As Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2011 comes around again with the speed and subtlety of an oncoming train, boardrooms, R&D labs and marketing departments worldwide are burning the midnight oil in preparation. While some companies are not yet ready to talk about what they’re going to have on show, I did manage to find some who are prepared to tell service providers what’ll be hot – or not – this February.
As Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2011 comes around again with the speed and subtlety of an oncoming train, boardrooms, R&D labs and marketing departments worldwide are burning the midnight oil in preparation. While some companies are not yet ready to talk about what they’re going to have on show, I did manage to find some who are prepared to tell service providers what’ll be hot – or not – this February.
For the GSMA itself, its Wholesale Applications Community (or WAC – the alliance of nearly 60 companies so far involved in building an open applications platform) is going to be a major focus in Barcelona 2011. As Phil Rawcliffe of the GSMA said, “MWC 2011 is the event where the WAC finally comes of age. First announced at MWC 2010, WAC has been consistently hitting its self-imposed deadlines on the road towards full commercial launch. These have included the formal launch of the company in July that year and the release of WAC 1.0 specifications in September.
For one company, Aepona, itself already closely involved with the WAC and OneAPI projects – this emphasis on applications has to be extended even further into the increasingly hyped realm of the cloud. “True mobile cloud computing is about extending the principles of cloud computing – such as on-demand access, pay-as-you-go, everything-as-a-service, and device-agnostic applications – to the mobile domain,” says Aepona’s VP Marketing, Michael Crossey.
“Operators have valuable assets – reliable comms, billing relationships, customer intelligence – that can be used by third parties such as enterprise solution providers and applications developers. Until now, these assets were difficult to access but mobile cloud computing will allow third parties across many different vertical markets to easily tap into these enablers.” And Crossey can reveal that “at least one of these companies – an Aepona partner – will be launching its mobile cloud service at MWC 2011, with a number of demonstrations showing how mobile network and billing capabilities can add significant value to domain-specific apps and services.”
Radical structural changes are being made to what was once an extremely linear value chain. This is also concentrating Hewlett Packard’s mind as well, as Amir Einav, Director, Communications and Media Solutions, explains. “We’re seeing significant changes in the value chain dynamic,” he believes. “Over-the-top-players are gaining customer loyalty and are claiming a larger share of the newly-expanded value. Traditional CSPs – as ‘pipe providers’ – must spend heavily to upgrade networks, but are challenged with the limitations of flat-rate pricing.
“To succeed, CSPs must focus on reducing structural cost, increasing operational agility and developing customer-centric approaches. For example, cloud and device applications technologies offer entirely new ways to generate revenues and this might lead some CSPs to reinvent themselves as ‘business exchanges’,” says Einav. “At MWC, we’ll be emphasising this business transformation in our range of solutions.”
Kaj Hagros, CEO at BSS/OSS specialist Tecnotree sees the complex diversity of the service and device mix creating its own perfect storm for the back office. “Smart phones with flat-rate data subscriptions have finally taken the industry to the promise of mobile internet, apps, media and corporate services – but all-you-can-eat is not sustainable as the sole model. Our customers are looking for ways to add flexibility and choice onto their service bundles – for instance separating tariffs for smartphone browsing, lap-top USB modem connectivity, download and streaming services, or peer-to- peer – allowing each subscriber to pick and choose the best combination that fits into their lifestyle, without capping all the revenue streams.”
In November 2010, the GSMA announced the formation of a task force of mobile operators to explore the development of an embedded SIM that can be remotely activated. The move is expected to enable the design of exciting new form factors for mobile communications. It is also intended to speed the development of M2M services by making it easier to bring mobile broadband to non-traditional devices such as cameras, MP3 players, navigation devices and e-readers, as well as smart meters.
“The GSMA’s development will become a major catalyst in the explosion of connected devices, not only in 2011 but throughout the next few years,” says Ian Marsden, CTO at M2M enabler Eseye. “As a key M2M enabler, Eseye have witnessed first-hand the challenges ahead of mass deployment for embedded SIMs. Fragmentation in the market has been a key barrier to mass adoption and with the GSMA’s support, this has now been addressed. Connected devices are already enabling solutions across multiple verticals as varied as consumer electronics to e-health and security applications, and this is now set to expand drastically.”
Finally, there are some good signs that the industry is continuing to build on its existing understanding of the importance of mobile communications as a force for positive social change. Under another GSMA initiative – mWomen – Vodafone will be talking at the show about its work in this area. The overall programme aims to bring the power of mobiles to more than 150 million women in developing countries within three years.
The winners of the Vodafone mWomen ‘Base of the Pyramid’ Apps Challenge will be announced at the show – demonstrating original customised application solutions targeted at the specific demands of women in developing countries. That’ll make a welcome change from some of the tackier content and apps that have been on show at the event in the past …
