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WIFI RIDES AGAIN! INSIGHT REPORT LTE, outdoor small cells MOBILE and the cloud RAN - analysis and report on the new vendor strategies EUROPE EUROPE’S WIRELESS MAGAZINE S issue no. 218 S October/November 2011 S www.mobileeurope.co.uk ALSO INSIDE: SFR GOES FEMTO FREE > French operator to offer free residential femtos, and tie up WiFi access. P07 PRICING STRATEGIES > Making an offer that customers can’t refuse - how operators can innovate in pricing. P34 MOBILE MONEY > Orange shows future with national CityZi plans, THE SMALL but what are the rest of Europe’s operators doing OUTDOORS: in mobile money? the LTE challenge P38 Contents October/November 2011 Operator innovation: The price must be right augmented reality pic from page 11 Gig-E Ethernet backhaul contract puts a smile on face of Transmode CEO REGULARS FEATURES EDITORIAL PRICING INNOVATION From mobile money, to pricing, to network architecture, The mobile operator of 2011 has to think differently about 04 operators are not as conservative as they are portrayed. 34 their customer data, and subscriber experience, to deliver pricing strategies that deliver maximum value to the user, but also NEWS deliver increased profitability for the operator. Can they square this TAG spins out m2m; Tele2 to disrupt Netherlands with LTE; circle? 06 SFR to integrate WiFi with 3G; Bouygues pays top amount for LTE spectrum; Broadcom aims for wireless infra share; Ericsson MOBILE MONEY “dominant” LTE provider till 2014; Operators integrate MMS with Operator-led mobile money and payments services are still Twitter; Telefonica working on AR; Virgin Media signs £100m Gig-E 38 thin on the ground, but momentum is growing across deal; Huawei biggest gainer in microwave market; Monitise at mobile Europe, as operators move to commercialisation of NFC technology. money "tipping point"; Operator-backed Paypal rival; Telefonica So where can we look to for operator-led market momentum? doubles Redknee investment; Traffic management takes central stage. DIARY A selection of the major mobile events and conferences in 42 the weeks ahead and a glance at some of the stories to have missed the real news pages. INSIGHT REPORT FULL CONTENTS, FOREWORD Keith Dyer introduces this issue’s Insight Report and charts 19 the impact the LTE is having on how mobile network architectures may evolve. VENDOR DEVELOPMENTS Vendors are taking differing approaches to solving a 26 common operator challenge: from integrated base stations Mobile money to cloud-based processing. Femtocell and WiFi, and market entries momentum from some new players also promise to shake things up. go to www.mobileeurope.co.uk for the latest information on mobile Mobile Europe |3 Comment editor: keith dyer Operators can innovate, but it’s about delivery Operators are often castigated for being poor incubators of innovation. Organisations run on spreadsheets, with high volume and low margin services, are poorly positioned to drive innovative services into the market. So it is interesting to view this issue in the MOBILE light of operator attempts at innovation. A look at both the news and feature pages reveals several aspects where operators are taking EUROPE steps to innovate. WIFI RIDE S AGAI N ! INSIGHT Editor: Keith Dyer REPORT LTE, outdoor small cells MOBILE [email protected] At a network level SFR is moving to a free model for femtocells, a and the cloud RAN - analysis and report on the new vendor strategies EUROPE Direct tel: +44 (0) 20 7933 8999 first within Europe, with the aim of providing customers with the EUROPE’S WIRELESS MAGAZINE S issue no. 218 S October/November 2011 S www.mobileeurope.co.uk ALSO INSIDE: SFR GOES best user experience possible in home and small office. Tele2 is FEMTO FREE > Productio French operator n Manager to offer free residential : Tania King femtos, and tie up WiFi considering the transition from MVNO to full operator with LTE access. and an aggressive marketing approach in the Netherlands. Sales Manager: Shahid Ramzan [email protected] Operators are behind the thrust of our Insight Report, which looks P07 PRICING STRATEGIES Direct tel: +44 (0) 20 7933 8980 into the drivers and developments in heterogenous networks and > Making an offer that customers can’t refuse - how operators can innovate in pricing. Cloud RAN solutions for LTE networks. It is MBNL, which wraps up Com mercial Director: Justyn Gidley T-Mobile and Everything Everywhere, as well as Three UK, which [email protected] P34 MOBILE D has signed an innovative backhaul contract with Virgin Media MONEY irect tel: +44 (0) 20 7933 8979 > Orange shows future with national CityZi plans, THE SMALL but what are the rest of Business. All of these are developments aimed at innovating at the Europe’s operators doing in mobile money? OUTDOORS: Publis network level to provide customers an enhanced user experience. hing director: Chris Cooke the LTE challenge P38 ISSN: 1350 7362 Then, at the service level we see Telefonica, in the news pages, working with Layar, one of the companies driving forward Augmented Reality services and applications. Mobile Europe is a controlled circulation monthly magazineFree Sub savailablecriptions Yet this is far from a case of an operator leaning on a partner for service innovation. In free to selected personnel at the publisher’s discretion. If you wish fact, Telefonica has its own well-established project. We also carry news of operator to apply for regular free copies then please write to: integration of messaging APIs with Twitter, to enable users to upload pictures to their Database Services Twitter profiles using MMS. Not too St John Patrick Publishing Ltd PO Box 6009, Thatcham, Berkshire, RG19 4TT. If there is a lesson there for exciting, perhaps, but an example of the reality of “3rd party integration” that Tel: +44 (0) 1635 879361 Email: [email protected] mobile operators, it is that operators are told they must enable. or register free online at: www.mobileeurope.co.uk delivery is what counts, rather Our features, too, deliver news of than innovation. But the signs Readers who fall outside the strict termsPai dof S ucontrolbscrip tmayions momentum building in the way operators are that lesson has been learnt. purchase an annual subscription . communicate with and view users, and UK 1 Year - £96. International 1 Year - £120. the way they are developing services that and “real world” items. Our feature on pricing innovationcould change suggests the thatway operatorswe pay for aredigital Subscription enquiries should be sent to: dedicated to developing a different view of their customers, so that they can innovate Saint John Patrick Publishers PO Box 6009, Thatcham, Berkshire RG19 4TT around pricing offers, but also in the way that users can control their own experience. And our article on mobile money projects continues to suggest that if there is a critical United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1635 879361 party driving forward widespread awareness of mobile NFC payments, then that party Fax: +44 (0) 1635 868594 is the mobile operator. It is the carriers that are bulk ordering the NFC-enabled Email: [email protected] handsets, the NFC-compatible SIMs. Web: wwwmobileeurope.co.uk Finally, even our sponsored feature, written in association with Ericsson, suggests that operators are driving forward with dedicated go-to-market focused strategies for the enablement of services based on the Rich Communications Suite. Pensord Magazines & Periodicals, Pontllanfraith,Printe dUK. by So, as we enter into iPhone5 territory, and all the hype that that will bring, remember that Apple’s record is of taking tried and tested industry ideas – video calling, instant messaging – and making the experience easy to understand and use. If there is a lesson there for mobile operators it is that delivery is what counts, rather than The views expressed in Mobile Europe innovation. But the signs are that lesson has been learnt, and real progress is being are not necessarily those of the editor made. or the publisher. Mobile Europe is published by Saint John Patrick Publishers Ltd, 6 Laurence Pountney Hill, London EC4R 0BL. 4|Mobile Europe News m2m in Austria l LTE in Netherlands Tele2 to disrupt TAG SPINS OUT M2M Netherlands market Telekom Austria Group (TAG) has formed a with LTE play dedicated company to address the M2M market. The new subsidiary will act as the MVNO Tele2 has strongly indicated that it operator’s competence and service centre for all will bid for 800MHz spectrum in the M2M activities, working at Group level. Netherlands, and that it may become a full Telekom Austria has confirmed to Mobile mobile network owner, seeking to disrupt Europe that the unit will start with about the businesses of the three incumbent 500,000 SIMs under management, as a result of operators by combining its fixed and mobile the operator's existing M2M activities. assets to best effect. The business, known as Telekom Austria Tele2’s Market Area Director for Western Group M2M, will focus on eight application especially within the vertical industries and the Europe, Günther Vogelpoel, said that areas: automotive, consumer electronics, health respective account managers, which all in all favourable legislative and regulatory care, logistics and transportation, retail and amount to about 150 people out of those 200. decisions have presented the operator with payments, security and surveillance, industrial TAG M2M is currently recruiting people to be a “unique” opportunity to make the move and smart business as well as energy and employed directly at this competence center, from MVNO to MNO. utilities. and targets a mid two digit number by middle The Netherlands has mandated that The unit will be run by Bernd Liebscher. “The of next year. 2x10MHz spectrum at 800MHz be reserved Telekom Austria Group has been a long- for new entrants, just as it did for the standing and reliable partner for Are there any partners, developers, etc that 2.6GHz spectrum band.