobile? Including their customer service agents, their legal department's fax machines and their reception desks in local offices around the world?
"Ditch your lump of Avaya or Nortel tin, and just use your normal mobile phones with some clever gimmickry in the network to set up call groups, easier hold & transfer, and if you're really lucky, cheaper on-net calls to your fellow employees"
My take? It's a niche of a niche.
Fixed variants of hosted PBX, IP Centrex, whatever you want to call it, is sort-of picking up in popularity, albeit from a very low base. Some companies like the idea of outsourcing their phone system to a carrier, with various types & levels of management. OK, fair enough, I can see the point for 10-20% of users at companies who don't want to hire another telecom administrator, or who have lots of remote sites for which PBX installation & management would be a pain.
But how many of these outsource absolutely everything? Not many. Most (especially large enterprises) will keep a lot of their telephony systems in-house, especially if they have call centres, or if they're integrating VoIP with enterprise applications like SAP or Siebel. Again, fair enough if you're using a carrier that has some IT systems integration expertise, perhaps BT's Global Solutions Division, or AT&T.
But a mobile operator, offering mobile centrex? Do you really expect them to support incremental migration from PBX to hosted mobile-based service over a couple of years? Do they have an PBX experts to help with this, or the various bits of IT integration? How will they deal with bits that have to be kept fixed (like call centre agents)? Will they be able to route calls over your shiny new IP-VPN to reduce international call charges? I don't think so.
OK, I can see the argument if you're a startup software company in Helsinki with 11 employees & no legacy PBX or key system. Or perhaps a chunk of your mobile sales force. But anything else? Maybe 1-4% of the overall enterprise marketplace (ie 10-20% of the 10-20% mentioned above).
Oh, and I'd like to see how these services work indoors in large buildings, especially if they use 3G.....
Last point. Any mobile operators out there that can honestly say they run their entire business on mobile? Including their customer service agents, their legal department's fax machines and their reception desks in local offices around the world?
We're all subsidising the truly-mobile users.....
Spent today at the FMC Congress in London. A fascinating pitch from Swisscom mentioned the fact that their average mobile customer generates 70% of their calls (and revenue) from just 3 network cells. I'd guess that one at home, one at work/school, and presumably another one at their local pub / shop / town centre.
This highlights an increasing issue I see in cellular - all the really "clever" (and expensive) bits of the network, like cell-to-cell handover for example, aren't actually used that much.
Essentially, the 90% of people using their mobiles on the sofa at home are subsidising the 10% who are actually driving down the motorway or sitting on a train.
And given that at another conference last week, I found out that up to 20% of a 3G phone's sales price goes in patent royalties, I wonder just how much of that costly IPR only gets used once in a blue moon. Never mind patents being based on "how important they are to a standard", how about pricing them on "how often they're actually used".....
This highlights an increasing issue I see in cellular - all the really "clever" (and expensive) bits of the network, like cell-to-cell handover for example, aren't actually used that much.
Essentially, the 90% of people using their mobiles on the sofa at home are subsidising the 10% who are actually driving down the motorway or sitting on a train.
And given that at another conference last week, I found out that up to 20% of a 3G phone's sales price goes in patent royalties, I wonder just how much of that costly IPR only gets used once in a blue moon. Never mind patents being based on "how important they are to a standard", how about pricing them on "how often they're actually used".....
Monday, January 23, 2006
Enterprise VoWLAN and SMS
Hope to catch up today & tomorrow on a couple of things outstanding from last week. I chaired a day of Informa's Multimode Handset conference in London on Weds / Thurs and saw a lot of presentations about combining WLAN, cellular & other stuff (mobile TV, GPS etc etc) into phones.
A few things stood out in my mind.
First off, a very interesting presentation from Cisco about its view of dual-mode devices & how they might work in the enterprise. Although I regularly meet with Cisco, the profile of enterprise telephony tends to be pretty low in many cellular industry suppliers, who prefer to deal with markets with number of users in 9 or 10 digits, as they're selling software or chips for a few cents or dollars apiece. Enterprise mobile is "low volume, high value" - great if you're an operator or integrator, but mostly just icing on the cake for a chipset supplier.
Cisco's speaker came from the company's IP Communications division, and continued the last few months' tradition of drip-feeding information about the upcoming Cisco dual-mode solution, based around Motorola and (especially) Nokia dual-mode phones. (See my earlier post on the E-Series) . All good stuff, and I'm expecting to hear more noise still over the next month or so. My betting is on some major integrators and fixed/mobile operators (probably existing Cisco distribution partners) to be in the vanguard of shipping things.
But one thing stood out - and this also applies to the Avaya / Nokia solution as well. In general, the idea seems to be to tie all corporate comms back via the enterprise-adminstered IP-PBX, and to encourage employees to use the fixed-line # rather than their "native" mobile number where possible. This makes sense for a few reasons, but depending on how it's implemented, has one major potential flaw - poor integration with SMS, and possibly other cellular applications.
Particularly in Europe, business people SMS each other as well as email. "Running late", "At airport, in lounge", "Can't spk now, in boring mgmt mtg, boss droning on".
SMS needs to work "nicely" when the dual-mode device is in VoWLAN/IP-PBX mode. This is especially true if the solution aims to "cloak" the phone; mobile number and pass off the call as a purely PBX-based call with a fixed-line #, tie in with conferencing systems etc etc. But if the employee texts his client, then caller ID will reveal the "real" mobile number - which the client / supplier / colleague will then just enter in his or her mobile's address book and use by default.
It's not especially complex to fix this in theory, but the messaging functions on IP-PBXs tend to be very voicemail/email/IM-centric, with poor (if any) SMS integration.
So. A suggestion to Cisco, Avaya, Ericsson, Nortel, Alcatel, Siemens & assorted other IP-PBX and VoWLAN people - sort your SMS integration ASAP, and don't let your North American R&D & product marketing people tell you it's a low priority.
A few things stood out in my mind.
First off, a very interesting presentation from Cisco about its view of dual-mode devices & how they might work in the enterprise. Although I regularly meet with Cisco, the profile of enterprise telephony tends to be pretty low in many cellular industry suppliers, who prefer to deal with markets with number of users in 9 or 10 digits, as they're selling software or chips for a few cents or dollars apiece. Enterprise mobile is "low volume, high value" - great if you're an operator or integrator, but mostly just icing on the cake for a chipset supplier.
Cisco's speaker came from the company's IP Communications division, and continued the last few months' tradition of drip-feeding information about the upcoming Cisco dual-mode solution, based around Motorola and (especially) Nokia dual-mode phones. (See my earlier post on the E-Series) . All good stuff, and I'm expecting to hear more noise still over the next month or so. My betting is on some major integrators and fixed/mobile operators (probably existing Cisco distribution partners) to be in the vanguard of shipping things.
But one thing stood out - and this also applies to the Avaya / Nokia solution as well. In general, the idea seems to be to tie all corporate comms back via the enterprise-adminstered IP-PBX, and to encourage employees to use the fixed-line # rather than their "native" mobile number where possible. This makes sense for a few reasons, but depending on how it's implemented, has one major potential flaw - poor integration with SMS, and possibly other cellular applications.
Particularly in Europe, business people SMS each other as well as email. "Running late", "At airport, in lounge", "Can't spk now, in boring mgmt mtg, boss droning on".
SMS needs to work "nicely" when the dual-mode device is in VoWLAN/IP-PBX mode. This is especially true if the solution aims to "cloak" the phone; mobile number and pass off the call as a purely PBX-based call with a fixed-line #, tie in with conferencing systems etc etc. But if the employee texts his client, then caller ID will reveal the "real" mobile number - which the client / supplier / colleague will then just enter in his or her mobile's address book and use by default.
It's not especially complex to fix this in theory, but the messaging functions on IP-PBXs tend to be very voicemail/email/IM-centric, with poor (if any) SMS integration.
So. A suggestion to Cisco, Avaya, Ericsson, Nortel, Alcatel, Siemens & assorted other IP-PBX and VoWLAN people - sort your SMS integration ASAP, and don't let your North American R&D & product marketing people tell you it's a low priority.
Indoor cellular services
One of the lowest-profile, but most interesting, backwaters of the wireless business is that of on-campus / on-site dedicated "private cellular". Various regulators, companies and service providers have given the green light to corporate-level local cellular networks, which run in specific dedicated slices of spectrum, often at lower power levels than the main "macro" networks in the same country. A typical application is for a company to build "its own MVNO" - ie using ordinary low-cost cellphones as the main communication device for employees, switching "on-net" calls locally and connecting in with their existing PBX or IP Telephony system for cheap/free intra-company tariffs. Often, the private cellular network will have dedicated in-building coverage, using pico-cells or distributed antenna systems. Potentially, very individualised "local functionality" can be added, enabling customised services to be offered on a site-specific basis.
The best-known European examples of this approach are Swiss operator In&Phone and Swedish operator Spring . Also, UK regulator Ofcom is currently formulating plans for auctioning "spare" slices ofGSM spectrum in 2006, that may also enable indoor applications from new operators. Disruptive Analysis is aware of various companies' interest in this spectrum.
It's worth noting that this approach is different from the type of "Mobile PBX" solution espoused by companies like BroadSoft and Speakanet , which use the macro network's coverage and frequencies, rather than dedicated in-door spectrum and a separately-licenced service provider. These services act as a value-added "intelligent network" overlay application, and group together a given set of numbers, rather than acting in the site-specific (and improved indoor coverage) mode of the private cellular option.
One of the notional disadvantages of this type of solution has been the need for the "indoor" operator to enable "roaming" from the in-building network onto the macro network. (The operator is typically a specialist provider acting as outsourcer, rather than the company itself - most corporates or universities don't have the skills to build & manage a cellular network). Given their frequent opposition to regulators allowing new players to cherry-pick profitable niches like corporate campuses in the first place, there is understandable reluctance from established macro-cellular operators to conclude such agreements. It is therefore notable that In&Phone has just signed such a deal, which holds promise for similar models in other countries.
Overall, this adds a new twist to the corporate FMC / indoor-coverage / PBX-integrated wireless marketplace, which looks to be shaping up into a 4-way fight:
- conventional macro-cellular networks with mobile PBX "closed user groups", or mobile VPNs, for lower on-net tariffs
- conventional macro-cellular networks with an "Office Zone" tariffing system, reducing prices within a given cell (essentially a corporate version of O2 Germany's Genion-type system)
- dedicated in-building cellular networks (ideally with an external roaming partner, or provided by a macro operator in the first place)
- dual-mode VoWLAN / cellular, offering the benefits (free calls, productivity etc) of a "full VoIP" solution indoors, but at the cost of dual-mode handsets and additional infrastructure and integration.
From my perspective, there's no obvious outright winner yet. It'll depend on country/regulations, business demographics (company size / industry / building infrastructure etc), device costs, PBX interoperability and the relative difficulties of installing new in-building WLAN vs cellular coverage solutions. It'll be interesting to see what new changes in this landscape are announced at 3GSM in February.
The best-known European examples of this approach are Swiss operator In&Phone and Swedish operator Spring . Also, UK regulator Ofcom is currently formulating plans for auctioning "spare" slices ofGSM spectrum in 2006, that may also enable indoor applications from new operators. Disruptive Analysis is aware of various companies' interest in this spectrum.
It's worth noting that this approach is different from the type of "Mobile PBX" solution espoused by companies like BroadSoft and Speakanet , which use the macro network's coverage and frequencies, rather than dedicated in-door spectrum and a separately-licenced service provider. These services act as a value-added "intelligent network" overlay application, and group together a given set of numbers, rather than acting in the site-specific (and improved indoor coverage) mode of the private cellular option.
One of the notional disadvantages of this type of solution has been the need for the "indoor" operator to enable "roaming" from the in-building network onto the macro network. (The operator is typically a specialist provider acting as outsourcer, rather than the company itself - most corporates or universities don't have the skills to build & manage a cellular network). Given their frequent opposition to regulators allowing new players to cherry-pick profitable niches like corporate campuses in the first place, there is understandable reluctance from established macro-cellular operators to conclude such agreements. It is therefore notable that In&Phone has just signed such a deal, which holds promise for similar models in other countries.
Overall, this adds a new twist to the corporate FMC / indoor-coverage / PBX-integrated wireless marketplace, which looks to be shaping up into a 4-way fight:
- conventional macro-cellular networks with mobile PBX "closed user groups", or mobile VPNs, for lower on-net tariffs
- conventional macro-cellular networks with an "Office Zone" tariffing system, reducing prices within a given cell (essentially a corporate version of O2 Germany's Genion-type system)
- dedicated in-building cellular networks (ideally with an external roaming partner, or provided by a macro operator in the first place)
- dual-mode VoWLAN / cellular, offering the benefits (free calls, productivity etc) of a "full VoIP" solution indoors, but at the cost of dual-mode handsets and additional infrastructure and integration.
From my perspective, there's no obvious outright winner yet. It'll depend on country/regulations, business demographics (company size / industry / building infrastructure etc), device costs, PBX interoperability and the relative difficulties of installing new in-building WLAN vs cellular coverage solutions. It'll be interesting to see what new changes in this landscape are announced at 3GSM in February.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Dual-Mode handsets done right
I'm regularly asked to explain my scepticism of UMA and so-called "seamless" behaviour of dual-mode WiFi/cellular phones.
One of my core beliefs is that consumers will use WiFi-enabled mobile phones in a very different fashion to ordinary cellular-only handsets. They will want the WiFi function to do a lot more than simply extend cellular coverage, and offer transparent "access agnostic" links to existing mobile services.
In particular, I think consumers will want to do a lot more than access "services" with a dual-mode device. They'll start treating the phone as a piece of home consumer electronics, rather than purely a "service-led" device. They'll want to get MP3 files from their PC's hard drive over WiFi, maybe share contacts, and possibly hook into all the other new bits of WiFi-enabled gadgetry around the home. They'll want to use the phone to browse the web via their broadband connection from the sofa (with no per-MB charges), and use the integrated WiFi to access email, IM, VoIP (yeah, maybe Skype) and all that other good "proper Internet" stuff.
UMA handsets, on the other hand, will tend to usurp most of this in favour of billable operator services, just using your WiFi as a way of tunneling the (locked, walled & expensive) cellular "user experience" over broadband. On some phones you might be able to get at some of the other functions over WiFi, but only if you go down 17 levels of menus & obscure configuration settings, and your operator hasn't locked all that stuff down.
On the other hand, UMA and its next generation, 3GPP GAN, is actually a standard, while the various approaches using SIP alternatives are more proprietary, and also tend (at the moment) to lack the much-hyped voice seamlessness which I think really isn't that big a deal.
All of which means I was very happy to find that French broadband operator NeufCegetel appears to agree with me, and is working on a trial dual-mode solution that uses SIP and a proper PC/Internet-integrated smartphone. "Choose music, photos, videos or other documents on your computer or the Internet and load them at high speed"....
.... although maybe, just this once, they should have diverted a few pennies from their clearly very innovative R&D team, and spent a bit more on their marketing & branding efforts.... I mean, I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the Qtek 8300 that NeufCegetel is using isn't really an UglyPhone, but still, would you want to say you had a "BeautifulPhone"?
One of my core beliefs is that consumers will use WiFi-enabled mobile phones in a very different fashion to ordinary cellular-only handsets. They will want the WiFi function to do a lot more than simply extend cellular coverage, and offer transparent "access agnostic" links to existing mobile services.
In particular, I think consumers will want to do a lot more than access "services" with a dual-mode device. They'll start treating the phone as a piece of home consumer electronics, rather than purely a "service-led" device. They'll want to get MP3 files from their PC's hard drive over WiFi, maybe share contacts, and possibly hook into all the other new bits of WiFi-enabled gadgetry around the home. They'll want to use the phone to browse the web via their broadband connection from the sofa (with no per-MB charges), and use the integrated WiFi to access email, IM, VoIP (yeah, maybe Skype) and all that other good "proper Internet" stuff.
UMA handsets, on the other hand, will tend to usurp most of this in favour of billable operator services, just using your WiFi as a way of tunneling the (locked, walled & expensive) cellular "user experience" over broadband. On some phones you might be able to get at some of the other functions over WiFi, but only if you go down 17 levels of menus & obscure configuration settings, and your operator hasn't locked all that stuff down.
On the other hand, UMA and its next generation, 3GPP GAN, is actually a standard, while the various approaches using SIP alternatives are more proprietary, and also tend (at the moment) to lack the much-hyped voice seamlessness which I think really isn't that big a deal.
All of which means I was very happy to find that French broadband operator NeufCegetel appears to agree with me, and is working on a trial dual-mode solution that uses SIP and a proper PC/Internet-integrated smartphone. "Choose music, photos, videos or other documents on your computer or the Internet and load them at high speed"....
.... although maybe, just this once, they should have diverted a few pennies from their clearly very innovative R&D team, and spent a bit more on their marketing & branding efforts.... I mean, I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the Qtek 8300 that NeufCegetel is using isn't really an UglyPhone, but still, would you want to say you had a "BeautifulPhone"?
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Thoughts from Africa
Happy New Year.....
Before I get onto analysing the growing stream of pre-3GSM announcements, a quick post on observations of things mobile/wireless-related from my recent trip....
- I bought 3 prepay SIMs while I was away: 2 in South Africa (Vodacom, at about $3 each, I lost the first one...) and one in Mozambique ($2 on mCel, including $2 of credit). So, these supposed "2 billion mobile subscribers" worldwide? Just how many are duplicate SIM owners? I could quite believe that 10-20% of the global total are double-counted
- Plenty of GSMA-inspired low-cost Moto C115's in evidence
- ... but also quite a few high-end devices. Notable that a few shops in Maputo (capital of Mozambique) stock Moto RAZRs, Nokia N-series and other similar handsets, while Motorola has an extensive advertising campaign in the region for RAZRs - and not just in affluent areas either (I saw a huge poster in the JoBurg township of Soweto) Also quite telling that there seem to be various 3G phones sold in countries which only have 2G networks.
- Very few non-Moto/Nokia phones in evidence. A few Samsungs (especially in S Africa), but I hardly saw any LG's, S-Es or others.
- In Mozambique, everyone sells prepay top-ups. Clothes shops, pharmacists, petrol stations, hawkers on the street. Advertising is everywhere.
- Vodacom sponsored a music festival on New Year's Eve in the remote area of Tofo Beach, 7 hours' drive from Maputo. I guess the roaming revenues from a couple of thousand South Africans must have justified the expense....
- Public Internet access seems considerably rarer than in Asia or South America. No Bolivia-style Internet shops full of schoolkids doing homework and IM'ing
Before I get onto analysing the growing stream of pre-3GSM announcements, a quick post on observations of things mobile/wireless-related from my recent trip....
- I bought 3 prepay SIMs while I was away: 2 in South Africa (Vodacom, at about $3 each, I lost the first one...) and one in Mozambique ($2 on mCel, including $2 of credit). So, these supposed "2 billion mobile subscribers" worldwide? Just how many are duplicate SIM owners? I could quite believe that 10-20% of the global total are double-counted
- Plenty of GSMA-inspired low-cost Moto C115's in evidence
- ... but also quite a few high-end devices. Notable that a few shops in Maputo (capital of Mozambique) stock Moto RAZRs, Nokia N-series and other similar handsets, while Motorola has an extensive advertising campaign in the region for RAZRs - and not just in affluent areas either (I saw a huge poster in the JoBurg township of Soweto) Also quite telling that there seem to be various 3G phones sold in countries which only have 2G networks.
- Very few non-Moto/Nokia phones in evidence. A few Samsungs (especially in S Africa), but I hardly saw any LG's, S-Es or others.
- In Mozambique, everyone sells prepay top-ups. Clothes shops, pharmacists, petrol stations, hawkers on the street. Advertising is everywhere.
- Vodacom sponsored a music festival on New Year's Eve in the remote area of Tofo Beach, 7 hours' drive from Maputo. I guess the roaming revenues from a couple of thousand South Africans must have justified the expense....
- Public Internet access seems considerably rarer than in Asia or South America. No Bolivia-style Internet shops full of schoolkids doing homework and IM'ing
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Holidays....
In theory, I ought to do a "round-up of 2005 & things to look forward to in 2006" post, but I've left it too late & I'm about to head for the airport.
If I get caught in an Internet cafe during any tropical rainstorms, I may post some observations from remote bits of southern Africa, but otherwise I'll be back in January.
And I might be a mobile analyst, but I take great pleasure in leaving my phone at home when I go in holiday... change the voicemail, put it in a drawer, and head to Heathrow. Connectivity courtesy of Yahoo! Mail is more than enough....
Lastly, a quick shout out to one of the more eclectic "communities" enabled by technology for organising an awesomely bizarre outing on Saturday. You may be unsurprised to read that Disruptive Santa is the one being contrarian and wearing black....
If I get caught in an Internet cafe during any tropical rainstorms, I may post some observations from remote bits of southern Africa, but otherwise I'll be back in January.
And I might be a mobile analyst, but I take great pleasure in leaving my phone at home when I go in holiday... change the voicemail, put it in a drawer, and head to Heathrow. Connectivity courtesy of Yahoo! Mail is more than enough....
Lastly, a quick shout out to one of the more eclectic "communities" enabled by technology for organising an awesomely bizarre outing on Saturday. You may be unsurprised to read that Disruptive Santa is the one being contrarian and wearing black....
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
IP interconnect: carriers seem to have lost the plot
There's been a lot of noise about the possibility of large carriers attempting to enforce interconnect and policy management regimes on Internet-based services since I last mentioned it. James Enck has been following it closely, and last week at Cisco's Analyst Summit the company tried to make a virtue of it, fitting it around the company's earlier acquisition of P-Cube, which made "deep packet inspection" gear.
During the conference Q&A I tackled SVP Mike Volpi on the topic, and was given a remarkably "scared and blinkered carrier"-centric answer which can roughly be summarised as "broadband is not a human right" and "carriers have to protect their own services on their own pipes, and not have them risked by other people who don't pay them".
Now, I've often seen equipment vendors shrug at their customers' sillier ideas and imply "well, it's their money. If they really want to waste it on something we think won't work, they might as well waste it with us, rather than our competition". However, there wasn't much public eyebrow-raising equivocation of this type. They seem to be serious.
Now, from my perspective there are indeed a couple of reasonable angles to this. Carrier IP networks that are strangled by huge volumes of (usually illegal) P2P traffic are an issue, especially in instances where this could actually break the network. Cellular networks may be especially fragile (imagine a Symbian-born virus which spread using Bittorrent-over-3G) and so I'll buy the notion of packet inspection as a form of pressure valve. Arguably, content filtering should be done in the network too, although personally I think it should be device/terminal-based wherever possible.
But the notion that Internet "service providers" (actually, I see them more as "application providers") like Google or Skype could be forced to pay interconnect fees to carriers (or do co-marketing revenue-share type agreements, as Cisco's Volpi also suggested) is palpable nonsense. The notion that a carrier could explicitly or implicitly degrade Skype of Yahoo!, on the basis that it competes with some of their own services, is horrific to most Internet users, and is likely to stifle the fundamental innovative nature of the Internet.
I struggle to think of a single "cool" and "useful" application or service on the web that was originally developed by a large carrier. They've all come from 2 guys in a dorm at Stanford or 2 ex-Apple employees. Can you imagine the inventors of the next Skype or Hotmail having to negotiate with 327 different carriers and ISPs around the world to make sure their service works properly?
As I said, if IP interconnect is enacted the way the carriers are threatening (largely in the US), it will kill Internet innovation.
Luckily, it won't work. The whole stupid project will fail at several levels - and possibly take the more laudable aspects like P2P traffic-moderating down with it, as it sinks.
The main points of failure:
- All this is scuppered by putting the traffic into a VPN tunnel, originating on a PC or a smartphone. You try filtering something that's encrypted, application-by-application, or URL by URL. Google's supposed WiFi secure access client seems like a poorly-disguised beta for a future version of this.
- In the future, we might build apps out of components more. I reckon XML/.NET based apps and services will be nigh-on impossible to police with deep packet inspection. The same component going across the network could be part of 20 different applications.
- No carriers have a position of "Network Policy Manager", and the complexity of such as putative role in liaising with different departments (network, wholesale, marketing, regulation, legal, HR, large accounts etc etc) makes it unlikely that one will evolve any time fast
- Many apps will just evolve to evade IP interconnect. Someone will make MSN appear to the network as MMS, or Skype will spoof SAP.
- Many operators trying heavy-handed approaches to IP Interconnect will screw up uninintentionally. I'd love to be the fly on the wall when the CIO of a major investment bank rings his carrier account manager and says "I've spent $5m designing a class-leading realtime P2P application to distribute equity derivative pricing information between my traders' desktops and mobile devices. Your stupid network appears to have started blocking it & we've lost $100m through delayed trading. I'm taking my 10,000 users elsewhere, and you'll be hearing from my lawyers and the SEC in the next 30 minutes"
To close off - an open request to the software community. Can you build me a desktop application that will work out (proveably) if my broadband carrier is degrading any particular services? I'll pay you for it. And I'll use it to churn to a carrier that makes a virtue of letting me use my pipes the way I want.
During the conference Q&A I tackled SVP Mike Volpi on the topic, and was given a remarkably "scared and blinkered carrier"-centric answer which can roughly be summarised as "broadband is not a human right" and "carriers have to protect their own services on their own pipes, and not have them risked by other people who don't pay them".
Now, I've often seen equipment vendors shrug at their customers' sillier ideas and imply "well, it's their money. If they really want to waste it on something we think won't work, they might as well waste it with us, rather than our competition". However, there wasn't much public eyebrow-raising equivocation of this type. They seem to be serious.
Now, from my perspective there are indeed a couple of reasonable angles to this. Carrier IP networks that are strangled by huge volumes of (usually illegal) P2P traffic are an issue, especially in instances where this could actually break the network. Cellular networks may be especially fragile (imagine a Symbian-born virus which spread using Bittorrent-over-3G) and so I'll buy the notion of packet inspection as a form of pressure valve. Arguably, content filtering should be done in the network too, although personally I think it should be device/terminal-based wherever possible.
But the notion that Internet "service providers" (actually, I see them more as "application providers") like Google or Skype could be forced to pay interconnect fees to carriers (or do co-marketing revenue-share type agreements, as Cisco's Volpi also suggested) is palpable nonsense. The notion that a carrier could explicitly or implicitly degrade Skype of Yahoo!, on the basis that it competes with some of their own services, is horrific to most Internet users, and is likely to stifle the fundamental innovative nature of the Internet.
I struggle to think of a single "cool" and "useful" application or service on the web that was originally developed by a large carrier. They've all come from 2 guys in a dorm at Stanford or 2 ex-Apple employees. Can you imagine the inventors of the next Skype or Hotmail having to negotiate with 327 different carriers and ISPs around the world to make sure their service works properly?
As I said, if IP interconnect is enacted the way the carriers are threatening (largely in the US), it will kill Internet innovation.
Luckily, it won't work. The whole stupid project will fail at several levels - and possibly take the more laudable aspects like P2P traffic-moderating down with it, as it sinks.
The main points of failure:
- All this is scuppered by putting the traffic into a VPN tunnel, originating on a PC or a smartphone. You try filtering something that's encrypted, application-by-application, or URL by URL. Google's supposed WiFi secure access client seems like a poorly-disguised beta for a future version of this.
- In the future, we might build apps out of components more. I reckon XML/.NET based apps and services will be nigh-on impossible to police with deep packet inspection. The same component going across the network could be part of 20 different applications.
- No carriers have a position of "Network Policy Manager", and the complexity of such as putative role in liaising with different departments (network, wholesale, marketing, regulation, legal, HR, large accounts etc etc) makes it unlikely that one will evolve any time fast
- Many apps will just evolve to evade IP interconnect. Someone will make MSN appear to the network as MMS, or Skype will spoof SAP.
- Many operators trying heavy-handed approaches to IP Interconnect will screw up uninintentionally. I'd love to be the fly on the wall when the CIO of a major investment bank rings his carrier account manager and says "I've spent $5m designing a class-leading realtime P2P application to distribute equity derivative pricing information between my traders' desktops and mobile devices. Your stupid network appears to have started blocking it & we've lost $100m through delayed trading. I'm taking my 10,000 users elsewhere, and you'll be hearing from my lawyers and the SEC in the next 30 minutes"
To close off - an open request to the software community. Can you build me a desktop application that will work out (proveably) if my broadband carrier is degrading any particular services? I'll pay you for it. And I'll use it to churn to a carrier that makes a virtue of letting me use my pipes the way I want.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Smartphone OS debates... who really cares? The action's somewhere else
To my mind, an inordinate amount of focus is placed on debating "which operating system will win on mobile phones?".
Microsoft vs. Symbian vs. Palm vs. Linux vs. SavaJe vs. whatever.
I've lost count of the number of presentations I've seen which have basically said "If all phones were based on our OS, then you, the operator, could do all sorts of cool new apps / save costs / increase ARPU / solve world hunger".
Very few of those Powerpoint decks, however, have gone on to point out how the real world works - that there will, clearly, be a mix of OS's, at which point some or all of their "benefits" start to disappear.
Let's face it, heterogeneity in mobile phone OS is permanent. At the bare minimum, Nokia will continue to champion Symbian, Motorola will push Linux, HTC is making a good living with Windows Mobile, and assorted proprietary OS's continue to make traction because consumers don't care.
It doesn't matter if 2008's coolest phone runs on FORTRAN or has a dozen monkeys with abacuses inside it. People will buy it, the way they bought the Moto RAZR, because it's cool. And therefore operators will clamour to sell it, irrespective of their internal goals to reduce the number of OS's they support.
So - OS diversity is a baseline. Most manufacturers recognise this, and most mobile operators as well. Even the most proscriptive, NTT DoCoMo, which develops its own software stacks, dual-sources from Symbian and Linux.
As a result, the focus of the action is moving a little further "up". I am seeing a revitalised set of attempts to compete at the "application platform" layer. Clearly, Java and BREW have been around for a while. DoCoMo has championed iMode around the world with a measure of success. Most of these can work "on top of" multiple OS's (although I'm not aware of any BREW-on-Symbian phones).
I see various new attempts by the Java and GSM communities to create essentially a "BREW clone, but without having to deal with Qualcomm". The OMTP and the approach of firms like SavaJe exemplify this. I see Qualcomm itself use its success in 3G chipsets and possibly its UIone interface solution to subtly push BREW towards wider acceptability anyway. I see DoCoMo getting greater traction with iMode (and maybe FOMA in the future?), and the Koreans seemed very enthused about the possibility of exporting WIPI. Arguably, even higher-level software layers like Macromedia Flash Lite, and Surfkitchen's & Action Engines' UI tools could be counted in this category too. If it didn't have more pressing concerns, I would have expected RIM to be playing harder here as well.
To some extent, this is the promise of J2ME, but updated with better functionality, security, less fragmentation and better end-to-end control by operators.
Where does this leave the underlying OS's? I'd argue that - except for specific usage cases - they are heading towards commoditisation. Clearly, they're not commodities in the way that suppliers of oil or coffee beans are - the investments and switching costs remain very high. But I see the debate remaining very restricted to internal bean-counting and engineering debates inside handset manufacturers, in a similar fashion to phone chipsets. I see no real reason why Symbian vs. Windows Mobile should get more coverage than Texas Instruments vs. Infineon.
Do you know what chipset is in your phone? Or what its differentiators are from its competitors? Is there a dedicated blog site extolling the virtues of Agere-based handsets? Sure, these matter if you're building phones. But so does the type of battery, the audio chip and a 100 other things. Add the OS to the list.
What are these "specific usage cases" I mentioned? Well, obviously Nokia's range of high/mid-end devices is one of them. Then, clearly, the Internet is stuffed with enthusiastic evangelists of one OS or another, who would gladly beat each other to death with the device of their choice. Certain groups of developers have natural leanings towards Microsoft or Symbian too, for example in the enterprise. But the Holy Grail of the OS vendors, to have mobile operators standardise on specific OS's, seems to have run out of steam. It's also much easier to test and develop new solutions on smartphones before pushing them downmarket - there's a reason why so many of the DVB-H mobile TV trials are on Symbian-based phones.
So, operators are increasingly happy to standardise on application layers, and have these run across multiple OS's. Sure, they might prefer fewer OSs - but we're maybe talking reducing from 10 to 6, not down to 2 or 3.
But fundamentally, we're moving to the "not-quite-lowest-common-denominator" position, abstracted a layer from the OS.
What this means is that OS's are not major differentiators for manufacturers. I have a feeling that Symbian may end up as a loser here. It's notable that Panasonic has shifted allegiance from Symbian to Linux this week, and that the Koreans I spoke to a couple of weeks back had tested - and rejected - WIPI-on-Symbian.
Microsoft's position is more obscure, but its focus on IT-type applications and more corporate-aimed devices may mean it runs parallel to the more consumer/content-centric WIPI/Brew/Java/i-Mode debate.
Linux seems to be a potential long-run winner (recent developments in APIs and standards are helping), but it "isn't as easy as it looks" seems to be a familiar refrain in my research. A newly-revitalised SavaJe is an outside bet, but my general belief is that all this means proprietary OS platforms still have several years' breathing space in front of them.
[Oh, and any VCs interested in funding my MPMMAOS (massively-parallel mobile monkey abacus OS) programme, please contact me at the usual Disruptive Analysis address]
Microsoft vs. Symbian vs. Palm vs. Linux vs. SavaJe vs. whatever.
I've lost count of the number of presentations I've seen which have basically said "If all phones were based on our OS, then you, the operator, could do all sorts of cool new apps / save costs / increase ARPU / solve world hunger".
Very few of those Powerpoint decks, however, have gone on to point out how the real world works - that there will, clearly, be a mix of OS's, at which point some or all of their "benefits" start to disappear.
Let's face it, heterogeneity in mobile phone OS is permanent. At the bare minimum, Nokia will continue to champion Symbian, Motorola will push Linux, HTC is making a good living with Windows Mobile, and assorted proprietary OS's continue to make traction because consumers don't care.
It doesn't matter if 2008's coolest phone runs on FORTRAN or has a dozen monkeys with abacuses inside it. People will buy it, the way they bought the Moto RAZR, because it's cool. And therefore operators will clamour to sell it, irrespective of their internal goals to reduce the number of OS's they support.
So - OS diversity is a baseline. Most manufacturers recognise this, and most mobile operators as well. Even the most proscriptive, NTT DoCoMo, which develops its own software stacks, dual-sources from Symbian and Linux.
As a result, the focus of the action is moving a little further "up". I am seeing a revitalised set of attempts to compete at the "application platform" layer. Clearly, Java and BREW have been around for a while. DoCoMo has championed iMode around the world with a measure of success. Most of these can work "on top of" multiple OS's (although I'm not aware of any BREW-on-Symbian phones).
I see various new attempts by the Java and GSM communities to create essentially a "BREW clone, but without having to deal with Qualcomm". The OMTP and the approach of firms like SavaJe exemplify this. I see Qualcomm itself use its success in 3G chipsets and possibly its UIone interface solution to subtly push BREW towards wider acceptability anyway. I see DoCoMo getting greater traction with iMode (and maybe FOMA in the future?), and the Koreans seemed very enthused about the possibility of exporting WIPI. Arguably, even higher-level software layers like Macromedia Flash Lite, and Surfkitchen's & Action Engines' UI tools could be counted in this category too. If it didn't have more pressing concerns, I would have expected RIM to be playing harder here as well.
To some extent, this is the promise of J2ME, but updated with better functionality, security, less fragmentation and better end-to-end control by operators.
Where does this leave the underlying OS's? I'd argue that - except for specific usage cases - they are heading towards commoditisation. Clearly, they're not commodities in the way that suppliers of oil or coffee beans are - the investments and switching costs remain very high. But I see the debate remaining very restricted to internal bean-counting and engineering debates inside handset manufacturers, in a similar fashion to phone chipsets. I see no real reason why Symbian vs. Windows Mobile should get more coverage than Texas Instruments vs. Infineon.
Do you know what chipset is in your phone? Or what its differentiators are from its competitors? Is there a dedicated blog site extolling the virtues of Agere-based handsets? Sure, these matter if you're building phones. But so does the type of battery, the audio chip and a 100 other things. Add the OS to the list.
What are these "specific usage cases" I mentioned? Well, obviously Nokia's range of high/mid-end devices is one of them. Then, clearly, the Internet is stuffed with enthusiastic evangelists of one OS or another, who would gladly beat each other to death with the device of their choice. Certain groups of developers have natural leanings towards Microsoft or Symbian too, for example in the enterprise. But the Holy Grail of the OS vendors, to have mobile operators standardise on specific OS's, seems to have run out of steam. It's also much easier to test and develop new solutions on smartphones before pushing them downmarket - there's a reason why so many of the DVB-H mobile TV trials are on Symbian-based phones.
So, operators are increasingly happy to standardise on application layers, and have these run across multiple OS's. Sure, they might prefer fewer OSs - but we're maybe talking reducing from 10 to 6, not down to 2 or 3.
But fundamentally, we're moving to the "not-quite-lowest-common-denominator" position, abstracted a layer from the OS.
What this means is that OS's are not major differentiators for manufacturers. I have a feeling that Symbian may end up as a loser here. It's notable that Panasonic has shifted allegiance from Symbian to Linux this week, and that the Koreans I spoke to a couple of weeks back had tested - and rejected - WIPI-on-Symbian.
Microsoft's position is more obscure, but its focus on IT-type applications and more corporate-aimed devices may mean it runs parallel to the more consumer/content-centric WIPI/Brew/Java/i-Mode debate.
Linux seems to be a potential long-run winner (recent developments in APIs and standards are helping), but it "isn't as easy as it looks" seems to be a familiar refrain in my research. A newly-revitalised SavaJe is an outside bet, but my general belief is that all this means proprietary OS platforms still have several years' breathing space in front of them.
[Oh, and any VCs interested in funding my MPMMAOS (massively-parallel mobile monkey abacus OS) programme, please contact me at the usual Disruptive Analysis address]
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
korean wireless round-up
Owing to various client and travel commitments, I haven’t had a chance to fully write up a lot of what I learned in Korea, about innovations like WiBro wireless broadband, and DMB satellite mobile TV, as well as some of the more general trends in mobility.
However, I want to highlight a few things that appear to differentiate the Korean approach to wireless versus Europe and much of the rest of the world.
Perhaps the most obvious is just how much “Korea Inc.” is pulling together on WiBro. This is represented by a combination of the government (through 2.3GHz spectrum licencing), SKT and KTF in services roll-out, and Samsung and (to a lesser extent) LG on network infrastructure and devices. I got the distinct impression that WiBro is being set up as a showcase for all these firms to establish and extend their global position in the coming major transition to WiMAX. As a sidenote, it will be interesting to see if any of these companies can lock down a significant IPR position and patent portfolio, around the practicalities of implementing a WiMAX network. This could, for example, give Samsung a much stronger position in the wireless infrastructure market than has been the case in the cellular domain in the past.
Next is the Korean attitude (and reverence) towards technology. It’s very fashionable for many European and US companies to downplay the importance of underlying enablers. “Oh, we don’t want to focus on the nuts and bolts, it’s the content / services / applications / user experience that’s important”. Nonsense. In many cases – and the Koreans get this – if you bring the technology (and get it right, and get it early), the rest will follow, even if it’s not obvious to begin with. Both science and technology (especially IT & computing) have always worked this way, and it reflects badly on many western telecom companies that they are trying to present a fuzzier image now, largely in order to please mass-media and relatively tech-phobic populations. It was very notable that a slide from KT listed as key success factors “network, terminals and services”, and not brand or user experience.
[It’s also notable just how tech-savvy (and science/tech-educated) Koreans are. More generally, a similar story applies in China and India as well – just look at the science student population in Asia, and the attitudes of their peers, versus the trendy sneering about science and engineering geekiness in countries like the UK.]
So, in Europe, the idea of fast, open, mobile broadband would be viewed as scary. “An IP pipe??! But what about commoditisation? Can’t we just bury our heads in the sand instead and hope it goes away?” Operators are intensely defensive. “and, er, we’re really scared of Skype, so we’re going to price this stupidly high to skim the market and deter VoIP, and try and create some sort of allegedly value-add service to flog to our customers instead of giving them what they really want”. In my view, this is a surefire way to get hit much harder by the IP steamroller in a couple of years time.
But in Korea, not one of the presenting companies at the iMobicon conference in any way implied this was a major concern. The attitude seemed to be more like “sure, some people will want to use Skype or something else competitive. But to be honest, we’re not going to be able to stop them, so instead we’ll compete ourselves, creating our own VoIP and other IP applications that are better, easier to sell and use, and integrate with users’ other services”. This is much more of the “if we can’t beat them, then let’s join them….and then beat them at their own game” philosophy. Oh, and let’s have LOTS of bandwidth while we’re at it.
Another key observation is the aggression of the major Korean operators in extending their reach overseas. The SKT/Earthlink MVNO deal in the US is likely to be just the tip of a new iceberg. I got the distinct impression that the Korean operators feel they could be more successful in exporting mobile content platforms than DoCoMo has been with iMode. They characterised the iMode business model as being too inflexible, and seemed to suggest that a variant of WIPI and extra application layers could have wider applicability.
This is also reflected in the Korea operators focus on service brand (eg for their mobile music services like MelOn, or segment-focused service plans), rather than their overall corporate brand and image. This is extremely different to the Voda-style “it’s all got to be bright red with the same logo” approach to branding.
It’s also interesting to see an apparent inversion of the usual timescales for service development and investment horizon in Korea. Service trial and deployment schedules seem hugely compressed. WiBro commercial trials are scheduled for Feb and March 2006, with full switch-on intended for around June. No unwieldy 9-month trials and 4-month subsequent fiddling about with final service definition and launch.
Conversely, capacity for things like network backhaul is put in with a view to the long term. Korean cell sites typically have metro ethernet fibre connections. No short-term, build-it-incrementally “oh, just put in an E1 or two, and maybe upgrade to microwave or fibre some other time” mentality. This is one of the reasons why it is now simple to overlay WiBro, or future terrestrial mobile TV transmission on the cellular infrastructure.
Lastly, a few more “snippets” that I don’t have time to delve into now:
- Koreans seem happier with “chunkier” handsets then I expected, emphasising function over small size.
- Lots of slide form-factor devices and “swivellable” screens for horizonal viewing
- Somewhat surprisingly, there was much more emphasis on integrating WiBro and DMB into handsets, rather than WiFi, which was conspicuously downplayed. I think this fits with my general view that integrating WiFi into phones is much more difficult than expected, as it is not inherently a “service-oriented” technology, but is usually privately controlled.
- The WiFi hotspots in places like airports and the convention centre automatically tried to log my PC on, proactively looking for a certificate on my PC, rather than waiting for me to use the connection manager & sign on manually.
- Korea probably benefits from having a few very dense urban areas, which makes it easier to roll out new services more rapidly
- One conference participant (I forgot who) said that they had trialled implementing WIPI on top of Symbian – but decided against it.
- LG reckoned they have their handset development timescales down to as little as 3-4 months in some cases.
One last comment that underscores the “techiness” of Korean mobile…. Samsung’s convergence roadmap goes rather further than just “basic” mobile TV and FMC function. Their presenter gets the prize for the first cellular presentation I’ve seen which mentions nanotech and biotech as being in line as future handset technologies….. put me on the waiting list for a DNA-locked phone please.
convergence may not be so simple.....
On the face of it, the prospective NTL / Virgin Mobile deal sounds pretty good. It hits most of the sweet spots of the much-hype "quadruple play" offer, and certainly a fair amount of commentary seems to suggest this is the end game.
I've been a big believer in the upsides of the "broadband operator + MVNO" model for a while - not much legacy PSTN to worry about, someone else deals with the nasty complicated radio bit of the cellular service, and so you, the operator, can optimise least-cost routing and clever IP-based services to your heart's content. You don't have to be over-focused about shoe-horning traffic over a cellular network, just to fill up your available capacity that you've got with your expensive spectrum licence and network build-out. And at the same time, you have a nice shiny new IP network, modern and flexible IP billing system & (hopefully) a customer service function that doesn't get scared by words like "firewall" or "PC".
In theory, combining fast IP pipes and resold & well-branded cellular should be a match made in heaven for a service based on dual-mode cellular/WiFi phones, for example. And, unlike an operator such as BT with Fusion, Virgin comes with a big existing mobile customer base.
However, there are a couple of flies in the ointment. For anyone out there doing their due diligence on this deal, you might want to consider the following:
First, most MVNOs (especially in Europe) have an overwhelming proportion of pre-pay customers. Many will be young people who use someone else's broadband & whose parents / flatmates / university residence halls' managers may be unwilling to change to benefit someone else's bundled quad-play
Secondly, many of the favoured approaches to dual-mode services - not just UMA (which regular readers will know I tend to criticise anyway) but many SIP-based alternatives too - need boxes to be integrated fairly tightly into existing cellular networks. These usually require direct access to elements in the cellular core such as MSCs (switches) and HLRs (home location registers - essentially the database that tells the network where you are). My understanding is the most MVNOs' deals don't give full access to these network elements, and that "technically deeper" MVNO deals like BT/Vodafone are relatively unusual in this regard. I don't know what the precise network-side ins & outs of Virgin's MVNO set-up are..... but I'd advise any M&A guys to take a close look at things like "Access to the 'A' Interface" before putting up any persuasive Powerpoint slides featuring WiFi/cellular handsets & (yawn) "Seamless Roaming".
I've been a big believer in the upsides of the "broadband operator + MVNO" model for a while - not much legacy PSTN to worry about, someone else deals with the nasty complicated radio bit of the cellular service, and so you, the operator, can optimise least-cost routing and clever IP-based services to your heart's content. You don't have to be over-focused about shoe-horning traffic over a cellular network, just to fill up your available capacity that you've got with your expensive spectrum licence and network build-out. And at the same time, you have a nice shiny new IP network, modern and flexible IP billing system & (hopefully) a customer service function that doesn't get scared by words like "firewall" or "PC".
In theory, combining fast IP pipes and resold & well-branded cellular should be a match made in heaven for a service based on dual-mode cellular/WiFi phones, for example. And, unlike an operator such as BT with Fusion, Virgin comes with a big existing mobile customer base.
However, there are a couple of flies in the ointment. For anyone out there doing their due diligence on this deal, you might want to consider the following:
First, most MVNOs (especially in Europe) have an overwhelming proportion of pre-pay customers. Many will be young people who use someone else's broadband & whose parents / flatmates / university residence halls' managers may be unwilling to change to benefit someone else's bundled quad-play
Secondly, many of the favoured approaches to dual-mode services - not just UMA (which regular readers will know I tend to criticise anyway) but many SIP-based alternatives too - need boxes to be integrated fairly tightly into existing cellular networks. These usually require direct access to elements in the cellular core such as MSCs (switches) and HLRs (home location registers - essentially the database that tells the network where you are). My understanding is the most MVNOs' deals don't give full access to these network elements, and that "technically deeper" MVNO deals like BT/Vodafone are relatively unusual in this regard. I don't know what the precise network-side ins & outs of Virgin's MVNO set-up are..... but I'd advise any M&A guys to take a close look at things like "Access to the 'A' Interface" before putting up any persuasive Powerpoint slides featuring WiFi/cellular handsets & (yawn) "Seamless Roaming".
how much data in that bundle?
I saw an interesting mobile services bundle advertised yesterday. It includes voice, videotelephony, texts, MMS and downloads.
On the face of it, nothing particularly unusual, except the very heavy bias towards data services, especially texts, and to a lesser degree downloads.
What I want to know is exactly how the accountants and management work out the value of each element. Is it based on that element's included allocation in the bundle? Is it based on the actual usage of those allocations? And exactly how do you work out the relative implicit value of say, actually using 800 texts vs £7 of downloads vs. all 150 voice minutes?
This advert & bundle has reminded me of a question I first thought of a couple of years back.
How exactly do carriers work out the % ARPU attributable to data services, when most of those services come pre-bundled at a non-specified cost per message/download/video minute in a plan? Is there any consistency between mobile operators? Are these numbers audited, and if so, to what rules? Do the rules vary by country, or change over time?
I'm not getting at 3 specifically here; this applies to all operators in a similar fashion. Maybe everyone shouldn't be so surprised that mobile data ARPU percentages keep creeping up, as they're such an important and closely-watched metric.... and (perhaps) so easy to "fiddle".....
On the face of it, nothing particularly unusual, except the very heavy bias towards data services, especially texts, and to a lesser degree downloads.
What I want to know is exactly how the accountants and management work out the value of each element. Is it based on that element's included allocation in the bundle? Is it based on the actual usage of those allocations? And exactly how do you work out the relative implicit value of say, actually using 800 texts vs £7 of downloads vs. all 150 voice minutes?
This advert & bundle has reminded me of a question I first thought of a couple of years back.
How exactly do carriers work out the % ARPU attributable to data services, when most of those services come pre-bundled at a non-specified cost per message/download/video minute in a plan? Is there any consistency between mobile operators? Are these numbers audited, and if so, to what rules? Do the rules vary by country, or change over time?
I'm not getting at 3 specifically here; this applies to all operators in a similar fashion. Maybe everyone shouldn't be so surprised that mobile data ARPU percentages keep creeping up, as they're such an important and closely-watched metric.... and (perhaps) so easy to "fiddle".....
Friday, December 02, 2005
indoor coverage in Korea
One of the things I have been most impressed by about Korean mobile comms has been the prevalence of good in-building coverage solutions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the metro in Seoul has what appears to be ubiquitous coverage (not that unusual - many cities are doing this, using many different technologies, although London will take years )
However, the thing which really caught my eye was the small KTF-branded repeater dangling from the ceiling by a cable, in a small downstairs bar in Seoul. (I think it was one of these , but unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me at the time). Nothing flashy, not even a large venue with 1000s of people (I reckon there could have been a max of 150 in the venue at any one time). Just a pragmatic installation to help people make calls where they want.
I keep hearing stories that European operators are going to be much more aggressive with these types of self-install solutions to improve coverage in retail or public facilities, but I see precious little action. I'm not sure whether there are clear technical or regulatory reasons for this, or whether it's just down to apathy or business model uncertainty. And although I'm hearing a lot more "chatter" about mass deployments of picocells and residential-grade "femtocells", offering extra base station coverage (and extra capacity), I'm pretty sure the time horizons are quite far out.
However, the thing which really caught my eye was the small KTF-branded repeater dangling from the ceiling by a cable, in a small downstairs bar in Seoul. (I think it was one of these , but unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me at the time). Nothing flashy, not even a large venue with 1000s of people (I reckon there could have been a max of 150 in the venue at any one time). Just a pragmatic installation to help people make calls where they want.
I keep hearing stories that European operators are going to be much more aggressive with these types of self-install solutions to improve coverage in retail or public facilities, but I see precious little action. I'm not sure whether there are clear technical or regulatory reasons for this, or whether it's just down to apathy or business model uncertainty. And although I'm hearing a lot more "chatter" about mass deployments of picocells and residential-grade "femtocells", offering extra base station coverage (and extra capacity), I'm pretty sure the time horizons are quite far out.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
driving churn....
...overheard a quick comment from a fellow conference goer today, which underscores some of my issues with the opportunity for operator-controlled IMS services:
"Well, obviously for my work life I use my company email address at ___.com ... but personally, I've been a Yahoo! Mail user for years - I even pay for it - and if my carrier tried to block access to it from my mobile, I'd obviously move to another provider"
Amusingly ___.com is a very large European cellular equipment vendor, that is currently pitching operator IMS solutions very loudly indeed....
"Well, obviously for my work life I use my company email address at ___.com ... but personally, I've been a Yahoo! Mail user for years - I even pay for it - and if my carrier tried to block access to it from my mobile, I'd obviously move to another provider"
Amusingly ___.com is a very large European cellular equipment vendor, that is currently pitching operator IMS solutions very loudly indeed....
Monday, November 28, 2005
killing time?
I'm in Korea for a conference at the moment, and spent a few days in Seoul before coming down to the island of Jeju for the event. I've been keeping an eye on the way the Koreans buy and use their cellphones and other bits of technology.
One of the things that I've noticed is just how much "personal technology" there is around. Not just cellphones, but also huge numbers of MP3 players (but few iPods), and also "proper" digital cameras. It's also telling that this is a very low-crime society, so nobody worries about the risks of wearing a few hundred dollars-worth of gizmos on a lanyard around their necks or in their handbags.
Also, as is well-documented elsewhere, there are hundreds of PC gaming / Internet shops known as PC-Bangs (as well as DVD-Bangs and other "outside of home" pay-per-hour technology locations that would normally be covered by home consumer electronics usage in Europe or North America)
Koreans use their phones a lot. Sit (or more likely stand) on the Seoul subway, and there is a large percentage of people pecking away at keys (mostly games or SMS), and a substantially smaller number actually talking (there's decent cellular coverage in the metro). Interestingly, there are far fewer people actually talking on their phones on the streets & other locations as well.
This has got me thinking about the way some of the much-vaunted new applications like mobile-TV and gaming are being pitched in Europe. Quite often, I've heard terms like "ways of killing time", "info-snacking", "mobisodes" and so on. The idea being that when people have a couple of spare minutes, they could use these new mobile apps rather than perhaps read a newspaper.
But in the UK certainly, and probably elsewhere in "chatty" countries with few taboos about talking on the phone in public (Italy, for example), I'm wondering if larger bundles of voice minutes & better in-building coverage would just make people use more voice instead. If you've got a few minutes free - why not call your friends or family? why bother trying to download music onto your phone (and paying through the nose for it), when you could have a good gossip instead "for free"?
One of the things that I've noticed is just how much "personal technology" there is around. Not just cellphones, but also huge numbers of MP3 players (but few iPods), and also "proper" digital cameras. It's also telling that this is a very low-crime society, so nobody worries about the risks of wearing a few hundred dollars-worth of gizmos on a lanyard around their necks or in their handbags.
Also, as is well-documented elsewhere, there are hundreds of PC gaming / Internet shops known as PC-Bangs (as well as DVD-Bangs and other "outside of home" pay-per-hour technology locations that would normally be covered by home consumer electronics usage in Europe or North America)
Koreans use their phones a lot. Sit (or more likely stand) on the Seoul subway, and there is a large percentage of people pecking away at keys (mostly games or SMS), and a substantially smaller number actually talking (there's decent cellular coverage in the metro). Interestingly, there are far fewer people actually talking on their phones on the streets & other locations as well.
This has got me thinking about the way some of the much-vaunted new applications like mobile-TV and gaming are being pitched in Europe. Quite often, I've heard terms like "ways of killing time", "info-snacking", "mobisodes" and so on. The idea being that when people have a couple of spare minutes, they could use these new mobile apps rather than perhaps read a newspaper.
But in the UK certainly, and probably elsewhere in "chatty" countries with few taboos about talking on the phone in public (Italy, for example), I'm wondering if larger bundles of voice minutes & better in-building coverage would just make people use more voice instead. If you've got a few minutes free - why not call your friends or family? why bother trying to download music onto your phone (and paying through the nose for it), when you could have a good gossip instead "for free"?
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
xMax.... there's something there, but I can't be sure exactly what....
Met up with xG Technology the other day - those guys with the seemingly-unbelievable wireless broadband technology that they reckon is orders of magnitude more efficient (power, range etc) than WiMAX or other emerging technologies.
Unlike some journalists, I haven't had a demo, but I got to chat with their execs in some detail. They answered lot of my questions about latency, indoor performance and so on, but it seems like a lot of this will be up to exactly how the radio is implemented by any future licencees. There's nothing obviously untoward in the basic technology itself which would act as a limiting factor.
Apparently it works by modulating a signal onto a single wave cycle, rather than the 100s / 1000s of cycles more commonly used in other types of radio. (The long-buried physicist in me does wonder if this might induce any odd quantum effects, by trying to interpret a single wave, rather than averaging out a property measured over 100s - anyone else out there have a view on what Heisenberg & co might have to say about all this?)
More interesting was the commercial status & focus of the company. Essentially, they seem to be fending off various approaches from all and sundry in the telecoms industry, from chipmakers to equipment suppliers and carriers. Apparently, they don't need cash - they've been in stealth mode for 5 years & are quite happy on their own.
They are involved in an interesting game of chess - they want to create enough interest in their technology that someone agrees to licence it... but they don't want to give enough short-term concrete proof points that other companies try and use 1000s of engineers to reverse-engineer it themselves, emulate the idea and then adopt a "Go, on, try & sue us, how many lawyers have you got?" strategy.
Basically, their position is "we reckon we've got something cool, we want to create some buzz & speculation & excitement.... but we're quite happy if everyone else rubbishes it for a while longer, as it gives us a chance to navigate the mountains of unrealistic NDAs and liability legalese that prospective licencees are trying to foist on us".
It still sounds interesting, though.... and I guess there's half a chance some chipset manufacturer (Intel? Qualcomm?) might take a punt....
Unlike some journalists, I haven't had a demo, but I got to chat with their execs in some detail. They answered lot of my questions about latency, indoor performance and so on, but it seems like a lot of this will be up to exactly how the radio is implemented by any future licencees. There's nothing obviously untoward in the basic technology itself which would act as a limiting factor.
Apparently it works by modulating a signal onto a single wave cycle, rather than the 100s / 1000s of cycles more commonly used in other types of radio. (The long-buried physicist in me does wonder if this might induce any odd quantum effects, by trying to interpret a single wave, rather than averaging out a property measured over 100s - anyone else out there have a view on what Heisenberg & co might have to say about all this?)
More interesting was the commercial status & focus of the company. Essentially, they seem to be fending off various approaches from all and sundry in the telecoms industry, from chipmakers to equipment suppliers and carriers. Apparently, they don't need cash - they've been in stealth mode for 5 years & are quite happy on their own.
They are involved in an interesting game of chess - they want to create enough interest in their technology that someone agrees to licence it... but they don't want to give enough short-term concrete proof points that other companies try and use 1000s of engineers to reverse-engineer it themselves, emulate the idea and then adopt a "Go, on, try & sue us, how many lawyers have you got?" strategy.
Basically, their position is "we reckon we've got something cool, we want to create some buzz & speculation & excitement.... but we're quite happy if everyone else rubbishes it for a while longer, as it gives us a chance to navigate the mountains of unrealistic NDAs and liability legalese that prospective licencees are trying to foist on us".
It still sounds interesting, though.... and I guess there's half a chance some chipset manufacturer (Intel? Qualcomm?) might take a punt....
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