3G: Despite AT&T’s iPhone launch, Verizon Wireless still leads the way in postpaid
On September 11, 2007, AT&T Mobility kicked off a new marketing campaign, “Your Seamless World,” to portray the company with a more mobile-centric, contemporary brand....
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Handsets and Web 2.0 applications to continue to drive 3G adoption
T-Mobile recently announced the high usage and popularity of community-based network applications on Web ‘n’ Walk in the UK. The nature of these increasingly popular services could be an important dri...
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Sky: Protecting the core business while driving growth through triple play
Sky’s move into triple play with broadband and phone services was partly defensive, caused by competitive pressures in the UK television market....
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Does Vodafone’s WiMAX move mean a departure from LTE?
At the beginning of August, Vodafone, the world’s second largest mobile operator, captured headlines when it became a principal member of the WiMAX Forum. Much to the joy of the WiMAX community, the o...
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Global MNO Consolidation Counterbalanced by New Operators at Local Level
Despite the large number of mergers and acquisitions in the mobile industry, by the end of 2007 a net addition of 43 operators globally since 2001 will have pushed the average number of operators per ...
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Will Google Use the 700MHz Spectrum to Drive Mobile Ad Dollars?
No stranger to the spotlight, Google has repeatedly attracted attention as a possible albeit nontraditional participant in the US auction for 700MHz spectrum set to take place by the beginning of 2008...
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Sprint and Clearwire: a Dash for an Unclear WiMAX Future
Acquiescing to shareholders’ increasing concern over poor performance, Sprint made the safer bet and partnered with Clearwire on mobile WiMAX....
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Is There Value in MVNOs? Charting MVNO Net Present Values
Recent news about MVNOs has not been encouraging. In the US, Mobile ESPN and Amp’d have been high-profile casualties. Helio will need more money to continue operations, and is now set to receive anoth...
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Femtocell activity moves up a notch as lab trials begin
The newly founded Femto Forum, which counts seven small femto-technology vendors among its founding members, marks the official beginning of the femtocell industry. As different femtocell architecture...
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iPhone Calling: How Apple Is Changing Handset, MNO, and Software Dynamics
Apple and AT&T released the iPhone on June 29 in the US. The launch appears to have broken all records, including that of media hysteria, and by any measure it was a huge success. At this time, it app...
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Clearwire: Triple Play and Increased Coverage May Lead to Lower Prices
In mid-June, Clearwire announced agreements with satellite TV carriers DirecTV and EchoStar. In doing so, it improved its competitive position, particularly against the large telcos and cable companie...
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Vodafone Goes Off-Portal with Mobile Internet
The open model of Mobile Internet replaces the walled garden approach of Vodafone’s live! portal, as Vodafone gives live! users access to off-portal content for a flat monthly or daily fee.
The mon...
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Growing at breakneck speed, Bharti Airtel puts Capex pedal to the metal
In June 2007, Pyramid Research released a new report titled The Global Mobile Capex Index: Analyzing the Big MNO Spenders. In the report, analyst Dan Locke created a Capex Index comprising 15 of the w...
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Amp’d stumbles, but the MVNO model will survive
Last week, Amp’d Mobile filed for bankruptcy protection in a US court, becoming the latest MVNO to teeter on the brink of collapse. Amp’d has been one of the most innovative players in the US mobile m...
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MVNOs Need Understanding Parents—Helio’s Relationship with SK Telecom and EarthLink
Among the current crop of data-centric MVNOs in the US, Helio is financially the most transparent, being a joint venture between SK Telecom and EarthLink. Both parent companies have to report publicly...
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Nokia Attempts to Expand Its Share of the North American Device Market
At the Nokia Talks Vision and Strategy event in White Plains, NY, May 11-12 2007, Nokia provided insight into its North America strategy regarding all four of its business units: Mobile Phones, Multim...
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Debitel Netherlands' FMC Service to Fire up the Market
Earlier this year, debitel in the Netherlands became the first MVNO in Europe to launch a dual-mode fixed-mobile service. Branded as debitel One, the SIP-based mobile VoIP service is available free of...
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Are “Old-school” MVNOs a Dying Breed?
The MVNO model has evolved over the past few years from a budget-oriented prepaid offering for low-income or credit-challenged subscribers into a diverse range of niche offerings targeting specific de...
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VoD business models falling short: IPTV telcos look to multiplatform opportunity
ANALYSIS SUMMARY - We don’t believe that VoD services over IPTV networks offer an attractive business model in the medium term, for a number of reasons. As VoD becomes a more lucrative business, we se...
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Huawei Seeks Differentiation through Services
Thanks in part to its strength in emerging markets, Huawei is growing rapidly: revenue climbed by 41% in 2006 to reach $8.5bn, fueled by an innovative yet low-cost strategy.
Despite swift growth, the...
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Betting on FTTH and ADSL: Why Verizon’s Gamble May Not Be the Riskiest
ANALYSIS SUMMARY •We see Verizon’s and AT&T’s fiber rollouts as two antithetic bets on the evolution of broadband supply and demand. Verizon is taking a risk that is primarily financial; AT&T is takin...
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Home Zone Services Launch: Mobile Operators Continue Attack on Fixed Networks
ANALYSIS SUMMARY • A growing number of European MNOs are deploying a short-term strategy of accelerating fixed-mobile substitution (FMS) through home zone services. After the most recent launches, at ...
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Acquisitions Bring Pipex Face to Face with WiMAX Decisions
ANALYSIS SUMMARY • Pipex is expanding rapidly through acquisitions. While the company is also growing organically, most of its recent growth, especially in its broadband and voice segments, has come t...
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Sprint: At a Crossroads on the Path to Market Leadership
ANALYSIS SUMMARY • Sprint’s wholesale and prepaid businesses are growing faster than its postpaid business.
• Deploying both EV-DO Rev. A and mobile WiMAX and then migrating iDEN customers to those n...
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EMI’s Radical Reversal of DRM Strategy and How Apple Is Keeping iTunes Ahead of the Pack
ANALYSIS SUMMARY - On April 2nd, EMI announced that it will be removing DRM from its entire back catalog. This decision came as no great surprise. Nonetheless, this marks a sea change in the way the m...
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Sprint and the Inevitable Gravitational Force of iTunes
Sprint has dropped the price of downloads at its Music Store, the result of pressure on all MNOs to compete with iTunes on a per-track pricing model. The force that is warping the mobile communication...
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Where Will IPTV Succeed?
SUMMARY - We have categorized markets into IPTV sweet spots, high-risk, and wildcard markets, based on broadband and Pay TV penetration. For example, France is a sweet spot, the United States is high-...
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Clearwire: Differentiating Its Way to Becoming an Acquisition Target?
ANALYSIS SUMMARY
• In the US, Clearwire is focused on smaller markets; this positioning may actually increase the company’s chances of survival.
• Clearwire’s strategic moves have been mixed. The co...
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Behind Deutsche Telekom’s Axing of T-One, Some Key Questions about FMC
ANALYSIS SUMMARY
• A handful of problems with the T-One FMC offering—high prices, a lack of strong differentiation features, a single device, and most importantly competition with its sister compan...
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Our 3GSM Review: Of Femtocells, MNO Challenges to iTunes, Mobile WiMAX, and Service Customization
ANALYSIS SUMMARY
• Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens presented unified fronts, but there’s still some work to do.
• Femtocells are emerging; they are expected to improve indoor coverage and enabl...
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US Top Four MNO Capex: Still Trending Downward in 2007
ANALYSIS SUMMARY
• From 2004 to 2005, total Capital Expenditures (Capex) of the four major US MNOs increased substantially due to network enhancements, technology upgrades, and especially as a res...
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Why Ericsson’s Services Business Will Drive Growth, but Continue to Pressure Margins
ANALYSIS SUMMARY
• Following its restructuring in 2002-2003, Ericsson’s greater emphasis on developing a services business appears to be paying off: the professional services division generated 18%...
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3G vs. WiMAX: 3G Spectrum Was Overpriced, and Why WiMAX Spectrum Is Undervalued
ANALYSIS SUMMARY
• The price of WiMAX spectrum has been significantly cheaper than that of 3G spectrum—in some cases, less than one-thousandth of the 3G price.
• 3G spectrum was valued higher b...
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US MNOs: Embracing MVNOs to Better Eliminate Them?
ANALYSIS SUMMARY
• MNOs are starting to trump the MVNOs’ purportedly exclusive content and applications. Helio started its push with MySpace, but the portal is now gravitating more towards Cingular...
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US MVNOs: Winning Battles with Data Revenues, but Can They Win the War?
ANALYSIS SUMMARY
• US MVNOs Helio and Amp’d are bringing in higher ARPS than major MNOs, primarily due to lower prices for data, a deeper data service portfolio, and a still small target market bas...
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VCC Trial Nudges British Telecom Closer to Enterprise FMC
ANALYSIS SUMMARY
• BT’s moves toward enterprise FMC are primarily defensive; the battle for the enterprise is accelerating, demand is ripe, and BT understands that incumbency hardly guarantees winn...
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TOP 10 DEFINING EVENTS OF 2006
TOP 10 DEFINING EVENTS OF 2006...
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Ericsson and Intel: Mobile Broadband Collaboration
Ericsson and Intel: Mobile Broadband
Collaboration...
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Fixed WiMAX Finds a Home in the Middle East
Contrary to more of the excitement centering on mobile WiMAX elsewhere, Middle East is
poised to become a hotbed for fixed WiMAX as the region’s governments and operators alike
incorporate this emer...
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Latin American MNOs Discuss Ways to Make Managed Services an Option
Latin American MNOs Discuss Ways to Make Managed Services an Option...
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MediaFLO: Trialing Times in Europe
While DVB-H mobile broadcast TV standard shows early signs of regional dominance in Europe, Qualcomm’s trial with BSkyB proved MediaFLO’s technical advantages, strengthening the case of competing tech...
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Prepaid Billing Systems Holding Back Mobile Data Adoption
Prepaid Billing Systems Holding Back Mobile Data Adoption...
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Video-on-Demand (VoD): Enhancing the Digital Video and DTH Proposition
Video-on-Demand (VoD): Enhancing the Digital Video and DTH Proposition...
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BT Vision or IPTV as the Third Way
BT Vision or IPTV as the Third Way...
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Emerging Markets: Why Lower Airtime Prices Are Good for Profitability
Emerging Markets: Why Lower Airtime Prices Are Good for Profitability...
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Internet TV: Opportunity, Not Threat for Traditional Pay TV—and IPTV
Internet TV: Opportunity, Not Threat for Traditional Pay TV—and IPTV...
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Mobile Banking and Payment Services Are Picking Up
Mobile Banking and Payment Services Are Picking Up...
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SMS as a Marketing Tool: Sample Cases from Latin America
SMS as a Marketing Tool: Sample Cases from Latin America...
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Virgin’s Sugar Mama Shows an Alternate Path to Mobile Advertising
Virgin’s Sugar Mama Shows an Alternate Path to Mobile Advertising...
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Vodafone Banks on Fresh Handset Lineup for Christmas Season
Vodafone Banks on Fresh Handset Lineup for Christmas Season...
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Can MVNOs Prosper in Central and Eastern Europe?
The MVNO craze is starting to reach into emerging markets. In Central and Eastern Europe, the year 2007 will likely see an MVNO boom. Carriers are more open to hosting, and organic growth has slowed. ...
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Cingular’s Unorthodox Approach to Mobile Music
Cingular’s Unorthodox Approach to Mobile Music...
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How Verizon’s IPTV Is Picking up Market Share
How Verizon’s IPTV Is Picking up Market Share...
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TeliaSonera Shows How to Position and Market New FMC Services
TeliaSonera Shows How to Position and Market New FMC Services...
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Why Canada Is the World’s Leading Triple Play Market
Over the next five years, more than 90 percent of Canada’s households will have some form of bundled service, with about half adopting triple play packages. The recipe for Canada’s success? Market con...
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Why WiMAX IPR Costs Will Matter
Why WiMAX IPR Costs Will Matter...
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Google’s Paris Hilton Moment: A $1.65 Billion Impulse Buy?
As far as acquisitions go, the Google/YouTube deal took place staggeringly fast, at least publicly. Still, we argue that there is no case for buyer’s remorse....
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How Smart Uses GPRS/EDGE to Take Broadband to Rural Areas
How Smart Uses GPRS/EDGE to Take Broadband to Rural Areas...
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MO Advertising: MO Money?
On-device Mobile advertising is about to go primetime: handsets are ready, MNOs are interested, and users are responding positively. For all the trepidation, all players in the value chain will need t...
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The Comeback of Advertising-based Models
The Comeback of Advertising-based Models...
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Thomson Banks on Convergence
Thomson Banks on Convergence...
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Using WiFi to Accelerate IPTV Deployment
Using WiFi to Accelerate IPTV Deployment...
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WiMAX Spectrum: Not Quite Cheap, but Still Cheaper Than 3G
WiMAX Spectrum: Not Quite Cheap, but Still Cheaper Than 3G...
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Ofcom's Bold Plans for UK Spectrum
In January, UK regulator Ofcom announced a consultation process for the review of the UK's spectrum, a process designed to provide the market with a roadmap to future spectrum management. Ofcom's move...
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Apertio Promises to Radically Change Core Network Economics
Apertio Promises to Radically Change Core Network Economics...
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Hosting Eases CAPEX, Raises Concerns for OPEX
Hosting Eases CAPEX, Raises Concerns for OPEX...
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How Africa Can Reach 100 percent Penetration
It can happen—both African operators and governments would have to reinvent themselves, but if not now, they will have to when they pass the 25–30 percent penetration mark. We discuss what such a tran...
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Is Disney Saying MV-NO More?
Disney quickly ran out of patience for Mobile ESPN’s lackluster performance and closed it down. This move supports our contention that the MVNO business is simply not attractive and one will need more...
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Mobile ESPN: Disney Says It’s Not Too Early to Pull the Plug
Disney quickly ran out of patience for Mobile ESPN’s lackluster performance and closed it down. This move supports our contention that the MVNO business is simply not attractive and one will need more...
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Not Just About the Technology: Telemar Redefines Fixed-Mobile Convergence
Not Just About the Technology: Telemar Redefines Fixed-Mobile Convergence...
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On-device Portals (ODP): Rediscovering Mobile Content
On-device portals promise to improve the user experience and generate stronger demand for mobile data. They also enable media companies and content providers to take a larger piece of the pie. But fir...
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Telecom Italia Opts Out of Mobile for Media
Telecom Italia Opts Out of Mobile for Media...
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The 3G Handset Marketing Conundrum
The 3G Handset Marketing Conundrum...
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UMA: FMC Panacea or Placebo?
UMA: FMC Panacea or Placebo?...
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Advanced-IMS: IMS Simplified, or Just More Complicated?
On July 27, Verizon Wireless and a group of vendors that includes Cisco, Lucent, Motorola, Nortel, and Qualcomm, announced a new IMS/MMD initiative called Advanced-IMS (A-IMS). A-IMS aims to simplify ...
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Broadcast Mobile TV Drops the Ball
The key to broadcast mobile TV adoption will be compelling content, and for the billions of football fans around the world, nothing is more compelling than the FIFA World Cup. This year has been the f...
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Free Broadband: The First Signs of Broadband Commoditization Emerge
Over the past 12 months, strategic battles are being waged with moves that either accelerate the broadband commoditization effect, or seek to slow it down. In the UK, The Carphone Warehouse, an altern...
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How Telecom Italia Drives Fixed-Mobile Convergence
Due to the increasingly competitive nature of the Italian telecommunications market, in 2004, Telecom Italia decided to rationalize its business by integrating separate fixed and mobile business units...
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MVNOs: Too Early to Give Up on Mobile ESPN
Nearly eight months after ESPN launched its MVNO in the US market, market mood appears to have turned against the venture. While the operation has committed a number of key missteps, we argue that it ...
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Nokia Goes After Apple, and Mobile Carrier Disintermediation Continues
Nokia's acquisition of US digital music distributor Loudeye puts the Finnish company on a collision course with Apple and the iPod. We believe the move is a key step in an evolution that will see mob...
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Sprint Nextel Accelerates WiMAX Momentum, Raises Questions for CDMA
Sprint's announcement that it will aggressively invest in WiMAX is certainly a watershed for the technology. We review the implications, and wonder if Sprint doesn't believe that CDMA will be enough ...
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US Satellite Bidding for Spectrum: Necessity or Bad Idea?
On August 9, the US Federal Communications Commission opened the first round of bidding for so-called Advanced Wireless Spectrum (AWS). The FCC will auction 1,122 licenses in the 1710-1755 MHz and 211...
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A la Carte and Pay TV: Growth Catalyst or Disruptive Force?
The US congress is considering enacting a law that would compel Pay TV providers to offer a la carte packages. Were this to happen, we expect ARPUs to decline sharply, and IPTV market share to pick up...
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Data-focused MVNOs Shift Gears on Voice
The month of May saw significant announcements on service pricing adjustments from Mobile ESPN and Amp'd Mobile (the new data-centric MVNOs in the US). While Mobile ESPN introduced a whole new set of...
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Football Fever: The World Cup, Football Content Rights, and Mobile TV
With the football World Cup set to start in Germany on June 9, it is worthwhile to examine the relationship between telcos and the beautiful game. We believe the cost of football content is now too hi...
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Mobile Content Revenue Sharing: Content Creators to Get the Lion's Share
If the premise for 3G is built upon data revenues for operators, it is worth assessing the piece of the pie that the operators will receive from sales of digital content services. Exhibit 5 illustrate...
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Nigeria: Starcomms Uses EV-DO as the Platform for Broadband
Nigeria is one of the world's fastest growing mobile markets, and easily Africa's most competitive market. A key feature of the Nigerian market is the competition between GSM and CDMA operators; in a ...
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The Demise of Voice Pure-Play: Is Vonage Toast?
VoIP service provider Vonage has become a household name, thanks to its relentless undercutting of telco and cable voice packages. With its IPO completed with a whimper, a number of factors are leavin...
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Vodafone: Moving into Fixed, Calling It "Mobile Plus"
On May 30, Vodafone announced its long-awaited new strategy, adding fixed to its portfolio of mobile products. True to its previous stance, Vodafone insists that fixed-mobile substitution (FMS) is sti...
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World Cup Special: Examining
The World Cup offers a unique opportunity to push and trial mobile TV; we just do not expect the event to jumpstart adoption of the technology. We examine that and other moves carriers are making to ...
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A Carrier Quandary: Like Rome, IMS Will Not Be Built in a Day
Carriers looking at IMS will face a quandary: the roll-out of IMS will be expensive, with limited immediate returns. We argue carriers will have to look at IMS as an indispensable sunk cost, an invest...
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Can MobiTV Survive Mobile TV Darwinism?
Mobile content aggregator MobiTV is already delivering the promise of television on a cellular phone, and with some success. However, the market for Mobile TV is about to become a lot more crowded, pl...
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GigaBeam's Alternative to Fiber: "Wireless Fiber" Broadband
This month's 3 Questions features our discussion with Jonathan Wells, Director of Product Management at GigaBeam Corporation. GigaBeam Corporation is a provider of high-performance wireless point-to-p...
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How Alcatel-Lucent Will Shake the Vendor Services Market
The proposed merger between Alcatel and Lucent carries some implications for a fast-growing segment, the vendor services space. Alcatel-Lucent will trail Ericsson slightly, in the services business, b...
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How Nokia Looks to Break the US Distribution Challenge
In a bid to strengthen its position in the US mobile handset market and better challenge Motorola’s successful RAZR phone, Nokia has devised a strategy that it hopes will help establish a better conne...
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Sling Player Mobile - Threatening Mobile TV?
For media and communications companies that have only just got over the disruption caused by DVR 'time-shifting' technology, a whole new form of disruption has been introduced; 'place-shifting.' Under...
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Sprint to Close its Network to More MVNOs, Reshape the MVNO/MVNE Landscape
At the CTIA exhibition in Las Vegas, Sprint Nextel stated it did not expect to add more MVNOs on its network over the medium term. Instead, the company plans to focus on those brands with which it has...
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Vendor Consolidation: Predicting 2020
In the October issue of the Next Generation Trend Letter, analyst Taha Rangwala made the key points below. He now goes further with a prediction for... 2020. ...
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Want Lower Churn? Try Lifetime Subscriptions
Operators in India have been known for their ability to innovate, with services such as voice-based VAS portals or all-you-can-watch Mobile TV priced at a flat per-session fee. Lifetime subscriptions ...
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China: IPTV Offering Expected to Boost Broadband Adoption
With IPTV trials already underway in China's metropolitan areas, Pyramid Research expects that the lure of the service will help increase household broadband penetration to 20 percent by 2009. Howeve...
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AT&T-BellSouth: An Overdue, Convergence-driven Union
The acquisition of BellSouth by AT&T in March was momentous (as any US$67bn deal would be), but it was also overdue. Crucially, this deal was not primarily driven by the traditional need to generate s...
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HSDPA Upgrade: Fresh Hopes for Mobile Data Adoption
Across Europe, US, and Asia, HSDPA network trials are starting to translate into commercial launches. Cingular in the US and Telekom Austria and Manx Telecom in Europe have recently been followed by V...
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Latin America: Operator Spending Patterns Reflect Shift in Priorities
Pyramid Research recently completed an analysis of the Latin America services market (other regions will follow soon), ...
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Mobile Music Pricing: Operators Evolve from "Slash and Burn" to Sustained Farming?
A survey of operators providing mobile music shows the sky's the limit with current pricing. Once the novelty of the service wears out, these high prices will find few takers. Operators will have to...
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Operators Are Moving Up the Mobile TV Food Chain
With Mobile TV touted as this year’s 3G Holy Grail, operators are carefully evaluating their role in the nascent business models. Mobile TV will, in most cases, involve a broadcaster as an additional ...
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Virgin Mobile Enters Africa
Virgin Mobile, the MVNO model’s pioneer, is entering the South African market as an Enhanced Service Provider (ESP). The service is branded Virgin Mobile and is a joint venture of Virgin and network...
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Vodafone Dismantles Its Global Empire
The new, post-Japan Vodafone will also get out of Australia and the US, as its focus shifts to becoming stronger, not bigger. While this marks the end of Vodafone’s global empire, the operator will co...
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3G Makes Sense for Emerging Markets—As Soon as 2008
The Growth Markets Analysis seminar, which kicked off the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, opened with a big question: Should emerging markets introduce 3G when voice remains a staple mobile service ...
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How Telenet Makes Multi-play Work
Telenet operates a digital HFC (hybrid fiber coaxial) network in Flanders, the northern region of Belgium, and provides cable, broadband, and telephony services to primarily residential customers. Te...
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Mobile ESPN: Can Fanatics Transform the MVNO Business Model?
US MVNO Mobile ESPN is seeking to turn the MVNO model on its head, transforming what has traditionally been a cost story into a full-fledged revenue story. We take a close look at one of the most amb...
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Mobile TV: Not Quite Here Yet
As 2005 was the year of “Mobile Music,” it would appear that 2006 is the year of “Mobile TV.” Any mobile operator with an up-and-running 3G network is now vocally touting television channels to their ...
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The Nokia-Sanyo Alliance—Another Sony Ericsson in the Making?
Nokia and Sanyo recently announced their intent to create a jointly-owned company to manufacture CDMA handsets. Headquartered in the US and Japan, the Nokia-Sanyo JV is expected to commence operation...
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Wireline Market Consolidation: How Alternative Carriers will Survive the Shakeout
In a wireline market facing impending consolidation, some alternative carriers will not be mere casualties; they’ll survive, and even better, they’ll drive consolidation. The keys to success? Customer...
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Zi Corporation: Mobile Messaging Can Do Even Better—With Increased Usability
This month’s 3 Questions section features a recent discussion with Milos Djokovic, COO and CTO at Zi Corporation regarding mobile messaging trends worldwide. Zi Corp. is a technology company that mak...
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Content Acquisitions by South Korean Operators: A By-product of Media Consolidation
With mobile penetration at 80 percent and broadband household penetration at close to 60 percent in South Korea, it is no surprise that SK Telecom (SKT), the largest mobile operator, and Korea Telecom...
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First Wi-Fi Phones Nearing Market Launch
The first Wi-Fi phones are about to arrive on the market, as Taiwan’s Accton and Netgear/Skype are preparing to launch three models in the first quarter of 2006. Accton will offer two models in the US...
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Hughes Network Systems: New Ownership, Same HNS
We talked to Mike Cook, Senior Vice President at Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HNS) this month. Wholly-owned by SkyTerra Communications, Inc., HNS has provided broadband satellite network solutions to...
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International Long-distance: How Telefonica Drives Growth in a Declining Business
Bucking a region-wide trend, Spanish incumbent Telefónica has met recent success in the international long-distance segment...
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Mobile Communities Can Boost Mobile Data Revenues
The online community concept is permeating the mobile content space and we think that is a good thing. Mobile communities could work as the word-of-mouth promotion for operator services and drive dat...
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Pyramid’s Predictions for 2006
Pyramid’s Predictions for 2006...
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The Future of the MVNE: Towards Specialization and Consolidation
More companies are entering the MVNO market with their enablement services, ranging from pure aggregators to specialized vendors. We believe the MVNE marketplace is headed for consolidation, a natural...
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Transforming the WISP Model: Municipal Wi-Fi, Consumer Electronics and VoWLAN
Pressure on margins due to market saturation has prompted leading WISPs, Boingo, Wayport and The Cloud, to consider alternative business models to create new revenue streams, such as providing managed...
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Virgin Mobile USA, Not Hip Enough for MTV?
For MTV Networks, an organization that has been at the forefront of all things “youth” since its inception in the mid 1980s, having a firm understanding of the fickle barometer of hip has been core to...
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Billing Vendors Need to Play
Business support systems (BSS) hold the potential to differentiate operators from the competition. As operator business models evolve, so do those for the billing vendors. The need for adaptation to...
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Digital Terrestrial TV: IPTV’s Friend or Foe?
A major consideration in the potential growth of IPTV in Europe will be the development of digital terrestrial TV (DTT). Across Europe, TV is moving from analogue to digital platforms, with most marke...
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Fixed World is Not Enough: Big Web Companies’ Mobile Aspirations
The portal heavyweights are making significant investments to mobilize their content and applications, either via operator partnerships or on their own. Such initiatives will grow mobile Internet and...
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Mobile Data: Is The Price Right?
It appears that price is the most significant barrier and determinant to further adoption of mobile data in the markets where we recently surveyed wireless subscribers. Among the mobile consumers su...
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Pyramid Reviews PT/Wireless & Network Communications Exhibition in China
We recently attended the PT/Wireless & Network Communications Exhibition China 2005, held on 18th-22nd October in Beijing. More than 500 exhibitors from 17 countries and regions were on the catwalk at...
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Service Bundling: That’s Comcastic !
Over the last decade, Comcast, formerly just a cable-TV provider, has evolved into a media, entertainment and technology company. Driven largely by slowing growth in video subscribers and increased ma...
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Singtel Shops for Further Growth
Despite a better-than-expected earnings growth at 3% over the third quarter of 2005, the Singtel Group continued to paint a negative near-term outlook due to competitive pressures in its core markets,...
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Vendor Consolidation: Ericsson-Marconi a Harbinger of Things to Come
Ericsson’s acquisition of Marconi is just a precursor of things to come. As the market shrinks, further consolidation in the over-crowded vendor community is in the cards. We identify two phases of v...
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Fixed Incumbents Take on VoIP, Skype—Too Little, But Not too Late
More fixed carriers are jumping on the consumer VoIP bandwagon, offering a range of services ranging from Skype clones to VoIP-based phone-to-phone calling. We believe telco consumer VoIP efforts are ...
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FLASH OFDM Gets a Boost from T-Mobile Rollout
T-Mobile rolled out a FLASH OFDM network in Slovakia and became the first operator to do so in Europe. Mark a point for Flash-OFDM against its main technology rival: CDMA EV-DO. At this time, EV-DO ha...
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M2M: Aeris Believes It Can Mobilize Machines Better
This month, Robert Shoenfield, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Aeris.net, talked to us about his company, which is widely regarded as the leader in wireless machine-to-m...
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Municipality Broadband: Earthlink, Google Jump in, and the Dream Gets Closer to Reality
In early October, the city of Philadelphia selected EarthLink Inc. as the primary vendor to set up the largest municipal wireless broadband network in the US. The Atlanta-based ISP, EarthLink, is plan...
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New Service Leadership: How O2 UK Outperforms the UK’s Mobile Data Market
The quality and availability of content plays a key role in O2’s mobile data vision and has led to the remarkable growth of its data revenue. O2 has been very aggressive in introducing new services. ...
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Pyramid Research Consumer Survey: India Leads BRIC Adoption of Mobile Gaming
Mobile gaming unquestionably represents a tremendous opportunity for the mobile industry. According to a soon-to-be-released Pyramid Research consumer survey of mobile data usage patterns in Brazil, R...
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The Contrarian View: Satellite Broadcasters Shun Triple Play, Stay Focused on Video
To succeed in an increasingly volatile marketplace, service providers will need to offer a bundle of voice, broadband and video services. Or so goes the conventional wisdom. Satellite service provider...
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The Expensive Ebay/Skype Deal; We Say Skype is Worth It
Ebay’s US$2.6bn purchase of Skype has generated much ink and passion, with many doubting the wisdom of the acquisition. Our initial reaction was similarly skeptical. Ebay and Skype do not have busines...
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Vodafone’s Next Move? Cold on M&A, WiMAX, Focus on Making 3G Work
At its analyst conference held in the UK this past September, Vodafone presented an update of its future growth plans. The company is undoubtedly healthy and cash-flush. What does it do now? There wer...
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BPL: Broadband Pipe Dream or Real Threat to Telcos?
High-profile companies such as Google, IBM and Earthlink are investing in the BPL technology which will provide broadband over power lines and creating some noise. Pyramid Research argues that while ...
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Build It and They Will Come? Not for Mobile Data...
The importance of ongoing subscriber education is not to be underestimated. While the industry is boiling over with excitement in mobile data applications, it is worth noting that this may not be tric...
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Free Incoming Calls Draw Prepaid Users to Singapore’s M1
As Singapore’s mobile penetration reached 91 percent by YE2004, service providers shifted their focus to the prepaid segment. Early in 2005, M1, Singapore’s smallest mobile operator, rolled out a new ...
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MVNO Hosting: Telfort Shows the Potential of Wholesale Business
The Netherlands’ third mobile operator, Telfort, launched its wholesale activities in 2001. Upon its acquisition by Greenfield Capital Partners from O2 of the UK in 2003 for US$28m, the operator set ...
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MVNOs: Parent Company Commitment Will Be Key to Success
With dozens of players continuing to enter the MVNO marketplace, distinguishing the most likely to succeed from the also-ran is becoming arduous. We believe a key criteria is how central a mobile stra...
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Operators Strike Preemptively, as the Launch of Japan's Mobile Number Portability Nears
The introduction of mobile number portability (MNP) has yielded mixed results in MNP markets across the world. Although MNP has generally not lived up to the market expectations, the threat of its lau...
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TCS Places All Bets on 2006 for the Take-off of Location-based Services
As more location-based services (LBS) appear on the market, we talked to Tim Lorello, Chief Marketing Officer of Telecommunications Systems, Inc (TCS), about the cost implications of deploying these a...
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Telecom New Zealand: Outsourcing Network Operation to Move Up the Value Chain
Telecom New Zealand has fully opted out of network management and operations to focus on becoming a solutions provider to its customers. The operator relies on its vendor partners’ technology experti...
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What Our Latest Research Says…
With the emergence of Next Generation Networks, the mobile music industry is on the rise with the reality of Full Track Downloads (FTDs). This report analyzes two successful Full Track Download servi...
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Why Telecoms Mergers & Acquisitions Are Back
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have experienced a surge in the telecoms market over the past year. Cheap funding and low interest rates certainly play a huge role, but evolving market dynamics are th...
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Designing the Next-Generation Mobile Device
Improvements in battery life and display technologies and seamless handoffs between different technologies will come together in the next generation mobile device. Such devices will spur further crea...
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Digital Rights Management and Full Track Downloads
Digital piracy is a concern for content providers. In its nascent stage, distribution of digital content has been rather conservative. For further customer engagement however the industry has to cons...
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Discussing IMS and Mobile Content with Tira Wireless
We posed three questions on the evolution of mobile content and the impact of IMS on the mobile market to Wayne Seifried, Director of Product Marketing at Tira Wireless. Tira Wireless provides portin...
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Disney Looks to Mobilize Kids
Walt Disney Co. jumped on the MVNO bandwagon with its long-anticipated announcement in July 2005 to provide a nationwide mobile service using Sprint’s network in the US beginning in 2006. The service...
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France Telecom’s NExT: The Blueprint for the Next Generation Telco?
France Telecom is integrating its businesses to become an end-to-end service provider. While costly at first, integrated operations promise both greater efficiencies and share of the customer’s walle...
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IPTV: PCCW Successfully Banks on Content
In September 2003, PCCW, Hong Kong’s incumbent fixed-line operator, became one of the first wireline operators in the world to launch an IPTV service. The operator originally conceived the service, ...
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Kineto gains further ground as UMA takes off
In July 2005, Korean vendors Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have both licensed Kineto Wireless’ Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) technology to develop UMA-enabled cellular/Wi-Fi phones. Other ve...
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MVNOs: To Host or Not To Host, That is the (MNO) Question
A few operators around the world have emerged more MVNO-friendly than others. MVNOs help network operators to improve the return on the capital invested in the network. However, for market leaders, ...
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Vonage Calls Attack on US Incumbent Positions in Partnership with TowerStream
In the increasingly consolidated US market, Vonage’s new partnership with TowerStream is another assault on the incumbent positions. The new partnership will see TowerStream, a pre-WIMAX provider in f...
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What Our Latest Research Says…
With the emergence of Next Generation Networks, the mobile music industry is on the rise with the reality of Full Track Downloads (FTDs). This report analyzes two successful Full Track Download servi...
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Belgacom Wins Belgium’s Football Rights: The Future of Telco TV?
Belgacom has won exclusive football TV rights in Belgium, trumping cable and TV broadcasters. The Belgian carrier should be applauded for its sheer brazenness. We just don’t think other telcos will fo...
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BT – Fusion of Fixed and Mobile Services is Out of the Bag
BT has revealed details on its new consumer Fusion service, arguably the world’s first fully convergent service. The service is attractive, but will need more handsets and a migration from Bluetooth ...
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Life beyond the 30 Second Commercial
It must be an unsettling time to be a TV network. As a sponsor of television advertising since the dawn of the medium, recent news from Procter and Gamble (P&G) could be an ominous glimpse of the shap...
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Microsoft Pockets another IP TV Contract
On June 29, 2005, BT announced a partnership with Microsoft for the delivery of Microsoft’s IP TV platform. The new deal concluded eight–month long platform tests by BT and emphasized how far Microsof...
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Mobile Alliances – Consolidation by Another Name?
Some operators consolidate, others go for alliances. To defend their turf, several “independent” operators have formulated alliances to enjoy consolidated purchasing power and network coverage area. A...
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Mobile Data: How SK Telekom Makes Mobile Music Work
On November 15, 2004, South Korea's largest cellular company, SK Telecom, launched a music portal service called ‘MelOn’. MelOn is the first integrated, wired and wireless, music service that allows u...
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NTT DoCoMo’s iMode Felica and Contactless Payments – Mind the Merchant
Squeezing wallet functionality into a mobile phone is a logical progression; after all the ubiquity of the mobile phone is without compare. For contactless payments to work however, merchants need to...
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Positioning WiMAX with Harris Corp.
This month, we had a conversation with Michelle Pampin from the Global Marketing Department of Harris Corporation on WiMAX. Harris Corporation is an international communications equipment company, pro...
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The Grass is Greener on the Other Side of the Fence: Walls Around Operator Portals are Bound to Coll
T-Mobile’s web’n’walk service is an early indication of how operators are warming up to the Internet model over the walled-garden approach with content. About time, we argue. ...
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What Our Latest Research Says…
Market dynamics, from carrier consolidation to subscriber growth saturation, the evolution towards next generation networks and increased service personalization are dramatically altering mobile carri...
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A New MVNO on the Block With A Focus on Enterprise
TeleCommunications Systems (TCS) of Annapolis, MD, a provider of mission critical wireless data, jumped on the MVNO bandwagon last month under the Mobeo brand name. Promoting itself as the first busi...
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Fixed Mobile Convergence: How Brasil Telecom Leverages Position to Offer Innovative Converged Servic
In the last week of September 2004, fixed operator Brasil Telecom entered the mobile market with a GSM platform. The landscape was already crowded, with three to four players offering 2G and 2.5G serv...
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Gunning for Blackberry: Microsoft Makes its Move
In May, Microsoft introduced the latest version of its operating software, Windows Mobile 5.0. One month later, the company introduced a Messaging and Security Features Pack, designed –among other thi...
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IMS: New Technology, New Carrier-Vendor Dynamics
Latest IMS contracts indicate a shift towards multi-vendor deals with one vendor emerging as the systems integrator. Who has the necessary expertise to get the job done? Equipment vendors or non-tra...
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Mobile Number Portability: Much Ado about Nothing?
It’s been some time now that MNP has been implemented in a number of countries; we take a look and conclude that it hasn’t had much of an impact. What happened?...
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The UMA Forum– Dissolved and Re-Born
At the end of May 2005, the UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) group, whose participants include BT, O2, Rogers Wireless and a number of vendors, decided to disband and fold its standard into the Third Ge...
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VDSL2: Filling the ADSL-Fiber Gap
Two main challenges have haunted launches of IPTV services – quality content and the last mile connectivity required for its delivery. VDSL2 aims to make ADSL future-proof and put it in a stronger pos...
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What Our Latest Research Says…
Market dynamics, from carrier consolidation to subscriber growth saturation, the evolution towards next generation networks and increased service personalization are dramatically altering mobile carri...
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Colt’s Europe-wide Flat Rate Offering for VoIP: A Taste of Things to Come
This month, European alternative carrier Colt Telecoms launched what is Europe’s first continent-wide voice flat-rate offering. For EUR €24.90 (not including another EUR €20 in handset rentals), busin...
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Intel is Ready to Ship WiMAX Chips. Any Takers?
Intel is ready to ship its first WiMAX chips. Good news, but the proposed CPE cost will have to decline before WiMAX can truly pick up....
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Lessons Learned from BT’s 21st CN Supplier Picks
In April, UK incumbent fixed carrier, BT, announced its preferred supplier selection for the roll-out of its much-ballyhooed 21st Century Network (21st CN), which will consolidate its current voice an...
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Motorola, Apple, and the Problem with the Mobile Music Value Chain
What’s the problem with the mobile music business model? Too many parties in the value chain; a disintermediation process has begun, potentially at the expense of mobile carriers....
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NTT Delays HSDPA Deployment – Is This A Sign of Trouble for HSDPA?
NTT DoCoMo was recently reported to have delayed its HSDPA launch by one year to mid-2006. No reasons for the delay were given. This is especially significant that NTT was looking to speed up the lau...
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Penetrating Low-End Market Segments: SMART Low Prepaid Voucher Denominations
In May 2003, Filipino mobile operator SMART introduced Smart Load, an over-the- air recharge voucher for the prepaid segment. The vouchers come with values of P30 (US$0.05), P60 (US$1), P115 (US$2.1) ...
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T-Mobile Considers DMB Mobile TV
Samsung Electronics recently announced that it had signed a deal with Germany’s T-Systems to develop commercial DMB (digital multimedia broadcast) products and services. DMB was originally developed i...
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The Next M2M Opportunity: Public Services
A number of contracts have started shedding some light on the potential opportunity for machine-to-machine applications in the public service sector. Governments around the world are increasingly adop...
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VoWLAN: Banking on the Enterprise Opportunity
Why Europe will lead VoWLAN adoption and how the PBX replacement cycle will drive enterprise demand...
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What Our Latest Research Says…
Over the last few months, telecoms investors, operators and vendors have been focusing much of their attention on how to maximize the opportunity in what has come to be known as the BRIC countries – B...
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Equipment Vendors and WiMAX: Own, Develop, or Resell
Demand for WiMAX will determine how the vendor landscape shapes up. For now, vendors adopt conservative approaches to 802.16d and prepare for 802.16e. ...
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Is ADSL Getting the Upper Hand Over FTTH, HFC?
In February, the UK’s NTL launched a trial of ADSL2+, a technology it expects to use to offer HDTV services. One peculiarity of NTL’s trial is that the company is a cable player purposely banking on A...
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Mobile Broadcast TV – Whose Show Will It Be?
Is Mobile TV the killer application we have all been looking for? There is a strong business case for content providers and broadcasters, but careful planning is required for mobile operators....
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Mobile Remittances: Operators Cash in on a Multi-Billion Dollar Opportunity
Operators around the world are sold on this new data application enabling mobile money transfers....
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P. Diddy as an MVNO: Ridiculous? Not Necessarily.
During a speech at last month’s CTIA exhibition, musician/entrepreneur P.Diddy proclaimed “I am an MVNO”. The gist of his argument: millions of people listen to his music, and through music, he has ch...
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The Slow Death of EV-DV
In early March, Qualcomm announced that it put on hold development of CDMA 1x EV-DV (evolution data voice) standard. Instead the vendor will focus on EV-DO (evolution data optimized) Revision A, which...
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Triple Play: Starhub Experiences Significant Growth through Strategic “Hubbing”
Hubbing refers to the provision of mobile, cable TV, Internet access and value added services, and fixed network products over different platforms. Singapore’s sole cable TV provider, Starhub, levera...
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WHAT OUR LATEST RESEARCH SAYS
Over the last few months, telecoms investors, operators and vendors have been focusing much of their attention on how to maximize the opportunity in what has come to be known as the BRIC countries – B...
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Wi-Fi Public Hot Spots – Roaming and Partnerships Shift Growth to Emerging Markets
The year 2004 marked the beginning of multiple WLAN roaming agreements, signed by nearly all major Wi-Fi service providers in the US, Europe and Asia. In addition to expanding the range of services fo...
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Nextel Scraps WiMAX Plans
Nextel has narrowed down its high-speed data network technology choices to two, and WiMAX is not one of them. The company is deciding between Flarion Technology's Flash-OFDM and the next generation of...
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VoWLAN: The Big Guns Step in the Fray
When we looked at voice over WLAN in early 2004, the main question we asked was “Will it really happen?” Today, only a year later, the question changed from if to when. Mobile over WLAN has so far bee...
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