South Cow-rea already cow-nected to 5G

Lazy MNOs usually settle for milking the cow, but SK Telecom is neither lazy, not your usual MNO. And in its latest presentation, the Korean leader suggested to IoT-ize the cow in order to generate new applications and revenues:

LiveCare: "oral implant of bio capsule in cow, extract real-time information through LoRa, provide analysis through Web/app, alert and message to farmer" - that was Korea's version of the classic 'you have two cows' parable.

Of course, LiveCare was only a niche app illustrating the way the MNO intends to leverage its core techno and infra (network, A.I., cloud, data) to boost new business (e.g. IoT, commerce, media).  

A couple of days ago, BT CEO Gavin Patterson called all players to 'build a strong business case for 5G', and measuring bovine farts doesn't exactly sound like the next killer app... unless you replace cows with humans, and alerts with A.I.-picked medical or culinary recommandations customized for your microbiome (expect more A.I. news from SKT, already present with NUGU or Aibril - the latter with IBM Watson -, and recently joined by Hyundai Motor Company, Hanwha Asset Management, and the Canadian Element AI in a USD 45M fund to invest in A.I. and smart mobility).


SK Telecom is already 'building a strong case for 5G', particularly with its rival KT about to showcase its own flavor during the Pyeongchang 2018 olympics. And SKT are not just into testing earlier than others (e.g. recently 4G LTE-5G internetworking, or VR 360 over 5G with Samsung tablet-size device), or even into going commercial earlier than others, but also into building a stronger 5G standard (e.g. recently pushed for 200 Gbps packet swiching), and a stronger technological environment around 5G (e.g. recently 4.8 Gbps WiFi with 802.11ax in Bundang, or 5G-PON / Passive Optical Network distribution).


'Building a strong business case for 5G' will be more fun for marketers. Even if it starts, as usual, like with 3G or 4G, with existing services that will saturate the previous generation anyway, like HD video these days, a booming category if we ever saw one. 

'Building a strong business case for 5G' will also demand a touch of emotion, so I'll finish this focus on SK with their latest ad for 5G. It features an endangered species, Jeju-do's haenyeo (female diver):




mot-bile 2017

Mobile World Congress 2013: Unleash The Fox! Back To The Nineties!

In Barcelona, the hunt for the next killer app after Lionel Messi has started again, but for the moment, Mobile World Congress 2013 delivers at the hardware, OS, MNO levels. Vintage stuff.

Adding more flesh to its recent CES promises*, Mozilla decided to disclose** an impressive starting lineup for Firefox OS:

• devices? ZTE and Alcatel are there, LG's on board, Huawei will follow later this year
• apps? Facebook stars from day one
• cool factor? Mozilla unleashed its fox, and the long tail is now meant to set the whole sector on fire. Firefox OS joining Firefox Marketplace and Firefox fo Android, the predator is one search engine shy of splashing a Google-Android-Chrome-Killer tatoo across its chest. Even the Android dude got his tee:
  
• operators? check! This neither-Apple-nor-Google-nor-Microsoft OS comes as a blessing for MNOs that are desperately trying to recover their 2G mojo (see "joyn or die? forget about KakaoTalk and Anipang?"). Telefonica sums best the industry's mood by saluting "a major step to bring balance back to the telco sector", and America Movil is "committed to launch Firefox OS phones in Mexico and all possible markets during 2013". Completing the 17 member list are China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Hutchison Three Group, KDDI, KT, MegaFon, Qtel, SingTel, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia Group, Telenor, TMN, and VimpelCom.

Google must be preparing its own announcements, probably further down value chains and value galaxies (e.g. a music streaming service, according to the Financial Times). And meanwhile, execs reassert that virtual reality is the future of mobile... the occasion to re-mention Ingress game platforms, or augmented-reality-enabled eyewear Google Glass(es).

Just like Firefox OS, the Nokia 105 is meant for the masses: a cheap candybar handset with a late nineties look, and a tempting price tag (EUR 15). It's resistant, it consumes little power, and it would sound smart as a fox if Chinese manufacturers were not able to deliver the same kind of object at an even cheaper price. Nokia seems to be stuck in the 1990s, at a time when global marketshare in volumes was all that mattered. They'll get less press coverage for their Lumia 520 on Windows 8, but maybe that was the aim of the game: avoiding the comparison with Samsung on image.

Will the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Samsung Galaxy Note 3 live up to the hype? Until we get the answer, the Suwon-based giant keeps leveraging its subbrand: after Samsung Galaxy Camera, here's a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 tablet (Q2 2013), a supposed iPad mini killer. I can't wait to drive my Renault Samsung Galaxy LTE-Wibro Hybrid, to e-mail e-icecubes from my Samsung Galaxy Fridge, or to airkies these fancy apartment plans to my Samsung Galaxy Augmented Reality Printer.

Augmented reality sounds like material for pre-Lehman bubbles, something from the early Noughties. If you want something really ninetiesish, dig MasterCard's marketplace approach: MasterPass, a Visa's V.me-too.

Aah, the nineties... In 1996, after surviving 3 start-ups in 3 years, I joined for 7 years a French start-up that would become Cegetel and later SFR Cegetel. The shareholders were:
- Compagnie Generale des Eaux (44%), a French conglomerate recently converted to telecoms (SFR, partly held by a pure mobile player called Vodafone)
- Mannessmann (15%), a German conglomerate recently converted to telecoms (D2, Mannesmann Arcor, Omnitel...)
- British Telecom (26%), an international telecom institution that needed to set foot on new territories as deregulation reached further across its empire, and
- SBC (15%), the most ambitious of all Baby Bells

If you followed the turn-of-the-millenium sit(ele)com featuring the trio Klaus Esser - Chris Ghent - Jean-Marie Messier, plus Li Ka-shing as guest star, you already know what happened to each party.

SBC would resurrect Ma Bell and become the new and improved ATandT. British Telecom would remain a serious player and drop its MNO activities, but still enjoy its moments of fun (BT just purchased ESPN's operations in UK and Ireland). Mannesmann would bite the forbidden fruit Orange before being wolfed down by Vodafone. CGE would become Vivendi, spin off its formerly-core-but-still-cash-cow utility business, become Vivendi Universal, then Vivendi again. Vodafone would remain Vodafone, only bigger.

Today, Vivendi is getting rid of its formerly-core-but-still-cash-cow telecom operations in France (SFR, eyed by - among others - Ypso/Cinven/Carlyle), Brazil (GVT), and Morocco (Maroc Telecom). Canal+ shall become the new "core utility", the other gems being Universal Music Group, and Activision Blizzard, both leaders in sectors subject to profound changes.

Is virtual reality truly the future of mobile?


mot-bile 2013

* "I see through you: City of Sin, Screens, and Smartpagers"
** see "Mozilla Announces Global Expansion for Firefox OS"

UNOMobile, COOP and TIM : mobile sells in Italia

"Parlare di più, pagare di meno". Talk more, pay less ; that will be UNOMobile's moto. Is this Carrefour unit a full MVNO or only an ESP (Enhanced Service Provider) ? Anyway, another retailer is launching a MVNO in Italy : COOP will propose CoopVoce to its 6.5M members and their families (18M people overall), aiming for 1M subs in 3 years with a EUR 200 M turnover. CoopVoce will be hosted by TIM.

"Talk no more, unless I pay less". That could be the reason why AT&T declined the same TIM (through the Olympia-Pirelli-Telecom Italia cascade). But American Moviles and France Telecom (now with Morgan Stanley) remain in a shopping mood. For them, it could be "Parlare di più, pagare di piu".

"Parlare di più" ? Vodafone seems to perfectly understand the Italian MVNO dialect : Vodafone Italia will host both UNOMobile and Poste Italiane, and it is even using the same language to talk to fellow brits (BT aims at 10% of the biz market with its convergence offer, but needs a godfather to enter it).

* branded 1Mobile - with the same 1 as the group's trademark logo for its first price products (see unomobile.it - still at the "coming soon" stage).

Free broadband for broadwallets

Back to the future : remember the panic seizing operators when the "free internet" tidal wave landed on their shores ? We're back at it and with a larger magnitude.
But this time is different. Operators surf the wave and just unleash a small part of the potential of truly convergent offers.
After Carphone Warehouse and BT, Orange UK announced a free broadband bundle. Actually, you have to subscribe to Orange the mobile service to get Orange the fixed broadband service for free. In other words, Wanadoo is dumped a second time within a few weeks.
So even these days, there's no such thing as a free service. For instance, "Free" requires paying £20.99 per month at CWH.
Vodafone are expected to announce something beyond their getting rid of Arcor or a few of their top execs getting rid of their positions.

DoCoMo 4G The Wizard of Hz - Orange Landline Landmines - BT's FRED for free - Swisscom's 5in1 for 99

Bubbles start popping again. Vodafone concede their assets were overevaluated, Florentino Perez concedes the wealthiest club on earth may not the healthiest, and BT concede their disruptive "broadband dialtone" concept won't be free.
Following an interview in "Mail on Sunday", some believed BT would invest big sums in their 21st Century Network (21CN), plus £12M just for VoIP, just to offer broadband to anyone who wants to plug in. Make that "unlimited" instead of "free". Cardiff will go live by the end of the year and the rest of the 21CN (some 30 countries) in 2008, one year ahead of schedule. The aim of the game is for people to meet with FRED (BT's Fantastically Really Easy to use Device concept). Just like in your mid-90s slides, FRED sells convergence, optimized consumer experience, or seamless multidevice environments.
The difference is FRED does sell : BT Movio (to Virgin Mobile), BT Fusion handsets (BT Broadband at home, your MNO on the go - 13,000 units sold to date), BT Equinox (fixed-line SMS), internet radio (PC based and soon an enhanced TV based version with teleshopping, televoting and telewhatevering thanks to a new red button)... FRED will even launch - this spring - the already cult Bluephone (see "Bluephone : a 2,005 pound gorilla or a GNOME ?" 20050316).

Another former PTT keeps talking convergence and furthermore, acting accordingly. Swisscom's HSDPA coverage will reach 20% of the population mid-2006 and about 40% by the end of the year. That's the equivalent of Switzerland's main cities : it will cover more surface on the industry's newspapers than on the local maps but far enough for the operator's new devices to make sense. Less glamour than FRED, but truly "ready to use" : there is a Swisscom Unlimited PC Card 5in1 (GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA and WLAN) with a CHFR 99 / month plan, but also an Unlimited Laptops solution developped with Fujitsu Siemens and Acer (embedded SIM, one touch connection, various plans including a CHFR 5 / hour concept, TTM June 2006).

Orange are a former PTT too, through France Telecom's DNA. As expected, they now claim to be "an integrated communications provider" and intend to become "the total communications provider". Orange Landline for Business means fixed line service for SMEs with one stop shopping and billing, simplified supply chain and service support models, convergent packages and bundles, discounted rates between Orange fixed and Orange mobile number ranges or to 'Business Circle' numbers (top 10 landline contacts), Orange Business customer service with a Landline Performance Promise...
But Orange Landline for Business also means Orange Landmine for Partners : the F/MNO controls the whole chain and intends to lock the customer's entry points as fully as it does in France.

How about the mother of all PTTs ? NTT DoCoMo have been talking 4G even before releasing 3G. We knew from the start they meant business because of their capacity problems : even HSDPA / HSUPA cannot solve them and DoC is bound to lead once more in commercial TTM. From time to time, the Alchemist skillfully displays a few glimpses of his witchcraft : "by increasing the number of MIMO transmission antennas from four to six and by using 64-QAM (NB : Quadrature Amplitude Modulation), data volume per transmission was increased from four bits to six bits. As a result, DoCoMo achieved a maximum speed of 2.5Gbps, which is faster than the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R)'s proposed standard". The Wizard of Hz also pushed frequency spectrum efficiency to 25 bps per Hertz, the limit as defined by WINNER (the EU's Wireless world INitiative NEw Radio). In other words : I've been working on 4G on my own according to the rules and the guidelines of standardization bodies, but I've already beaten their expectations. So you'd better follow me if you want to go further and quicklier.
Technology's always been the MNO's main hobby, but they have some 50 million consumers to please and a few technologies to sell before they get obsolete (i-mode, V-Live, i-motion, FOMA...). So the DoCoMo - Nippon Television Network Corporation JV (each partner injecting 5 bn Yens) will start on April 3 under the D.N. dream partners LLP name. What's in a name... the Master Of DYI finally understanding what kind of partnerships he really needs to succeed ?

Movio Modio Modeo

Following their Pittsburgh, PA trials, Modeo LLC (the new name for Crown Castle Mobile Media) will launch DVB-H services (including audio and video podcasting) across 30 US markets (including NYC) by the end of 2007.
Meanwhile, BT released some data from their BT Movio DAB trials (1,000 users) : unsurprisingly enough considering the technology and the services, digital radio was more popular than digital TV with 90 mns per week vs 66. 50% of the time, mobile TV is home TV, with a 6 P.M. prime time... One should wonder whether the age of broadband - at least one screen in every room - will make this kind of usage irrelevant, but up to now, the Korean case proved mobile TV usages could bloom even in the dead middle of the broadband home / office spheres. The fact is mobile TV is more personal TV than the set in a teenager's bedroom, mobile TV is more seamless than TV on the go. Two thirds of BT Movio users would pay £8 per month for the service (translation : reality would put that around one fourth max, especially when they learn digital radio will be free), and one third would change for an operator with this service (make that one third max).
Because of BT's intense PR, Nokia are already asked why they chose DVB-H over DAB, whilst the latter is clearly out of the global race for mobile TV. Mainstream medias don't even mention DMB, Nokia's and DVB's biggest competitor. For the moment, argumentation appears like a walk in the park for Nok-Nok.

BeautifulPhones, cheesecakes, greenfees

A few weeks after BT's BT Fusion, neuf cegetel are trying their WiFi - GSM handsets, dubbed BeautifulPhone. That's about 10 years after cegetel* tried dual mode homezone DECT - GSM handsets, but the continuity of the multimedia / office spheres could succeed where voice only failed to sell.
Swisscom should sell too, or at least be fully open to strategic partnerships : Switzerland are abandoning their 66.1% share of the cheesecake. TDC / easymobile could grab more than a few crumbs of this jewel airline, but why would Vodafone turn their own cheese into a gruyere ?
Elsewhere in Europe, H3G Italia will broadcast DVB-H next year (H2) after taking over Channel 7 and their digital TV frequencies. The only truly pure greenfield 3G player eventually understood profits would come from 3G voice and mobile TV wasn't a 3G application.

* then the no-yet-born long distance subsidiary of the no-yet-born Vivendi, but already with SFR

Bridging T-DMB & DAB, Hallyuwood & Bollywood, Korea and the UK

April 2006 : digital broadcasting trials will start in the UK with an explosive DAB-Combo bringing together an impressive crowd from Europe's leading media country and the world's leading broadband country :

• From the UK : Orange, BT Livetime, Ariqva, Frontier Silicon, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Virgin Radio, GCap Media, Emap, Celador, and even SMG Television (producers vith a Bollywood flavor)...


• From Korea : the twin towers (Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc.), the ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute), a few start-ups specialized in DMB / video solutions (Perstel Inc.*, Timetek Inc. / WithUSTech, Pixtree Technologies Inc)...

UK logically brings a key MNO (whose interest in DMB seems consistent with France Telecom R&D's vision as exposed last January), but no European manufacturer. I'm not so sure Nokia are enjoying this after the T-DMB trials announced in France (this year) or Germany (next year).

Diplomatically and smartly** enough, T-DMB is presented as an application of the WorldDAB Eureka 147 standard, the DAB designed by UK researchers. So the trial users will receive European "DAB" digital radio and video on their mobile handsets.

Food for thought for those who considered the UK and Korea as traditional entry points for US technologies in Europe and Asia...

* sponsored by Samsung Venture Investment Company and STIC Ventures, established a UK subsidiary 3 years ago
** nothing to do with Ireland's new entrant Smart Mobile (UMTS 'B' license - 53% coverage by October 2011 - the equivalent of the country's top five cities).

TDD & TDMB, not so TDous

After all, TDMB still has a chance in Europe. Part of the lobbying I mentioned about LG is about the easiness of piggybacking on existing DAB networks, whilst DVB spectrum remains to be seen. And LG are starting this month a T-DMB trial in Regensburg, Germany, supposedly under the helm of the EU IST CELTIC Project, CELTIC standing for Cooperation for a European sustained Leadership In Telecommunications. I guess Nokia appreciates the joke, especially since they are part of CELTIC's Core Group (the same can be said about BT, FT or Telefonica). And CELTIC's "Call 2 projects tackling convergence" still includes WingTV, a program devoted to Nokia's DVB-UMTS integration. Fixed incumbents are already involved in such trials, but they are also busy taking shares of IPTV market as quickly as possible in a competitive DSL world. France Telecom's MaLigne TV could go international with a more colorful branding (the color of a juicy fruit, for instance), and Telefonica's Imagenio could leverage on the operator's reconquista of the Americas. Mobile broadcasters will be stronger if they already are strong IPTV leaders...
TD-CDMA have been back from the dead for months : Orange in France, T-Mobile in the Czech Republic, Nextel in Washington D.C.... even Japan reserved the 2GHz spectrum for IP Wireless' beloved technology. TDD could prove a quick fix for such US players as Sprint-Nextel or T-Mobile : W-CDMA is on its way (in different bands) and the HSDPA -HSUPA have the favor of many GSM players, but TDD could deliver earlier and cheaper coverage without major spectrum hurdles (especially compared to demanding HSUPA). Beyond data cards or dongles, handsets are yet to be found, and the industry needs more than IPW partnerships with Atmel or Teleca to solve this.

Bluephone : a 2,005 pound gorilla or a GNOME ?

One year behind schedule, BT's Bluephone Project may give birth to the piggyback phone : your handset sniffs some open network and connects to it wirelessly. It's a phone, and it's "blue" because it sounds like some short range techno which happened to be all the rage a couple of years ago.

As usual, there are glitches with the branding : BT was good at "creating" the i-mode brand, but other people took the bluephone domain names long before the Project was even initiated. They need to hurry if they plan to launch such byproducts as the "steal a ringtone / ringtune" concept (Bluebell ?) or the "sniff & snatch some snuff / adult content" concept (Blueballs ?).

You can already perform such calls (i.e. with a Skype + laptop + wifi combo) and wifi handsets are on their way but this is about providing a better customer experience and making things happen. From the team that definitely knows how to bring people closer to each other to produce hot air : the Fixed-Mobile Convergence Alliance (FMCA - BT, Brasil Telecom, Korea Telecom, NTT Com, Rogers Wireless, Swisscom) and the Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA - Alcatel, AT&T Wireless, BT, Cingular, Ericsson, Kineto Wireless, Motorola, Nokia, Nortel Networks, O², Rogers Wireless, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, T-Mobile US)... early Wi-Fi birds, mobile players eager not to miss the next big thing plus the usual niche start-up waiting to be purchased by any of the former). Yet these empty shells may turn into something interesting - see how the NFC Forum came alive !

Right now, Bluephone is so small it's called a gnome. According to Sourceforge, "BluePhone is a GNOME applet to allow you to remotely administer a bluetooth-enabled mobile phone from your desktop and also to control your desktop from your mobile phone". MNOs and ISPs are gonna hold each other so tight the adult version could come to life ahead of schedule... Especially if you are both a MNO and an ISP. Expect some move by France Telecom (Wanadoo - Orange).