Top Stories

• Broadband and Fibre: BT: all right, have those ducts
• Strategy and Finance: T-Mobile USA merger rumours - mmm, spectrum
• Online Video Distribution: Everyone loves WLAN managed offload
• Advertising: Apple: they’re planning something location-based
• Technology: UFO spotted among the Google clouds - what is 1e100.net?

Potentially seismic news in the UK: BT changes its mind on duct-sharing. Both OFCOM and the Conservative Party are keen on the idea - OFCOM had a survey of some ducts carried out, and discovered that a surprisingly large percentage of the UK’s telecoms infrastructure is full of raw sewage, and the Tories have threatened to legislate to force BT to provide ducts if they win the election. Mind you, they also threatened to abolish OFCOM - work that out. It’s a major turnaround for BT, which not so long ago wasn’t even willing to provide street cabinet access for the South Yorkshire Digital Region project.

Continue reading "Telco 2.0 News Review" »

Posted at 11:11 AM | Link to this article | Add a comment

The next Telco 2.0 EMEA Executive Brainstorm will take place on 28th-29th April at the Grange Hotel in London, with a pre workshop on ‘Core Telco 2.0 concepts’ on the afternoon of the 27th. Below is a detailed preview of the agenda for our readers. If you would like to book a place, please email us. Early-bird and alumni discounts are available now.

Event Objective

To move the Telco 2.0 debate on from the conceptual use cases shared at the 7th (EMEA) and 8th (AMERICAS) Executive Brainstorms to actionable next steps. Through a combination of sessions on trends and specific market opportunities that feature real examples of Telco 2.0 implementations, the audience will hear and participate in debates about how and where to start on the Telco 2.0 roadmap.

In April we will be looking at:

* Day One, 28th April: Telco 2.0 Roadmap - Strategic Issues for 2010-2011 (inc. Attracting Investment, Mobile Broadband Network Economics, M2M, Customer Data/Privacy, ‘Living with Google’)
* Day Two (parallel event 1), 29th April: Digital Entertainment 2.0 - Multi-Platform Distribution (inc. online video, TV 2.0, mobile app stores, devices)
* Day Two (parallel event 2), 29th April: Enterprise 2.0 - New Opportunities in Business Services and Wholesale (inc. Enterprise Voice, Advertising & Marketing, Healthcare, Financial Services, Carrier Services)

We will also run a half day afternoon pre-event workshop on 27th April on core Telco 2.0 principles and business model innovation frameworks for those new to our events, or in need of a refresher.

Participants

The detailed agenda is below:

Continue reading "Agenda Preview - 9th Telco 2.0 Executive Brainstorm, 28-29 April, London" »

Posted at 12:29 PM | Link to this article | Add a comment

Telco 2.0 had the opportunity to attend Telecom Finance last week, a conference for investors, bankers and advisors working in the telco industry. Here are some of our impressions of the key themes…

1) Fear and loathing

2) The vital importance of holes in the ground

Continue reading "Telco 2.0 at Telecom Finance" »

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This is a guest post from Fergus O’Reilly of SAP. Fergus has written here on the subjects of Billing as a Revenue Opportunity and Monetising app stores. Here, he tackles CRM and two-sided business models. SAP will be exhibiting at Mobile World Congress (Feb 15-18) and hosting a roundtable with Accenture, RIM, Telus and Microsoft on this topic of monetizing services across multiple industries in Barcelona on Feb 15 (details here).

The dynamics of the multi-sided business models for the Telecoms industry are well explored by the Telco 2.0 initiative. But what are the implications as this model is adopted by other industries? And how can telcos leverage their rating and billing capabilities to gain new business by empowering these other industries in their business model transformation?

The global explosion of the Internet, of wireless networks, and the rise in broadband capacity is constantly transforming how we connect to the world. Due to product commoditization, shrinking margins, and the need to develop greater customer intimacy, many industries are capitalizing on these technologies and launching innovative new services. By focusing on value-based services, companies stand to find new revenue streams and to profit from greater customer intimacy, but only if they can master the increased volume of transactions with customers and the complexity of the expanding value chain between diverse business partners.

Continue reading "Two-Sided Telco Transaction Processing for Upstream Industries: Guest Post" »

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Top Stories

• Broadband and Fibre: Brazil, New Zealand reach for public dark fibre, shared LTE
• Online Video Distribution: AT&T loves WLAN offload, buys $2bn worth of backhaul fibre, makes money
• Devices: Q4 smartphone volumes: Nokia, Apple, RIM rule the world
• Content: Amazon vs Macmillan: content pulls a goal back on distribution
• Advertising: Google Local Search - now with voice

Continue reading "Telco 2.0 News Review" »

Posted at 11:32 AM | Link to this article | Add a comment

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) appears to be finally coming of age. What business model challenges are bringing this about in Healthcare, and how can Telcos add value? Below are some videos and summary analysis from the Telco 2.0 AMERICA Executive Brainstorm in Orlando:

- An overview of M2M and ‘Embedded Mobile’, with a sector focus on the opportunity in health, by Ken Figueredo, Principle, Ventura

- Challenges in the US Healthcare market, by Rick Cnossen, President, Continua Healthcare Alliance

- Orange’s approach to the US healthcare market, by Niels Helkov, VP e-Health Americas, Orange Healthcare

M2M: a panacea for healthcare?

Ken Figueredo, Principle, Ventura, presented an overview of machine-to-machine (M2M) and embedded mobile, with a focus on the mHealth sector, and an examination of the key strategic choices for operators.

(NB We will also shortly publish a Telco 2.0 Executive Briefing on M2M that we are writing with Ken. This will describe examples and provide additional market data and greater detail on this emerging new sector.)

M2M: An idea that’s time has finally come?

Interest and activity in M2M has blossomed recently in projects such as the GSMA’s embedded mobile initiative (which Ken has advised), and initiatives by AT&T, Telenor, Verizon and Sprint among others.

Market growth estimates range from 50% to 500% additional device penetration, even though shipments of industrial M2M run at only 40m devices / year compared to 1bn handsets.

Continue reading "Machine-to-Machine (M2M) 2.0: mHealth Opportuniies" »

Posted at 10:21 AM | Link to this article | Add a comment

Voice and messaging are the mainstays of telco revenue today yet there are still opportunities to grow the value of these services using innovative business models. At the 7th and 8th Telco 2.0 Executive Brainstorm in London and Orlando, two thought-provoking presentations provided concrete examples of embedding voice and messaging into business process for SMEs (so called ‘Communications Enabled Business Processes’ - CEBP) and proffered ideas about how telcos can turn these into significant revenue streams.

Below are videos and analysis of presentations on:

- ‘Cooking with Voice’ by Thomas Howe of the Thomas Howe Corporation,

- Telco Applications in the Clouds by Irv Shapiro, CEO IfByPhone

Cooking With Voice

Thomas Howe develops around six voice applications a month for enterprise clients and, speaking at the 7th Telco 2.0 Executive Brainstorm in London in November, called on the telco industry to monetise their data to reinvent voice services.

(NB We will shortly be publishing a detailed Executive Briefing by Thomas, describing detailed Voice and Messaging Use Cases, both for customers of our research subscription service and sale as a standalone report.)

Voice is a Spice

He equated voice to a spice in that in the enterprise application world it isn’t a service in its own right but a feature that can be used to enhance a process. As an example he related the experience of Mercedes Benz when it added a simple click to call function to its corporate website.

As a result of having data about where the customer was calling from and which web pages he had previously been to, sales conversions doubled from 10% to 20%, call abandonment was reduced and the average selling price increased.

Continue reading "Voice and Messaging 2.0: Growing Enterprise Revenues" »

Posted at 10:32 PM | Link to this article | Add a comment

Following from the success of the Cloud Computing sessions at the recent Telco 2.0 Executive Brainstorms, we’d recommend the Fifth Annual Parallels Summit to those looking to deepen their knowledge. It takes place on 22-24 February at the Fountainbleu Miami Beach Resort, Miami Beach, Florida. Parallels are offering free places (worth $3000) - see below.

Making money from, and best practices in, cloud services are the focus of the Summit, which aligns well with Telco 2.0’s agenda.

Please visit the Parallels Summit 2010 web site to learn more here or register now here.

More details on agenda, features and benefits below (from Parallels):

Continue reading "How to Profit from Cloud Computing?" »

Posted at 09:40 AM | Link to this article | Add a comment

Key to many of the value-added services opportunities presented by the ‘two-sided’ telecoms business model, the presentations on customer data and privacy were some of the most inspiring and intriguing of those at the Telco 2.0 AMERICA Executive Brainstorm in Orlando in December and the EMEA Brainstorm in London in November. It is also the focus of the Privacy 2.0 Forum in February 2010. Below are videos and analysis of presentations on:

- whether Telcos could be the bankers of the information economy, by Marc Davis, Partner, Invention Arts and former Chief Scientist at Yahoo! Mobile

- the opportunity in the US and globally, and technical solutions for operators to give customers the ability to control and interact with their ‘digital self’, by Cody Bowman, Head of Business Solutions at Telco 2.0 Partners Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN)

- the four steps for operators to unlock the value of customer data, by Paul Magelli, Head of Subscriber Data Management, NSN

Telcos: the bankers of the information economy?

‘Personal data is hot’ said Marc Davis, Partner, Invention Arts, and former Chief Scientist at Yahoo! Mobile. Marc practices ‘invention by design’, identifying technological investment opportunities 5-7 years out and designing IP for them.

He drew the analogy that user data is the “broken currency of the information economy” and is not yet managed or traded like money. He said that the first companies to build the institutions for trading information currency will be ‘big winners’. Could this be a profitable role for telecoms operators?

No shortage of demand

Many commercial and government institutions want to access and use this data, and privacy is an increasing concern for customers. Telcos, along with internet companies and others such as financial services institutions, are contenders in this space. But do they have the right approach to succeed?

Continue reading "Customer Data and Privacy 2.0 - Telco Goldmine?" »

Posted at 11:04 AM | Link to this article | Add a comment

The 1st Privacy 2.0 International Summit that Telco 2.0 is running in collaboration with MIT and Nokia Siemens Networks in Boston next week is looking like being highly productive. It’s a gathering of 60 experts from North America and Europe with the objective of defining a strategic framework for the potential role of the telecoms industry as custodians of consumer data (described in more detail here).

We’re delighted to have the key people from Strategy, Public Policy, IT and Marketing functions representing the following organisations participating in the brainstorm: AT&T, Amex, Bank of America, CenturyLink, Comcast, DARPA, Federal Trade Commission, IBM, Microsoft, NokiaSiemensNetworks, Orange Group, Rogers, Sprint, Telefonica, Telenor, Telus, Verizon Business, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, WPP. They’ll be joined by some specialist innovators in this space, state Information Commissioners and the leading academics from MIT Media Lab, Harvard Berkman Center, and St.Galen and Goethe Universities.

Phil Laidler, Telco 2.0’s Director of Consulting, is currently preparing stimulus material for the event, building on output from the last Telco 2.0 Exec Brainstorms. Below he covers some of the key issues on a video panel with TelecomTV broadcast last week called ‘Customer Data - who owns the clickstream?’:

Posted at 05:13 PM | Link to this article | Add a comment

Telco 2.0 Top Stories

• Strategy & Finance: Ericsson: everywhere’s awful but the US, China, and India
• Regulation:Google vs. China: escalation, no Androids for you!
• Technology Disruptions: DNSSEC deployment, IPv4 down to 10% - a complicated week for the Internet
• Voice & Messaging 2.0: Truphone MVNO is go for launch; Vodafone femto blitz; O2 virtual PBX problems
• Special: Haitian relief effort, powered by…SMS shortcodes

Don’t assume the crisis is over; horrible sales figures from Ericsson were published this week, with fourth-quarter revenues down 13 per cent and profits positively crashing. Another 1,500 jobs are going. However, they did manage to cling on to market share. According to CEO Hans Vestberg, the trouble was concentrated in the emerging markets, where many of their customers were still unable to raise funds for their network deployments. Interestingly, Ericsson’s best performing markets were the US, China, and India - you might think that those three would be enough to support a half decent business, and it’s telling that China and India no longer come under the heading of “emerging markets”.

Continue reading "Telco 2.0 News Review" »

Posted at 12:12 PM | Link to this article | Add a comment

The value of Apps and Appstores was a hotly debated theme at both the Telco 2.0 AMERICA Executive Brainstorm in Orlando in December and the EMEA Brainstorm in London in November. Below are some videos from the events:

- The CEO of Getjar, the ‘World’s second largest Appstore’, presentation on who’s using what apps and why.

- VPs of Strategy from Amdocs Interactive present and discuss a ‘value framework’ and App strategy for telco operators, based on a comparison with the activities of Apple, Nokia and Google.

Who uses what Apps and Why?

Ilja Laures, CEO of Getjar, ‘the world’s second largest Appstore’ (60 million downloads per month), presented details of a recent global analysis into the behaviour of Getjar customers.

Some Highlights

An increasing number of Getjar’s 18-24 years old customers are switching from feature phone to smart phone, although usage and demographics differ quite widely by country.

The dominant reason that people use and shop for Apps is ‘to pass the time’. Shopping for Apps often takes more time than downloading, and ‘discovery’ is an important part of the entertainment. 40% of users download apps several times a week.

For this group of 15 million ‘early adopters’ browsing the phone for 20 minutes before going to sleep is not unusual, and 73% of Getjar app users use mobile internet much more than ‘desktop’ internet.

Continue reading "Appstores: Toys or Tools?" »

Posted at 11:40 AM | Link to this article | Add a comment

Cloud Computing was a popular topic at both the Telco 2.0 AMERICA Executive Brainstorm in December and the EMEA event in November, although the subject came with strong ‘hype alert!’ warnings. Below are videos of some of the stimulus presentations from the events:

- AT&T Business Solutions’ VP Strategy, Joe Weinman, on the role of telcos in Cloud Computing.

- Scott Stevens, VP Worldwide Technology at Juniper Networks, on the challenges of Building the ‘Responsive Cloud Network’ beyond the data centre.

- Joe Hogan, Openet’s CTO, on the dynamic real-time charging and capacity management that operators need to deliver a good cloud experience.

AT&T - the Critical Role of Telcos in Cloud Computing

Joe Weinman, VP, Strategy & Business Development, AT&T, shared his insights on ‘Cloudonomics’ - the economic and business rationale for Cloud Services:

Joe questioned the limited usefulness of the standard definition of the ‘cloud of internet services’ available via a browser, and explored the multiplicity of end products and mediums used to access ‘the cloud’.

In his presentation, he describes 38 ‘hard-nosed reasons’ for clients to use cloud services, and explored several use cases including flexibility to deal with peaks in demand. (This is described more fully in his Telco 2.0 interview here).

Here he argues that the critical role of telcos in cloud services is the delivery of the service via secure and capable network. He also argues that his company, at least, has a unique set of assets to deliver these services and has made significant investments to monetise the opportunity, emphasising the importance of optical transport to guarantee quality.

Continue reading "Cloud Computing: AT&T, Juniper and Openet on the Telco Opportunity" »

Posted at 09:22 PM | Link to this article | Add a comment

Telecoms innovation strategy was a big theme at the Telco 2.0 AMERICA Executive Brainstorm in Orlando in December. Below are some video interviews from the event:

- Sprint’s VP Corporate Strategy on reaching “Silicon Valley speed” innovation.
- Verizon Wireless’s Open Development Initiative (ODI), on accelerating the network’s ability to connect external devices.
- Ericsson’s vision for 2020.

Sprint - ‘Breaking Big Bell Dogma’

Russ McGuire, VP, Corporate Strategy, Sprint, says that changing innovation from ‘carrier speed’ to ‘Silicon Valley speed’ needs Telcos to break “Big Bell Dogma” by embracing open innovation processes.

Interview Summary:

A key challenge for telcos is to participate without slowing down innovation, which is as much a cultural as a technological challenge for telcos.

In terms of the big picture, Sprint sees the traditional one-sided model remaining essential in the near term (as indeed do we at Telco 2.0), but also an increasing role played by ‘two-sided’ business models to enable 3rd parties to create value for their customers via telecoms capabilities and/or the telecoms channel.

Russ describes a business model he calls ‘the carrier inside’: a wholesale provider entirely within other businesses’ propositions. He also suggests near term opportunities in voice such as supporting ‘at risk’ mothers-to-be with a push to talk phone directly connected to medical advisors.

Continue reading "Innovation Strategy: Sprint, Verizon ODI, and Ericsson's 2020 vision" »

Posted at 02:50 PM | Link to this article | Add a comment

Telco 2.0 Top Stories

• Devices: Googlephone: Costs $174, sells for $530…when it sells
• Strategy & Finance: Google falls out with China
• Special: Haitian NIC appeals for Internet community help
• Broadband and Fibre: DTAG makes an offer on duct access, dark fibre
• App Stores: Ovi reaches take-off - 1 million downloads/day

iSuppli has finished costing out the bits of a dismantled Google Nexus One, and they conclude that the $530 device costs about $174 to make, which is a fascinating margin by anyone’s standards. It’s worth noting that the silicon in the gadget is almost entirely Qualcomm - the main processor, and most expensive single component, is a Qualcomm Snapdragon, and the radio hardware is Qualcomm as well.

Continue reading "Telco 2.0 News Review" »

Posted at 02:06 PM | Link to this article | 1 comment