Throughout the incredible journey of the telecom OSS/BSS sector over
the last 10 years, VanillaPlus has remained a reliable source of both key
news but also informative, objective and thought-provoking assessments of
the key trends which have shaped our industry. I am looking forward to
VanillaPlus and their more recent Stream journal continuing to play a key
role in providing valuable insights as we enter one of the most exciting
phases of the telecoms OSS/BSS market evolutions.
Kieran Moynihan
Vice President & CTO Telecoms
IBM Tivoli Division
Opinion
How dumb is a dumb pipe?, asks Hugh Roberts
In the first of a series of articles in VanillaPlus magazine challenging received
wisdom, Hugh Roberts asks in the April issue (out Monday 7th April), is the
dumb pipe a recipe for disaster… or a clever way to exploit network
infrastructure?
Hugh, a senior strategist at Patni Telecoms Consulting, looks at the reality
behind the industry’s fear of becoming a series of interconnected dumb pipes,
and in particular at the role that the vendor community might need to play if
profitability for network operators is to be assured.
In a communications ecosystem increasingly driven by content revenues, the
nightmare scenario for telecoms operators has often been characterised as that
of relegation to the role of a ‘dumb bit pipe’, living off the scraps of the other
players in the new value chain. Indeed, at this year’s Mobile World Congress,
Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin warned operators against this and stressed the
importance of focusing on delivering content and internet services of their own.
The telco’s position is under threat not only from the ‘X-factor’ companies such
as Google, Yahoo!, Apple and Amazon, but also from other branded horizontal
retailers and hardware manufacturers such as Nokia and even Intel, who are
now taking a much more active role in the provision of content services via both
fixed and mobile.
Addressable advertising may soon be adopted in cable and IPTV services
Growing broadband penetration, changing consumption habits, service convergence and the rise of
multiple service operators (MSOs) are creating a diverse landscape
for
entertainment consumption. Advertising continues to play a significant
part in revenue generation, but there is considerable pressure
to adapt to new
business models using advanced technological solutions.
This is one of the conclusions of Datamonitor’s new report, “The Advanced TV Advertising Market, 2008”. It addresses
technological evolution, new business models, the competitive
landscape and developing implications for advanced advertising in the
near term. The report highlights the business case for investing in an
on-demand addressable
advertising solution, and assesses potential return on investment (ROI)
for digital cable and IPTV operators in developed pay-TV markets.
Chris Khouri, Media and Broadcasting Analyst and author of the report, says: “As
traditional forms of advertising begin to lose some of their
effectiveness due to multi-platform distribution and audience
fragmentation, there is increasing pressure
to create effective
solutions to combat
these challenges.
“One
method is through addressing channel mediums (the use of the
distribution network) as being just as important to target the correct
audiences as the content itself. This involves boosting the
effectiveness of
advertising (producing higher ROI Positives) in order to charge higher
cost per thousand (CPM) premiums to raise net advertising revenue
(NAR). Home addressable advertising is a potential method to tackle
this issue by targeting specific households with relevant advertising
spots,”
he
says.
Broadcasters are not expected to need to make large
CapEx investments for home addressability
VOD,
both free-to-view and pay-per-view (PPV), is a pivotal service in a
cable and IPTV operators product portfolio. Furthermore, most major
tier 1 and tier 2 operators are expected to be making, or
have budgeted to make, the transition towards newer enhanced DPI
solutions, such as switched video broadcast (SVB). Bearing in mind
these developments, capital expenditure (CapEx) into specific hardware
and software solutions has, in many cases, already been made.
Addressable on-demand advertising
uses much of the same software and hardware solutions (excluding
campaign management, etc) of traditional VOD services.
Considering
this, the use of addressable commercials does not involve a high degree
of capital investment. In fact, the use of enhanced DPI solutions and
addressable advertising is outlined as having
the potential to lower operational expenditure (OpEx) and improve
bandwidth efficiencies through a greater return on bandwidth (ROB).
Flash-based on-demand servers could lower OpEx for broadcasters
A
further development that is set to be particularly attractive to the
on-demand ad insertion players is the emergence of Flash-based rich
media servers. Flash-based servers benefit from having no
moving parts and are outlined by vendors as being around 100 times more
reliable, having 10 times lower power consumption demands as well as
allowing for easier upgradeability and scalability.
As broadcasters
strive to reduce OpEx in as many ways as possible, lower power
consumption and greater
reliability have a definite resonance in lowering total cost of
ownership (TCO) of an on-demand server.
Sony Ericsson’s sort-of-answer to iPhone really grows on you
OK, so it’s not as cool as the iPhone, and it’s
not hyped as much as Samsung’s F700 with QWERTY keyboard. But at the end of a
few days together the W960i was growing on Jeremy Cowan, who was in no rush to
send it back.
Perhaps we
got off to a bad start, it and me. It’s a little slow to boot up, well slower
than my trusty W850i. It’s bigger too; but then it would be, to accommodate a
39 x 52 mm screen. But it soon started to win back some ground with its 3.2
megapixel camera and high screen resolution. My first digital camera barely
matched the 960’s camera and it never matched the screen size.
The change of GUI was just annoying though. I’ve had a number of Sony Ericsson
phones and – though I’ve liked them all, more or less – the applications menu
alters with every iteration. Sony Ericsson is no more guilty here than other
manufacturers; they all annoy me with needless menu changes that erode the
pleasing familiarity of an easy search for the next function.
Pros
* Touch screen – many will opt for the W960i for this alone. It’s sensitive
without being overly so. Job done.
* Jog dial – Apologies to Jonny, the first person to call me after I received
it and who I accused of mumbling -- I’d brushed the side-mounted Jog Dial which
is both navigation tool and volume control when putting it in a coat pocket
inadvertently cutting the speaker volume (duh! Faulty operative; it didn’t
happen again).
OK, so the Jog Dial’s not strictly necessary when you’ve already got a good
touch screen and a finger or stylus as your OS. But it gives usesr a quicker
option when navigating the menu and works well; rotate the discreet wheel on
the side to highlight various options until you press the wheel, mouse-style.
* Stylus (I
started thinking it was a pain, and ended up using it all the time, even when a
finger might have been quicker).
* Better battery life than previous Sony Ericsson smart phones.
* Walkman is good (though I prefer downloads from Omnifone’s Music Station).
* 8Gb memory.
Cons
* Small-ish
screen means the touch screen is susceptible to (my not very) Fat Finger
Syndrome. Try the Jog Dial or Stylus instead.
*
Inconsistent GUI and applications menu: Memo to all handset makers: Find a menu
format that your customers like and flippin’ stick with it. Unless you’ve come
up with a genuine improvement, that
is. It took me a while to find the Silent mode. Eventually I even had to read
the manual. (I know, it’s a bloke thing!).
Verdict(s)
Day 1: I almost sent the W960i back.
Day 5: I may be out when they come to collect it.
QUOTE OF THE MONTH: Inaccurate Billing
Accurate billing is still proving
to be a challenge with many ‘triple play’ providers under- and over-billing for
content. So VanillaPlus doffs its cap to James Brunson of Spirent who was quoted as follows recently.
Brunson, Landslide product
marketing manager at Spirent, explained: “We’re seeing a common theme across
many operators worldwide in that there can be issues when it comes to billing
accurately. Many of these glitches are due to poor network intelligence and the
fact that many triple play providers have grown by acquisition meaning a
‘mishmash’ of systems which don’t always talk accurately to each other all of
the time.
"It’s not uncommon to find network nodes which are known to be
inaccurate with rules written to counter-balance inaccurate billing. Whilst
these are accurate most of the time, it is not fail-safe. There are particular
issues when it comes to differentiating between ‘session-based billing’ which is
flat-rate or pay for duration (such as an international phone call) and
‘service-based billing’, where one pays extra for specific content (such as
video on demand). As such many customers are being billed
inaccurately," added Brunson.
Either way, operators stand to
lose. Overbilled customers may complain and overload customer service staff and
help lines. There is also the risk of churn should they remain dissatisfied. And
obviously customers which are under billed represent lost
revenue.
Brunson continued: "Deep packet inspection will
certainly help to look at service based billing and discover exactly what
customers are being billed for. However it is just as important that operators
test continuously to ensure that rules written relate to actual traffic
patterns.”
While this may not come as news to many service providers, VanillaPlus finds it
refreshing to hear such candour on a widespread industry problem.
Legacy systems pose major barrier for mobile operators, says Pontis survey
A new survey carried out among marketing managers at mobile operators
highlights the problems marketers face in accessing and leveraging customer
data, particularly real time usage data, to create and deliver compelling
marketing offers and promotions. The survey commissioned by Pontis, experts in
targeted marketing for communication service providers discovered that
47% of
respondents judged technological challenges in accessing data held on different
and non-interoperable platforms to be the biggest barrier to delivering
personalised communications, with organisational structure and processes in
second place with 29% and just 9% of respondents highlighting lack of resources
as the issue.
The survey
reveals that the majority of marketers believe personalisation and price are the
key ingredients for a successful marketing promotion. 34% of all respondents
consider personalisation to be the most important aspect of developing a
successful marketing offer or promotion with pricing in second place at 23%
followed by communication and then timing with 21% and 17%
respectively.
The survey
reveals the difficulty marketing staff are facing in creating such personalised
communications due to the problems in accessing subscriber’s usage history, real
time behaviour and response to previous offers -- just 18% consider this to be
easy while 82% find it problematic. This poses a particular difficulty in
marketing bundled services like triple- and quad-play offerings where 44% of
respondents consider it extremely difficult to get access to the relevant
customer data.
According to Guy
Talmi, marketing director at Pontis, “The survey graphically highlights what our
customers have been telling us for some time about the difficulties they
encounter in accessing customer data and usage history to help them deliver well
targeted marketing offers.”
He adds, “It’s hardly surprising that marketers
have struggled to market new mobile services effectively in the absence of such
vital data. The good news, of course, is that there are now solutions available
like our own, which automate this process and help marketers to determine the
optimal proposition, price, communication’s channel and timing to give the
maximum chance of success and help to overcome the technological and
organisational barriers that have traditionally hampered the marketing of mobile
services.”
Mobile service providers face challenging times in middle of next decade, iSuppli study says
El Segundo, California, USA, July 8, 2008 — The gloomy findings of a mobile social networking study have been released in a White Paper by its authors, iSuppli Corp. In it they predict that the Technology,
Media, and Telecoms (TMT) business will undergo a fundamental
transformation during the next 10 years, courtesy of the coming wireless social
networking revolution. Because of this, iSuppli Corp.
believes, content providers, advertisers, telcos and
electronics suppliers — must transform their business strategies as well if they
want to maintain their relevance in the coming years.
Said Derek Lidow, president and chief executive officer at iSuppli, “The shifts
will impact most value-chain participants, and will be highly
interrelated." With
today’s TMT business representing 5% of global Gross Domestic Product, these industry realignments will have
impacts far
beyond the value chain itself. Major
findings of this study include:
· Within 10 years, Social Networking + Me
(SME), primarily driven by wireless devices, will become ‘must-have’
applications and devices for global consumers.
· Although there have not been any
successful implementations of wireless social networking to date, the widespread
adoption of mobile Internet devices like the iPhone will spur an entirely new
generation of wireless social networking businesses and business models starting
in 2009.
· Many wireless service providers
will face very challenging times in the middle years of next decade as intense
battles break out against alternate providers of wireless access over who
controls the distribution of all the content and services that will be enabled,
and will be highly sought after by wireless subscribers.
· By 2020, there will be close to 7
billion wireless accounts, with many individuals having more than one account,
and with wireless communication devices being the primary communication, service
and content delivery channel for virtually all users.
· Basic wireless social networking
service could be provided for a global average of around $15.30 per month per
user, using constant 2007 U.S. dollars.
iSuppli has summarized the findings from
its wireless social networking study in a new whitepaper, entitled: Social
Networking Wireless Social Networking Revolution Set to Reshape Global Tech
Industry.
www.isuppli.com
Will Yahoo's play for mobile pay off? - New report
London, UK, 23 July 2008. Yahoo, the number two internet search engine, currently leads in mobile web
destinations due to an aggressive play to capitalise on the still emerging
mobile search and advertising space. Google,
Microsoft, AOL, and other players are all jockeying to be first to pocket
profits from the most lucrative market to arise since internet search and
shopping. Advertisers will spend US$1.8 billion on mobile media in 2007, which
visiongain predicts will rise to $17.5 billion by 2012.
In a new report,
visiongain explores Yahoo’s strategy in mobile in the medium-term future, and
discusses the significant opportunities and threats that the company poses to
current industry players. How will Yahoo affect your operations? Should you be working with the company
to leverage its expertise in mobile search and advertising, or would you be
better off working with one of its competitors instead?
Is Yahoo likely to launch a VoIP phone leveraging current partner eBay's
Skype or an enhanced version of its own Yahoo! Voice? 3 recently became the
first operator to offer a mass market device tailor-made for free
calling over the internet from a mobile. Now, all of Skype's 246 million
registered users can be reached for free with the 3 Skypephone. Will Yahoo
produce a similar device, or will it enter this deal in a very big way
considering Yahoo already has partnered with 3 to provide Yahoo! Go for Mobile
2.0 to 3 Group customers in the UK, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, and Denmark, with
other 3 Group markets expected to follow by year end? This report addresses
bleeding edge issues Yahoo and the industry face, providing insightful analysis
on deals, market plays, and future mergers yet to be explored in other
studies.
The report tackles several key questions:
• What are Yahoo’s strategic visions and future plans in
mobile?
• How will Yahoo’s model perform in the mobile landscape?
• What
are Yahoo’s current activities in this space?
• What strategies and
opportunities are open to Yahoo in mobile?
• Will Yahoo launch a VoIP or
cellular phone?
• Will Google’s text ads be overshadowed by Yahoo’s mobile
display ads?
For more information on the report contact Qahramon Ikromov at:
telecoms.conferences1@conferencesandreports.com