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pressure as
27% Multi-play offerings 26%
12 months?
30% Content partnership 10%
a significant
challenge
1 2 3 4 5
in 2015
Telecoms.com Intelligence
global Industry Survey
with one being the highest and five the lowest, please prioritise
how likely you are to invest in the following technologies in 2015.
10% 6%
7% 27% 15%
11%
53%
28%
19% 24%
22%
28%
25%
30%
1 2 3 4 5
Editorial 02
contents FEBRUARY15
News Analysis 04
After BT confirmed its acquisition of EE for £12.5bn,
consumer demand for mobile content and growing
smartphone use appears to be driving the market
towards a multiplay environment.
The Informer
Industry Insights
H
ere we are at the most exciting time of An even more contemporary trend is the HEAD OFFICE
Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street,
the telecoms year, when its two most collision of networks with enterprise IT via London, W1T 3JH
important events coincide: the Tel- phenomena such as NFV and SDN. With most Tel: +44 (0)20 701 75000
Fax: +44 (0)20 701 75647
ecoms.com Annual Industry Survey and Mobile operators still trying to work out how exactly
World Congress. This, of course, is more than these technologies will work for them, the EDITORIAL
Please send all press releases to support@telecoms.com
a coincidence as we consider unique insight survey provides an invaluable insight into their
Editorial Director
into the plans and opinions of over 2,000 telco investment plans and the returns they expect Scott Bicheno
industry professionals to be the perfect accom- to get on that investment. Email: scott.bicheno@informa.com
paniment to the biggest annual celebration of A direct consequence of convergent trends Tel: +44 (0)20 701 75201
of the operator competitive landscape. Over security section of the survey respondents in- Senior Writer
Auri Aittokallio
half of the respondents work for an operator, dicate the types of threats they are most wary Email: auri.aittokallio@informa.com
which provides a large sample of highly tar- of and the measures they are putting in place Tel: +44 (0)20 701 77462
geted opinion. Among the areas covered were to tackle them. The Informer
the competitive pressures they face, with OTTs And the convergence isn’t limited to the the.informer@telecoms.com
now prominent alongside the usual operator infrastructure side of things; consumers are ADVERTISING
competition and the cost of infrastructure, and increasingly looking for a complete commu- Senior Sales Manager
Chris Beales
planned areas of investment, among which nications package, including content. So the
Email: chris.beales@informa.com
LTE and cloud technologies were prominent. content section of the survey has a distinct bias Tel: +44 (0)20 337 73986
Drilling down into more specific segments towards multiplay and how best to accommo-
Sales Manager
of the telecoms industry we start with a focus date the competitive threat posed by so-called Neil Williams
on BSS. In the rapidly maturing mobile market OTT players. Meanwhile, with an increasing Email: neil.williams@informa.com
Tel: +44 (0)20 701 75601
operators need to be able to adapt quickly to proportion of all devices becoming connected
keep up with changing consumer demands, we conclude with a look at attitudes towards DESIGN & PRODUCTION
Design & Production Manager
while at the same time keeping their product the device sector. Joanne Lowe
offerings fresh. The survey revealed a number We hope you will agree that the Telecoms. Email: joanne.lowe@informa.com
Tel: +44 (0)20 701 75604
of insights into respondents’ commercial com Annual Industry Survey provides a valuable
priorities and how they are going about ex- perspective on the current state of the telecoms MARKETING / LIST RENTAL
Head of Marketing
ecuting them. sector and where it’s headed, while also being a Sophie Egan
LTE is, of course, a key technology for dem- useful companion to the biggest mobile show of Email: sophie@informa.com
onstrating value and differentiation to the mar- the year. We will be there, so please don’t hesitate Tel: +44 (0)20 701 75461
ket, but the survey revealed most respondents to say hello if you are too. PUBLISHER
still expect the minority of their subscribers Tim Banham
Email: tim.banham@informa.com
to be covered by LTE this year. Another major Tel: +44 (0)20 701 75218
LTE-related question facing the industry is the
SUBSCRIPTIONS/ CUSTOMER SERVICES
move to VoLTE. While it’s generally considered c/o Mobile Communications International
inevitable, there is understandable reluctance Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street
London, W1T 3JH, UK
to do so prematurely and the survey revealed Email: mcisubs@telecoms.com
distinct anxieties about ensuring continuity scott.bicheno@informa.com Register online at: www.telecoms.com/magazine/
when they eventually do. twitter.com/scottbicheno WEBSITE
www.telecoms.com
Mobile Communications International is published by
available free to selected personnel Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer by errors or omissions resulting from Informa UK Ltd registered office:
Street negligence,accident or any other cause. Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street,
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N
ot long before going to press with this issue of MCI, video content on their smartphones. So it’s quite clear from the
it was announced BT had reached an agreement user perspective that you are in a convergent world with fixed
with Orange and Deutsche Telekom to acquire their and mobile networks, and therefore it’s very important for
subsidiary EE, the UK’s biggest mobile operator. This move operators to follow that trend as well.”
is not only thrusting the UK telecoms market deeper into With Three UK and O2 also in merger talks, it looks
multiplay, it is also a sign of the European ex-monopolists clear the UK market is in a process of converging and
refocusing their core markets but with a multiplay strategy. consolidating. As for Vodafone, currently the UK’s third
“The sale of EE indicates that for Deutsche Telekom and biggest operator, adopting a multi-play strategy seems
Orange, it makes better business sense to build a strong unavoidable. But Nordström thinks it is in a good position to
triple or quad-play business in their key markets — the US become a challenger to BT/EE.
and Germany for Deutsche Telekom, France for Orange “There is room for a challenger in the UK market, and
— rather than continue to run mobile-only businesses in you can say that Vodafone is in the best position to take
multiple markets,” Bengt Nordström, CEO of consultancy that role. Judging by some of the decisions they have made
firm Northstream said. in the last couple of years, it seems Vodafone has actually
The implications of BT’s proposed bid for EE seem to realised the future is convergence, and it looks like they are
be rippling through to other parts of the market too, with maybe further down that strategy of becoming a convergent
broadband and TV providers looking somewhat defensive in operator than Three [for example] is.”
some of their recent strategic moves. This seemed to be the If the EE bid gets regulatory approval, BT has said it intends to
case with Sky reaching deep into its pockets to pay a record target the entire combined customer base of the two companies.
£4.2 billion for the bulk of the Premier League football “BT expects to generate revenue synergies by providing a full-
rights complete with BT, which also had to fork out 30% range of communications services to the combined customer
more than previously for the remaining rights. base,” the telco said in a statement. “This includes selling BT’s
broadband, fixed telephony and pay-TV services to those EE
customers who do not currently take a service from BT.”
There is room for a challenger in the UK But as it could take some persuasion to get the entire
market, and you can say that Vodafone is in customer base on board with getting all their services from
one provider, becoming a competitive quad-play force is
the best position to take that role. Judging by likely to take some time.
some of the decisions they have made in the However, Nordström sees consumer behaviour driving
the market towards the need to be able to offer bundled
last couple of years, it seems Vodafone has service packages. “I don’t think the two-players will
actually realised the future is convergence. disappear in a very short time,” he said. “It’s more the
direction the industry is evolving. It sort of happens in
waves, and I think it will take some time for customers to
“This move [bid for EE] by BT is a major statement of start buying quad-play offerings. It [multiplay] is a young
intent regarding its multiplay aspirations, and it serves as a market but the trend is definitely there.
clear warning to UK rivals, notably Vodafone, Sky and Virgin “Considering the fact that you are watching a lot of video
Media,” Paolo Pescatore, an analyst at CCS Insight said. content on your smartphone, you like to do that on your big
“These companies will be forced to review their position as screen at home, on your tablet and smartphone, both in your
the market for convergence in the UK rapidly comes to the boil. home and out and about. That can really only be offered if
And more importantly however, it removes a converged rival you’re a quad-play operator. Although I would say we don’t
from the market; BT will now face one fewer competitor.” have enormous footprint of these bundled offerings today the
Nordström echoed the sentiment saying multiplay is the trend is there.”
future and operators who want to keep their competitive Multiplay has been one of the industry’s hot discussion topics
edge need to develop a strategy reflecting the change in the for some time, and it looks ever more likely to be the way the UK
market. This, in his view, is the situation for Vodafone. and European telecoms markets are heading towards. In the UK,
“I think Vodafone is an interesting case because they it is an interesting time as there are currently two major possible
have been very successful as a pure-play mobile operator. mergers just around the corner. But in Nordström’s view,
They have not historically been distracted by thinking about Vodafone is also set to make a move this year. “I really expect
the different network tiers and whether they should derive Vodafone making a move this year, and adding fixed broadband
something from those. That has historically made them and TV to their portfolio,” he said. “Which one they’ll buy, that’s
more agile as they have been focused only on mobile and harder to speculate on. But it would be strange [of them] to not
that’s been serving them very well.” try to become the challenger to BT/EE.” n
T
he reason this will be such a big deal is not just read this Samsung will probably have already launched
because it will be the latest flagship smartphone the Galaxy S6, or equivalent. In order to arrest its recent
from the world’s biggest vendor by volume, but smartphone market share declines, Samsung will have
because Samsung stands at a competitive crossroads. needed to reveal something genuinely surprising and eye-
For the past five years Samsung’s smartphone market catching. There are rumours of clever screen technology
share has grown rapidly. This feat is especially impressive and an alternative mobile payments platform, or maybe
when you consider how difficult it is to achieve clear Samsung will just bundle a new smart watch with every
differentiation in the current smartphone market. Nearly phone. Whatever it is, it had better be good.
all Samsung’s smartphones run Android, as do most of Talking about smart watches, there are likely to be a fair
its competitors, while form-factors and spec sheets have few of those unveiled at the show. Once more any launches
become very uniform. will be made in the shadow of Apple, with the Apple watch
The Galaxy S series of flagship smartphones have been expected to go on sale in April. Wearables in general have
great devices, but then so have been equivalent products been identified as the next big devices trend for some time,
from companies like HTC, Sony and LG. The single factor but the industry has yet to make a compelling enough case
that has probably set Samsung apart has been marketing to consumers to persuade them to spend a few hundred
spend and distribution. Few companies have as deep pounds on one. We may well see the rest of the device
pockets as Samsung and through exhaustive advertising industry decide to keep its powder dry and see how well the
combined with prominent promotion in the operator and Apple watch is received before making its next major move.
retail channels it has managed to position itself as the A similar challenge is faced by the broader Internet of
default Android brand. Things phenomenon. It’s an increasingly popular buzzword
and everyone agrees it’s going to be a big deal, but it currently
While Apple may have struggled to innovate means little to consumers. We can equip almost anything with
over the past few years Samsung hasn’t a chip and an internet connection these days but we’re still
struggling to convert that potential into practical value.
exactly set the world on fire, with successive Some weird and wonderful connected devices will garner
Galaxy S updates being highly reminiscent of headlines at MWC 2015, but it’s likely to be the more boring,
behind-the-scenes M2M stuff that is of greater commercial
their predecessors. significance. Automation and Big Data are concepts more
likely to turn the IoT buzzword into a commercial reality
than a smart fridge or connected pair of trousers.
But two major market factors are now combining One such practical application of IoT that is likely to be
to halt Samsung’s run and, for the first time in recent showcased at the show is ‘mobile health’. We’re all aware
memory, call into question its ability to stay at the top of of fitness bands that enable us to track all our activity
the smartphone pile. The first is aggressive competition and, perhaps more importantly, upload that data to social
in the lower price tiers from Chinese smartphone vendors media so everyone can see how virtuous we’re being. But
such as Xiaomi, Lenovo and TCL Alcatel. In the case of mobile health is about a lot more than just regular exercise
the former two, they are competing very well, along with and is especially useful when it comes to the management
a number of other players such as Coolpad and recent of chronic conditions. These are not necessarily life-
Alibaba partner Meizu, in their domestic market. China threatening, at least in the short term, but require regular
is now by far the world’s largest smartphone market and medical intervention to be kept under control. Mobile
success or failure there can have implications amounting health enables regular contact between the patient and
to tens of millions of units sold per quarter. remote regular resources, thus making the whole process
The second challenge faced by Samsung in the smartphone far more efficient.
space is a resurgent Apple. The US company has been a major Another branch in which connectivity is becoming an
smartphone player since the launch of the first iPhone in increasingly important factor is the automotive industry,
2007, but for the past few years has offered little innovation inevitably leading to the concept of the ‘smart car’. Expect
in new devices to justify the price premium it charges to see quite a few smart car demos at the show that will
compared to equivalent Android products. Last September promise all kinds of clever things such as smartphone
Apple launched two new versions of its iPhone that belatedly activation, automated driving and infotainment systems
embraced the trend towards larger screen sizes as part of a so complete you’ll never want to leave the car. But smart
general design overhaul. This seemed to do the trick for Apple cars are at a similar stage of evolution to IoT in general;
as it announced record Q4 iPhone sales, which will have eaten there are lots of clever ideas around, but few that seem
directly into sales of the Galaxy S5 and Note. compelling to the mass market.
With marketing spend having apparently taken Samsung As ever the real winners of MWC 2015 will be the
as far as it’s ever going to, the most obvious way for companies that harness mobile technologies to deliver
Samsung to meet this dual threat is through product products your average consumer can’t live without. n
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What are the primary means of competitive differentiation among the mobile operators in your market? (select three)
LTE 30%
LTE-A 8%
challenge for them this year. 13%, which is likely reflected in second with 59%. Customer term of preference for market-
Conversely OTT competitive the roll-out and expansion of service was selected by 42% of ing purposes, the technological
pressure has climbed from 52% LTE networks currently being respondents, with LTE, service premise behind LTE-A may be
last year to 59% as over the top undertaken across the world. innovation and multi-play offer- lost on an audience whose pri-
services for both communica- The level of infrastructure in- ings receiving 30%, 28% and mary concern is generally about
tions and media/entertainment vestment could be seen as a key 26% of the vote respectively. speed and signal strength – the
pervade and encroach on tra- driver for operators as a means However, device pricing, ends rather than the means, so
ditional telco revenue streams. of providing differentiation content partnerships, LTE-A to speak.
Most notably, however, is the from competitors in domestic and carrier billing offerings To that end, we asked our
aforementioned highlighting markets. We asked operator appeared to be of least interest operator audience to identify
of inter-operator competitive respondents to identify the to the audience, pulling in 15%, where they are in the process of
pressure, which appears to three most dominant means 10%, 8% and 6% of responses deploying LTE-A services. 28%
dominate the challenges faced of competitive differentiation, respectively. of respondents stated LTE-A is
by operators in 2015. Last year, and network quality and cover- It is interesting to see LTE- already commercially rolled out,
45% of respondents ranked it age was the most regularly Advanced poll reasonably few with 18% currently undergoing
as one of their top challenges, identified means of stealing a votes as a competitive differ- trialling on the service, and an
with nearly 20% more respon- march over competitors. 75% entiator, but this may indicate additional 22% of respondents
dents identifying this as a cause of respondents identified the a lack of both awareness and stating that LTE-A is expected
for concern this time around. network as instrumental in gain- interest in what the technol- to be rolled-out at some point in
Cost of infrastructure invest- ing ground over competitors, ogy is from customers of the 2015. Conversely, 16% responded
ment has also seen a rise of with service pricing coming in respondents. With 4G being the by saying LTE-A is not »
Which of the following do you think are the most lucrative services enabled by LTE? (select three)
VoLTE 56%
Sponsored 16%
geolocation-based promotions
29% of respondents are looking Only 21% of respondents are they consider certain pricing
to invest in NFV or SDN. apparently looking to invest in strategies to be to operators’
With talk of NFV escalating G.fast technology this year, and businesses. It appears that
over the past 12 to 24 months, we asked our respondents to shared data tariffs are being
we decided it was worthy of indicate their level of agree- viewed as increasingly important
its own question in this year’s ment with some statements to future revenue generation,
operator landscape section regarding broadband access with 63% and 54% of our audi-
of the survey (you will find a and fibre to the home (FTTH). ence indicating the importance
dedicated NFV section later 54% of respondents agreed of shared data plans for single
on), to gauge how the industry that FTTH is the only means person/multi-device and shared
currently views the emerg- of achieving truly high-speed data plans for multi-person/
ing technology. We asked our broadband access, whereas multi-device respectively.
audience to state when they 50% of respondents believe The shared data tariff model
intend to roll out virtualised that copper infrastructure has pervaded the US market,
architecture or services into still has untapped potential in with most major operators
the live network, such as NFV. urban areas. Meanwhile, 38% offering family data and device
28% stated that this will occur of respondents believe that con- bundles. That trend began
in the next 12 months, if not sumers are more likely to select moving over to European, and
already rolled-out, while 53% a broadband provider based specifically the UK, markets in
will be looking at implementa- on download speeds instead of 2014, with the major telcos in
tion by 2017. 14% stated that competitive pricing methods. the UK now adopting plans for
2020 is the latest they’ll have Speaking of pricing, we asked families, and the individual with
deployed NFV technology by our audience to indicate, on a multiple SIM-based devices. This
2020, with just 4% stating no scale of one to five (one being model could be seen as effective
interest in doing so. the highest), how important means of upselling services »
On a scale of one to five (with one being strongly agree and five being strongly disagree), please give your response to the following
statements related to network sharing?
4% 4%
13% 13%
11% 10%
24%
34%
22% 21%
24% 23%
38% 30%
29%
4% 5% 6%
15% 15%
9%
15% 17%
38%
17%
30% 26%
35% 36%
31%
A solution to coverage Leads to higher service prices Disincentive to
issues in rural areas infrastructure investment
1 2 3 4 5
to entire households, instead of a set period of time. Taking that the service with most potential suggested the emerging voice
individual users therein. Shared one step further, 46% believe to deliver new revenue. 56% technology will be a priority for
data plans also give operators a application-specific pricing will believe that voice over LTE them over the next 12 months.
means of tackling multi-device be of importance to operators. (VoLTE) will be the most lucra- Alongside wifi-enabled calling, it
usage in a household, effectively Meanwhile, 35% of respondents tive service LTE has to offer, looks like there’s a new genera-
transferring restrictions on data actively stated the lack of 49% said LTE roaming will prove tion of calling services on the
usage from a device level to a importance of having data avail- to be a key new revenue stream, horizon for operators, in a bid
personal level. able for tradable usage, such as and 47% indicated that Internet to wrestle back customers from
Coming back to the question gifting. It appears there’s little of Things-based M2M commu- OTT communication providers.
about pricing strategies, a appetite for offering data as a nications will be a big money- By sourcing the means to hand
further 50% of respondents be- tradable commodity. maker for operators. Critical and calls over between LTE and
lieve that performance-based, On the subject of rev- emergency communications are wifi networks, operators could
on-demand pricing will be an ef- enue generation, we asked our unlikely to be a form of revenue potentially find themselves with
fective pricing strategy for gen- respondents to identify the that operators believe will be a means to solving dropped calls
erating new revenue. This can three most lucrative services hugely lucrative, with only 16% and the QoS challenges common
extend to boosting data speeds to be enabled by LTE, and the of respondents identifying it as a on traditional voice networks.
and capacity for a specific appli- overwhelming majority of our primary revenue source for LTE. In 2014, network sharing
cation, event or time period, if a respondents, 75%, identified On the subject of VoLTE, 46% again became a contentious
user anticipates high usage for video content streaming as of our operator respondents issue, with the UK Department
of Culture, Media and Sport We thought it best to get the tive in place, a number which is
Sponsor Comment
(DCMS) going back and forth opinion of the operator com- lower than expected consider- By Vincent Rousselet, VP,
on operator requirements for munity on a few network sharing ing last year’s responses. 19% Market Insight and Strategy, Amdocs
nationwide network sharing related points, with respondents expect to implement a big data There is a fresh focus on customer
in Britain. After a three-week asked to share their level of strategy at some point this year, experience among operators around
the world. While in the past it was
consultation period on how new agreement. 65% of respon- with an additional 16% looking approached from a functional, siloed
rules should be imposed on the dents agree that it is a solution to implement big data in 2016 perspective, mainly from the customer
major telcos to ensure better benefitting customers, with 69% or beyond. care organisation, today all areas inside
an operator, such as network manage-
mobile connectivity in rural agreeing that it does indeed On the whole there’s a great
ment, marketing, customer care or in-
not-spots, a spot of controversy provide a solution to rural cover- cause for optimism in today’s novation – are beginning to understand
ensued with the recommenda- age issues specifically. On the telecoms industry, when we that a multidimensional approach to
tion that operators be obliged other hand, 62% of all operators consider some of the mon- customer experience is key to building a
sustainable, competitive advantage.
to enforce national roaming, a who respondent believe that etisation opportunities being
Telecoms.com Annual Survey bears
plan which was of course fierce- it’s a policy where only MVNOs served up by the maturation of out the emergence of this new world of
ly opposed by the operator and smaller operators stand to technologies like LTE. Having customer experience in a striking man-
community. Upon the conclu- gain, and 41% believe that, if looked at the broader operator ner: competitive pressure is mounting
between operators (a top priority for
sion of the consultation period, anything, national roaming disin- landscape, it’s time we take a
64% of respondents) and from internet
it appeared the DCMS came to centives future investment into deep dive into some specific companies (59%). Lower prices and the
a “landmark agreement” (their network infrastructure. Whether areas of interest. In the rest of cost of technology (60%) – both rolling
words) with the big four telcos or not national roaming may the report you’ll find our insight out the new and servicing the old – cre-
ate a challenging scissor effect, with
in the UK, which skirted around lead to a more or less competi- into some of the biggest areas
revenue losing ground to costs. In order
the idea of national roaming, tive market is where opinion is relevant to today’s industry, fea- to succeed, a common thread has to be
without actually enforcing it in split, with 37% of operators turing BSS, LTE, NFV, security, woven across the operator: competitive
any way. agreeing that competition will content and devices. customer experience is that thread.
To be differentiating, customer expe-
decrease, 35% disagreeing and It’s fair to say that there’s rience must be holistic. It has to be built
effectively saying competition a lot of opportunity for the into exciting new products and services,
will increase, and 33% staying telecoms market in 2015 and and retro-fitted in the legacy portfolio.
It needs to incorporate dynamic net-
neutral on the matter. beyond, as the technologies
work configurations to ensure superior
To conclude the operator we once considered emerging quality of experience (QoE). It must be
landscape section of this year’s become mature and begin deliv- delivered intelligently to the end-cus-
expect to survey, we asked our audience ering new revenue generation tomer, with the help of big data analyt-
ics. An experience that is personalised
about one of the more fashion- opportunities. Realising the po-
implement a able trends of 2014: big data. It tential capabilities of new, and
and contextualised, on-line and off-line,
will be the one that customers actively
big data strategy appears that increased big data existing, networking infrastruc- come back to. Inside the operator’s
organisation, the network department
at some point adoption has stalled somewhat
since last year’s survey. In 2014,
ture is sure to be a key step for
telcos looking to embrace the
should be just as concerned about the
this year, with 46% of respondents had imple- evolving technological and com-
company’s Net Promoter Score as it is
about dropped calls.
an additional mented a big data initiative petitive landscape. Hopefully Here at Amdocs, we’re excited that
the industry is increasingly recognising
for either internal or external this report will help you more
16% looking to purposes, with an additional fully understand the emerging
the critical role of customer experience
in accelerating business value. As we
implement big 22% looking to implement an trends out there. better understand the “what”, we can
work together on the “how”: how to
data in 2016 or initiative at some point in 2014.
This year, 47% of respondents
We hope you find this year’s
survey useful as you look make this multi-dimensional experience
bss
supplier. So partnering with Personalised, context aware offers (e.g. Geolocation or usage-based offers)
trusted OTT brands is increas-
ingly being viewed as the best
way for operators to derive at
least some revenue from activity 29% 34% 22% 9% 6%
bss
in technology; it needs to be
properly integrated before it With one being strongly agree and five being strongly disagree, please indicate your agreement with the
following statements regarding your existing BSS
becomes materially useful.
Conversely less than 40%
of respondents agreed with 11% 28% 40% 14% 7%
the other three statements,
My current BSS solution allows us to get new services to market quickly enough
which concerned how effective
respondents think their current
BSS solution is in helping them
create new products and get 10% 29% 42% 13% 6%
them to market, so there’s room We have an over-reliance on our existing BSS vendor to set up offers
for improvement there. and services for us
Our final set of questions
concerned the growing trend of
moving to virtualized solutions,
28% 35% 26% 7% 4%
specifically virtualized BSS. 28%
of respondents said they plan to
System integration complexity is a time consuming challenge which can
slow down new services being delivered
move to a virtualised BSS and
while 43% said they preferred to
incrementally upgrade their ex-
isting BSS, a significant minority 22% 36% 31% 7% 4%
said they want to virtualize. A centralised offer catalogue is helpful for delivering billable services
The responses to our next
question implied there may be
a fair bit of overlap between
13% 26% 40% 14% 7%
the categories covered in the
previous one, as nearly two Our existing BSS solution allows us to differentiate our product offerings
thirds of respondents revealed from our competitors
they either already have or are
planning to implement a virtu- 1 2 3 4 5
LTE
Performance anxiety
In January, the Global That represented an annual Ovum’s World Cellular Informa- 30% of respondents believe
increase of over 25%, and tion Service, penetration of LTE less than 25% of existing 3G
Mobile Suppliers
indicates the rate at which LTE service uptake in the UK sits at customers will be covered
Association published
is still growing for a number 23% of the population, or 14.9 by LTE, 33% of respondents
figures detailing the of service providers across million users. With 80.8 million stated 25-50%, 28% believed
growth in LTE network the world. Rolling out the subscriptions in the UK, there 50-90% will be covered, with
deployments throughout network infrastructure is only could still be some way to go only 9% believing that more
2014. According to the beginning; one of the key before LTE could be considered than 90% of 3G subscribers
challenges across the sector is to have reached maturity. will be covered by the end of
the report, 360 global
achieving both coverage and In this year’s survey, we the year.
operators have now
penetration. asked respondents what Our respondents were asked
commercially launched While 4G services have been percentage of existing 3G to identify the two primary
LTE networks, across 124 available for years, LTE is still subscribers they think LTE motivating factors for deploy-
countries. in relative infancy. According to will cover by the end of 2015. ing, or expanding upon, an
LTE network. 86% stated that
meeting growing consumer
What percentage of your existing 3G subscribers do you think will be demands for data-driven
covered by LTE by the end of 2015? services is the main reason
for investing more into LTE
development. This appeared to
be the overriding thought from
30%
Less than 25% most respondents, with 44%
highlighting LTE’s ability to
ease the introduction of new,
media rich services. This seems
to suggest a growing emphasis
25% to 50% 33% on content and media delivery
for consumers. Following on
from the rather data-centric
viewpoints, 41% of respondents
stated that migrating towards
50% to 90% 28% a ubiquitous network technol-
ogy is a priority, and 29%
of respondents believe that
voice over LTE (VoLTE) and
enhanced call quality is a big
motivator.
More than 90% 9%
Incidentally, VoLTE is one
of the biggest priorities for
respondents in 2015, with
45% stating they intend to
invest and implement in the
calling technology this year.
Only LTE network expansion
What do you consider to be the main motivating factors for deploying or expanding an LTE network?
(Please select two)
ranked higher as a priority for into its new suite of iPhones. 30% looking at LTE Advanced
our respondents, with 65%. Meanwhile, China Mobile and (LTE-A) this year. 2014 saw LTE-
In 2014, VoLTE came under KPN introduced international A being rolled out by numer-
the spotlight when a number VoLTE roaming capabilities, ous operators, including China
of high profile global opera- illustrating the growing number Mobile, Ooredoo, Rogers, EE
tors began trials and rollouts of operators across the world and more. Seen as a potential
of the HD voice service. that are actively pursuing the midpoint between 4G and the
AT&T, T-Mobile USA, du and technology. yet to be defined 5G, LTE-A
Telefónica Germany rolled On the same question, 38% trials based on carrier aggrega-
out live services, while on the of respondents identified small tion technology have been
devices side Apple decided to cell and HetNet activity as the reported to achieve enormous
build in VoLTE compatibility main priority for 2015, with mobile broadband speeds in »
LTE
12%
eyes of survey respondents. With the growing adoption
But what are the primary of over the top (OTT) services
challenges associated with by consumers, whether that’s
31% making the vision and potential communication services like
of VoLTE a reality in the near Skype or Whatsapp, or media
What is the biggest challenge future? We’ve already identi- services like Netflix, operators
related to rolling out VoLTE? fied that achieving a sufficient are beginning to look at the
level of LTE network coverage performance of OTT services
will be one of the first hurdles as one of the more important
operators and vendors need to determinants of LTE network
clear, which is something that performance. 53% ranked OTT
31% of respondents identified service performance as one or
34% 19%
and agreed with. The most two out of five for importance,
frequently offered response, with one being the extremely
however, was achieving a con- important. Consequently, we
sistent quality of service be- asked our participants how
LTE network coverage tween VoLTE and legacy 2G/3G customers usually react if an
voice systems, which 34% of OTT service falters or becomes
RAN integration with IP network our respondents identified. problematic. The natural incli-
RAN/IP integration and cross- nation, according to our audi-
QoS between VoLTE and legacy networks. network operator roaming ence, is for customers to blame
capabilities were also identified the network if any service
Roaming as substantial challenges by delivery failures occur, which
our respondents, receiving 19% 51% of respondents indicated.
Other
and 12% of votes respectively. 34% of respondents indicated
One of the clear trends that customers usually report
the field of over 200 Mbps. So, with VoLTE being on the emerging from the results the service itself. The user de-
Perhaps less representative of radar of so many companies, we so far points towards LTE vice (8%) and customer error
real-life usage, some reports asked our respondents what its service quality being one of (7%) each received a smaller
from the lab have claimed to most compelling value proposi- the biggest considerations proportion of votes by the
achieve more than 4 Gbps, tion is. Perhaps surprisingly, for operators so far. We asked respondents.
which could be seen as more of voice quality is not the primary our audience to tell us what The emphasis we can see
an indicator of potential than factor driving VoLTE investment feature was most important here, however, is that operators
achievable, realistic mobile and development, garnering when evaluating the perfor- are under intense scrutiny by a
broadband speeds. only 13.3% of respondents’ mance of LTE networks. 85% large portion of users to deliver
At this stage, it appears votes. On the other hand, 28% of respondents said that data and manage a high calibre,
LTE Broadcast technology is of respondents indicated that throughput and uplink/down- always-available service over
a nice-to-have rather than voice service performance is link speeds were of high im- their network. This reinforces
a priority, with only 12% of its top value proposition. Mean- portance, ranking them one or the recurrent trend being
respondents looking at it in while, introducing new multime- two out of five. 78% of respon- observed across the majority
2015. dia services (20%), replacing dents, meanwhile, said that of questions in this section of
NF V / sdn
What do you see as the primary benefits of network virtualization? (Please order with one being the highest priority and six being lowest priority)
4% 3%
5% 5% 3% 2%
6% 6%
8%
36%
34% 31%
18% 21%
Opex savings 20% Capex savings Scalability
4% 2% 3% 10%
8%
8% 16%
22%
9% 9%
34%
Reduced time Service
Portability Vendor
22% to market 11%
/Deployment Independence
for new services 25%
Flexibility
25%
33%
30% 29%
1 2 3 4 5 6
Which of the following statements most accurately reflects your company’s network virtualization, NFV or SDN position?
(Operators only, please select one)
from the movement of data compelling value proposition, level of interoperability of vendor
on the physical infrastructure. which is indicated by the narrow product and solution offerings in
The two technologies (SDN and margins separating the most a wider multi-vendor stack. This
NFV) are highly complementary commonly identified benefits. could be seen as a realigned bal-
and provide a compelling value On the other hand, the value ance of power in the vendor/telco
proposition for carriers when de- proposition of NFV could be so relationship, where operators
ployed together, which is a view great that a plethora of benefits know their requirements and ven-
agreed upon by 68% of survey is quite befitting of its burgeon- dors are compelled to provide a
respondents. 16% believe they ing status as an incredibly solution which can easily integrate
are purely independent of each disruptive technology. itself with other external equip-
of respondents
other, while the remaining 16% In the same question respon- ment providers in the industry.
believe they are, in fact, mutually dents indicated that vendor Naturally, this begs the have either already
exclusive and cannot be deployed independence is of lowest prior- question of what will happen launched NFV or
without each other. ity, with 30% of all respondents to hardware-based revenue
Survey respondents were ranking it as a four, five or six out streams if fewer pieces of
SDN in the live
asked to prioritise which of of six. This would likely indicate physical network equipment are network, are
the key functional benefits
of NFV is the most compel-
a certain level of indifference
to the possibility of maintaining
being sold. Operators may not
conduct a complete overhaul of
trialling, or will
ling. Respondents agreed that a vendor-neutral network, with purpose-built hardware to a vir- launch in 2015
scalability (68% ranked one or a further 29% of respondents tualized, NFV-based infrastruc-
two out of five), opex (67%), ranking vendor independence as ture for various reasons.
capex (65%) and reducing time a neutral three out of five. Currently, traffic is routed
to market when deploying new One of the most prevalent across existing physical infra-
services (64%) were a high pri- philosophies generally associated structure, and most operators
ority. There is the probability of with the virtualization movement are expected to introduce NFV
much confusion in the market is referred to as “openness”. gradually in specific segments
surrounding NFV, and its most Openness alludes to an enhanced of their network. This could »
NF V / sdn
herald a new hybrid network in- today’s network functions can most of the network is software- towards software based revenue
frastructure utilising a combina- be performed to scale on an based, vendors will have to models, the emphasis will shift
tion of purpose-built hardware NFV-based infrastructure, the redefine their revenue models. to service licensing instead of
as well as NFV-based, virtual- future of revenue generation Given the state of the technol- hardware deployment. By taking
ized infrastructure. Some func- for vendors could be fundamen- ogy today, there will be smooth a software-based approach, op-
tions may continue to exist on tally redefined. Infrastructure migration to NFV at a reason- erators will still be forking out for
physical hardware, due to their vendors traditionally generate able pace that is dictated by the the service from a vendor, who
performance intensive nature, their revenues by selling physical readiness of operators and the is therefore able to offset the
such as IPSEC and compression. bits of kit that sit in the network. maturity of the technology. inevitable decline in traditional
At some point, when most of When there comes a time that Theoretically, as vendors move hardware-based revenue models.
The NFV industry is still
young, despite the marketing
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge in bringing network virtualization projects to fruition? buzz, the rate of LTE deploy-
(Please order with one being the most challenging and five being the least). ments and general innovation.
This rapid rate of technological
advancement and mass market
24% 42% 27% 5% 2% use of smartphones is leading
Immaturity of available products to the frequently referenced
data boom. As a result, opera-
tors are faced with increased
17% 41% 33% 7% 2%
pressure to adhere to the
Many orchestration technologies and stacks to select from demands of their customers
in an environment of grow-
20% 35% 35% 8% 2% ing competition brought in by
Managing, orchestrating and realising the potential of virtualized network functions (VNFs) competitor innovation, and new
market entrants such as over
the top (OTT) providers.
20% 33% 36% 9% 2%
When asked how NFV will
Other business or technology priorities
likely benefit telcos from a
business angle, 63% of all
16% 36% 36% 9% 3% respondents agreed that the
A lack of resources available to suitably evaluate options technology will enable them to
be more scalable and flexible
NF V / sdn
What technologies are you planning to deploy in the next 2-4 years? Sponsor Comment
Mallik Tatipamula, VP, Service Provider
Solutions, F5
The results from this section of the sur-
Micro-segmentation 33%
vey certainly deliver some much needed
clarity for CSPs investigating NFV. The
value proposition of reduced operating
Containers 22% and capital expenditure, increased scal-
ability and responsiveness for telcos is
compelling motivation to begin looking
at network virtualization in more detail.
Hypervisors 30% So many operators have indicated
that 2015 will be the year they begin
rolling out NFV, and considering the
term has only been around for little over
L2-L3 Technologies 42%
two years, it’s incredible to consider the
momentum being generated around the
industry. What we, as a collective, need
helping to make rapid develop- indicate they believe industry respondents. Billing platforms to continue working on is identifying and
exploiting “easy win” opportunities and
ments in available solutions. groups are an ideal way for and OSS came second with 45%
helping operators take the first steps
The Open Platform for NFV keeping up with the most recent of responses, while virtualizing into NFV. We need to enable operators
(OPNFV) group started at industry activity and develop- the evolved packet core (the core to introduce NFV into parts of their
the Linux Foundation in late ments, while 54% agreed network of LTE systems) was the network infrastructure which are non-
2014, and is dedicated towards that it’s possible to gauge and third highest priority for opera- mission critical like for M2M traffic.
By creating common architectural
defining and standardising a monitor competitor activity tors, polling 36% of votes from
frameworks the whole industry can work
common architectural frame- by actively participating with our respondents. from, we will be able to further acceler-
work for NFV, upon which all industry groups. 42% of respondents are plan- ate the development of the technology.
solutions can be deployed, When considering open- ning to deploy additional layer Also, providing a smooth migration path
thus creating a ubiquitous and source technologies, for both 2 & 3 technology to support an through enablement of hybrid network
infrastructures will encourage more
interoperable platform. Close SDN and NFV, such as Open- NFV infrastructure in the next
CSPs to embrace NFV. That’s where a
to 40 vendors and operators Stack and OpenDaylight, 40% 2-4 years. 33% of respondents lot of the industry bodies are excelling at
are currently part of the proj- of respondents believe despite are targeting micro-segmen- the moment, and that will continue to be
ect, which works closely with being ready for deployment tation, 30% will look to deploy the main area where we’ll see progress
the ETSI NFV ISG to define more customisation opportuni- additional hypervisor capa- originating from in the next 12 months.
Centralising points of control, accelerat-
its objectives and deliver a ties are required to fulfil their bilities, and 22% are targeting
ing the development of open and standard
tangible outcome. potential. 37% believe they’re containers as a priority for NFV APIs for orchestration and management of
Meanwhile, from a business not ready for deployment, 14% infrastructure. virtual network infrastructure independent
perspective, 53% of respondents stated that they’re not sure While there are some major of vendors, and introducing efficient,
indicated that there are other when open-source will be a vi- challenges to overcome before streamlined and automated methods
for delivering consumer and enterprise
business and technology priori- able option, with only 9% stat- the real potential of NFV
services will be a key milestone for telcos
ties over NFV implementation ing that it is already mature can be realised, the industry looking to achieve new revenue generating
right now, and 52% said they and ready for deployment. is rapidly moving in unison capabilities through network virtualization.
simply don’t have the resources Finally, we asked our audience towards commonly agreed on Clearly, operators are investigating new
available to suitably evaluate the about the early use case oppor- implementation platforms for means of differentiating themselves from
their competitors, and that differentiation
options available to them. tunities for NFV, and specifically the technology. The advantag-
needs to start at an infrastructural level.
On the subject of industry which functions they would be es and gains of deploying an The truly open, interoperable and bespoke
working groups, respondents looking to virtualize first. The NFV-enhanced architecture are nature of NFV will be one of the key en-
were also asked to share their top two responses appear to be becoming increasingly evident, ablers for such a change to occur.
views on industry partnership leaning towards an emphasis and every indication from our When it comes to telco network infra-
structure, the game is changing, and both
ecosystems, such as the ETSI on media and content manage- survey compounds the view
vendors and CSPs need to be collaborat-
NFV ISG, Open Networking ment, with virtualization content that 2015 will be the year ing to make this evolution possible across
Foundation and OPNFV. The delivery networks (CDN) gaining where the telecoms industry the board.
majority of respondents, 63%, exactly 50% of votes from goes big on NFV. n
securit y
Security matters
As communications become For as long as there have been and infrastructure it has never while there was no clear leader,
networks there have been been more important for them over a third of them reported
increasingly data-centric,
security issues and as they to understand the security incidents involving either
while at the same time
grow, diversify and become landscape. malware or fraud. While it’s
the telecoms industry more open, so they become In the security section of good to see that a quarter of
moves to technologies potentially more vulnerable the 2015 Telecoms.com Annual respondents experienced no
developed by the IT sector to malicious attacks. The LTE Industry Survey we sought to security breaches in the past
such as virtualization, era means the telecoms and uncover the industry’s views year, a similar proportion did
IT worlds are colliding, and on security in general, how experience a DDoS attack and/
the full array of security
while this creates numerous they perceive their current or a breach resulting from staff
concerns come to the fore.
opportunities, it could also security environment, and what negligence.
This section of our survey leave telecoms players more measures they think need to be While crimes such as fraud
looks at respondents exposed, let alone the critical implemented to maximise their and theft can occur anywhere,
attitudes to these threats infrastructure they support. security. telcos might have previ-
and explores which In the last year alone there Our first question concerned ously considered themselves
seemed to be a constant stream security breaches already relatively insulated from
measures are being used to
of high profile security breaches experienced by respondents’ cyber-attacks such as malware
counter them.
such as the Sony data grab, companies. With 2014 having and DDoS. With the collision of
OTT image leaks from iCloud been identified by the most the two worlds, however, that is
and Snapchat, not to men- recent ENISA threat landscape clearly no longer the case, but
tion continued disquiet about report as “The year of the data the good news is that 75% of
state snooping in the wake of breach,” respondents were respondents revealed any ser-
the Snowden leaks. As telcos asked to select all breaches vice outage they experienced
increasingly look to partner their companies had experi- as a result of the breach lasted
with IT players on both product enced in the past year, and less than a day.
Which of the following security breaches has your company experienced in the past year?
Malware 37%
DDoS 29%
IP theft 14%
Fraud 35%
None 26%
Other 2%
1 2 3 4 5
On a scale of one to five (with one being the the largest and five being the lowest), what is the largest area of security concern for you today?
4% 3% 5% 3%
8% 8% 10% 15% 12%
29% 23%
21% 39%
21%
29%
38% 32%
33%
38% 29%
Inability to monitor Customer data and Digital products and services Network infrastructure
threats in real-time personal information
3% 13% 9% 5%
9% 11% 17%
33%
22%
20%
23%
35% 32%
32% 36%
Critical systems LTE roaming Advanced Persistent Threats
1 2 3 4 5
To get a sense of how they these security concerns, helping telcos to manage their
are approaching this evolving se- specifically who they rely on to own security.
curity landscape we next asked manage the security of their Within the broad category of
our respondents to tell us which network hardware assets. Only network hardware assets, we
were their largest areas of se- a tiny minority of respondents next sought a bit more granu-
curity concern. From a choice of confessed to taking no specific larity regarding which specific
of respondents
seven categories, ‘customer data security measures for their type of hardware respondents
and personal information’ was network hardware and 48% put the highest priority on see customer
identified as the biggest area of said they mainly manage securing. While LTE roaming data and personal
concern, although ‘critical sys-
tems’ and ‘inability to monitor
security in-house, with some
vendor support.
had not been considered a
major security concern, an all-IP
information as a
threats in real time’ were also While some respondents rely LTE network was identified by primary security
flagged up as important issues.
In contrast ‘LTE roaming’ is not
entirely on the network vendor
for hardware security and a
69% of respondents as a high
priority for security, as was
concern
currently considered a major significant minority outsource cloud-based storage. Meanwhile
security concern. their network hardware secu- less than 50% of respondents
Our next question ad- rity to a specialist third party, considered VoLTE, small cells
dressed measures respondents the biggest business opportu- and handsets to be of high
are putting in place to address nity in this sector clearly lies in security priority. »
securit y
Sponsor Comment
What would you say are the three main challenges you face in terms of managing device/mobile security?
By Kudelski Security
mobile content
Convergent strategies
In the last few years Respondents were asked to
rate five key benefits of OTT With one being the highest and five being the lowest, please rate
there has been a shift the following benefits of OTT partnerships in terms of their value
partnerships on a scale of
in operator attitudes to operators.
one to five, where one was
towards over-the-top (OTT) extremely valuable and five
service providers from not at all. Last year, improved 31% 41% 21% 4% 3%
defensive to collaborative, customer retention was consid- Competitive advantage against other operators
and this trend continued ered the most important bene-
fit with 51% of respondents rat-
to show in the responses.
ing it the most valuable, while
The rift that has 22% 42% 25% 8% 3%
competitive advantage against
historically existed other operators was rated the Incremental revenue (through increased ARPU)
between the two has begun second most important with
to close and they have 44% of respondents ranking
increasingly started to it the highest. This year, these
two benefits topped the table 19% 37% 32% 9% 3%
seize the opportunities of
again but in reverse order, but Incremental revenue (through OTT payments)
partnering. Of course OTTs
also a higher percentage of
have had a huge impact on respondents gave one or two
operators’ revenues but for both.
it has become quite clear Consistent with last year’s 13% 30% 36% 15% 5%
mobile content
Which company type do you believe is in the strongest competitive With one being strongly agree and five being strongly disagree,
position to move towards multiplay service offerings? please state your agreement with the following statements
relating to multiplay offerings.
20% 20%
22% 37% 26% 11% 4%
activity. Recent examples of selected multi-play as one of Pay TV is the most important element in a multiplay offering
some aggressive acquisition three key means of competi-
activity to create more con- tive differentiation against
verged offerings have included competition in their market.
18% 37% 30% 11% 4%
such as French cable group At 26%, this figure is up 13%
Altice purchasing mobile op- from last year’s survey indi- Content availability across a range of devices is best
erator SFR as well as fixed-line cating a growing awareness of managed by a mobile operator
provider Portugal Telecom, the importance of being able
while in the UK ex-monopoly to offer more than one type
telco BT is attempting to re- of service.
13% 30% 34% 17% 6%
enter the mobile market by We asked the respondents
Mobile service is the least ‘sticky’ element in a
acquiring EE. Across the pond then to rate a number of
multiplay strategy
AT&T’s pending acquisition for statements relating to multi-
satellite broadcaster DirecTV play offerings on a scale
is just one example of what of one to five where one 15% 26% 33% 19% 7%
has been happening in the US showed strong agreement
Domestic wifi is more important in a multiplay strategy
for some time now. with the claim and five strong
than the mobile network
We asked our respondents disagreement. It is clear from
to tell us who in the industry the results that operators fa-
they believe is in the best posi- vour vendors with integrated
tion to start offering multi- offerings over those who have 28% 38% 25% 7% 2%
play packages: operators, fixed a traditional, narrow focus.
Multiplay operators will have achieved significant advantage
line providers or content/TV This is a trend not only driven over pure play operators within five years
providers. Respondents over- by multi-play’s growing promi-
whelmingly vouched in favour nence, but also the industry
of operators. becoming ever more software 1 2 3 4 5
www.telecoms.com
For more information please contact Tim Banham on
+(0)20 701 75218 or email tim.banham@telecoms.com
de vices
Smart moves
It wasn’t so long ago that Now that we’re in the 4G era, Essentially we’re talking about ages your groceries for you,
and the touchscreen smart- pretty much anything being including automating your
the telecoms industry
phone market has rapidly fitted with some kind of compu- online shopping and maybe
called mobile devices
matured to the point of near tational ability and the means even offering up recipe sug-
“terminals” and they were commoditisation (apart from to connect to the internet gestions based on its contents.
provided by network Apple), what we now count as – something that is clearly pos- Apart from giving futurologists
companies in order to a connected device has rapidly sible given modern component something else to evangelise
help sell kit. With the 3G expanded to include, essentially, miniaturisation. But the key, and sceptics something else
everything. We even call it “In- and as yet largely unanswered, to denounce, the smart fridge
era came the expectation
ternet of Everything” or more question concerns what the served to illustrate that novelty
that devices would be
commonly “Internet of Things” commercial implications of this alone is unlikely to be the key
much more than just voice abbreviated to “IoT”. phenomenon is; i.e. how do you to monetising IoT.
terminals, but it took the IoT is one of those buzz- make money out of it? This brings us onto another
touchscreen revolution words that everyone involved The early cliché associ- buzzword abbreviation often
catalysed by Apple and in the industry wants to be ated with IoT was the “smart conflated with IoT: M2M,
seen to be all over, but of which fridge”, an internet connected which stands for machine-to-
Google to truly make that
definitions are hard to come by. fridge that somehow man- machine and refers to devices
dream a reality.
communicating with each
other largely without human
By 2020, what proportion of your revenue do you expect to come intervention, thus greatly
from IoT/M2M-based services? increasing the potential for
automation and autonomous
systems. It’s now thought by
34%
many that this is the area
most likely to yield commer-
cial opportunities in the short
term at least.
26% The first question in the de-
vices section of the Telecoms.
com Annual Industry Survey
21%
2015 simply asked respondents
to indicate how much of a
priority IoT/M2M will be to their
organisation this year. Just
13% over half (54%) of respondents
said they think it will be rela-
tively high priority, indicating
an awareness of its potential,
6% but also limited immediate
commitment.
When we looked a bit
further ahead and asked what
proportion of their revenue
0-5% 10-20% 20-30% 30-50% More than respondents expect to come
50% from IoT-based services,
de vices
T
he Informer enjoyed the company of users to download and use our BBM
the great and good of UK telecoms service, Apple does not allow BlackBerry
Join the debate
commentary over a glass of wine or Android users to download Apple’s
A round-up of recent reader comments from the
recently and conversation soon turned to the iMessage messaging service,” he lamented. industry-leading website Telecoms.com.
Internet of Things. There can surely be no “Netflix, which has forcefully advocated for
greater pleasure in life than arguing the toss carrier neutrality, has discriminated against Why is Ofcom only specifying coverage for voice
over the meaning of a buzzword with a group BlackBerry customers by refusing to make and not data? This target does not reflect the
of like-minded professionals. its streaming movie service available to reality of what customers need their mobile
Since it’s considered inevitable that them. Many other applications providers service to deliver.
everything will be connected eventually, similarly offer service only to iPhone and Robert B on “Ofcom confirms 90% geographical
IoT is merely a name given to an organic Android users. coverage obligation for all UK operators”
process beyond anyone’s control and “Therefore, neutrality must be
abstract pontification regarding the point mandated at the application and content
Fantastic news if true. We need variety and not
of it is merely that. As ever, it ultimately layer if we truly want a free, open and
just QC to dominate the market by letting them
comes down to how to make money from non-discriminatory internet. All wireless suffocate their competitors through patent law-
it and, if the evolution of the internet itself broadband customers must have the suits and by letting them suffocate innovation of
is anything to go by, we are likely at the ability to access any lawful applications technologies they don’t want to deploy. Hopefully
beginning of a protracted land grab as and content they choose, and applications/ Samsung have overcome their power-consumption
entrepreneurs and investors salivate over content providers must be prohibited from related problems now.
the presumed benefits of being a first mover. discriminating based on the customer’s
MikKar on “Samsung to snub Qualcomm
This is where we get to the subdivisions, mobile operating system.” Snapdragon in next Galaxy S – report”
as the self-anointed seek to carve the In essence, Chen seems to be asking
nascent market up. “Alright, I’ll take for it to be made illegal to choose which
OFCOM created EE when allowing T-mobile and
enterprise, you have embedded and we’ll let platforms you want to develop for, which
Orange to merge. This is full circle from when
them worry about devices,” you can imagine is remarkable. Leaving aside how difficult
they made Vodafone sell Orange after it bought
the secret cabal of people who actually run this would be to enforce, and even if it
Mannesmann Mobilfunk which owned Orange.
the world saying to each other over a fondue worked how little effort would be put into Notice the anomaly here? It refused a Brit
in Davos this week. compulsory apps, the precedent of using the company from owning too much but allowed two
Some of the most amusing experiments law to intervene in such an open commercial foreign companies to merge to create the largest
have concerned devices, precisely because process is deeply ominous. mobile operator in UK.
nobody’s got a clue what will prove popular. Developers don’t produce apps for the
The Informer committed the cardinal IoT BlackBerry platform because not many The UK government handling of 3G licences also
faux pas of mentioning the ‘smart fridge’, nearly bankrupted BT which had to sell O2 to
people use it. Yes, there is a Catch 22 here
Telefonica, but Orange and T-Mobile, supported
leading to much exasperation and burying of and it’s hard to gain users without developer
by their respective governments, were bailed out.
heads in hands. It is surely a milestone in the support, but from a consumer perspective
It’s a pattern over most industries, sell off our
evolution of a new market when it starts to there are at least two sources of pretty much
utilities to foreign companies and squeeze the
acquire its own clichés. any mobile app or service they might want.
home grown.
But the smart fridge serves a cautionary Comparisons with the net neutrality issue
Duncan MacPhail on “Ofcom moves to contain
purpose: we can all appreciate the seem at best misguided, not least because
BT’s ambitions”
novelty of a fridge riddled with sensors the smartphone sector is not regulated and
that automatically puts an order in devices are not viewed as utilities, and public
with Sainsbury’s as soon as your milk comments such as these come over as a sign As 3GPP is currently studying LAA in Release 13
supply starts to dwindle, but following a of understandable desperation. (close, Feb 2016), this statement seems to imply
moment’s reflection we get Terminator-like Anyway, back to the IoT chat, as we that both the operator (TMO-US) and vendor will
be offering pre-standard solutions – as will the
premonitions of our Fridge going rogue and debated how to make money from it a
handset vendor
insisting we east nothing but Quorn for a certain inevitability became unavoidable:
week and, more importantly, conclude we’d defining a buzzword with another buzzword. Kit Kilgour on “Ericsson adds unlicensed spectrum
be unlikely to pay for the privilege. Having observed it will be hard to use IoT to support to small cells”
BlackBerry CEO John Chen recently wrote create hardware margin and that consumers
a blog in which he urged legislators to have come to expect internet services to be
extend their discussions on net neutrality – free of charge, we concluded one probably
compelling internet providers not to favour source of revenue derived from IoT will be
one source or type of traffic over another the exponential growth in information we
– to apps. derive about end users. In other words: Big
“Unlike BlackBerry, which allows iPhone Data. Problem solved – not. n
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