Predictions for 2007.....

1) Increased focus on manufacturers selling multiple "diverged" devices to users.

Imagine you are the CFO of Nokia, Apple, Motorola or similar company. What would you rather sell to your customers? A single, very complex product which risks a long time-to-market and significant integration problems - or two or three lower-priced, simpler devices which, if they're well-designed, should still have decent margins?


2) A lot of noise about VoIP over 3G.

Both "official" carrier-centric versions like VoIP over EV-DO Rev A, and "unofficial" versions using handset software clients which exploit flatrate data channels, SIP capability and clever codecs will be in the spotlight. An interesting dynamic may evolve here, as it looks like the CDMA world is far in advance in this area from carrier viewpoints, while even the cleverest startup's handset client in the UMTS world won't get around limitations of 3G coverage or limited uplink capacity before rollout of HSUPA.


3) Emergence of corporate-focused MVNOs

OK, I've been expecting this for 3 years, but maybe 2007 is when it really happens.... I get the sense that "proper" enterprise mobility needs a mix of skillsets possessed by few mobile operators unless they are integrated as part of a major national fixed/mobile player. The ability to mix basic mobile voice products, with mobile data devices, back-end server and application integration, indoor coverage solutions, and, absolutely critically, PBX integration (ie NOT just dogmatic and totally unrealistic "replacement" with mobile IP Centrex).


4) Continued uptake of various dual-mode services & handsets, but they won't change the world

I posted last week about UMA/non-UMA developments & my predictions. Overall, it's still very much a niche game - I'm willing to bet there won't be any "iconic" global-massmarket consumer handsets emerging that include WiFi. Outside the US, the true sign of maturity of a handset technology is its appearance in prepay-centric phones and service plans.


5) Spectrum lobbying noise, regulation momentum and lawsuits ratchet up several notches.

2.5GHz licences, "spectrum neutrality", refarming 900MHz GSM for UMTS, more low-power GSM licences, analog TV switch-offs, mobile TV spectrum auctions, ITU World Radio Conference.... it's going to be a busy year for the lawyers.


6) IMS confounds both its critics and its evangelists, but needs to improve integration ASAP.

No, it won't disappear completely or implode under its own weight. No, it won't be used for more than a tiny fraction of operator services worldwide by the end of the year. Yes there are still huge gaps in both standards and solution availability. But a few major mobile operators - particularly those in dirigiste markets that develop/specify their own handset software in detail - will launch proprietary almost-IMS. Others will use "small" - almost trial - IMS adjuncts to offer VoIP and other services to non-core devices like PCs. Fixed use of NGNs will increase substantially, although they generally won't be "full IMS", either.

The key lesson for IMS advocates to learn during 2007 will be integration - come down from your ivory towers & learn how to blend IMS with non-IMS - the real Internet, enterprise networks, SDPs, music & TV platforms and so forth. If the IMS community doesn't wholeheartedly embrace these areas of integration, in both the network and on devices, it will stagnate in 2008 and die in 2009. Isolation and "purity" is doom.


7) Navigation becomes rather more important on mobiles. Mobile search doesn't.

Although it will take some time, I do see handset-based navigation capabilities becoming more prevalent. Phones will start to ship with built-in GPS in small numbers, and unlike WiFi dual-mode or 3G, this will be seen as "cool". Generally, cool stuff in phones is not the service-oriented stuff - think cameras for local storage, MP3 players with memory cards, snazzy externals. I have my doubts about operator-centric location based services (except E-911 in the US, and a handful in Asia), as the exponential curve on memory and processing much faster than over-the-air transmission. You could get a detailed map of any country in Europe on less than 0.5GB of flash memory, just downloading updates or alerts when necessary. And it might have been my most controversial post this year, but I still expect that most "Mobile Search" companies will be selling their new 2007 collections principally for the Emperor's wardrobe.


8) The City WiFi bubble bursts

I've been amazed this year by the number of local authorities willing to spend yours & my hard-earned taxes on subsidising WiFi on lamp-posts, or at least permitting other operators rights-of-way to do it themselves. In my view, it's a completely over-hyped proposition that doesn't merit its "me too!" bandwagon status or breathless "Digital City" marketing. It's only useable for a handful of boring outdoor-only local services like CCTV cameras and connecting traffic wardens' handhelds. The killer: it won't work reliably indoors. It's like 3G but even worse. Next up on the list for over-funded local authorities to burn our money.... Municipal Fibre


9) Flat-rate data becomes the norm, with browsing the killer app, driven by high-res screens

I'm still waiting for my trial X-Series phone from 3, but I've been increasingly impressed with browsing experience recently. While cheap data tariffs are one critical driver, another has been largely overlooked - increasing screen resolution. The standard for mid-to-high end phones is now QVGA (320x240 pixels). This will increase, either with Nokia's weird 416x352 (or something like that) or more standardised full VGA (640x480). I'm a firm believer that there is no "Mobile Web", and that most people would much prefer a mobile broadband ISP experience, accessing the one, real, Internet. And, of course, that means their favourite web brands & downloadable add-on client software too. The signs are already there at the end of 2006, but 2007 will be the year the mobile industry stops fantasising about beating Google and Yahoo and Skype, and instead just gets on with optimising their performance for their customers. Long live the Smart Pipe strategy......


10) No, No, No, No, No

OK, this post is already long enough, so I don't have time to detail my reasons for all of these, but I'm sure they'll crop up on the blog in coming months. Mobile IM won't replace SMS (sorry VoIP fans...). Laptops with built-in HSDPA won't sell much (and even where they do, the cellular bit won't be activated by most owners). WiMAX will get a few more major operator advocates, but still won't be seen as a threat to "normal cellular". Mobile TV won't make much headway. Web 2.0 stuff like social networking really won't be a big deal in mobile outside Japan, Korea & maybe the US, unless carriers work out a way to give decent Internet access & capable devices to prepay users.

Oh, and maybe Apple's Phone-i (hey, Linksys got the iPhone brand....) won't play music at all, but will be "just a phone". See point 1.

Skype + Sony Mylo + T-Mo US: a big deal?

Andy Abramson over at VoIP Watch thinks that Skype is being seriously subversive with its tie-up with T-Mobile in the US, allowing hotspot-based voice calling at a flat rate.

I'm not that convinced at all.

Two main reasons:

1) Inbound calls
2) SMS

Plus myriad other minor reasons. Apart from anything else, maybe Starbucks in the US is different, but my local one here in London plays such awful piped background music that the last thing I'd do there is make hours of calls on my mobile to my friends or important clients.

Dual-mode FMC services, 2006 Final Score: UMA 6, SIP 6

I've just done a quick count of launched operator services based around dual-mode WiFi/cellular handsets. Note that I 'm talking here about operator-based services, rather than the numerous options for DIY or startup wVoIP or ISP offerings.

I reckon the number of commercially-available UMA services is 6: BT (which has just launched its WiFi version as well as Bluetooth), T-Mobile US, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telia Denmark and Saunalahti. Orange has launched in 3 (I think) countries, though.

And the number of commercially available SIP-based dual-mode services is also 6: NTT DoCoMo & KDDI (both for enterprises, and sold with PBX partners), Deutsche Telekom, Arcor, NeufCegetel and Free/Iliad.

(note: I don't know much about the KDDI service, so conceivably it's proprietary rather than SIP, in which case my apologies)

In addition, there's numerous smaller SIP-based options from the Truphones & the Frings & Woizes (& their numerous brethren), and probably a few ISPs and VoIP providers that ship a smartphone client. Also, a bunch of individuals have independently downloaded Skype & assorted other softphones to their WiFi-enabled cellular PDAs and smartphones. There's also the Korean & Brazilian Bluetooth CTP services.

My prediction for 2007?

I reckon that by the end of the year, in terms of launched services, we'll be on:

11 UMA operators (some in more than one country, maybe including a couple of MVNOs as well). I'm excluding UMA used for non-dual-mode applications like femtocells.

30 major operators with SIP-based dual-mode services (probably about half of which will be enterprise-only).

There's likely to be some overlap, with operators like BT and France Telecom probably having both variants for different customer groups.

I'm currently working on updating my market forecasts for the handset numbers, but I'll be deeply surprised if more than 3m UMA phones ship in 2007. Blowing my own trumpet a bit here, but my original forecasts made 18 months ago, in June 2005, suggested 0.6m UMA phones would ship in 2006, and 2.4m in 2007. The '06 number - considered by many as horribly pessimistic at the time - now looks a bit too high, as BT and T-Mobile pushed their launches later in the year than I'd expected, but I still reckon the '07 figure looks pretty reasonable, probably with Orange & T-Mobile US (if it does a full rollout) accounting for most of the volume.

SIP-based dual-mode devices is a bit trickier, as there's a lot emerging from Nokia, HTC etc where the WiFi is primarily for data, but which can support voice given the right software. I suspect the number shipping to customers with VoIP preloaded is probably going to be 4m+ but I haven't done the numbers yet.

For both of these (and especially the SIP devices) there will also be a lot of dual-mode phones which ship - but which aren't actually used by dual-mode VoIP purposes by their owners. Whether they "count" or not will depend on whether you're selling phones, software licences or telephony services.... aah, the joy of market statistics.....

Mandatory new equipment for conference organisers & chairs

"Please turn off your mobile phones or set them to silent". Or else.

T-Mobile US UMA service... not exactly ready for national roll-out

Interesting article here about the trials & tribulations of the new T-Mo US dual-mode service. No wonder there's been no nationwide rollout in the US yet.

Even leaving aside the difficulties in getting the technology tuned... is it just me, or are other people also staggered by the line "regularly exceeded their 2,000-minute-per-month T-Mobile family plan". I know you lot the other side of the Atlantic talk an awful lot on the old dog-and-bone, but even so, that's an awful lot of chatter. I probably talk about 200 mins / month on my mobile (incoming & outgoing) plus maybe another 400 on Skype & fixed-line put together.... and that's including doing hour-long briefing conference calls.

Edit

OK, maybe 30 mins each per day isn't that much, if you spend all day at your desk or in your car making sales calls. And I guess it puts people in the rare category of actually regularly using the WiFi / cellular handover bit, if they're always gabbing away to clients on the phone when they get home in the car. I'll add that to my list of "niche target markets for dual-mode usage", along with Finns' second homes in remote forest areas which have better broadband connectivity than cellular coverage.

UK 2GHz band.... so just what does "designated" mean?

As you've probably read elsewhere, Ofcom is auctioning off large chunks of prime spectrum in the 2.0-2.6GHz range.

Various commentators have already highlighted the likelihood of BT bidding for some spectrum for WiMAX use, as well as the likely wrangles over whether it should be preserved for 3G UMTS instead.

Now, theoretically, according to EU law, chunks of this spectrum is "designated" for 3G. But on the other hand, Ofcom has already been a leader in pushing "spectrum neutrality" and appears to want to make this a test case for much of the rest of Europe. Other European regulators are split on the issue - some are very much cellular-driven, others like the idea of neutrality on the grounds of competition. It seems probable that the immediate short-term beneficiaries will be lawyers.

I suspect that semantics may well come into play. There seems to me to be a clear distinction between the terms "designated for..." ; "designated exclusively for...." and "designated irrevocably & exclusively for...."

The ITU's definition of the verb "to designate" is less than helpful on the matter:
"To identify a set of characters that are to be represented, in some cases immediately and in others on the occurrence of a further control function, in a prescribed manner."

SMS over IP standard

Had an interesting call earlier with LogicaCMG, a company with a long heritage in SMS and MMS, and which has a fairly messaging-centric view of the world when talking about IP and IMS. Aside from its current pitch around converging different messaging types onto one platform, another topic which cropped up was a new standard agreed by 3GPP a week or so ago.

Called TS 24.341 this is basically an agreed standard for supporting receipt & transmission of SMS over an IP network - eg from a dual-mode phone connected in WiFi mode.

Now, being 3GPP, the whole thing is clearly very IMS-centric, involving the usual registration of a device with an alphabet soup of HSS and CSCFs. I haven't had a chance to wade through the whole thing, but it certainly looks like it's been designed with some specific problems in mind. What's not immediately obvious to me is whether the same approach (or a similar one) will work outside of IMS, so that (for example) a VoIP provider or an enterprise with an IP-PBX could also deploy an IP-SM Gateway.

As I mentioned a month ago, the whole VoIP+SMS issue is a critical one now, especially for the new breed of mobile VoIP providers. I hope they can use some aspects of the new standard to solve one of their more intractable problems - and I encourage both infrastructure suppliers like LogicaCMG and their handset SMS-client software counterparts to consider both operator- and non-operator use cases for SMS-over-IP in their product development roadmaps.

Bluetooth CTP... the original FMC solution, still lurking around

At the WiFi / Cellular conference I chaired in Dallas a week or so ago, I was rather surprised that one of the Korean presenters was interrogated about Bluetooth-based FMC. Not Bluetooth UMA as per BT Fusion, but the even earlier dual-mode variant called "cordless telephony profile" CTP, which was originally launched by Korea Telecom, eventually signing up 100k or so subscribers before disappearing quietly.

CTP was one of those good ideas that appeared a bit too early, suffering from a lack of interest in deploying Bluetooth access points, and an equal lack of interest by operators in phones which had a potentially-threatening Bluetooth profile which could cannibalise minutes.

So I was a bit surprised to find out (belatedly) that CTP has actually been granted a new lease of life in Brazil. Now, I can't really see it making a comeback on a much broader stage, but it just goes to show that there's always more ways to create a service than you might think.....

Normal service is resumed....

Apologies for the patchy posts over the past 2-3 weeks - a combination of moving to a new house, travel for a week or so, and getting a new broadband line sorted has soaked up a lot of time.

There's obviously a lot to catch up on, including 3's flatrate pricing, a bunch of chat around picocells, and an attempt at enterprise-grade UMA. I'll try & backfill as much of this as possible over the next few days.

Actually, on the broadband front it's interesting that my new gateway/WiFi router (a BT Home Hub) has no trouble blasting 802.11 through 3 ceilings from basement to bedroom at 5 bars' signal strength, giving my laptop 80% of the throughput I get on my wired-ethernet desktop. Anyone want to lend me a trial 3G femtocell to see if the inhome RF transmission is just as good?

One last "thought for the day".... GSM and its UMTS 3G siblings often like to bill themselves as "the world's most popular communication technology". Actually, although the majority of it is wired, I suspect that actually that accolade goes to Ethernet, which has apparently sold more than 8 billion ports during its life. It's also got breadth as well as volume, spanning from plain-old PC connections to WiFi and carrier backbones, and scaling up from 3Mbit/s in its first incarnation to 10Gbit/s over fibre today... it's probably what makes me think that WiMAX has more of a chance than some observers believe, especially given Intel's longstanding love of ethernet (and Microsoft's, and Cisco's....)

Attn Disruptive Analysis contacts: Change of phone #

Trying to coordinate my travel schedule, with the technicalities of simultaneously moving premises has unfortunately left a gap - despite my request for a forwarding announcement to be put on my old fixed telephone number (+44 20 7723 1259) to a new number, I understand this has not been actioned, and callers are getting a "number unobtainable" tone. I will rectify this as soon as I get back to the UK tomorrow, but in the meantime please use email or use my mobile number +44 7941 100016 to contact me if urgent.

Ericsson and Intel - IMS phones or IMS laptops?

This announcement makes a fair amount of sense. It fits in with the difficulties & delays in creating IMS-capable handsets, and the trend I noted the other day of fixed-VoIP being a lead IMS app, even for mobile operators, and often implemented on PCs.

Laptops are clearly even better than desktop PCs as IMS end-points from an operator standpoint - they have a reasonable chance of being "mobile" or at least nomadic, and they roam from time to time. (I'm writing this in an unseasonably cold & snowy Dallas). And PCs are much easier for developers to write applications on, they've got the horsepower & battery to do VoIP and multimedia, they're inherently multi-tasking and best of all, they're not usually subsidised.

Now, the announcement also talks about embedding HSPA in laptops. I've said before that I'm unconvinced about cellular embedded in PCs, for various reasons, and I still believe that it will not become widespread - maybe 10-20% of laptops shipped in a few years' time seems a reasonable range. On the other hand, a PC has a bit more room for a decent-sized antenna, so perhaps HSPA reception might improve vs a phone - although as with all 3G devices you're at the mercy of patchy indoor coverage.

On the other hand, unlike phones, all HSPA laptops will have both WiFi and a wired ethernet socket as alternative accesses, so the chance of getting some form of low-latency high-bandwidth connection for the IMS client is much higher, especially as once again the nature of the OS and the device makes it easier to write multi-mode connection software clients. They also don't tend to be used while actually walking around, so you can forget about all the overhyped distractions of "seamless handover".

IMS handset clients and JSR281... resurgence of mobile Java?

I'd more or less given up on mobile Java being relevant for anything other than occasional gaming downloads. It just doesn't seem to have made the jump to anything remotely "mission critical" on handsets. Numerous initiatives like SavaJe's seem to have disappeared without trace.

But suddenly, a few separate discussions have referenced the very unglamorous acronym JSR281, which is the proposed Java extension that would give a Java app access to IMS capabilities on a device. This could be a good way to circumvent the woeful lack of standards around mobile handset IMS client frameworks. So, potentially, an innovative developer could write a cool messaging application or interactive game in Java, exploiting JSR281 APIs, without having to expensively port it to the various bits of proprietary on-handset IMS software middleware from NMS, Ericsson, Ecrio, Movial, Comneon, Qualphone & all the others.

It's unclear exactly when JSR281-enabled phones will ship, but my bet is Q3-2008 for massmarket devices, perhaps with a few high-end ones a bit earlier. That probably means that decent 3rd-party applications to exploit Java-IMS combinations on phones will start to appear in early 2009.

At last! The new mobile killer app is....... fixed-line VoIP

I'm at an IMS conference in Geneva at the moment, and it's helped me crystallise various separate bits-and-pieces I've observed into a coherent theme.

The next "big thing" for mobile operators is..... offering own-brand VoIP services over fixed broadband.

The logic goes something like this: all our best customers are getting ADSL or cable at home. This is inevitable; broadband using fixed-3G is a tiny niche. At some point, they will start to use their fixed broadband for VoIP - maybe bundled from the ISP or telco if they're aggressive about transitioning from PSTN, or else Skype or other Internet-based VoIP. This is, again, inevitable. Given that they're getting VoIP anyway, why not an operator-branded and -billed service?

There are variations on this theme as well - maybe offering VoIP-enabled USB sticks so travellers can use them in Internet cafes, for example, hooking into their usual operator services like SMS via a PC.

And, of course, offering fixed VoIP gives mobile operators a reasonable application to use as economic justification for an IMS deployment. Given that there won't be mobile IMS-capable handsets available in volume for several years, it makes sense to target other IMS-capable endpoints like PCs. And fixed broadband gets around the thorny issue of indoor 3G coverage that would otherwise limit the usefulness of real-time or multimedia mobile IMS applications.

Certainly, there's considerable vendor push already. I saw a Siemens presentation yesterday that specifically focused on this issue, and Nokia has this morning announced something similar in its Communication Suite offering.

So for example, it seems probable that both O2 and Vodafone will leverage their broadband partners/acquisitions to offer VoIP. The Skype/3 deal is obviously a different approach to the same opportunity.

Also, long term, this sets the scene for true mobile VoIP, which will happen eventually. It should be easier (and more valuable) to link existing fixed VoIP customers with wireless VoIP at that point. Gaining a foothold is essential, as otherwise the whole VoIP world will be even more dominated by the fixed/broadband/Internet/enterprise providers.

Great article on UK low-power GSM... apart from the missing bits

There's an articulate and interesting article on picocells and the UK's new low-power GSM licences over at The Register.

Unfortunately, the author appears to have overlooked the announcement of Teleware's launch of Private Mobile Networks (PMN) a month ago....

... and also the minor fact that it's not just Opal/CPW that has an MVNO available to roam onto, so of course does BT.

I'd also disagree strongly that "O2 has a headstart" as the type of usage case posited - home femtocell/gateway at <£100 + Be's DSL + roaming onto macro network - is unlikely to be a feasible commercial offering before 2008 at the earliest. At the moment, there's still no real-world major tests of standalone femtocells, and I'm not aware of any having been announced that are integrated with a DSL/WiFi gateway.

GSMA survey & MMS.... maybe not as bad as my initial reaction suggested

I have to say I've become deeply wary of missives from the GSMA recently - there's certainly been plenty of blinkered & unrealistic 2003-vintage "mobile rules!" hype of late. So the latest one about "Strong global demand for MMS and mobile email" raised my eyebrows as well, especially as it's based on a consumer survey, described with minimal detail in the press release.

Now, leaving aside the fact that the GSMA clearly refers to mobile email through gritted teeth, as it's usually delivered via a BlackBerry or other non-operator server, the results look more or less fair enough. Obviously SMS is at #1 in terms of preference, but I'll admit that I'm a bit surprised that MMS rates so highly, especially above web browsing/search. The survey will make unhappy reading for mobile TV advocates too, and notable by their absence are any mention of music downloads, push-to-talk, community-type services, ringtones or presence. The fact that nobody is remotely interested in video calls should surprise nobody.

Given my general skepticism about consumer surveys, I asked for a bit more detail on the methodology. In terms of demographic breakdown it seems reasonable, although the fact that the survey is web-based will tend to be a bit self-selecting, even in markets where Internet penetration is high. I have a suspicion that people who can be bothered to fill in web survey forms are probably, on average, geekier/techier than the population as a whole.

What is clearly nonsense, however, is some of the phrasing in the release. The idea that MMS is "indispensable" for more than 40% of consumers is farcical. 800 million people couldn't live without photo messaging? I challenge any of the readers of this post to name just three MMS-addicts from their personal acquaintances, friends, or family.

I guess the line "40% of users who can be bothered to fill in a web survey form find MMS vaguely entertaining when they're drunk & taking stupid pictures of their mates in the pub" wouldn't have quite the same ring to it....

Blue-sky stuff: wireless power

Spotted a fascinating article in this week's 50th Anniversary edition of New Scientist magazine (essential reading for anyone interested in what's what in the wider science & technology arena btw).

A group of scientists at MIT are apparently working on something called "evanescent coupling", which, if I understand it correctly, involves switching magnetic and electric fields in a set of two matched and "resonant" copper rings. Powering up one of these induces current in the other - useful if the first is attached to mains electricity, for example. Now, although I have a physics degree, I have to confess that electromagnetism was one of my least-favourite parts of the subject, so I'll have to take a lot of this on faith.

The practical upshot is that it might be possible to "remotely" charge a wireless device at a distance of up to 5 metres. Could be rather useful for the mobile industry, methinks.....

Of course, actually putting this into commercial use is an awful long way off - the MIT guys are still at the stage of computer simulation of all of this, and are apparently now trying to build a prototype.

Sidenote: I spoke to a company called SplashPower with a charging "pad" which could transfer power to phones & other devices at a very short range, like an electric toothbrush, about 3 years ago. It used a sort of induction loop thing attached to the battery. Still seems to be around but I haven't seen much in the way of real-world products.

So... any more UMA handsets in the pipeline?

At various conferences this year, people have been anticipating as many as 20-25 WiFi UMA-capable phones on the market by mid-2007.

Well, given that the current crop are all pretty long in the tooth - Nokia announced the 6136 at 3GSM in February, as did Moto with the A910. The Samsung T-709/P200 was also being talked about in the same timeframe, although it was only formally announced in July. The LG-CL400 was announced back in Sep 2005, but as far as I know hasn't shipped commercially as part of any of the current UMA services. There was also a Chi Mei ODM one, that seems to have disappeared too. (plus the Bluetooth V560 & RAZR)

But other than those.... no announcements, no launches, no sneak photos circulating on the web. Unless there's a huge imminent launch of several new ones, given the typical 4-8 month test & release cycle that seems to be normal with FMC devices, I can't see too many more being ready to ship by Q2 2007.

Mind you, there's a BT analyst event about wireless tomorrow, so who knows, perhaps I've spoken too soon....

Reaction to 3's flatrate move

Interesting to see the variety of reactions to 3's announcement last week. Several of the comments on this blog have essentially said "well, they've messed it up in the past, why should this time be any different?" - which is fair enough, although clearly it may provoke a reaction from the other operators before any signs of lack of execution become clear.

Keith at TeleBusillis has a similarly cynical take, invoking both Monty Python and The Lord of the Rings as amusing analogies.

Then there's the "acquisition" angle. But even if Voda buys 3 tomorrow, it seems probable that the usual lengthy acquisition & regulatory process would mean that X-Series would launch in a blaze of publicity anyway. The mobile broadband Internet cat is definitely out of the bag, in my view.

On the other hand, there's been quite a positive response from the business press, such as the Sunday Times' opinion headline of "3 finds the right way to do mobile internet"

And I have to get a riposte in to Keith's Tolkeinesque characterisation of "The Internet Barbarians" slavering like an army of Uruk's at the gates of telecom.... maybe we should turn it round and consider Frodo 3 and trust sidekick Web'n'Walk breaking into the walled garden of Mordor and confronting Arun Sauron?

Femtocells - Ericsson and O2

I see that Ericsson has jumped into the fray with a femto product. I haven't yet been offered a full briefing on this, but will most more as I find out.

This line in the release is intriguing: "it offers full integration with the radio macro layer. The same radio frequencies can be used both by the Home 3G Access Point frequency and the outdoor radio macro network allowing maximum usage of the scarce and expensive radio spectrum". I guess this means that some of the RF planning is simplified - although to what density of femto's is unclear, or whether the operator's existing macro network needs to be from Ericsson. Given that many of the femto's will also live "inside" a firewall embedded in a DSL/cable gateway, I'm also unclear as to how the management of this might work - unless it's the same operator's customised gateway box rather than a retail Linksys/D-Link/Brand-X one.

It also appears that O2 made encouraging noises about femto's last week at a press event. A couple of articles cover this - Peter Judge at Techworld mentioning an Ericsson device in his piece, but with a confusingly contradictory mention of an ip.access box in this one.

Separately, I notice that Ericsson announced an update to its IP-PBX range, including a "corporate telephony client" for smartphones. Unfortunately, it appears to only support devices from the company's part-owned SonyEricsson range. This is a huge mistake, and one which indicates how far out of touch Ericsson is on the realities of fixed-mobile convergence in the enterprise. Device choice is extremely unlikely to be made with PBX interoperability as the sole criterion, especially from such a small range of suitable products. It is notable that its IP-PBX peer Siemens now has generic support for Windows Mobile devices, while clearly Cisco and Avaya support Symbian S60, Windows and increasingly even Java/BREW.

3's conversion to the Internet faith.... No IMS... but also no wVoIP...

Filling in a few more details about the Hutchison 3 mobile broadband announcement....

- The company's CFO made a very public & emphatic U-turn, using terms like "tearing down the walls", and "in principle, what's free on the Internet ought to be free on your mobile". He decried operators who priced their data services according to a resource-scarcity model, and deemed the idea of tariffing connectivity so as to dissuade people from using open-Internet services as "unacceptable". And this is from the guy in charge of the financials, not marketing...
- contrary to various reports, the Skype service is NOT wVoIP - it's a circuit-switched call from the phone into a Skype VoIP gateway in 3's network. I suspect this is because of both radio resource inefficiency of VoIPo3G, and the limitations on indoor coverage. The Skype client on the phone uses IP-based presence, which works over 3G or 2G.
- although there are various proxy servers for things like the IM applications and (I think) Orb, none of the things announced today use an IMS in 3's network. No CSCFs or all the rest of it - most is just a big fat pipe straight to the real Internet. There's some policy management stuff in there to maintain network integrity & throttle back particularly heavy media streams (and, I suspect, watch out for things for filesharing), but it sounds to me that 3 has launched a whole bunch of new appealing things without any of the complexity of IMS.
- Chatting over lunch, it seems that many of the people at 3 share my view that 900MHz refarming & Elisa's trial in Finland is indeed of critical importance.

Overall, I saw the whole event as an example of "beautiful heresy". All the usual so-called operator nightmares - Skype, flatrate data, applications not services, free IM (potentially replacing text), placeshifted media - are being embraced.

Yes, we still don't know the price, but to be honest, it doesn't matter. I think there are plenty of people who will instinctively want a mobile ISP service which enables them to use their handsets the way they use their PCs & broadband modems. Having a select range of tuned / tweaked / customised / optimised Internet brands like Skype and Sling is the icing on the cake. And the fact that they are not subject to extra per-use charges is the cherry on top.

I know I'm sometimes very cynical about mobile operators, but I have to say I've been genuinely astounded by all this. I've been jokingly using the term "legacy mobile-only operators" for some time in comparison with more Internet-savvy FMC carriers. But this announcement makes it clear that not only are some mobile operators going to try & keep up... but that many others are now beyond "legacy" and heading towards "history".