Annual Review
It’s the end of the year. Did we get anything right in 2006? Let’s have a look back and see…
ith our publisher having afforded us the luxury of a joint December/ January issue, the Mobile Europe year begins, as is traditional, in FEBRUARY. And the top story for us? Mobile Search.
We announced, “Motorola to Launch Yahoo! Ready Applications Pre-Installed on New Motorola Handsets.”
Motorola and Yahoo! announced they will launch pre-installed Yahoo! ready applications on Motorola mobile devices globally in the coming months. Delivering on a commitment between the two companies to bring Yahoo!’s leading products and services to consumers worldwide, the devices will provide consumers access to their Yahoo! services.”
And also…
“Yahoo! Partners With Nokia”
Yahoo! has signed a deal with Nokia to launch a service called Go Mobile in ten countries across Asia and Europe. Consumers purchasing select Nokia 6630, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681 and Nokia N70 devices will receive Yahoo! Go Mobile pre-installed. Not only that but Motorola and Google announced an alliance to enable users access to Google on Motorola handsets.
Motorola will integrate a Google icon onto select devices so that users can connect directly to Google with one click. The mass-market, “internet-optimised” handsets will be distributed from early 2006 to select Motorola customers worldwide.”
But who’s this? Why it’s Mike Brady, senior director of business development at enterprise search company FAST warning that
“getting into bed with branded search companies is a risky business”.
Brady said, “The mobile industry must seriously think through the implications. Google isn’t just a search engine— it’s now a global brand right up there with Coca-Cola. By partnering with Google, Motorola is allowing its own brand to be diluted — it might seem a smart move in the short-term, but this will definitely impede future business models and revenue potential…”
Oh yeah Mike? tell that to Vodafone which, a few days later, as we reported in our March issue, tied up a deal with Goodle to integrate Google in its live! portal. But wait – only recently we hear rumours all is not well in that relationship, so perhaps Mr Brady was right all along…
Also making a splash in our February issue was Palm, whose new European boss Roy Bedlow was promising to concentrate on 3G and broadening the range OS Palm works with. There were also results of two mobile TV trials in the UK, the start of a story that would come to dominate in 2006.
“Operators running two mobile TV trials, using different technologies have both claimed positive results from user surveys in the UK. One trial, being run by BT and Virgin Mobile uses DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) frequency, while the other, being hosted by O2 in Oxford, is based on DVB-H.”
Also making a splash in this bumper issue for news was multiple litigant Visto, kicking off another typically quiet year by taking on Microsoft, of all people.
MARCH
We’ve been to Barcelona. We’ve just about shaken off the hangover and we’ve hurled together our March issue in quick time before we forgot everything we saw there. Lead story is on Instant Messaging, and the GSMA’s assembling of all the talents to announce their plan to interoperate on IM. And didn’t they look thrilled?
(see pic below).
The motivation was to open up the market in the same way SMS interoperability had done.
We said, “At present there are a number of ways to interconnect communities, including SIP/SIMPLE, IMPS SSP and XMPP. Different operators have adopted different approaches to their own technical implementations, but if one takes this announcement at face value, the desire is now there to standardise at least on a common user proposition, and ensure interoperability.”
At the show itself, IM vendor OZ Communications’ ceo Skuli Mogensen told us it was a decision clearly made “out of fear”.
Apart from IM, HSDPA was in the news, as networks were going down all over the place, many of them trials, but all of them a clear sign of intent that 2006 was going to be HSDPA’s year.
Also starting out on the long hard road was Vodafone, the victim of a boardroom row represented as a battle for control between the old guard and the new. CMO Petre Bamford leaves, Sir Chris Gent resigns as life president, and Lord Maclaurin releases an open letter expressing his distress at the reports of unrest. Things didn’t exactly settle down over the rest of the year.
Away from the personalities, Vodafone made significant steps, partnering with Huawei, Nokia and Google in various ways, heralding several trends for the year ahead. (Closer relationship to open OS hadndset platforms, low cost handsets and internet companies)
APRIL
It being obligatory to quote TS Eliot and his “April is the cruellest month” in reviews like this, did Mobile Europe produce any evidence? Well there was the latest in the nasty battle between Alfa Telecom and Telenor for control of Vimpelcom and Kyivstar.
We said, “Altimo proposed that Vimpelcom pay $5 billion cash for Kyivstar. It made this deal conditional on one or other of the parties buying the other’s shares in Vimpelcom. Telenor Executive Vice President and Head of Eastern/Central Europe, Jan Edvard Thygesen, said, “We are not prepared to sell Kyivstar to VimpelCom unless there is a structure in place that will ensure that Alfa’s attacks will end.”
Alexey Reznikovich the CEO of Altimo responded by appearing to welcome the suggestion, “We have always backed the merger of VimpelCom and Kyivstar. That’s why we welcome that Telenor demonstrates a constructive approach and agrees the benefits of such an acquisition.”
And yet, unsurprisingly, this one rumbles on.
MAY
Back to mobile TV, and this time Qualcomm is getting a hold in the market not by partnering with an operator, but with a television company.
“Qualcomm and British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) have announced that the broadcaster is to carry out its own evaluation of MediaFLO’s technical capabilities in a ten channel trial in the UK. The BSkyB trial is Qualcomm’s first such deal in Europe, where it does not consider itself locked out, despite the presence of DVB-H. It is notable for being conducted not by a mobile operator but by a broadcaster itself.
Robert Fraser, a BSkyB spokesperson, said that BSkyB had been an active participant as a content provider in both O2’s DVB-H trial last year, and BT Movio’s trial using DMB. The spokesperson said the FLO trial was an extension of Sky’s willingness to explore the capabilities to “further develop our range of services.” The difference in those trials was that they were hosted by a mobile operator in one case and a would-be wholesale mobile TV provider in another.
Explaining Sky decision to conduct its own trial in this instance, Fraser said: “Our involvement will allow us to evaluate the potential of the respective technologies,” When asked if Sky would then use the results of the trial to search for a partner using its preferred technology, or even build out its own system, he said he would not pre-judge the outcome of the trial.
But it seems likely that if Sky is convinced that the FLO meets its technical and business case demands, it would express that preference to any potential operator partner.”
Interesting one this because, with the best will in the world, we can’t see Qualcomm making this stick in Europe. We haven’t spoken to a single operator since that announcement who has expressed a preference for MediaFLO. Even Vodafone, which is closest to Sky, hasn’t give any indication MediaFLO is on its roadmap.
Aside from TV, operators continued to wrestle with the implications of VoIP. Should they embrace and exploit it, or defend against it and hold on to what they’ve got? T-Mobile banned mobile VoIP from its all-you-can-eat HSDPA data service.
T-Mobile married its launch of an HSDPA data card and new all-you-can-eat professional tariff with a ban on VoIP or IP messaging over its network.
The small print following the operator’s launch statement said of VoIP or IP messaging: “If use of either or both of these services is detected, T-Mobile may terminate the contracts with the customer and disconnect any SIM cards and/or web ‘n’ walk cards from the network.”
JUNE
Midway through the year and operators are still getting to grips with that VoIP thing, only this time it’s in the realm of fixed mobile convergence. Or fixed mobile substitution, as the mobile operators might prefer to call it.
Both Vodafone and Orange announced plans for driving cross-platform revenues from converged fixed and mobile properties.
We said, “To play in this field any operator needs to be able to operate at extremely low cost, as margins are not high. Vodafone rightly points out that IP integration at the application layer, and HSDPA at the network, enable convergent, seamless services across different networks. The challlenge is to exploit those opportunities in a profitable manner”
As for Orange we felt, “Orange’s motivation is clearly to make the most of its potential to substitute fixed line usage with mobile solutions for consumers and businesses. The broadband offer is aggressive, but consumers may be surprised when they see what range of UMA phones are available, especially as this phone is supposed to be their prime handset.”
There was also the heartening news, which came to fruition only in December 2006, that TeliaSonera was waking up Xfera, mothballed licence holder of the fourth 3G licence in Spain.
“TeliaSonera has increased its shareholding in mothballed Spanish 3G operator Xfera to 80%, and plans to shake out the cobwebs from Spain’s sleeping “fourth” operator, and launch 3G services after carrying out a UMTS rollout.
The Scandinavian operator paid SEK657 million for the share increase, and plans to invest around a €1 billion in networks, IP-service platforms, start-up costs and spectrum fees (including accrued spectrum fees from 2002).”
Six months later and TeliaSonera has delivered on that promise.
JULY AND AUGUST
Holiday time, another double issue and, appropriately enough, a big fat row about roaming prices. We point out that this one’s been going around for years, but finally seems to be getting somewhere with GSMA hate figure Vivian Reding issuing sets of recommendations all over the place. Reding said, “For years, mobile roaming charges have remained at unjustifiably high levels, in spite of repeated warnings to the industry. This is why Europe needs to act now.”
The GSMA said, “The new proposals still amount to a straitjacket that will stifle innovation, dampen competition and ultimately harm consumers.”
Result? European operators trying to head reglation off at the pass by announcing new roaming tarrifs.
There was also the news that Intel had pumped the small sum of $600 million into the WiMax market in the form of service provider Clearwire. Motorola brought the total funding up to $900 million. A lot of money, and an investment that brought vertically integrated Intel into the WiMax market.
SEPTEMBER
More regulation, this time on spectrum liberalisation, kept us busy.
“Spectrum management in Europe is in a state of flux. The traditional model under which national regulators grant licences prescribing frequency bands, technologies and services (“command and control”) is under attack.”
And those HSDPA seeds, sown in February and March, grew some shoots as operators began to announce their commercial launches and even (see top) handsets.
“T-Mobile has announced the launch of the first non-data card HSDPA device in the UK on the day 3, carrying out press demos of HSDPA at its London, Oxford Street store, said it would have HSDPA phones available for the Christmas market.”
OCTOBER
Moving closer to recent memory, we lead with the operator allicance to set some specs for next generation networks.
“Leading mobile operators including China Mobile, KPN, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and Vodafone have joined forces to create the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) initiative, which has become a limited UK company.
NGMN’s members say it has created, “A set of requirements for a future wide area mobile broadband network that is designed to offer enhanced customer benefits by delivering competitive broadband performance alongside high levels of interoperability.”
NOVEMBER
Truly in recent history now, and the themes of the year continue, with progress on handset development, and another trial of a mobile TV technology.
Which takes us neatly back where we started…