Report: LTE access will save UK consumers £20B over next decade

​The wide-scale deployment of LTE in the UK will save consumers £20 billion by providing them with access to high-speed mobile services, according to a report from telecoms regulator Ofcom.
Ofcom maintains the advantage access to LTE will bring to the UK public and the economy will "very significantly" exceed the immediate financial windfall raised by the auction, according to the Financial Times.

"Ofcom's LTE auction is designed to deliver the maximum benefit to the UK," Ofcom chief Ed Richards told the FT. "We believe that this is likely to be at least £20 billion over the next 10 years for consumers alone who will be able to access new digital services across the country."
"It will also make a very significant contribution to the UK GDP through new mobile revenues, employment opportunities and software development," he said.

Asked how Ofcom had calculated this huge saving, its economists told the FT they had used a "consumer surplus" figure--a measure of the benefit that consumers gain from purchasing goods and services, a method often used when evaluating the market impact of government intervention.
Bidding has started for the UK's LTE spectrum auction, which will see the companies bidding for frequencies in the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz bands. EE, Vodafone, Telefónica's O2 UK and 3UK are all bidding, as is BT, Hong Kong's PCCW and managed networks firm MLL Telecom. While the UK government has publicly said the auction is expected to produce £3.5 billion in revenue, analysts have estimated that the amounts raised could be between £2 billion and £4 billion.

Ofcom, which is running the auction process, would not confirm the £3.5 billion figure, but added that the aim was for at least four different operators to win adequate spectrum to operate national LTE networks.

EE, Vodafone, O2 and 3UK are most likely to compete fiercely to secure the prime lower frequency bands better able to carry mobile internet services. The other three bidders--BT, PCCW and MLL--are expected to vie for higher frequencies more suitable for local area mobile broadband.
According to Ofcom, bids are being placed online over secure connections, using software that has been developed specifically for the auction. The bidding will continue over several rounds and is expected to take a number of weeks until the final winners are announced.
For more:
- see this FT article (sub. req.)

Source: http://www.fiercewireless.com/europe/story/report-lte-access-will-save-uk-consumers-20b-over-next-decade/2013-01-25?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss

Study: OTT is an opportunity as operators look to boost revenues through alliances

​Marketers in the $1.3 trillion global telecommunications industry are being both challenged and enabled by free over-the-top (OTT) communications service providers, such as Google, Skype and Facebook. A new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council study, conducted in partnership with HP, shows that while these companies are supplying customers with sophisticated web-based features that are competing with fixed and mobile operators, OTT players are also being courted for partnerships and revenue-sharing opportunities by traditional communications services providers (CSPs).
Besides the legacy local and long-distance wire line phone services, the CSP sector also includes wireless communications, Internet services, fiber optics networks, cable TV networks and commercial satellite communications.

Some 44 percent of telco marketers who participated in the CMO Council's new "Profitability From Subscriber Acuity" study during the second to fourth quarters of 2012 are actively exploring OTT partnerships and revenue-sharing opportunities. In addition, 31 percent are identifying potential revenue streams from new products or services that can be offered to OTT players, including subscriber analytics and behavioral insights. This represents a significant shift in the mindset of telco marketers. Just one year ago, a CMO Council study dubbed "Dexterity From Subscriber Complexity" reported that OTT represented a threat, not an opportunity. In that study, 88 percent of executives considered OTT innovators as competitors, and only 6 percent were actively forging partnerships.
"This shift tracks with marketing's role of leading the charge for new market and revenue opportunities," said Liz Miller, Vice President of Programs for the CMO Council. "What is clear from this study is that marketing has been tasked with owning the customer experience and driving bottom-line revenue improvements. Considering that research has put the potential revenue loss from OTT starting at $13.8 billion in 2011 alone, it is not surprising that telco marketers see OTT as an opportunity to exploit."

While 222 CSP marketers participating in the study have oversight across the majority of customer touchpoints that most impact customer experience, they are still seeking deeper views into key front-line areas like customer support, in-store strategy and channel management. To facilitate the flow of information and processes across these areas, marketing is also taking a more active role in identifying key technology platforms and solutions as 38 percent of respondents serve as the key decision makers while an additional 38 percent serve as key influencers in the technology selection process.

But despite the significant commitment to advancing the customer experience, marketers are being stymied by a lack of visibility and insight into critical areas of intelligence and analytics. Only 5 percent of marketers have access to an automated solution that leverages data and intelligence to enable improved decisions or personalize individual engagements.
This leaves most organizations to rely on:

• Monthly meetings where insights and intelligence are shared with senior management (59 percent)
• Monthly customer insight and analytics reports (57 percent)
• Analytics dashboards with limited general user profile information (43 percent)

"This lack of visibility into the key drivers of customer behavior leaves a significant opportunity to drive incremental revenue and improve engagement performance," said Miguel Carrero, Director of Actionable Customer Intelligence Solutions, HP Enterprise Services. "Marketing is being asked to sway behaviors but simply does not have the tools needed to make those core decisions effectively. However, this research also shows that above all else, marketers understand what they need to be more effective and what points of measurement will enable real change and improvements in the customer experience."
Additional key findings from the report show that:

• Marketing is deeply involved in identifying and developing business opportunities, including new pricing plans or new products and services. Twenty-nine percent are driving the process while 36 percent are deeply involved as the key contributor.
• Fifty-four percent of marketers are being brought into the pricing and product development discussion from the very start of the process versus 9 percent who feel they are brought in too late in the cycle.
• Siloed data is the top reason marketers feel held back in their ability to influence and optimize pricing models. This is followed by the lack of a complete view of the customer (39 percent) and a corporate mindset that is resistant to change (37 percent).
• Nearly one in four marketers feels as if he or she is introducing new pricing plans to customers all the time and is heavily leveraging in-store engagements, email and advertising in both traditional and online channels. Unfortunately, half of respondents feel these channels are only moderately effective.

The detailed findings of this study, along with summaries of in-depth interviews with marketing leaders from global CSPs including AT&T, Bell Canada, Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, MTN, Optus, Orange, Sprint, STC VIVA, Telefonica, Telstra, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone are included in the 90-page comprehensive report, now available for download from (www.cmocouncil.org/r/profitability-from-subscriber-acuity).  The study is outlined question by question through summary findings and detailed charts and also includes an infographic.

Source: http://www.fiercewireless.com/europe/press-releases/telco-marketers-eye-over-top-players-opportunity-not-threat

VoLTE – 4G’s next big test (Opinion from Anite)

​In 2012, SKT and LG U+ in South Korea, as well as MetroPCS in the United States, all announced the launch of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) networks. Equally, in recent months, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 10.1, complete with VoLTE capability. However, despite the apparent commercial readiness of VoLTE services, Paul Beaver, Products Director at device test and measurement specialists, Anite, suggests that “Over the Top” (OTT) providers of Voice over IP (VoIP) services still remain a very real threat to mobile operators. In order to combat this threat, operators will need to differentiate themselves from OTT players, through the provision of a top quality voice service. The delivery of this high level of service quality, as well as the speed at which VoLTE will enter the market is, as Beaver explains, indivisibly linked to the evolution of testing.

Mobile voice goes over the top – The current VoLTE market

Global LTE deployments are continuing to rise and the technology is gaining ever more market recognition. However, LTE possesses a key limitation that the industry is increasingly looking to resolve – voice. Even in light of VoLTE launches in South Korea and the United States, the majority of LTE networks are still only able to support data and cannot handle voice calls – instead the user is transferred to a legacy 2G/3G network whenever they want to make a call. This situation is counter intuitive, considering that traditionally, the principal role of a mobile operator is to supply voice services. While LTE networks have been primarily launched in order to cater for the increasing market demand for data services, the omission of voice services has nevertheless left operators in a vulnerable position.

If operators fail to develop solutions that will allow voice calls to be made over LTE networks then they will be unable to decommission legacy networks. This will leave them unable to benefit from the superior spectrum utilisation and cost efficiency that LTE offers over legacy technologies. Equally, this failure would impact on user experience, with call setup delays and unreliability when switching to the legacy network all impacting on the operators’ ability to provide a top quality voice service. In turn, this poor service quality will put operators at risk of losing their position as the primary suppliers of premium voice services, leaving OTT players ideally placed to supersede them in the mobile voice market.

Industry challenges – Quality control for VoLTE

It is undoubtedly early days for VoLTE, and the technology remains largely at the trial stage. Currently, device manufacturers, chipset vendors and operators are all putting VoLTE through its paces. Because of VoLTE’s technological infancy, there is a diverse range of interpretations among mobile operators, in terms of how best to integrate VoLTE in networks and devices. This wide range of different implementations may present a significant challenge to operators in terms of interoperability. Equally, while roaming may be taken for granted with legacy technologies, it is not guaranteed to work for VoLTE unless these interoperability issues can be resolved, and as a result the current expected levels of service quality may be compromised.

Although the industry in general – and the GSMA in particular – is working towards a harmonisation to ensure VoLTE is applied in a consistent way, there is currently no ‘one size fits all’ VoLTE solution for operators. So in order to overcome this challenge operators must undertake a rigorous programme of VoLTE testing. By testing in the laboratory, operators can incorporate a diverse range of variable conditions into their test programmes. Full network roaming capability will eventually need to be enabled for VoLTE, and owing to diverse interpretations of the technology, this will only seek to present further interoperability challenges for the industry. Again, thoroughly testing devices for interoperability in the lab will play a key role in achieving full network roaming capability for VoLTE programmes. Device Manufacturers will need to ensure that VoLTE does not have a detrimental effect on device performance, and that devices are capable of handling VoLTE calls upon their introduction to the market. Regardless of the network infrastructure, mobile subscribers will continue to expect a carrier grade voice service on their mobile device. A ‘best effort’ VoIP type service will not suffice and operators will have to ensure that VoLTE offers excellent levels of quality and performance. If VoLTE fails to provide this level of service then it is liable to gain a negative perception among consumers.

The road ahead – VoLTE takes a test drive
By leveraging lab-based testing, mobile operators, chipset vendors and device manufacturers can make use of a cost effective, simulated network environment to test both component interoperability and overall service quality. In adopting this approach, operators are no longer reliant on live network testing and costly, time consuming device field trials. Moreover, lab based testing can ensure that VoLTE operates entirely as expected, and in turn, this will help to advance VoLTE devices to market and ultimately safeguard customer satisfaction, by ensuring first class levels of service.
Ultimately, VoLTE’s long term success will be determined by its ability to deliver carrier grade voice services across an all-IP network, and on the latest LTE devices. However, a level of cooperation within the mobile industry is vital if VoLTE is to emerge as a commercial viability. The speed at which LTE can be deployed and its level of service quality are all inextricably linked to the evolution of testing; as well as the desire amongst operators to consolidate services on LTE and eventually migrate all of their subscribers to LTE, freeing up the spectrum that  is currently taken up by legacy technology.

Source: http://www.telecoms.com/72771/volte-%E2%80%93-4g%E2%80%99s-next-big-test/

Tablets, smartphones to fuel doubling of mobile marketing revenues

The explosion of tablet and smartphone use has spurred the migration of e-commerce to m-commerce, particularly in North America and Western Europe.

Retailers are predicted to spend $55 billion annually on mobile marketing by 2015, double the amount expected this year, according to a new report from Juniper Research.

In addition, couponing apps have become an increasingly popular way to distribute and store coupons, the report noted. In addition, mobile devices are being integrated into in-store retail strategies through augmented reality and near field communications.

 

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At the same time, many retailers have not optimized their sites for mobile browsing, registration or payment.

"If retailers truly want to maximize the mobile monetization opportunity, then optimization is critical. If you are using mobile advertising for consumer acquisition, you need to push users to a site with which they can comfortably interact; retailers that fail to respond to consumer demand will fall behind," commented report author Windsor Holden.

Holden advised brands to integrate their marketing campaigns across mobile social networking sites such as Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) and Foursquare and to limit mobile ad frequency, and to prevent overexposure.
In a report released earlier this month, Gartner predicted that mobile ad revenue would reach $24.5 billion in 2016, creating opportunities for mobile app developers and platform providers, as well as specialty agencies, ad networks and communications service providers.

Andrew Frank, research vice president at Gartner, agreed with Holden that tablets and smartphones are fueling the mobile advertising market "in more and more geographies as an increasing population of users spends an increasing share of its time with these devices."

It's time for mobile app developers and platform providers to tap into the opportunities being created by mobile advertising, whether delivered through the Internet or in the store through NFC.

Source: http://www.fiercemobileit.com/story/tablets-smartphones-fuel-doubling-mobile-marketing-revenues/2013-01-23?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

The Telco Innovation Toolbox: Economic Models for Managing Disruption and Reinventing the Telco

The paper introduces novel economic thinking that is the result of over 2 years of research of ecosystem economics and telco disruption from VisionMobile in association with Ericsson.

The paper introduces ten economics and strategy frameworks that will help operators to accelerate their “digital” strategies, make the right innovation investments and avoid costly mistakes.


The topic of telco disruption brought upon by over-the-top (OTT) players is high on telecom industry agenda. However few realize that telcos are being disrupted because the basis of competition in mobile has fundamentally changed. It has changed from “reliability and scale of networks” to “choice and flexibility of services”, driven by the transition from “mobile telephony” to “mobile computing”.

The change is fundamental and irreversible.

The telecom industry is facing a conundrum today: providing undifferentiated voice, text and data services to smartphone users leads to a competition on price and diminishing margins. At the same time, staying in business requires that telcos keep up with ever-growing demand for data and continued investments in building wireless capacity. Investments in networks are still necessary, but they alone are no longer sufficient for profitable growth. What’s next?

Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen recently said: “I think, as a general rule, most of us are in markets that are booming. They are not in decline. Even the newspaper business is in a growth industry. It’s not in decline. It’s just their way of thinking about the industry that is in decline.”

The telecom industry too can greatly benefit from looking at familiar challenges from a new perspective. Telecom is a booming industry with ever-growing demand for mobile data and a rising number of subscribers. But the basis of competition in mobile has changed putting pressure on legacy business models. Building networks alone can no longer guarantee profitable growth for telecom operators. Competing head-on with asymmetric business models of OTT players won’t help either. Instead, seizing the full potential of this booming industry means leveraging mobile digital ecosystems to create meaningful differentiation, lock-in for core telco services and incremental revenues. This requires an understanding of ecosystem economics, development of new organisational capabilities and resetting the KPIs for “digital” initiatives.

The Telco Innovation Toolbox introduces ten important economic models and strategy frameworks that will help operators to make the right choices in their innovation investments and accelerate their efforts to reinvent telco business. We describe ecosystem economics in the context of telco business in chapters 1 to 4, discuss the impact of traditional financial tools and the need for new innovation processes and KPI in chapters 5 and 6, and finally suggest how to leverage ecosystems to the benefit of the telco business in chapters 7 to 10.

Download Report: http://www.visionmobile.com/product/telco-innovation-toolbox-report/

Source: http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2012/12/surviving-disruption-an-innovation-toolbox-for-reinventing-the-telco/

Mobile broadband presents the largest opportunity for operator revenue growth

Global telecom operator revenues exceeded US$2tn in 2012, with 60 percent going to mobile operators, finds Ovum. While overall revenue growth is expected to be minimal, Ovum believes some segments will still have above-average growth and significant incremental revenues over the next five years at each level of the value chain.

In a new report*, the global analysts reveal that mobile broadband presents the single largest opportunity for telcos to claw back revenue, as forecasts show mobile broadband growing 19.2 percent annually and generating US$122.9bn in incremental revenue between 2013 and 2016. Other segments with double-digit revenue growth over the next five years include public cloud, enterprise Ethernet, IPTV, and managed/hosted IP voice.

"The recovery from the 2009 recession has been weak, and the ongoing global fiscal crisis continues to present a risk to the telecom industry," comments John Lively, chief forecaster at Ovum. "Over the next 3–4 years, both fixed and mobile operators will face the same fundamental challenge: to increase new sources of revenue fast enough to offset the decline in mature services."

In the consumer segment this will involve competing with new over-the-top players as well as traditional competitors. To meet this challenge, Ovum recommends adopting consumer-services marketing approaches.

For infrastructure vendors, increases in overall capital expenditures will be limited by low single-digit gains in service provider revenues. To grow revenues faster than the industry average, Ovum recommends that vendors position themselves in one or more high-potential product segments, such as converged packet optical, ROADMs, 40G/100G networking gear, carrier Wi-Fi, and network-related services.

Elsewhere, Ovum warns component makers to expect continued high volatility in market demand – higher highs and lower lows than their customers or end customers are experiencing. "This can be mitigated to some degree by forming close relationships with infrastructure vendors and jointly understanding the end customers' needs and plans," suggests Lively.

Source: http://www.fiercewireless.com/europe/press-releases/ovum-reveals-mobile-broadband-presents-largest-opportunity-operator-revenue

LTE Strategies (Presentation Informa TM)

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LTE Opportunities and Challenges in Asia - 2013

LTE global growth is forecasted to be led by Asia Pacific with India and China as major drivers. In this whitepaper, a snapshot of the likely changes Long Term Evolution will bring to Asia wireless communication operators and the mobile internet service providers. It compares the differences between LTE and WiMAX, as well as outlook of the LTE network adoption worldwide via the growth of 3G subscriber base from now, until 2013.

Other key takeaways included in this whitepaper are forecasts of 3G subscribers by region, worldwide LTE adoption data, mobile usage behaviour of several Asian countries, as well as the key challenges and opportunities of LTE adoption.

Source: http://4g-portal.com/4g-business-readiness-lte-opportunities-and-challenges-in-asia-whitepaper
 

2013 Telecoms Predictions (Ericsson Lab)

Ericsson ConsumerLab has identified some of the most important consumer trends for the coming year. As 2012 draws to a close, Ericsson ConsumerLab has identified the hottest consumer trends for 2013 and beyond.

 

Here are the 10 hottest consumer trends:

1. Cloud reliance reshapes device needs. More than 50 percent of tablet users and well above 40 percent of smartphone users in USA, Japan, Australia and Sweden appreciate the improved simplicity of having the same apps and data seamlessly available through the cloud on multiple devices.

2. Computing for a scattered mind. From desktops, files and folders to flat surfaces, apps and cloud services, consumers are increasingly turning their backs on a computing paradigm for the focused mind. Tasks are handled at the spur of the moment - as we stand in a shopping line or talk to someone at a café. Purchase intent is higher for tablets compared to desktop PCs, and for smartphones compared to laptops.

3. Bring your own broadband to work. A total of 57 percent of smartphone users use their personal smartphone subscriptions at work. Personal smartphones are increasingly being used for work, to send emails, plan business trips, find locations and more.

4. City-dwellers go relentlessly mobile. By relentlessly accessing the internet always and everywhere, consumers are now an unstoppable force making internet truly mobile. Total smartphone subscriptions will reach 3.3 billion by 2018 and mobile network coverage is one of the most important drivers of satisfaction for city life.

5. Personal social security networks. As a result of economic turbulence, trust in traditional structures and authorities is decreasing and consumers increasingly trust their personal communities. Personal networks online serve as a safety net and social media is shaping up to be a serious contender to the traditional job agency.

6. Women drive the smartphone market. New figures clearly show that women drive mass-market smartphone adoption. No less than 97 percent of female smartphone owners use SMS. A total of 77 percent send and receive photos, 59 percent use social networking, 24 percent check in at locations and 17 percent redeem coupons. The figures for men are lower in these areas.

7. Cities become hubs for social creativity. City center dwellers have significantly more friends online than people in suburban areas. 12 percent of people that live in cities say that the main reason for using social networks is to connect and exchange ideas with others, making it the third most common reason for social networking after staying up-to-date with friends and keeping them updated.

8. In-line shopping. A total of 32 percent of smartphone users already shop with smartphones; they now start to combine in-store and online shopping aspects. They want to see products, get information and make price comparisons, and make purchases immediately without having to que up at the cash register.

9. TV goes social. A total of 62 percent of viewers use social forums while watching video and TV - and 42 percent of  those who use social forums or chats while watching discuss things they currently watch on a weekly basis. Over 30 percent are more likely to pay for content watched in social contexts. The majority of video and TV consumption on mobile devices takes place in the home.

10. Learning in transformation. Learning is transformed through both internal and external forces: Young people bring their personal technology experience into the classroom, driving a bottom-up pressure for change. Simultaneously governments and institutions look for new ICT solutions in order to be more efficient. Connectivity changes the outlook for children on a global scale. In India, around 30 million of 69 million urban children aged 9 to 18 own mobile phones.

Link to "10 hot consumer trends for 2013" report: http://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2012/consumerlab/10-hot-consumer-trends-2013.pdf

Link to infographics: www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2012/consumerlab/10-hot-consumer-trends-2013-infographic.pdf

Source: http://www.ericsson.com/news/1664391

2012 LTE Market Trends

Recently IDATE presented a study regarding LTE Market Trends/ Forecasts and Strategy.

Here is the link: IDATE - LTE 2012 MARKET TRENDS