Telco Strategies 2014 5Th Annual Telco Strategies Conference 17Th Annual Telecom Asia Awards April 9-10, 2014 – Jakarta

Telco Strategies 2014 5th Annual Telco Strategies Conference 17th Annual Telecom Asia Awards April 9-10, 2014 – Jakarta

Sponsorship opportunities Survival guide for the digital revolution Gigi Chan [email protected] It’s time for a radical mindset shift. Telcos have to +852 2589 1338 change the way they operate. The stakes are high as

Delegate inquiries transformation is crucial for established operators to be Will Ahmad able to compete with new players in the market. [email protected] +852 2589 1312 At Telecom Asia’s 5th Annual Telco Strategies Conference, leading thinkers from Asia’s operators will Organizers gather for a day of knowledge exchange and networking with peers. Join Asia’s premier gathering of telecom executives to explore the keys to survival, and develop a game plan to institute change in your organization. The conference is followed by the 17th Annual Telecom Asia Awards – the region’s longest-running, most prestigious telecom industry awards. Make plans now to be a part of this strategic event for telco leaders.

www.telcostrategies.com

TelcoStrat2014_hsead.indd 1 12/16/2013 11:39 AM HK spectrum row • Ooredoo in Myanmar • TD-LTE licenses • VoLTE rollouts • APAC leads carrier Wi-Fi

Asian Telecoms Business and Technology l www.telecomasia.net l December 2013 / January 2014

Navigating the iceberg field

Published By Radical change required as telcos enter treacherous waters in 2014

Inside: Readers’ Choice and Insight Summit 2013 Innovation Awards Tough advice to telcos: stop 17 awards, 13 winners, lots of worrying about margins and get innovation in the game UNLEASH THE POWER OF EXPERIENCE

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Cover 18 Venturing into untested waters Telcos are heading into treacherous waters in 2014 as traditional services and strategies continue to sink. Our annual Outlook charts some of the key radical changes telcos must undergo, and the technologies that can help

featureS

Readers’ Choice & Innovation Awards 25 Asia’s best telecom vendors 17 awards were presented to 13 companies at the sixth Readers’ Choice & Innovation Awards in Singapore

Insight Summit 44 Breaking away from a margins culture 18 Speakers share their insights on partnerships, real innovation and accepting the Huns

columns

Tanner 10 HK gets its spectrum priorities wrong The 3G licensing decision could have wider consequences for consumers than the broadcast license flap

Forum 40 APAC leads in carrier Wi-Fi Pricing strategies vary sharply within each region 25

Poulos Points 46 The times are changing Telco realize their DNA does not lend itself to innovation in the digital sphere

10 46 44

www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 4

Contents Volume 24 Number 4 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014

Managing Director Jonathan Bigelow [email protected]

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS Group Publisher Gigi Chan [email protected] Sales & Marketing Executive Michelle Tang [email protected] 12 Ooredoo ties up with Digicel to help with Group Editor Joseph Waring [email protected] Myanmar rollout Global Technology Editor John C. Tanner [email protected] Online Editor Fiona Chau [email protected]

Art Director Dick Wong [email protected] 14 China Mobile gains the most from Production & Web Manager Pauline Wong [email protected]

government’s TD-LTE licenses HR & Admin Manager Janis Lam [email protected]

Accounting Manager Nancy Chung [email protected] 15 China Mobile, CSL, StarHub make strides with Director, Audience Development – R&D Will Ahmad [email protected] VoLTE adoption Assistant Circulation Manager Shipman Kwok [email protected] Contributors Canberra: Dylan Bushell-Embling London: Michael Carroll Tokyo: Mike Galbraith Bangkok: Don Sambandaraksa News map 16 Asian telecoms this month Editorial and publishing office Questex Asia Ltd 13/F, 88 Hing Fat Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong Tel: +852 2559 2772 Fax: +852 2559 7002 regulars Website: www.telecomasia.net Subscription Hotline: +852 2589 1313 Subscription Fax: +852 2559 2015 14 Insight E-mail: [email protected]

42 Telecom Career

43 Events Calendar Questex Media Group LLC 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466 Tel: +1 617 219 8300 48 Backpage Briefing President & Chief Executive Officer Kerry C. Gumas Executive V.P. & Chief Financial Officer Tom Caridi Executive Vice President Tony D’Avino Executive Vice President Gideon Dean

TELECOM ASIA (ISSN 1681-181x)is circulated to telecommunications carriers (PTTs) and to the communications departments of businesses, industries and others who use and operate commercial and private networks. It is edited for planning, engineering and operational managers responsible for the design, installation, marketing and maintenance of public or private telecom systems and networks.

TELECOM ASIA (USPS 019-325) is published four times yearly by Questex Asia Ltd, 13/F, 88 Hing Fat Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. All copies distributed in PRC are free of charge. Subscription rates: 1 year HK$480 (Hong Kong only) US$86 (within Asia) and US$96 (outside Asia), 2 years HK$840 (Hong Kong only) US$152 (within Asia) and US$168 (outside Asia). Single/Back issue (if available) HK$50 per copy (Hong Kong only) US$9 (within Asia) and US$10 (outside Asia) plus US$5 handling charge per order. Print- ed in Hong Kong. Postage paid in Hong Kong. U.S. Mailing Agent : International Mail Distribution Inc, A Division of Security Delivery Service, 52-09 31st Place, Long Island City, NY 11101-3229. Periodicals postage paid at Long Island City, NY. © 2013 Questex SALES CONTACTS Media Group LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, Asia Pacific North America & EMEA recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing Gigi Chan Zena Coupé from the publisher. Group Publisher, Questex Asia Ltd. Tel: +44 1923 852537 Tel: +852 2589 1338 Fax: +44 1923 839765 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Fax: +852 2559 7002 Email: [email protected] 13/F, 88 Hing Fat Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. E-mail: [email protected] Total circulation: 13,959 Qualified Circulation: 12,126 Non-Qualified Circulation: 1,833 Source: POD

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Telecom Asia December Edition_2.indd 1 11/11/2013 5:10:17 PM www.telecomasia.net Highlights Follow us on:

ONLINE SECTIONS Daily News Our broad coverage of Asian and 4G Mobile global telecom news www.telecomasia.net/news Follow the latest news, analysis, commentary and developments on LTE, TD-LTE, Wimax, and everything in between Commentary In-depth analysis from Telecom Asia’s www.telecomasia.net/4g senior editors and leading telecom research firms, including Ovum, Maravedis, Informa and more www.telecomasia.net/commentary

Weekly Highlights Bloggery Missives on telecom trends and the A recap of the major developments of the previous week wireless future from John Tanner, Tony Poulos, Joseph Waring, Don www.telecomasia.net Sambandaraksa, Marc Einstein, Grace Mirandilla-Santos and Joanne Flinn http://www.telecomasia.net/blog

Videos Telecom Asia China edition In-depth interviews with top telcos insiders and expert commentary on This monthly newsletter is an essential source latest technology trends and industry for Chinese telecom professionals events http://cn.telecomasia.net/ www.telecomasia.net/videos

White Papers Vendors hold forth on latest technology concepts www.telecomasia.net/whitepapers Webinar Archive Events Our regularly scheduled webinars provide This year’s trade shows and insight into a variety of topics from conferences Wi-Fi offload to LTE strategies, customer www.telecomasia.net/events experience management to real-time charging, virtualization of data center Telecom Asia China edition to SDN. Check out our archive to watch the recorded webinars that impact your In-depth news analysis, opinion, business white papers and case studies for telecom professionals and executives http://www.telecomasia.net/category/webcasts in China http://cn.telecomasia.net

8 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net Prepare Your Network for the Cloud

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Hong Kong gets its spectrum priorities wrong

hat is it about Hong Kong pressure as they are now. And even if they are, and spectrum licenses these cellcos would have to invest in network up- days? grades to keep up with demand in any case. The Executive Coun- However, it’s worth remembering that mo- cilW (ExCo) caused an uproar in October by bile data usage is fully expected to go off the awarding two new free-to-air broadcast tel- charts in the next few years. In Hong Kong it’s evision licenses – one to PCCW, the other already pretty high. And Hong Kong’s networks to Wharf-owned i-Cable – while denying a are designed to fall back to HSPA+ when LTE is third license to Ricky Wong’s HKTV, despite unavailable – and HSPA+ will have a third less the recommendation of the Communications frequency to rely on in three years. And Wi-Fi Authority (CA) that all three applicants be offload can only help so much. Consequently, granted a license. cellcos need every last Hertz of spectrum they A month later, the CA announced it can get their hands on. John C. Tanner is global would go ahead with a plan to recall a third technology editor – of allocated 2.1-GHz spectrum from the city’s Lower prices vs quality [email protected] existing four 3G licensees (CSL, HKT, Hutch- It’s possible the CA has taken that into ac- ison and SmarTone) when their licenses ex- count and isn’t that worried about it. Indeed, pire in October 2016 to create a fifth 3G li- whatever data volumes they’re expecting, the cense for auction – which existing licensees regulator fully admits that the policy will The say will wreck service performance and raise result in some service degradation, but that costs for consumers. it won’t be too serious (around 18% maxi- Communication The former decision has caused far more mum), and that consumers won’t mind be- public outcry for a number of reasons, from cause the trade-off will be more competition, Authority’s the slow and unsatisfactory explanations and thus more affordable services. from ExCo to the fact that Chief Executive The problem with that argument is that position assumes C.Y. Leung has been under political fire for Hong Kong is already widely recognized as just about every decision his administration one of the most competitive mobile markets customers care has made from Day 1. in the world – and that’s before you factor in more about price The 3G licensing decision hasn’t received the new non-traditional competition coming as much attention or public criticism – which from OTT service providers. Adding a fifth than they do is ironic, since it could have far wider conse- 3G player arguably won’t make much more of quences for consumers. a difference. about service The incumbents have argued – via two More to the point, the CA’s position as- studies from Plum Consulting – that confis- sumes customers care more about price than quality cating a third of 3G spectrum would degrade they do about service quality. That’s a fool’s service performance by almost 40% during bet when you consider just how central smart peak periods, and would require serious net- devices and apps have already become in the work upgrades to make up for the lost capac- lives of many mobile users, and how much ity, which will be passed on to consumers. more integrated these services will become The CA essentially rejected Plum’s find- in the next few years as devices evolve from ings, saying they failed to include the exist- communications tools to intelligent location- ence of 4G into their calculations, and that by aware avatars of ourselves in the digital mar- the time the 3G licenses expire in 2016, cellcos ketplace. Today’s smartphone and tablet us- will have plenty of mobile data capacity once ers (in Hong Kong and elsewhere) will only you factor in things like 4G, 2G refarming and accept so much service degradation. In 2016, Wi-Fi offload. they’ll accept even less. Technically, the CA does have a point. So if the CA thinks mobile consumers will Between the prevalence of 4G, multimode benefit from this policy, perhaps it’s because devices and smarter Wi-Fi offload in 2016, they don’t have a full appreciation of just 3G data networks may not be under as much what consumers want. TA

10 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net ADVERTORIAL

Cloud Radio: the next step in wireless evolution By Chen Zhiping and Duan Xiaowei

This new solution from ZTE taps the power of the cloud to boost performance

The software defined radio (SDR) base station system with existing bearer networks. With ZTE’s Cloud Radio solution, is gaining traction among mobile operators worldwide. Its operators can even achieve almost equivalent collaboration release moved the wireless market, arousing questions such performance in the good PTN bearer network as that in the as “what is the real SDR?”, and “what is the better choice – dark fiber bearer network. SDR, multiple standard radio or multiple band radio?” The standard inter-cell interference collaboration Today, multimode capability and smooth evolution have mechanism has no centralized control node. Base stations become the basic technical requirements of mobile operators exchange limited interference information among each other around the world. through X2 interfaces, and conduct air interface resource In 2008 ZTE released the SDR base station system in scheduling and interference collaboration based on this which, compared to a traditional base station, the baseband information. In this way, interference optimization is limited in unit has flexible multimode capability and the function of RF small scope and the efficiency is very low. unit is re-definable via software reload. Thus, one hardware Cloud scheduling uses a two-level scheduling mechanism set could support multiple wireless standards, or support – centralized scheduler and distributed scheduler. The smooth evolution from 2G to 3G/4G standard, allowing the centralized scheduler collects the interference, load, user coexistence of multiple standards and multiple bands. As a distribution, and interference location information reported result, the network structure is simplified and the network total by each base station, selects the best resource allocation cost of ownership is greatly reduced. policy after a global analysis, and gives cell-level macro-level As the deployment of commercial LTE networks in Europe, scheduling instructions. America, and Asia Pacific gains pace, operators are looking for Then, each base station implements local user-level an innovative solution that can efficiently solve the interference scheduling according to the scheduler’s instructions. In this problem of their 4G networks, and break through the limitation way, the most efficient resource allocation and interference of the existing collaboration technology. collaboration can be achieved, and the inter-cell interference ZTE’s 4G-oriented Cloud Radio solution, officially released problem is perfectly solved with little increase in bearer network during the Mobile World Congress last February, answers the bandwidth. call. The Cloud Radio solution has two major innovations – Cloud scheduling is an enhancement version of standard cloud collaboration and cloud scheduling. ICIC technology, with improvements in network-level resource Cloud collaboration, through the multi-level collaboration scheduling and real-time interference coordination. mechanism, and the boundlessness collaboration concept, By far, ZTE’s Cloud Radio solution is the most cutting-edge can intelligently select the best collaborative mode, concept in mobile communications field and the most complete dynamically adapt to transmission conditions of the bearer collaboration solution for the wireless access network. It could network, and “translate” the wireline bearing bandwidth to the inherit the great advantages of the SDR platform and write a wireless coordination performance to the maximum extent. In new chapter in LTE network performance enhancement in the this way, the overall network performance is enhanced and the next five years. cell-edge user performance is nearly doubled, allowing users to enjoy smooth experience in the LTE network. ZTE’s cloud collaboration could decouple LTE access network construction from bearer network upgrade, and can obtain the best wireless collaboration performance at any stage. Thus, it’s not necessary to invest heavily in the bearer network modernization at the early stage of LTE deployment since operators can still achieve decent performance gains For more information, please visit www.zte.com.cn.

TA1213_ZTE.indd 2 12/16/2013 10:09 AM INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

Myanmar enters the STATSNAP information age Half of planes to offer wireless yanmar may be lacking in telecom connectivity by 2022: IHS infrastructure, but that situation By the end of the year around 21% of the world’s planes will be is changing quickly. The govern- equipped with wireless connectivity, and this percentage is set to soar due ment and the nation’s new telecom to the loosening of restrictions on device usage during US flights. licensees are racing ahead with IHS forecasts that 4,048 planes will be offering Wi-Fi or cellular connec- rolloutM projects. tions to travellers by the end of the year. By 2022, the firm expects half of The UAE’s Ooredoo, which won of one of two all commercial aircraft to provide connectivity. nationwide telecom licenses during a competitive “The rising availability of in-flight wireless connectivity comes at a tender earlier this year, announced in early December time when the US Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) moves to loosen that it has signed an agreement with Jamaica’s Digicel its rules for the usage of electronic devices on flights,” said Heath Lockett, to help support its rollout plans. senior analyst for aerospace at IHS. Digicel Asian Holdings, a consortium consisting of “The proportion of passengers actually connecting to wireless services Digicel and Myanmar-based YSH Finance, announced on board is still very low, averaging in the single-digit percentages. The great challenge for airlines now is to inform passengers of the services they offer it has signed an agreement with Ooredoo Myanmar to and to get them to pay for access.” deploy and lease telecom towers in the market. Of the world’s connected fleet, approximately 75% offer Wi-Fi only. This Construction will be conducted through Digicel is particularly true in North America, where cellular connectivity is banned Asian Holdings’ Myanmar company, Myanmar Tower over the region’s airspace. Company. Multi-tenancy towers will be constructed But outside of the region, cellular connectivity is growing, with almost to allow other telecom operators to take advantage of 600 aircraft projected to offer the technology by the end of the year. In- the infrastructure. flight mobile calls are still rare, with most passages using their devices for Digicel Group has operations in 31 markets in data services and text messaging. APAC, the Caribbean and Central America. The Airlines including Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Emirates and Qatar company was one of the shortlisted bidders in the Airways have meanwhile opted to provide both Wi-Fi and cellular services. Myanmar license tender, but was beaten out by Oore- Combined Wi-Fi/cellular services represent the fastest growing category of in-flight connectivity, with IHS predicting that around 5,000 of the ex- doo and Norway’s Telenor. pected 14,000 connected aircraft will include both Wi-Fi and cellular options Both Ooredoo and Telenor have pledged to roll- by 2022. ing out mobile networks covering at least 80% of the nation’s population within five years of receiving their licenses. Separately, Japanese heavyweights NTT Com, NEC and Sumitomo announced they have completed In-flight wireless installations taking off construction work for a joint network infrastructure project aimed at helping bring Myanmar’s communica- Global percentage of commercial aircraft offering tions infrastructure up to par with competing markets. The Japanese trio were awarded the contract in Wi-Fi and/or cellular connectivity May by a Myanmar ministry. Under the deal, the companies have deployed a 30 Gbps core optical network between three major Myanmar cities, 50 LTE base stations, a virtualized EPC and more backbone infrastructure. According to the companies, the new infrastructure can support simultaneous use by 40,000 LTE subscribers, 1.5 million fixed telephone customers and one million internet users. NEC, NTT Com and Sumitomo will provide operational support for the infrastructure until mid-January 2014, when the contract concludes. The project made use of 1.71 billion yen ($16.7 million) in development assistance granted to Myanmar by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. TA Source: IHS – Dylan Bushell-Embling 12 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net industry analysis

China awards TD-LTE licenses

fter much anticipation, In late November, China’s Ministry of TD-LTE trial networks, and has indicated China has finally award- Industry and Information (MIIT) award- it will apply for an FDD license as soon ed TD-LTE licenses and ed 270 MHz of TD-LTE spectrum to the as possible, with an aim of pursuing a associated spectrum to three cellcos. China Mobile was allocated hybrid LTE rollout. each of the nation’s big 130 MHz of spectrum for its extensive The company may have been antici- threeA mobile operators. 4G trials, while Unicom and China Tel- pating this situation, as the company’s China Mobile was dealt a disadvanta- ecom were given 40 MHz apiece. CEO had revealed plans to go with a geous hand in 3G, being saddled with the Weeks later, the MIIT awarded 4G hybrid configuration back in August. He under-supported TD-SCDMA standard licenses to the three carriers, but declared also indicated that the company was in while its rivals were able to use the more it is holding off on deciding whether to ongoing discussions with China Mobile popular W-CDMA and CDMA/EVDO allocate FDD LTE licenses until “condi- over some form of TD-LTE network standards. tions are more mature.” sharing agreement. But now the tables are turned. China The ministry also awarded China China Unicom is also reportedly Mobile has been driving TD-LTE devel- Mobile a license to operate fixed-line ser- trialing a dual-mode configuration. opment, while China Unicom and China vices, which will allow the mobile giant In a statement issued shortly after the Telecom favor FDD LTE. But the Chinese to compete directly with China Telecom TD-LTE license allocation, Unicom said government may not allocate FDD and China Unicom in the booming fixed it “will continue to proactively apply for licenses for some time. broadband market. the launch of an LTE FDD technology Unicom and China Telecom have China Mobile has set the ambitious test run.” TA been handed a dilemma – either invest in goal of rolling out TD-LTE to 13 cities – Dylan Bushell-Embling and Fiona an unfamiliar LTE technology and even- - including Beijing, Hangzhou, Guang- Chau tually offer dual-mode LTE networks, zhou, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Nanjing, or hold back until FDD licenses are al- Xiamen, Shanghai, and Chengdu - by the located and risk China Mobile taking an end of 2013. early 4G lead. China Telecom is already building

INSIGHT ONE MONTH’S TELECOM RESEARCH

>> Pay-TV subs set to hit 1b in 2018 >> Over 250m smartphones ship in Q3 The world’s pay-TV subscriber base reached 886.5 Over 250 million smartphones shipped during the third million during the third quarter, up 6% year-on-year. quarter, representing an increase of 44% year-on-year. Service revenues for the quarter totaled $62.6 billion, ABI According to Canalys, Samsung maintained its position Research estimates. The research firm expects the global as the top vendor, with a market share of 34%, compared subscriber base to pass one billion by 2018, generating to second-ranked Apple’s 15%. Huawei, Lenovo and LG service revenue of $229.6 billion. Most of the growth is rounded out the top five. Greater China was the fastest- coming from the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) growing smartphone market during the quarter, with markets, which are expected to account for 68% of total nearly 100 million units shipping across China, Hong net additions by 2018. By contrast, North America’s Kong and Taiwan. Greater China alone now accounts pay-TV subscriber base declined 1% during Q3, with the for 39% of the global smartphone market. In terms of region’s pay-TV industry losing an estimated 1.7 million form factor, shipments of large-screen (5-inch or higher) subscribers. But pay-TV revenue in the region increased smartphones reached their highest level yet - the 56 3% year-on-year, thanks to a higher proportion of HD million units shipped accounted for 22% of the market in and advanced DVR subscribers stimulating an increase in Q3. But phones with screens of 6 inches or above make ARPU. Pay-TV subscribers in Western Europe increased by up just 3% of the above 5-inch subcategory. less than 2% during the quarter, with providers blaming a Smartphone vendor performance index Q3 2013 weak economic environment. www.canalys.com Pay TV ARPU and Revenues www.abiresearch.com

14 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net VoLTE gains traction in APAC

ith 4G adoption both HD voice and video calls over respective LTE networks will have to moving to an VoLTE to a group of journalists. wait a while until VoLTE is commercially inflection point, China Mobile, NTT DoCoMo and available. Asian operators KT separately revealed that they have CSL announced it expects to launch are ramping up extended their business tie-up to help ac- VoLTE commercially in the first half theirW efforts to introduce voice over LTE celerate the development of international of 2014. China Mobile has a target of (VoLTE). LTE roaming services between China, commercializing VoLTE over its TD-LTE Hong Kong mobile carrier CSL an- Japan and South Korea. network by the end of next year. StarHub nounced it has deployed VoLTE on its China Mobile collaborated with Hua- is also planning a launch sometime 4G network. The company is using a ZTE wei to conduct the first national TD-LTE next year. In all cases, the operators are IMS system for the service. CSL is still VoLTE call in September. waiting for a range of VoLTE handsets to testing the technology with Samsung’s In early December, Singapore’s reach the market. TA VoLTE handset and will unveil pricing for StarHub separately staked a claim of be- – Dylan Bushell-Embling the service in the next few months. ing the first mobile operator in Southeast CSL isn’t the only Hong Kong carrier Asia to conduct a commercial GSM with VoLTE ambitions. Rival PCCW- VoLTE call over its live LTE network. The HKT has announced plans to launch company conducted the call using VoLTE VoLTE by the end of the year. equipment from NSN that conforms to On the TD-LTE front, China Mobile the GSMA VoLTE IR.92 specification. and Huawei achieved another milestone The successful test comes nine in TD-LTE development in late Novem- months after StarHub launched HD ber, announcing they have completed the voice over 3G, and two months after it first international VoLTE call between a announced that its LTE network now TD-LTE and an FDD LTE network. Dur- provides island-wide street-level covering the trial, the operators demonstrated age. But subscribers to the operators’

>> VoLTE, NFV drive carrier voice gear market >> CEM to be top telco IT priority in ‘14 Sales of carrier IP telephony equipment contracted 2% Customer experience management (CEM) will be the main year-on-year during the first quarter, but would have driver of the telecom sector’s IT investments in 2014, declined more were it not for strong demand for VoLTE Ovum predicts. Telco IT spending is on track to hit $60.7 and NFV equipment, Dell’Oro observed. The overall carrier billion by 2017, with operators expected to focus their IP telephony market – comprising devices used to serve investments on telecom infrastructure (cloud platforms, circuit-switched, VoIP and VoLTE subscribers – reached server virtualization and BSS/OSS systems to support LTE $1.6 billion during the quarter. Sales of IP multimedia implementations) and online customer service channels. subsystem (IMS) core, session border controller and voice A survey of senior IT executives shows that operators’ top application server systems grew 55%, nearly offsetting priorities for the next 18 months will be multi-channel declines in the mature softswitch and media gateway integration and service personalization. Over 80% of segments. “Wireless voice and messaging infrastructure operators covered by the survey also plan to implement upgrades are emerging as a catalyst to transform service business intelligence and predictive or big data analytics provider core networks towards a data-center-oriented at the network level to help enhance the user experience architecture,” Dell’Oro VP of carrier IP telephony Chris across the customer lifecycle. “After many years of cost DePuy said. “There are a significant number of technology reduction, senior telco IT executives clearly see the need trials underway at leading operators today that are utilizing to invest again in CRM projects that will support overall software-only NFV instances of what today are delivered customer experience,” Ovum analyst Shagun Bali said. on hardware-dependent systems.” ICT Enterprise Insights 3Q13 Carrier IP Telephony Quarterly Report www.ovum.com www.delloro.com

www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 15 asian telecoms this month

Beijing China allocates TD-LTE spectrum and operating licenses to each mobile China Mobile re-launches Skype-like VoIP service Jego, which allows operator, putting China Telecom and China Unicom in a position where customers outside of China to receive free incoming calls on a rented they’ll have to roll out hybrid LTE networks or wait up to a year for FDD China Mobile number. allocations. China Telecom partners with SAP to jointly market SAP cloud services China Telecom becomes the last of the big three mobile operators to via a Chinese joint venture owned by the two companies. launch NFC-based mobile payment services.

Hong Kong CSL and Hang Seng Bank team up to provide NFC-based mobile payment services to the former’s 1O1O and one2free mobile customers.

HKBN posts a 9% increase in ebitda for the year ending in August, its first full-year results since it was bought out from former parent City Telecom last year.

Bangkok Moody’s cuts its corporate family rating on True Corp’s credit, warning that the company’s free cash flows are unlikely to be enough to fund its near-term capex requirements.

State-owned CAT Telecom blames anti-government protesters for cutting off the power to CAT offices, causing $10m in damages and sparking a brief internet outage for CAT, TOT and True Corp users.

SINGAPORE Regulator IDA approves a deal that will IDA separately fines OpenNet $600k for temporarily put full ownership of NG- allegedly breaching its USO and QoS ob- NBN netco OpenNet into the hands of a ligations with its well-publicized delays SingTel subsidiary – but only if SingTel rolling out the national fiber network. agrees to conditions that will ensure it has no effective control.

StarHub claims a Southeast Asia first after conducting a commercial GSM VoLTE call over its live LTE network. The company plans to launch the service for its subscribers next year.

Fujitsu launches a suite of cloud-based data recovery as a service (DRaaS) solutions in Singapore.

Kuala Lumpur Jakarta Telekom Malaysia posts a 20% slump in XL Axiata receives government approval Q3 profit, with forex losses and higher tax for its plan to buy the 95% stake in Axis expenses overshadowing strong internet and Telecom owned by Saudi Telecom Company data service revenue gains. for $865m.

16 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net movements

SEoul z Nokia investors overwhelmingly vote to approve the $7.4b sale of the SK Telecom conducts a demonstration of the 225 Mbps LTE-A service it company’s devices and services business to Microsoft. plans to roll out in 2H14, achieving the speed by aggregating 30 MHz of z China Mobile, Huawei and a South Korean operator jointly complete spectrum in the 1.8-GHz and 800-MHz bands. the first international VoLTE call between a TD-LTE and an FDD LTE network. TOKYO z GfK estimates that by September this year, one out of every two NTT DoCoMo launches a one-day flat rate international roaming pack handsets shipping in Southeast Asia’s emerging markets was a for its mobile customers and reveals plans to introduce an interna- smartphone. tional LTE roaming service by end-March 2014. z Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei discloses the company’s plans to step back from the US infrastructure market, declaring the company does not want to remain caught in the middle of trade disputes between China Yangon and the US. Ooredoo taps a consortium led by Digicel to help provide telecom tow- z BT Global Services goes on a hiring spree to support its international ers for its ambitious mobile network rollout in Myanmar. expansion, adding another 400 employees across Asia and MEA. Japan’s NTT Com, NEC and Sumitomo complete construction of a tel- z US regulator FCC clears Verizon’s planned $130b buyout of Vodafone’s ecom infrastructure project for a Myanmar ministry, deploying gear 45% stake in joint-venture Verizon Wireless. Pending shareholder including a 30-Gbps core optical network between three Myanmar approval, the deal is expected to close next quarter. cities and 50 LTE base stations. z Telco 2.0 Initiative warns that operators in nine developed markets will lose between $92b and $172b in core revenues over the next 5 years due to the OTT threat, vulnerable pricing structures and economic Auckland pressures. Subsea cable startup Hawaiki Cable signs deals giving it access to a US z Informa Telecoms and Media predicts that the global LTE subscriber landing site for its planned 14,000 km trans-Pacific cable. base will balloon from 188.6m at the end of the year to 1.3b by end-2018. z Gartner estimates that smartphones outsold feature phones in Q3 for Sydney the second consecutive quarter, accounting for 55% of handset sales. NBN Co starts the hunt for ISPs interested in participating in a trial of z A media futurist predicts that big data will become the Big Oil of the FTTB technology, as it seeks to fulfill the new government’s remit of future, taking over as the new force driving the global economy. accelerating the NBN rollout while cutting the costs. z Aircom International joins a consortium of companies investing in a 5G research facility at the University of Surrey in the UK. Telstra Global expands its international data center footprint in key z Not to be outdone, NSN joins five other industrial partners for a 5G global locations, as well as the number of facilities offering its connected research program being led by New York University. colocation service. z Trend Micro and the ITU announce a partnership aimed at helping better equip the ITU’s 193 member states with the tools to fight Delhi cybercrime. The Competition Commission of India z Akamai arranges to buy cloud security firm Prolexic Technologies for launches a probe into whether Ericsson an estimated $370m to help bolster its own security portfolio. is making excessive royalty demands on z Bell Labs forecasts a 560% surge in data traffic over metro networks by domestic handset makers for licensing of 2017, warning that the swelling demand will require telcos to develop a standards-essential patents. new type of cloud-optimized network architecture. z ZTE joins the ranks of device vendors planning to launch products India prepares to make its third run at into the nascent smart watch segment. re-auctioning 1800-MHz and 900-MHz spectrum vacated from the cancellation z Speakers at TM Forum’s CEM event detail evidence that the traditional of 122 licenses last year. call center is quickly ceding ground to online and self-service channels. z A survey of APAC firms shows that almost half of companies in the region believe adopting big data can help improve revenues by 25% or more.

www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 17 coverstory

Outlook 2014 : navigating the iceberg field

Telcos are heading into treacherous waters in 2014 as traditional services and strategies continue to sink. Our annual Outlook charts some of the key radical changes telcos must undergo, and the technologies that can help

redicting what will happen some serious convincing of stakehold- creased M&A activity of smaller inno- in the telecoms industry ers and staff, as well as some serious vators or service providers with unique in 2014 is a bit like steer- risk-taking. The second will require the offerings. ing a ship through an ice- preparation of lifeboats, as well as some We will also see increased M&A ac- berg field – you know your serious risk-taking. tivity of other CSP as markets ration- chancesP of hitting something are high, Looking at the least-risk predictions alize down to two or three operators you just hope to hell it doesn’t sink you. for 2014, investment in networks will at most. Any more is proving to be an C-levels in today’s communications continue, but slow down appreciably as unsupportable model in developed and service provider are starting to real- operators come to grips with the ben- saturated markets. ize that all those years of growth, big efits of 4G and LTE. The emphasis will Market penetration – or saturation, revenues and comfortable margins are swing heavily to optimizing those net- as I prefer to call it – is going to dramati- behind them. Their challenge now is to works and finding products and services cally change the way CSPs do business, either decide on a radical new course or that can take advantage of them and give as they will have to swing concentration take their chances with the traditional them a market edge. away from consumers to market sectors routes. Innovation will likely come from and demographics they have tended to The first option is going to require outside the CSP, and we will see in- ignore. The enterprise sector will get

18 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net lots of attention but CSPs will have to sive shakeup. The boundaries between ultimate customer-experience weapon. invest heavily in products and services OSS and BSS have all but disappeared, I’m still uncertain that we can really to attract them and partner with com- and the new child will be IT-centric. know or determine what a customer panies that can help them deliver. Here, There will have to be renewed invest- wants based on their history, nor can we we are talking about cloud services, de- ment in transforming to less complex do it ‘on the fly’ without starting to ag- vice management (BYOD), security and ordering and service activation systems, gravate them. Big data will certainly be SDN (where the network becomes an software-driven networks and online big in 2014 but probably not in the way extension of the enterprise not unlike a charging systems, leading to a fully IP it is being sold today. private cloud). real-time environment. We will also see a number of changes Also, in the wake of the Snowden This in turn will lead to a massive on the bridge as the seasoned telco cap- revelations there is going to be a massive take-up of customer-driven services via tains start to make way for a fresher, take-up of data and email encryption self-care portals. This is what custom- techno-savvy, digital era breed of cap- technologies, and CSPs are well placed ers want and the CSPs that can deliver it tain more suited to testing those new sea to offer both if they can move quickly best will win market share. routes. enough. I will reserve judgement on the hype – Tony Poulos The back office is overdue for a mas- surrounding big data and its use as the www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 19 coverstory

Telcos must go soft(ware) to survive Big data and SDN will dramatically change the fortunes of telcos in 2014

elcos will enter 2014 in bad What is interesting is that the shape. Their costs are rising as big internet champions like Face- T they invest in high-speed broad- book and Google straddle the en- band networks, and their core revenues tire big data value chain: they collect are falling as voice, messaging and in- raw data on an industrial scale, they ternet access revenues pass their peak. analyze it and they commercialize it. They are destined for terminal decline By contrast telcos are instrumental applications that will run on these new unless they latch onto an emerging only in collection of big data. They are networks. technology cycle and grow with it. Put less good at analyzing and selling it. In a However, there is a problem. SDN simply, they need to become software sense, they sell the raw material, leaving technology is classified as network in- companies to survive. someone else to add the most value to frastructure, which means it falls under Two emerging technologies that it. To profit from big data, telcos need to the remit of the regulator. If regulators could dramatically change the fortunes invest more in software. prevent telcos from profiting from their of telcos in 2014 are big data and soft- SDN is another technology cycle SDN infrastructure investments, then ware defined networks that telcos can latch on to. SDN is a new it will be industry outsiders that profit Big data refers to data that cannot architecture for telecom networks in more from SDN technology. These ex- be analyzed on a traditional database. which the emphasis shifts from hard- ternal beneficiaries will probably in- This data is created from hundreds of ware to software. It transfers the include cloud software companies like Fa- sources, including emails, documents, telligence currently held in a network cebook, Google, Netflix and Salesforce, apps, pictures, videos, tweets, and credit equipment box to a software layer, ena- which will be able to program networks card data. Much of it is unstructured, bling the network to be centrally con- to enhance their web services. which means it cannot be easily com- trolled and programmed. Therefore, telcos in 2014 need to partmentalized by field. This makes it Many telcos are officially bullish change their business models, keeping difficult to analyze because it depends about SDN because it has the poten- two things in mind. First, they need to on a machine interpreting nuances that tial to improve the quality of network move toward software services. And only humans can truly understand. The services while lowering capital expen- second, they need to restructure their big money lies in developing big-data ditures. But to really profit from SDN businesses so that their new products analytics engines that can reliably inter- technology, telcos need to invest heavily and services are not regulated. pret these nuances in real time. in software engineering to design the – Cyrus Mewawalla, CM Research

That’s it for voice As voice ARPUs sink, cellcos will diversify into new areas – and it’s already happening

any years ago in the pre- would fund investments in data services usage will inevitably lead to the death of smartphone boom world, I that would increase ARPUs by upwards voice services, and we are already seeing M attended several conferences of 50%. Sure enough, in time, when examples of this going into 2014. and symposiums held to discuss the smartphone navigation became user- For example, in the quarter ending elusive “killer app” that would even- friendly and content became accessible September 2011 NTT DoCoMo re- tually justify heavy spending on 3G (largely thanks to Apple) and data pric- ported a voice ARPU of 2,280 yen and a networks and licenses. After endless ing became affordable, ARPUs have in- packet ARPU of 2,690 yen. Fast forward discussions of several options includ- deed taken off and 3G and 4G are now to two years later, and voice ARPU has ing LBS, gaming, mobile payments etc. widely used and understood consumer fallen to 1,430 yen, a staggering decrease the consensus was that the silver bullet concepts. of 37% in two years while even the data was – ironically – voice services, which However this boom in mobile data ARPU declined slightly to 2,670 yen.

20 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net Make-or-break for RCS With OTT outpacing RCS, time is running out – and time is a luxury cellcos don’t have ndoubtedly you’ll be hearing a see RCS as a good tool for competing The argument makes sense on paper. lot about OTT services in 2014, against OTT services. The rest are at best Like SMS, RCS isn’t worth much when U and with good reason. Apart uncertain. it’s limited to your own subscribers. from the ongoing efforts of old hands There’s enough interest to trial it, of Once infrastructure is interconnected like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, course, but not much faith that it will via IPX, RCS can theoretically realize its WhatsApp, WeChat, Viber et al, we’ll be earn them much money, or keep users full potential. The problem is that – like seeing more and more new OTT services away from popular OTT apps. More RCS – IPX is not going to happen over- popping up in the next 12 months. We’ll and more cellcos are admitting the futil- night. IPX adoption will undoubtedly also start to see new innovations in OTT ity of fighting OTT and instead looking continue next year, but many operators as HTML5 and WebRTC start ramping for partnership opportunities. And there are waiting for the cluttered and confus- up. (And incidentally, those could po- will be plenty of those in 2014 – OTT ing IPX market to shake itself out first. tentially be as disruptive to existing OTT players are generally keen, and cellcos That’s going to take time. And time players as they will be for cellcos.) now have a reasonably good idea of is a luxury cellcos don’t really have in an You’ll also be hearing a lot about what where their strengths lie in a partnership era where OTT players have been run- cellcos should do about this – which also scenario. ning circles around them, innovating means you’ll be hearing a lot about Rich It’s tempting to predict that 2014 like crazy. In the time it will take IPX to Communications Suite (RCS), the ini- will spell the end of RCS. That’s prob- reach critical mass, the OTT landscape tiative from the GSM Association to help ably overstating the case, if only because will have shifted significantly – and con- cellcos compete with the OTT threat. But OTT partnerships and RCS are not mu- sumer behavior along with it – in un- while there will be much talk about RCS tually exclusive strategies. However, 2014 expected ways. If RCS can’t keep up, it in 2014, it’s not necessarily going to be is likely to be the year RCS must prove won’t be of much use to anyone. flattering. itself. And to do that, at least two things – John C. Tanner Certainly RCS/joyn hasn’t really won will need to happen. over very many operators, although the The first, of course, would be for operators that have adopted it to date are cellco execs to give keynotes at the heavy hitters like Telefonica, Orange, SK next Mobile World Congress in Bar- Telecom, and most recently, Sprint in the celona revealing stunning and spec- US, among others. tacular numbers on RCS/joyn uptake However, most operators remain un- and revenues (which may or may not convinced that RCS will do them much happen). The second, according to the good. An August 2013 survey from mo- GSMA, would be further rollouts of bilesquared found only 7% of cellcos IPX.

This decrease was caused by the rise of certainly won’t be easy, but we are see- domestic physical cooking studios last LINE, which has substantially dimin- ing signs of operators preparing for the month, while China Telecom and other ished MOUs. challenge. NTT DoCoMo itself is now operators are increasingly reaching out With the massive uptake of LINE, reporting a “smart” ARPU in addition to OTT providers. KakaoTalk, WeChat, Viber and Skype, to voice and data to show the growth While business transformation is similar situations are almost certain to of new services while SK Telecom is never easy, it is something that can and play out across the region in the coming highlighting the growing contribution must be tackled to prevent a significant year. Half of the mobile industry’s rev- of “new business” to its revenue. Opera- contraction in the mobile industry. enue going to OTT platforms is a scary tors in North Asia are moving towards – Marc Einstein, industry principal prospect indeed. diversifying into new areas, with NTT for consumer telecom and digital me- So how can this issue be tackled? It DoCoMo even purchasing a chain of dia, APAC, Frost & Sullivan www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 21 coverstory

Radical back-office overhaul

Telcos need to automate IT systems in order to reduce headcount

elcos today face a myriad of woes. 76% used call- We’re all too familiar with this center assisted T expanding list. In this issue a year channels. At ago, we reported that CSPs were waking dtac in Thai- up to the fact that the world had changed land call-cent- and they needed to up their game. Real- er contact now ity, we said, was finally setting in. accounts for a This was supported by our 2012 quarter of the outlook survey that showed almost of channel mix, 70% of telcos were planning network down from upgrades, 77% had IT upgrade initia- 34% in 2012. tives and 50% expected to reduce staff. Retail contacts A year later just a quarter planned to also fell over the last year, as the per- our outlook survey unfortunately cut staff, less than 40% had IT upgrade centage of inquires going through retail shows will be flat in 2014 at more than plans and 56% expected to upgrade shops dropped to 18% compared to 50% of the telcos surveyed. networks. 25% last year. PwC’s Pilbeam reckons operators So while the vast majority recogniz- This changing mix is forcing telcos’ have two to three years to implement es that it’s crunch time for technology hands. the restructuring. “Wholesale change is upgrades, most telcos aren’t following With serious downward pressure on required or we’ll start to see companies failing within the next few years.” SingTel and DoCoMo each have nearly 23,000 employees, PCCW has al- Wholesale change is required or most 20,000 and PLDT has over 36,000. The question is how many can they we’ll start to see companies failing support in 2015 or 2020 as revenue and margins continue to fall? within the next few years. Moody’s reports that ebitda margins for telcos in the region will fall 0.5-1% next year, even as revenue grows 4% through on that with concrete action. revenue and margins, operators need (in line with GDP growth). It predicts Nick Pilbeam, director of PwC’s to make some hard decisions on re- capex as a percentage of revenue will TMT Center of Excellence, said restructuring their back-office organiza- decline to around 20% as most firms cently that he deals with companies tions. And time is running out. A radi- complete their 3G or 4G rollouts. that haven’t touched their back-office cal overhaul of IT is required to reduce This indicates operators aren’t cur- systems in 10 to 20 years. “One Hong headcount. Many analysts says staff cuts rently planning to shift their higher net- Kong telco just extended the life of a of up to 50% are needed to align these work capex spend to the IT/back-office back-office system built in the ‘70s by organizations with the margin levels side. That’s unfortunate, because unless another five years.” they’ll face in the near future. they bite the bullet and invest in a back- That approach won’t fly for much But with the current state of their office overhaul, they’re just postponing longer. Technology is drastically chang- back-office systems they can’t even start the pain until the next year when it will ing the way customers engage with op- to make big cost cuts. It’s a Catch 22. be more difficult and costly. erators. Both StarHub and dtac have They need to automate their IT systems Telcos need to think things through seen customers’ use of self-service to streamline operations – i.e. moving – their survival is at stake. channels jump sharply. to online self-care – before they can re- – Joseph Waring StarHub reported that 52% of post- duce staffing in call centers and cut back paid customers now use self-help chan- on the number of retail shops. This of nels compared to 24% in 2011, when course requires IT investment, which

22 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net The big case for small-cells

2014 will herald new strategies for enabling large-scale small-cell deployments

s mobile broadband demand nies like Aircom, Forsk, and Mentum Self-optimizing networking (SON): increases, the business-case will be needed. The architecture and civil works, and A justification for small-cell In addition, the planning of out- EF&I (engineering furnish and instal- technology is compelling. This is par- door small cells contrasts macro-cell lation) requirements for outdoor small- ticularly the case in markets where data planning in many ways, including the cells are dramatically reduced by the in- traffic is overwhelming the capabili- need for higher resolution geographi- tegrated small-cell form-factors that are ties of traditional network designs, and cal information system data, radio used for the equipment. Standardized challenging the return-on-invested- propagation modelling solutions that designs are being optimized for the va- capital that operators can achieve. anticipate near-far difficulties created riety of street furniture used and “plug- Although outdoor small-cells have between small and macro cells, and so- and-play” functionality is being enabled been deployed for several decades under lutions that optimize proximity of cell with technologies like SON. the guise of micro-cells, technology ven- sites relative to utility and transmission We believe that it is crucial for SON dors have made tremendous progress in resources. functionality to evolve with improved cost-optimizing them with integrated Site acquisition: In the past macro- configuration management capabili- platforms and form-factors that ease in- cell site acquisition has involved com- ties, so that small-cell installation re- stallation and integration requirements. plicated site identification, landlord quirements can be completely deskilled. These efforts have benefited from the negotiations and zoning approvals. For However, in some cases, the rate at femtocell market, the proliferation of example, in mature markets like the which mobile operators can “de-skill” Wi-Fi technology for mobile traffic of- US, the acquisition of new macro cells their small-cell implementations might fload and the innovation solutions by typically costs between $40,000 and be hindered by pre-existing operational companies like AirHop, Alcatel-Lucent, $50,000. More recently, infrastructure policies and by employee union regula- Cisco, Ericsson, Mindspeed, NSN, Silku outsourcing initiatives and site overlays tions. and SpiderCloud. While cost optimiza- have resulted in master lease sgreements Fault management: For outdoor tion will remain a key focus for small and simplified site acquisition and lease small cells, fault management is aided cells, 2014 will herald new strategies for modification activities, typically costing by overlaid macrocellular coverage and enabling large-scale small-cell deploy- between $5,000 and $10,000. self-healing functionality that is being ments, particularly in four areas. Further simplification is crucial developed as part of the software suites Network planning: The ultimate for large-scale outdoor small-cell de- for small-cell solutions. These same goal is for network planning to become ployments. This will involve packaging self-healing functions are forming the autonomous, enabling multitudes of suitable street furniture into clusters or basis for SON developments that enable low-cost network nodes to adapt to zones under master lease agreements networks to be re-optimized in cases network demands and provide coordi- that are predicated on standard site where faults occur and will advance in nated measurements and predictions to configurations. Ultimately, the demand 2014. inform network optimization, planning for low-cost small cells will lead to the The changes being driven by the and inventory requirements. However, proliferation of neutral host cluster sites need for small-cell cost optimization for the foreseeable future, centralized with pre-provisioned utility and back- will rapidly disrupt macro-cell op- planning platforms offered by compa- haul infrastructure. erational models, particularly as large- scale small-cell implementations become commonplace. The foundations of these disruptions have already been created and will be furthered tremen- dously in 2014. The ultimate goal is for network – Phil Marshall, Tolaga Research planning to become autonomous

www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 23 Targeted insight on the telco industry

Business Information Center

eReport Co-Branded Survey B2B CONTENT MARKETING SOLUTION

Webinar Microsite

Research Reports

ContentMarketing_197x267.indd 1 11/21/2013 4:57 PM Congratulations to all winners Bandwidth Optimization Innovation of the Year Business Analytics Innovation of the Year Oracle Communications Gigamon GigaVue H Tekelec Policy Solution CEM Innovation of the Year Small-cell Innovation of the Year Nokia Solutions Networks Huawei Technologies AtomCell Dashboard solution

SDN Innovation of the Year BSS Innovation of the Year Cyan Blue Planet SDN Platform Amdocs CES 9

Data Center Innovation of the Year FTTX Project of the Year Nuage Networks ZTE and China Telecom Virtualized Services Platform FTTx tender

Optical Network Innovation of the Year Carrier Ethernet Project of the Year FiberHome Ciena and AAPT FONST5000 Deployment of E-Suite-enabled (100G OTN Platform) 5160 service aggregation switch

Cloud Innovation of the Year Core Network Project of the year Huawei Technologies Transmode and HGC FusionCloud ROADM-based 100G optical backbone network project Broadband Innovation of the Year RAD Data Communications Wireless Network Project of the Year Service Assured Access solution Ericsson and SK Telecom Commercial LTE-Advanced service LTE Innovation of the Year launch ZTE 4G Cloud Radio Innovation Infrastructure Management Project of the Year OSS Innovation of the Year Huawei and XL Axiata Amdocs CES 9 Managed services contract

www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 25 Asia’s best telecom vendors

December 5, 2013 l Marina Mandarin Singapore

elecom Asia named the as the Core Network Project of the Year. winners of its sixth Readers’ The Wireless Network Project of the Choice & Innovation Year went to Ericsson for it commercial Awards in Singapore on LTE-A service launch for SK Telecom. December 5. A total of 17 The Carrier Ethernet Project of the Year awardsT were presented to 13 companies award was given to Ciena for the deploy- by executives from AT&T, BT Global ment of its E-Suite-enabled 5160 service Services, Deutsche Telekom Asia, Level 3, aggregation switch at AAPT in Australia. NTT Communications, Orange, Pacnet, Nokia Solutions Networks was vot- StarHub and 1-Net. ed the CEM Innovation of the Year for Huawei Technologies, for the second its Dashboard solution while Oracle/ year, won awards in three categories. It was Tekelec’s Policy Solution was selected as recognized for the Infrastructure Manage- the Bandwidth Optimization Innovation ment Project of the Year (XL Axiata man- of the Year. FiberHome’s FONST5000 aged services contract), Cloud Innovation 100G OTN platform was named the Op- of the Year (FusionCloud) and Small-cell tical Network Innovation of the Year. Innovation of the Year (AtomCell). Each year Telecom Asia organized the Nomination Criteria: Amdocs and ZTE both went home Readers’ Choice & Innovation Awards to • Overall quality of with two awards. The former won both recognize the advancements and con- innovation and OSS Innovation of the Year and BSS In- tributions of the industry’s top vendors contribution to technology novation of the Year awards for its in- from around the region. advancement (60%) tegrated CES 9 suite. ZTE took the LTE The awards, now in their sixth year, Innovation of the Year (4G Cloud Radio have always put a heavy emphasis on • Vision and industry Innovation) and FTTx Project of the Year innovation, said group editor Joseph leadership (15%) (China Telecom FTTx tender) awards. Waring. “But this year we have added This year five companies won awards ‘Innovation’ to the name to reflect the in- • Market acceptance – for the first time. Nuage Networks’ Vir- creased focus that suppliers have made to market share growth, tualized Services Platform was voted ensure their products and services help market share and new the Data Center Innovation of the Year. telcos to find new ways to partner, test customer acquisition (15%) RAD Data Communications was named new business models and compete in the • Revenue growth and Broadband Innovation of the Year for its digital economy.” profitability (10%) Service Assured Access solution; Gigamon The editors of Telecom Asia, with sup- picked up the Business Analytics Innova- port from a team of a dozen analysts, nar- • Based on performance in tion of the Year award for its GigaVue H rowed down the 174 nominations in 17 12 months prior to Aug analytics tool; Cyan took home the SDN categories to a shortlist of 69, represent- 1, 2013 – nominated Innovation of the Year prize for its Blue ing 37 companies. Voting was open to our products/services should Planet SDN platform; and Transmode’s online subscriber base of service providers have been available by ROADM-based 100G optical backbone in early October. Voting was closed in late June 30, 2013 network project for HGC was recognized October. TA

26 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net Small-cell Innovation of the Year: AtomCell Cloud Innovation of the Year: FusionCloud Infrastructure Management Project of the Year: Huawei and XL Axiata managed services contract Adding agility and IT efficiency

his was a year that saw Huawei capex and opex spend to help fund these win several LTE and NBN new business ventures. Liu says cost reduc- opportunities, launch new tion is really all about consolidation, auto- smart devices, implement mation, efficiency and generally working itsT enhanced cloud, M2M, unified smarter to push down margins, monetize communications, application storefronts assets and at the same time improve cus- and BSS solutions, and unveil a fully tomer experience. compliant SDN switch. Four years ago Huawei announced it With business models constantly would enter the cloud computing market. evolving and new disruptors emerging Since then, it has seen some significant de- almost daily, Huawei recognized that cus- velopments, such as a purpose-built range tomers are looking for a different type of of servers, storage, security and network so- David Liu, Huawei relationship. So it has made significant in- lutions as well as a cloud operating system. vestments in further developing its Global Over the past 12-24 months Huawei Consulting Practice. has enhanced the operating system, Fu- “This high degree of service automa- “This past year has seen us work with sionSphere, to support a variety of indus- tion means customer no longer need to numerous customers around the world in try hardware platforms as well as different recruit server, storage, network and se- developing their strategic ICT vision. Hua- hypervisors include Xen, VMware, Hyper- curity specialist to perform low-level IT wei is definitely making great inroads in V and KVM. This enables telco customers infrastructure configuration. All these achieving our strategic intent of becoming to protect their existing IT investments, complicated tasks have been automated more of a trusted strategic advisor to our Liu says. and managed by the telco service provider. customers,” said David Liu, Huawei’s VP of And in the last12 months the company The deployment of FusionSphere and CSB Southern Pacific solution sales & marketing. has extended its cloud offering to include a will significantly improve telco customers’ Most telcos are facing significant chal- Cloud Service Broker (CSB), which enables business agility and IT support efficiency.” lenges, such as looking for new sources of cloud customer to design, order and build Liu says the impact of apps and soft- revenue due to the decline in traditional their own enterprise private networks and ware ecosystems in the mobile industry has revenue streams and at the same time look- IT infrastructure using the concept of vir- been nothing short of astonishing. Apps ing at ways they can reduce their current tual private cloud within minutes, he says. have turned the service providers business upside down in the last two years, as players with strong software ecosystems tied to devices have clearly taken over the leader- Why they won ship roles. Huawei secured a contract to manage the mobile network, covering HTML 5 will definitely enable the dis- 20,000+ sites, of one of Indonesia’s leading cellcos. The contract involved intermediation of these current walled- the full management of the telcos’ mobile network as well as the transfer garden storefronts. He says Huawei’s strat- of 1200 existing operational to the vendor egy is to embrace HTML 5, enabling the development of more open application Atom Cell: This stripped-down small cell puts an emphasis on performance storefronts and capturing the vast commu- and cost savings, with an embedded beam-forming function to improve the nity of internet developers. user experience. “We believe that 2014 will be the year FusionCloud led the way in bringing OpenStack to the telco space with when telcos will start their transformation its carrier-grade, open-source, end-to-end cloud platform that includes to a software-defined and virtualized envi- an operating system for running cloud deployments, a complementary ronment. Huawei is working with a num- converged infrastructure, and the ability to integrate IT infrastructures from ber of telcos, helping them to develop their different vendors. transformation plan and proving these new technologies.” TA

www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 27 OSS Innovation of the Year, BSS Innovation of the Year – Amdocs CES 9 suite

Developing the tools to differentiate he year 2013 has been a Its acquisition of Celcite builds upon service providers to engage in the fastest busy one for Amdocs, which the recent purchase of Actix and demon- growing sector – small and medium busi- released CES 9, its new strates Amdocs’ continued commitment to nesses (SMBs) – in a profitable manner. To product suite which it claims its network software and services strategy. date, SMBs were treated either as consum- Trevolutionizes the customer experience. By combining Actix’s market leading prod- ers or as enterprises, either not targeted Earlier in the year, it announced Compact ucts with Celcite’s comprehensive network for high-value business related offers or Convergence on the Cloud, a business management and self optimizing networks those which couldn’t be provided to them support system designed to meet the (SON) services and offering capabilities, in a cost-effective way. He says Amdocs is requirements of small to medium-sized Tamir Ginat, VP of sales for APAC at Am- deepening its relationship with its SMB service providers, mobile virtual network docs, says the company will be able to offer customers by efficiently supporting next- operators/enablers and mobile network service providers comprehensive equip- operators. ment-agnostic optimization solutions. Other portfolio highlights include Spanning BSS, OSS and network con- Omni Convergent Charging, which inte- trol domains, Ginat says CES 9 is an in- grates Amdocs’ real-time charging, policy tegrated suite that enables service provid- control, enterprise product catalog and ers to unleash the power of experience by service platform to allow service providers rapidly launching and monetizing innova- to define, deliver and dynamically mon- tive offers, personalizing every interaction etize any convergent service. with real-time insight, and empowering customers to take control of their experiences across any channel, network, service or device – while delivering operational ef- Why they won ficiencies. The new CES 9 release enables The company’s Charging Smart Start telcos to rapidly launch and was designed to be rapidly deployed into monetize offers by personalizing existing and planned network architectures every interaction with real-time to allow service providers to quickly begin Tamir Ginat, Amdocs insight and empowering customers monetizing advanced services and bundles. to take control. Lookng at OSS, he says the introduction of Amdocs Business Service Capture ad- generation services. This suite also enables a multi-play dresses a poorly served area for many ser- A major focus for Amdocs in 2014 will experience and allows customers vice providers. The solution allows them be around customer experience in the net- to choose any package, at any to automate and simplify the sales process work. He says Amdocs is working to op- time and pay a-la-carte with and design and order business services at timize networks and improve individual in real time with a convergent a sustainable cost to increase profitability customer experience to enable service pro- charging solution that integrates within the SMB/SME segment. viders to differentiate on quality of experi- Convergent Charging, Policy “We have created and delivered a self- ence, reduce churn and improve customer Control, EPC and Service Platform. service environment designed specifically satisfaction. to drive self-service adoption and reduce “The acquisition of Actix, an inde- the cost of care. The award winning and pendent provider of software for mobile patented Proactive Care increases the effi- network optimization, and Celcite, a pro- ciencies of caring for customers in assisted vider of network management and SON and unassisted channels. Pre-integrated solutions, will allow us to differentiate on convergent charging with policy control- customer experience like never before.” TA ler, enterprise product catalog and service platform help make telcos more automated and efficient.” Ginat says Amdocs is looking to enable

28 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net LTE Innovation of the Year: 4G Cloud Radio FTTX Project of the Year: ZTE and China Telecom Hybrid FTTx/VDSL broadband network

Taking user experience to the edge

David An, ZTE

TE walked away with two can benefit from fresh updates.” Reader’s Choice Awards, Adaptability is key, An explains. Why they won capping off a year that had “Cloud Radio can adapt all kinds of trans- 4G Cloud Radio tackles the already seen the company rake mission scenarios and network architec- problem of poor user experiences Zin a number of accolades for its work in tures as well as base stations, so that radio at the cell edge by implementing LTE and FTTx. It’s also been building network performance can be maximized cloud scheduling and cloud up both businesses in 2013. According based on existing transmission resources. collaboration to eliminate inter-cell to ZTE, it has the biggest market share Cloud Radio enables dynamic eNodeB interference in time, space, and of China’s LTE market, and by October collaboration with real-time dynamic frequency. had 65 commercial LTE contracts under clusters which are closely related to each its belt, while its PON business has user, so boundless collaboration is avail- Their hybrid fiber/copper access maintained its annual growth rate of able and a high-quality user experience – solution reused existing copper more than 30% even at the cell edge – can be guaranteed.” resources, resulting in lower capex, The company’s 4G Cloud Radio so- As for how ZTE plans to top that, the opex and a future-proof broadband lution – launched in February this year company has a number of things in the network that will cover 100 million – stands out in part because of its innova- 2014 pipeline, starting with its “Smart households in China by the end of tive use of software-defined radio, which Pipe” solution that aims to provide a mul- the year. allows it to improve network performance tipurpose end-to-end pipe for any service by adapting to existing transmissions and that delivers differentiated services and use existing backhaul assets to assist in in- high-quality user experiences and with terference control. More to the point, says easy OAM. David An Wei, ZTE’s regional CTO, cloud Also in the works: hierarchical QoS radio enables dynamic coordination and that provides differentiated QoS assurance guarantees a smooth user experience, es- configurable by specific user and service pecially on the cell edge. requirements; user and service identifica- “The ‘cloud’ element is a reference to tion (i.e. DPI to help operators track and the solution’s elasticity – the ability to de- analyze user behavior); backup and fast ploy innovative technology such as ‘super switching; and end-end pipe visibility for cell’ dynamically and give improved user control, management and configuration, experience at the cell edge,” An says. “And including zero-touch configuration for because it is a software upgrade, the ven- service creation and an automatic trouble- dor can keep innovating and customers shooting and fault repair system. TA

www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 29 Business Analytics Innovation of the Year: Gigamon GigaVue H

Scaling down complexity igamon introduced a number occurring within the foundation of data associated experiences on the network. of solutions and products this transport nor a view to managing cost Through visibility, they can turn Big Data year to help carriers prepare structures, so telcos can make the neces- into an advantage while increasing ARPU for and manage Big Data. It sary corrections and adjustments to the and reducing customer churn. broughtG 40Gb and 100Gb connectivity to infrastructure to meet business needs. It is the transactional-level visibility the market in chassis form, which it says He says Gigamon is helping carriers that provides the ultimate view to what provides the volume, port density and the to find problems with their traffic and on has happened, he says. “The ability to ex- scale necessary to give visibility into these their networks faster and in a more pre- ploit Big Data enabled by pervasive vis- Big Data pipes. dictable way, thereby helping to keep net- ibility combined with subscriber-aware Andy Huckridge, director of service works running all the time. traffic intelligence can represent a sig- provider solutions at Gigamon, says that It’s important to not overlook the im- nificant competitive advantage and help true visibility into Big Data, however, portance of a solid visibility fabric foun- them to extend their business run-rates requires even bigger, denser and faster dation based on scalable chassis-based as the adoption of new business trans- connectivity, so the problem will become platforms, with high-speed connectivity forming technologies develop and are de- worse tomorrow than it is today and as and high port density, he noted. ployed. Network and traffic visibility will such requires a new paradigm to fully “However, the exciting advancements be a core component in helping carriers solve it. Without some level of traffic in- have come in the form of distributed overcome the hurdles.” TA telligence, the amount of data coming monitoring nodes like the new GigaVUE- through simply overwhelms the existing HB1 and applications like FlowVUE that tools. provide traffic intelligence to manage Big “So we announced the FlowVUE ap- Data. This combination of heavy-duty plication to turn Big Data into manage- centralized monitoring complemented able data by using active subscriber-aware with ‘at the edge’ monitoring allows car- sampling to faithfully reproduce the traf- riers to filter traffic at ingress as well as fic, but on a smaller scale which the tools greater flexibility for where tools are lo- Why they won can handle,” Huckridge explains. cated.” Gigamon’s analytics tool provides Any organization adopting automa- Looking ahead, Huckridge say, the the necessary volume, port density tion technologies and new offerings like company will continue to invest in appli- and scale for developing visibility SDN or NFV, first need visibility into cations that help telcos manage Big Data fabric applications that can deliver their networks. The automation and or- as well as showing support for various traffic intelligence to monitor and chestration of the underlying infrastruc- industry initiatives such as NFV. By har- monetize Big Data. ture will not happen without an accurate nessing Big Data, service providers can understanding of the activities and events better understand their subscribers and

David Sajoto, Gigamon

30 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net Data Center Innovation of the Year: Nuage Networks Virtualized Services Platform

SDN benefits for all assets

t’s been a good debut year for Manish Gulyani, Alcatel-Lucent Nuage Networks. Spun off as a separate venture from Alcatel- Lucent to focus on software-defined networkingI (SDN) technologies, Nuage unveiled its Virtualized Services Platform (VSP) earlier this year and began turning heads right away. “We introduced Nuage Networks to the world in April, and the product began shipping into trials almost immedi- ately,” says Nuage founder and CEO Sunil Khandekar. “In its first six months, Nuage Networks has secured three wins and suc- cessfully completed over a dozen trials worldwide. Our SDN solution is being used by large tech enterprises, for whom IT is a critical asset, as well as by service keep data center networks from being as of business services that service providers providers with datacenter assets and fluid and dynamic as computing infra- already offer today.” cloud ambitions, and we continue to learn structure already is now, and as respon- Khandekar expects to see even more from our customer interactions each day.” sive as cloud applications need that infra- demand for cloud-based service delivery Much of that interest is being driven structure to be, says Khandekar. “Through in the coming year as telcos not only test by the overall need by service providers to network abstraction and automation, the the waters, but also undergo the funda- fully embrace the cloud paradigm to the VSP eliminates the delay and errors that mental shift in mindset necessary to fully point of applying cloud principles that result from today’s configuration-based embrace the SDN paradigm. make delivery of network services more paradigms with policy-driven auto-in- “A necessary shift in operational expeditious, operationally expeditious, stantiation.” mindset is underway, one in which net- and cost effective – or to “cloudify their That means the benefits of network works are programmable and policy- networks”, as Khandekar puts it. That in- virtualization won’t be restricted to is- driven rather than static and configura- cludes network functions virtualization lands of connectivity, he explains. “The tion-driven,” he says. “The SDN mindset (NFV) and network automation, as well benefits of SDN automation and role- is certainly accompanied by technologies as an open SDN-based approach to data based policy definition are extended that facilitate a more open and more ag- center networking that allows instantane- throughout and across all data center as- ile cloud-based network infrastructure. ous and policy-based connectivity within sets, whether they are virtualized or non- That’s a key element of what we see in and across all data center assets. virtualized. Through seamless connectiv- the technology pipeline, in addition to Nuage’s VSP enables all that by re- ity to existing VPNs, the VSP makes cloud the expected and continuous innovations moving the networking constraints that data center resources a natural extension that drive capacity, capability and reach enhancements in the physical network infrastructures that service providers deliver Why they won for network access and transport.” Meanwhile, Khandekar adds, as SDN This SDN-based service platform virtualizes any data-center network takes hold, “compelling new models can infrastructure, leverages programmable business logic and a powerful emerge for delivery of VPN services.” TA policy engine, and automatically establishes connectivity between compute resources upon their creation.

www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 31 SDN Innovation of the Year: Cyan Blue Planet SDN Platform

Helping telcos connect all their assets yan had a number of key This infrastructure, he said, is built on that orchestrates services and makes bet- milestones in 2013. The complex, and vertically integrated hard- ter use of high-performance, but lower- company went public ware and software platforms that are dif- cost hardware,” he said. on the New York Stock ficult for the service provider to operate Hatfield noted that many companies ExchangeC in May, demonstrated multi- and offer limited service elasticity. “Cyan’s have built successful business models de- vendor enterprise to data center service open, multi-vendor SDN platform, Blue ploying virtualized applications, compute, orchestration across the WAN at Interop Planet, was custom-designed to support storage and cloud services on the back of Tokyo, and demonstrated multi-vendor service providers’ efforts in separating carrier networks and infrastructure. NFV orchestration at the SDN World software control from hardware to make “Ultimately, SDN and NFV will help Congress in Germany. networks simpler to operate and manage, service providers connect their massive The company also announced signifi- which can lead to a better customer expe- investment in wide area networks with cant new customer wins, including being rience.” data center assets and virtualized ap- selected by Colt for its next-generation Blue Planet, its SDN and NFV orches- plications. New, elastic network services modular multi-service platform. This tration platform, has been deployed in and cloud-based applications will emerge large-scale deployment included both Cy- more than 100 accounts since its launch from these service providers that will im- an’s Z-Series packet-optical systems along in December 2012. “Blue Planet makes it prove their profitability and make for a with the Blue Planet SDN platform to easier to deploy new services that connect more ‘sticky’ and powerful end-customer automate, operate, provision and deliver the WAN, the data center and virtualized experience.” TA Ethernet services across Colt’s footprint. functions together using a single system Cyan established its Blue Orbit Eco- system to test and deliver real-world mul- Ken Lim, Cyan ti-vendor SDN and NFV orchestration solutions, said president Michael Hatfield. The interoperable partners in this ecosys- tem include Arista, Accedian, Boundary, Canonical, Connectem, Embrane, Mel- lanox, Metaswitch, Omnitron, Overture, Pica8, RAD, Red Hat and RYU. Hatfield said it’s common knowledge that the carrier business model is under pressure. “Applications, cloud providers and mobile services drive massive growth and revenue on the back of the carrier network and infrastructure, yet carriers are left with the constant pressure of massively growing and scaling their infrastructure to keep pace.” Why they won This carrier-grade SDN and NFV platform was built specifically for network operators, and lowers costs, simplifies operations and centralizes control and management of multi-layer, multi-vendor, multi-domain networks.

32 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net D-GSMMWC131180 Time 200x267-27.ai 1 13年11月15日下午12:35

0822RMG06-27 15-11-13 Optical Network Innovation of the Year: FiberHome 100G OTN Platform

100G today, 400G tomorrow

nnovation doesn’t stop when the However, satisfying that demand for latest product is released. China- greater optical capacity (and at greater Why they won based FiberHome demonstrated distances and efficiencies) presents signif- that clearly this year. While its icant challenges as well, Li adds. “There is Their 100G platform is FONST5000I 100G OTN platform was a contradiction between capacity and dis- characterized by its flexible impressing an array of customers both tance due to optical intensity and nonlin- expansion capability, consistent inside and outside its native China ear noise. Higher capacity always means stability, high reliability and simple (to include Telekom Malaysia, whose shorter distance. For data rates of 100G maintainability, as well as its national High Speed Broadband (HSBB) and beyond, the optical nonlinear noise efficient fiber utilization. project uses the FONST5000 for optical is becoming the main obstacle that limits transport), FiberHome released the the performance improvement.” next-generation FONST6000, a packet To that end, he says, FiberHome is enhanced 100G/400G OTN platform that developing advanced nonlinear compen- sports an access and switching capacity sation algorithms and error correcting of up to 25.6 Tbps. And it’s already been algorithms for ultra-high-speed, ultra- formance, lower power consumption and adopted by China Mobile and China large-capacity and ultra-long-haul optical higher integration density. But as indicated Unicom for their respective backbone and transmission. “We have achieved optical in the opening paragraph, the company metro network projects. transmission distances of 12,160km with- has already set its sights squarely on 400G. Exponential growth in network ca- out electrical regeneration, and trans- “FiberHome released its 400G pro- pacity demand – driven by ongoing large- mission speeds of 67.4 Tbps, which are totype in 2012, and can provide two op- scale deployments of FTTx, LTE, cloud world-firsts.” timized solutions – one for ultra-long computing and data centers – is creating Meanwhile, another trend on the ef- distance backbone network, with trans- a major opportunity for the optical sec- ficiency front, Li says, is “network conver- mission distance up to 3,000km, and an- tor in the next 12 months, says Li Keng, gence and intelligence” – i.e. fewer stacked other for large capacity MANs, with sin- FiberHome’s GM of strategy and market network elements, reduced room occupa- gle-mode fiber capacity of 25 Tbps,” says planning. tion, lower power consumption and ef- Li. “According to our development sched- “There is an urgent requirement for ficient multilayer cooperation, combined ule, the FiberHome 400G system should upgrading existing 10G/40G systems or with an intelligent pipe for guaranteed be commercially available in 2015.” constructing new transport networks QoS, efficient OAM and higher traffic FiberHome is also upgrading its entire with 100G WDM/OTN technology,” Li value. series of network equipment, from access says. “100G system will dominate the FiberHome’s specific plans for 2014 and convergence layers to the core, to sup- backbone network and MAN in the next naturally include further optimization of port software-defined networking (SDN) 10 years.” its 100G system for better transport per- architecture, Li adds. TA

Li Keng, FiberHome

34 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net Wireless Network Project of the Year: Ericsson and SK Telecom Commercial LTE-A service launch

Taking LTE to the next level

ricsson racked up a number Ashwini Bakshi, Ericsson of world firsts in 2013: LTE broadcast on a live network (Telstra), dual-mode HD voice overE LTE call based on multimode chipsets (China Mobile) and commercial LTE-A call on 1800 and 900 MHz (Telstra). It also launched its Radio Dot system and a complete solution for broadcast video over LTE networks. In May it hit the milestone of providing managed services to networks that serve one billion subscribers worldwide. Jan Signell, Ericsson’s head of Northeast Asia, said 40% of all mobile traffic passes through Ericsson networks, which support 2.5 billion subscribers. The company also made several ac- quisitions this year that complement its end-to-end capabilities in networks and SKT, which has approximately a 51% and profitability.” support systems. These include Microsoft market share, has introduced the world’s In OSS and BSS space, he said Ericsson Mediaroom, Red Bee Media, Devoteam first commercial HSDPA, LTE, Multi-Car- is also engaging with customers through Telecom and Media (France) and TeleOSS rier and VoLTE and LTE-A services. “We’re its “Realize” campaign, where it focuses (Thailand). It also recently announced a proud to power SKT’s LTE-Advance net- on ensuring that customers’ operations partnership with Blackarrow in the TV and work that now covers major areas of the and business support systems are flexible media space. nation,” said Signell. “SKT will be able to enough to take them forward. “We know Ericsson, the key supplier behind SK offer its users broader network coverage from experience that agile OSS/BSS leads Telecom’s commercial launch of LTE-A and an enhanced mobile broadband expe- to improved efficiency, innovation and service in July, was responsible for the up- rience, ensuring continued loyalty among customer loyalty.” TA grade, providing the software for carrier its customers.” aggregation and multi-carrier technology He said Ericsson’s research has found for the B5 (850-MHz) and B3 (1.8-GHz) that only a handful of operators around bands in South Korea’s southeastern re- the world have been growing profitably gions. Ericsson partnered with SKT for the with mobile broadband. LTE network deployment and commercial “These mobile broadband frontrun- service launch in 2011. ners, as we call them, share a dual focus on Why they won SKT plans to roll out 32,000 LTE-A both superior network performance and This year’s winning project saw base stations by the end of the year and ex- innovative marketing and offerings. They the world’s first commercial launch pand LTE-A service areas in 84 cities and also are unified by six common traits that of LTE-Advanced, covering the start LTE-A service at 300 college campus- create new demand and drive profitable entire Seoul metropolitan area es. The operator also has demonstrated the growth. We call these growth codes (which and six large cities, as well as the upgraded LTE-A service that offers speeds cover gap minding, streetwise metrics, downtown areas of 84 cities, with of up to 225 Mbps by aggregating 20 MHz showcasing, unboxing, ecoystematic and peak data speeds of up to 150 in the 1.8-GHz band and 10 MHz in the co-partnering), which represents a consist- Mbps – all via software upgrades. 800-MHz band. SKT expects to launch this ent approach taken by the frontrunners. service in the second half of 2014 when Rather than specify a single ‘recipe’ for suc- smartphones that supports 225-Mbps cess, we engage with customers to explore speeds are available. their own growth codes to ensure growth

www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 35 Core Network Project of the Year: Transmode Systems and HGC ROADM-based 100G optical backbone project

Economics and performance win the day ransmode’s regional putation Element (PCE) engine, which will “For example 100G technology will breakthrough contract win “automate the task of finding the optimum take advantage of new pluggable 100G with Hutchison Global route through a network, and can be cou- optics to lower the cost of 100G in metro Communications – which pled with service templates to quickly se- networks,” he says. “Also SDN will contin- TelecomT Asia readers ranked as the top lect a preconfigured set of parameters for ue to evolve to expand automation within Core Network Project of 2013 – was just each new service,” Elmeland says. a network and will then take advantage of one highlight of a busy and successful As for the award-winning 100G back- new standards in SDN interfaces to enable 2013 for the company, which recorded bone project with HGC, Elmeland says communication between SDN enabled strong financial performance as it that while there were several factors that domains.” expanded its packet-optical networking helped it land the contract, “primarily it Meanwhile, expect to see more func- solutions portfolio. comes down to the better economics and tionality added to transport networks as “We started the year with our initial performance of the network over the ar- more operators migrate to a collapsed 100G product for high capacity networks chitectures proposed by our competitors. packet-optical network, Elmeland adds. and at the other end of the spectrum we The solution offers a leaner design that “Overall these trends will enable opera- introduced our iAccess solution for highly simplifies the network with an all-optical tors to roll out higher capacity networks automated Layer 2 Ethernet CE2.0 servic- ROADM based architecture which lowers faster with better economics and better es for applications such as mobile back- the cost of the solution but also has a mas- performance, which helps them face the haul and business Ethernet services,” says sive impact on space and power require- future.” TA Ola Elmeland, global VP of marketing ments which are important everywhere and communications at Transmode. “We but especially so in a dense environment also introduced a new mobile fronthaul such as Hong Kong. By simplifying the solution to support the migration to network, the solution provides better Cloud-RAN architectures and started to performance in key areas such as low la- roll out our first iWDM-PON networks. tency which is very important to HGC’s All in all a very busy year!” customers in the financial services sector.” Why they won Transmode has also been busy de- Looking ahead to 2014, Transmode This project interconnects veloping its SDN strategy. As we went to expects to see the market move further customer premises, data centers press, Transmode was set to release the first along the packet-optical roadmap, and and submarine cable landing tranche of SDN functionality with fully the various solutions introduced this year stations in Hong Kong via an automated path selection via a Path Com- will evolve to new levels, Elmeland says. 80-wavelength optical network using low power and compact nodes, saving both energy and Jacques Lebosse, Transmode space.

36 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net Bandwidth Optimization Innovation of the Year: Broadband Innovation of the Year: Oracle Communications RAD Data Communications Tekelec Policy Solution Service Assured Access solution Oracle took the prize for its Tekelec Policy Solution, a turn- RAD’s “Service Assured Access” (SAA) solution won top key management interface that helps operators quickly resolve marks as a service lifecycle toolkit for access networks, covering problems that affect the customer experience. Operators can service turn-up, traffic management, timing synchronization, use existing policy provisioning and management interfaces TDM pseudowire, ongoing performance monitoring, fault and tools to create a unified policy creation environment from management, and resiliency mechanisms. It supports fast and which network and device policies can be developed. This re- easy service provisioning across any bearer. CSPs can use SAA duces the chance of policy conflict and increases the scalability to deploy a complete Carrier Ethernet access network, includ- and flexibility of existing policy servers (PCRFs) and Diameter ing smart demarcation and Ethernet service pre-aggregation. signaling routers responsible for routing signaling messages to They can also pick and choose where to deploy it – for ex- policy servers. The Policy Solution extends policy’s role beyond ample, to facilitate inter-carrier ENNI handoff or to provide the core network so smart demarcation any mobile device where the edge or can act as both en- aggregation layer is forcement points provided by anoth- and application er vendor. Future functions. TA versions of SAA will support distributed NFV functionality. TA Boudewijn Pesch. Oracle Yacov Cazes, RAD

CEM Innovation of the Year: Carrier Ethernet Project of the Year: Nokia Solutions Networks Ciena and AAPT Dashboard solution E-Suite-enabled 5160 Service Aggregation Switch NSN bills its dashboard solution for unified network and As part of its strategy to gear up for Australia’s National service operations as “the first of its kind” that monitors and Broadband Network (NBN), as well as meet growing demand analyzes the various aspects of the operator’s entire network for Ethernet business services, AAPT has been upgrading its operations, and presents them in a unified view to help pro- Carrier Ethernet service delivery infrastructure with Ciena’s vide the best customer experience. Bharti Airtel can attest to service aggregation switches (SAS). That includes Ciena’s latest that – it’s running the dashboard live at its Network Experience SAS, the 5160, which stuffs 24 10GE/GigE ports into a small Center (NEC) in Manesar, Gurgaon. The dashboard – powered 1RU form factor with a wire-speed, non-blocking architecture. by NSN’s CEM portfolio – monitors Airtel’s network perfor- That density enables 240 Gbps of Ethernet aggregation with re- mance across mobile, fixed line, DSL broadband, DTH, m- duced power and footprint, resulting in lower opex and capex commerce, enterprise, international cable systems and internet levels. Ciena says the switch has helped cut AAPT’s aggregation peering points, ena- cost per 10GE port bling Bharti to pro- by 50%. TA vide a seamless experience to over 200 million customers across verticals. TA

Terence Chan, NSN Anup Changaroth, Ciena

www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 37 Inside the Event

38 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 39 Forum l Nicole McCormick, Ovum Asia-Pacific carriers dominate in Wi-Fi deployments

vum evaluated 69 operator on the type of customer or the core services Wi-Fi offerings in 32 countries to which the customer subscribed. “Pay for” in Asia Pacific, Europe, North services are offered on a variety of terms in- America, South America and cluding per session, per day, per week or per foundO Asia Pacific accounted for 43% (29 of month. Some plans meter time while others 69) of the Wi-Fi offerings. Europe was second meter the amount of data used. with 21 operators, followed by North America Out of the 69 operators offering Wi-Fi, 39 with nine. offered some form of “pay for” Wi-Fi for either When it comes to pricing, however, the their own existing customers or non-custom- company’s Global Carrier Wi-Fi Pricing and ers. While a majority of fixed and integrated Plans Tracker saw no “one size fits all”, with operators did not offer “pay for” Wi-Fi access strong diversity within each region. Ovum due to bundling this into fixed and mobile Nicole McCormick is a senior found that competition was key to pricing subscriptions, a majority of mobile customers analyst for communications strategies. did have separate “pay for” plans. and broadband at Ovum For instance, in the competitive Japanese We believe offering “free” Wi-Fi to high- market, NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank end customers is a sensible way to package Mobile now include Wi-Fi for free (that is, no Wi-Fi because it offers additional value to pre- While a majority incremental cost to the consumer) for flat-rate mium customers supporting a greater price data customers (which made up 64% of Do- differential between plan tiers. But in some of fixed and CoMo’s total subs base at the end of June). Do- cases, market forces including competition, CoMo was the last MNO to drop charges for availability of public Wi-Fi, backhaul availabil- integrated Wi-Fi in September 2012, amid market share ity and cost, network demand and other ex- loss pressure. South Korean operators, such as ternal factors have changed the carrier’s initial operators did not KT and SK Telecom, also have no access charge strategic objectives (in targeting high-end sub- for Wi-Fi for 3G and LTE customers. In South scribers for example) and how it offered Wi-Fi offer “pay for” Korea and Japan, Wi-Fi offload is essential to in a particular market. traffic management given unlimited 3G and Wi-Fi access, a LTE mobile pricing in combination with rising Softbank stands out mobile data usage. So far, only Softbank Mobile has launched majority of mobile How telcos package Wi-Fi also depends FON services (launched in 2010) in Asia Pacif- on the extent of government free public Wi- ic. All Softbank Mobile smartphone and tablet customers did Fi initiatives, which exist in markets such as users receive a free FON Wi-Fi router that sup- Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand ports two separate Wi-Fi networks: a private have separate “pay and Taiwan. We are not surprised that Korean network (eg for home use by the Softbank sub- mobile operators offer public Wi-Fi for free to scriber) and a public network that Softbank for” plans users. The government is targeting to increase Mobile users (and global FON users) can use free Wi-Fi locations to 12,000 by 2017. The for free. Users from rival Japanese telcos can Thai government has the region’s most ambi- access this public hotspot but they will need to tious free public Wi-Fi plan to deploy 400,000 buy a subscription from FON. FON claims 12 free public Wi-Fi hotspots (2 Mbps) by end- million FON hot-spots globally. 2015. This sort of large-scale free public Wi-Fi Other Asian telcos are examining the initiative distorts the market and makes charg- FON business model, which essentially turns ing for Wi-Fi challenging. the home and surrounding area into a public A large number of operators in the Track- Wi-Fi zone. One reason telcos are considering er, however, offered some form of “additional FON is because a major source of complaints charge” for Wi-Fi services. These varied from into customer call center concerns Wi-Fi Wi-Fi offered to existing customers and non- black-spot areas. TA customers, to special or differing rates based

40 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net What’s ?

Connected Services

Enterprises

Cities

CMMA14AdW197xH267P.indd 1 4/12/13 11:41 AM Tata Com appoints CSO Acision’s SVP & GM Dimension Data Apac Tata Communications has David Huguet has joined Acision names COO appointed Tri Pham as chief strategy as SVP and GM of Middle East, Africa Sunil Desai promoted officer (CSO) with immediate effect. and Pakistan. Huguet has over 15 years to COO at Dimension Pham will also join the Indian telco’s of management and sales experience Data Asia Pacific from global management committee. is in telecom and IT. Prior to Acision, January 1. He takes over tele c om ca reer Pham will be responsible for strategy Huguet served as VP of solutions for from Dilip Kumar, who and execution, as well as managing Middle East and Africa at Oasis Smart is taking up the role all major strategic initiatives for the SIM – a company he co-founded. of head of the newly company. Pham comes established Global Sunil Desai to Tata Communications HTC names HK & Macau Systems Integration Services Business with over 18 years head Unit. Desai first joined Dimension of experience in the HTC has appointed Cedric So as GM Data in 1995 and has held a variety of investment banking of Hong Kong and Macau, responsible management roles within the company industry, focusing on for the two markets’ operations, since then, including his current role of the telecoms, media and channels management, sales and overall director managed services (Asia Pacific). technology industries in Tri Pham business development. Asia. So is experienced in operations, Savvis APAC chief retail, brand, and channels manage- Savvis, a CenturyLink company Pacnet hires DC sales ment. Prior to joining HTC, he was the providing cloud infrastructure and director managing director at Crown Motors, hosted IT solutions, has appointed Keith Russell Shaw has joined responsible for Hong Kong’s sales, Gery Messer as MD for its Asia-Pacific Pacnet as its new director of data center marketing and distribution. operations. sales for the carrier market. Shaw will be Based in Singapore, Messer will lead based in Hong Kong overseeing all data Juniper has new CEO strategic expansion initiatives in the center requirements for Pacnet’s global Shaygan Kheradpir region with focus on growing the global carrier customers. will take over from and enterprise business throughout Prior to joining Kevin Johnson as chief Asia Pacific. Pacnet, Shaw held a executive at Juniper number of senior-level Networks from January Ericsson’s new country positions, most recently 1. Kheradpir will also head serving as head of sales be appointed to the Ericsson has appointed for Europe, Middle East company’s board of Shaygan Camilla Vautier as and Asia at SEACOM directors. Kheradpir president of Ericsson and director of sales, Keith Russell Johnson, who in July announced Thailand, taking over Asia Pacific and Africa at Shaw his retirement, will remain a member the role from Joacim Interoute. of the board. Kheradpir joins Juniper Damgard, who now Networks from global financial services heads up UK and Ireland Blackberry ousts senior provider Barclays, where he served as for the company. Camilla execs the chief operations and technology Vautier has been Vautier Blackberry has announced the officer, and as a member of its executive working with Ericsson for over 18 departure of three top executives as part committee. years, having held senior roles in sales of the company’s restructuring plan. Separately, Greg Yoder has joined and marketing management in several CFO Brian Bidulka is departing after Juniper Networks as VP of customer regions, including Europe and Asia. working with the company for eight service and support for the Asia-Pacific years. Bidulka will be replaced by James region. Yoder will lead a team of 460 Contacting Telecom Career Yersh, the company’s SVP of controller delivering maintenance and education and head of compliance. COO Kristian services across the theater. He replaces Advertising: Gigi Chan Tear and CMO Frank Boulben, who Sander Dales, who has led Juniper’s Asia Tel: 852 2589 1338 Fax: 852 2559 7002 were hired under former CEO Thorsten Pacific services organization since 2007 E-mail: [email protected] Heins, are also set to leave the company. and is transitioning to the newly created Editorial: Fiona Chau role of VP of worldwide professional Tel: 852 2589 1333 Fax: 852 2559 7002 services. E-mail: [email protected]

42 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net eventscalendar

Networking opportunities across Asia

Date Event Location January 19 – 22, 2014 PTC 14 Honolulu, USA January 21 – 22, 2014 CDN Asia Singapore January 21 – 23, 2014 Convergence India New Delhi, India January 21 – 23, 2014 Mobile Money and Digital Payments Asia 2014 Jakarta, Indonesia February 24 – 27, 2014 GSMA Mobile World Congress Barcelona, Spain March 05 – 07, 2014 CommuniCast Myanmar 2014 Yangon, Myanmar March 19 – 20, 2014 Mobile Commerce Summit ASIA 2014 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia March 19 – 20, 2014 CARTES Asia Hong Kong SAR, China March 24 – 26, 2014 WDM & Next Generation Optical Networking APAC Singapore March 25 – 26, 2014 Carriers World Asia Bangkok, Thailand March 31 – April 02, 2014 Small Cells Asia Bangkok, Thailand April 08 – 09, 2014 TD-LTE Summit 2014 Singapore April 13 – 16, 2014 International ICT Expo Hong Kong SAR, China

Telco Strategies 2014

April 09 – 10, 2014 Telco Strategies & Telecom Asia Awards Jakarta April 29 – 30, 2014 Broadband Asia 2014 Singapore June 11 – 13, 2014 Mobile Asia Expo Shanghai, China June 17 – 20, 2014 CommunicAsia / EnterpriseIT Singapore

For full details of the events, visit www.telecomasia.net To list an event, contact Michelle Tang at [email protected]

www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 43 POST sHOW TELECOM ASIA INSIGHT SUMMIT • SINGAPORE • DECEMBER 5

Margins culture and white cell DNA take a beating

his has not been not a typi- cal year for telcos – “it’s been a year when the burn- ing platform is a clear and present danger,” said Ol- ivierT Carnohan, emerging businesses intrapreneur, SingTel Group Enterprise. He said telcos are moving slowly toward a partnership model by bridging the gap between the old and new (telco) world. Thomas Clayton, CEO of Bubbly, a social networking site with 30 million users, said he’s seen partnerships moving ahead in markets where they’ve been “punched in the nose” by competition and falling revenue. “But in markets like Vietnam and Thailand, telcos still have an old-school mentality.” Carnohan, speaking during a panel session on “What do telcos want to be ships and the prepaid base in developing lem comes with the telcos that always in the future”, insisted that the biggest markets. We also know the partners in to want to control. You put them in a enemy is “ourselves”. He said telcos have front of us have assets, and now we start room and each one wants to lead.” two things working against this whole to value that. This white cell DNA has But they are now getting smarter partnership model, which have prob- taken a beating.” and asking to join the committees as ably delayed us by five or six years. Looking at the speed of innovation observers. “The first is we have a margins cul- from carrier initiatives like WAC, joyn Clayton said he doesn’t think they ture. We’ve been sitting fat and happy and RCS, Clayton said that governing by lack innovation. But the world around for many years, and every time an committee is slow and just doesn’t work. them has changed. OTT partnership was on the table, we “Look at how fast a company with “It took 15 years to get to 50 mil- thought it would be margin diluted five people in Silicon Valley can move, lion mobile subscribers globally. After and we’d walk away. That culture has being acquired for $1 billion and totally the first SMS, it took 12 years to get to to change, and I believe it is changing. changing the way people live. I’m not 50 million SMS users. Facebook took We’re more humble in our approach sure if you’ve ever attended these meet- about four years to get to 50 million and we are more receptive to partners, ings, they just spawn more sub-com- users. Twitter took about 3-1/2 years, even when it competes directly with our mittees and nothing ever gets done.” Whatspp took a year and a half, Line cash cows. Look at some of the work Carnohan said he’s not a fan of hav- took a year and Draw something took Globe is doing with the OTT players.” ing more than three telcos in a room 50 days,” he said. His second reason, which comes doing a standard. “Anytime more than Because the rate of adoption is mov- from a McKinsey consultant, is that three are involved, I think it will fail.” ing so much faster, he said telcos have to telcos are like white blood cells that kill He reminded everyone, however, move at a different pace to keep up. everything that isn’t telco. that GSM is an example of one of the Clayton said he’s seen very differ- “That is true when you have com- most successful cooperations in the ent approaches from operators, noting plete control. We have core assets that we world. “Over time we’ve had a problem that some, like SingTel, have completely understand as long term that we bring with innovation. But we had it – we lost reorganized. He put Softbank, Telfonica to the table – things like billing relation- it but we can find it again. The prob- and DoCoMo to some extent in that

44 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net category of operators that are acting “Telcos know how to partner. fundamental different businesses, each differently than others, which haven’t They’ve been doing it for years. The with a different world view. We tried to done much. challenge is that if you get into mobile operate as a blend, and it didn’t work.” “But all of this is just toes in the wa- payments, for example, your competi- Axiata decided to split into three ter right now. Even at SingTel, which has tor is no longer another telco, but a parts: passive infrastructure, transport been one of the more aggressive players bank. How do you defend against that?” and marketing, so the innovation arm and is one of our biggest shareholder so Pilbeam talked of separating the would be unencumbered by concerns I see the inside of the decision making, brand from the network – i.e. NBNs. over return on assets, he said. for every person who puts up his hand “Once you have a network with 100% Commenting from the audience, and says let’s do this, there are nine oth- coverage, why compete on infrastruc- Wong Ka Vin, managing director of ers saying let’s do this instead. So it’s ture?” 1-Net, said: “OTTs are not the problem. very hard with that kind of decision Karan Hendrik Ponnudurai, chief The problem is network operators are making process to execute.” innovation officer at Axiata Digital, not spending enough time and money compared the OTT trends to Attila the in research, and they’re not engaging What is innovation? Hun’s invasion of Eastern Europe, leav- network vendors enough. We don’t Nick Pilbeam, director of PwC’s ing telcos with three choices: pray to the need to appease the OTTs – we just TMT Center of Excellence, agreed that regulators for deliverance, fight to the need to work out what it is we need to telcos have been innovating forever – death, or say “Shit happens, the Huns do. Forget about walls. Attila wants your but they have to do it better and faster. are coming and hopefully we can work money, and telcos overall are not losing “Real innovation isn’t about deploy- with them to survive.” money, but they’re not investing any- ing networks – any phone company can “There are few hackers employed in thing in the network.” do that. Real innovation is asking your- telcos, but that’s where much of the in- – Joseph Waring and John C. Tan- self, why do I have x many call centers novation is coming from.” ner and shop fronts? Why isn’t all that on- Ponnudurai said Axiata realized it line? Innovation is how the business op- had the wrong structure to move ahead erates,” he said. with innovation. “Telcos have three

www.telecomasia.net Telecom Asia Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 45 PoulosPoints l Tony Poulos

From protectionist to predator – an industry morphs

t is becoming increasingly apparent that congested, then widen them. If the traffic gets the telecommunications industry, mo- too slow, drivers find alternate routes. If they bile operators in particular, have become need to pay more to save time and petrol they paranoid about so-called over-the-top do so for the “privilege”. I(OTT) players, and those very same OTT play- Car owners are used to that, so why aren’t ers have no idea why they are being labeled or network customers? Have they become spoilt singled out as a threat. by over-competitive network operators hop- It would be fair to say, after meeting many ing to attract the largest number of custom- of them in recent months, that they don’t even ers? And how can the network operators even Tony is market strategist for recognize the term or the inference of evil of- assume that the DSPs should, or would, pay the TM Forum and a ten attached to it. These digital service provid- for their services to be delivered over the net- regular contributor to ers (DSPs), as they should be referred to, are works? Telecom Asia simply doing what they need to do – provide Senior DSP speakers at events in Nice, San digital services and products to their custom- Jose, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore I have at- ers. The fact that their delivery medium hap- tended have all stressed they don’t like being The realization pens to be fixed and mobile internet service called OTT players, they don’t see the network provider networks is not their concern, and operators as the “enemy”, and they certainly do that telco why should it be? not see their distribution and income stream It’s difficult to find an analogy to describe as sacred territory that cannot be shared un- DNA does not the role of networks in the digital era that best der any circumstances. explains how DSPs think, but let me try us- In fact, they have indicated the exact op- lend itself to ing cars and roads. Without roads cars would posite and that they welcome advances from be useless. Governments and private corpora- CSPs and see many areas of cooperation, in- innovation in the tions build roads that cars drive along. The cluding direct distribution, reselling, billing- digital sphere is roads are paid for by the collection of road tax, on-behalf-of (BOBO), access to the vast pre- fuel taxes, tolls, etc – all paid by the car owners. paid markets and joint marketing. And they the single biggest There really is no such thing as a free road. In are not blowing smoke either – many deals most countries, if you want to use the fastest have already been done. sign that times route via motorways and super highways, you They also see that CSPs are making strate- have to pay more for that privilege. gic investments in many DSPs. A SingTel ex- are changing At no stage, and in no country to my ecutive said his company had been approach- knowledge, does the maker of the car directly ing venture capitalists and equity funds asking pay anyone for the use of those roads – only about series B and C investments they could the users of the roads do. DSPs see themselves get involved in, presumably for investment, as the carmakers of the digital era. Without acquisition or early access to new digital prod- networks their products and services would be ucts and services. as good as useless, but just like carmakers, they The realization that telco DNA does not rely on others to build the networks (roads) lend itself to innovation in the digital sphere and for their customers to pay for the privilege is the single biggest sign that times are chang- of using them. ing. There is no rush to absorb the new play- Is that a fair analogy? Yes, of course it is. ers into the fold and crush their creativity Can it be changed, i.e. charge the carmakers with telco processes and risk mitigation. This for their cars using the roads and the DSPs for brave new world is one of involvement from a their apps and content using any network? Of distance, look and see, then pounce when the course not! It’s too late for that. time is right. Those toll collectors prefer to see more And who wouldn’t want to see this work cars on their highways, and network operators out to the benefit of all? TA should feel the same way. If the roads become

46 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net 48 Speakers 100+ Exhibitors 58 Countries

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CARTES ASIA 2014 EXHIBITION & CONFERENCE SECURE SOLUTIONS FOR PAYMENT, IDENTIFICATION AND MOBILITY

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CARTES Asia 2014 Print Ad-197x267mm.indd 1 29/11/13 6:02 PM backpage briefing

SMS protects the dead

Modern technology is being employed alert families to any attempt to remove to solve an age-old problem – how to marble and granite headstones from protect your dead relatives. graves – a problem that is reportedly rife Where once bodyguards were in the city of Johannesburg. employed to, quite literally, stop the dead If a headstone is moved, an embedded from being stolen from their graves, in microchip sounds alarms in the cemetery, South Africa a company is using SMS to and alerts relatives via SMS. TA

Bribery gets mobile makeover

African mobile payment systems are now so advanced you can even use them to bribe police officers. Investigations in Kenya suggest the practice of m-bribery is rife among Smart TVs watch back authorities, including traffic police and weighbridge operators, with established Your TV could be turning the tables on you, by watching you as you watch it. m-payment services being used by LG Electronics has confirmed some of its smart TVs are logging information on corrupt officials to avoid detection and viewing preferences and sending it back to the company’s servers, as part of a service prosecution. designed to offer tailored advertising. Traffic officers can receive up to $175 The investigation began after a UK IT consultant revealed his TV was sending per day in bribes, typically from long- information on the channels he viewed to an LG server without his knowledge. The distance truck drivers, and bus drivers TV also sent details of files on USB devices attached to it, and continued sending and conductors.TA information even when users thought they had turned the feature off. TA

Scorned women rate men online

It is said a scorned woman has more fury than hell itself – and now they can share that online. Lulu, a mobile app that allows women to rank men they know or have dated, is about to be moved from London to New York, after clocking up growth in usage of 600% in the past six months. The app uses a series of multiple choice questions to build up a ranking for men, which is then displayed on his Facebook page for women using Lulu to see. TA

48 Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 Telecom Asia www.telecomasia.net