Orange Hello, is it me you're looking for ?

Orange Hello is an internet computer for dummies, the word "dummies" covering the minority of techno- / PCphobes who never considered purchasing nor using a computer, and people ready to pay EUR 1 + EUR 39.9 per month for a simple play (internet access) instead of the standard EUR 29.9 per month for a full triple play... Ideally, seniors with a comfortable pension but lacking the courage to join their kids and grandkids in the internet age. Grandkids who mock at their absence of smart screens at home. Grandkids who may even not enjoy staying overnight simply because here, they can't browse the web on a bigger screen than their own smartphone.

Hello is expensive, granted, but delivers, installs, and maintains at your place a PC with an almost iMacish look : a thick 15 inch- screen connected to a keyboard and including a 120 Go hardrive, a webcam, and a broadband modem. Orange makes sure Kids can get their daily fix : features include messenging, video, music, games, web TV... (plus text to speech for their myopic dinosaur ancestors).

A little sexier than Jean-Louis Constanza's first device meant as an entry point to French households : a no-frills fixed phone that would automatically compose the 4 prefix for Tele2 France customers.

Now CEO of Orange Vallee, Constanza (who after the Swede category killer moved on to Ten MVNO) is still working on pedagogy and simplicity for new usages in daily communications, only with smarter technologies, and different budget constraints for the operator... and obviously the customer.

Hello can be considered as the big brother of another Orange Vallee device* : Tabbee, an always on, family friendly, stand alone web terminal featuring a 7 inch touch screen.

But Hello doesn't have a touch screen. So don't even dream about smearing your Hello screen while imitating John King with your greasy fingers. All you may ruin is the supposedly more intuitive and user friendly keyboard. Because believe it or not, even French dummies know how to use a keyboard.

Orange can thank mother company France Telecom for this miracle : most post Y2K seniors are former Minitel users.


* While I'm at it : "Orange Vallee"'s 2009 Summer Collection include mobile platforms (WorMee music platform, Application Shop, TV d'Orange for iPhone, Orange 24/24 news engine), entertainment accessories (Hi-Fi Adapter, Media Remote Control), business / messenging solutions (Instant Messenger for all, Visual Voicemail, Teleconference, Medical Office)... see Orange Innovation TV for details.

IKEA familymobile

There used to be one IKEA-style operator around not so long ago, but Tele2 didn't quite survive the death of its founder. So there is room for one of the last big names in retail to enter the mobile arena.

For the moment, familymobile is more about customer loyalty than about disrupting the whole market. And it is less about the IKEA brand than the IKEA FAMILY database.

Because IKEA wants to leverage on its IKEA FAMILY members (1.4M in the UK), build more recurrent business relationships with them, and convert more customers to this low budget but profitable club thanks to a basic but attractive offer (9p for calls, 6p for text, Pay As You Go Mobile SIM Card package through a partnership with M-VNO Mobile Partners UK Ltd on T-Mobile networks + a limited choice of handsets via 20:20 Logistics Limited, their distribution partners).

As IKEA puts it on its website (familymobile.com), "Family Mobile has a number of shared values with IKEA: High quality, Simple, Low price, Self service, The importance of family - and family values" ("Family values" including the family budget issues : master account + individual accounts, Automatic Top-up...).

The Swedish retailer (led by Danish M-VNO veterans for its brand new mobile arm) will start filling the pipes with all its UK staff members (9,500).

Cheap, smart and simple, efficient organization and logistics... the only parts missing in familymobile 1.0 are a touch of design and unpronuncable product names.

MVNOs take off in France

According to the French NRA, the ARCEP, the country reached a 82% penetration rate end of Q1 2007 with a total of 52M active accounts, including overseas regions and territories.
This base grew by 7% over the last 12 months : 4% for MNOs, and a solid 302% for M-VNOs, whose market share eventually took off from .91 to 3.42%. During Q1 2007, they even snatched 11.5% of net sales for prepaid and 15.8% for postpaid.
The percentage of users of multimedia services remained stable at 29%, and the number of SMS by active users at around 30 per month. But ARPU didn't nose dive (EUR 36.4 / month, -6%) because voice remained strong : traffic gained 14% and call termination wholesale cuts didn't kill the golden goose. But Viviane Reding's roaming wars haven't started yet. And French M-VNOs are not voice killers. Yet.
Even price-centric M-VNOs (ie Tele2 Mobile, over 350k subs) or mass retailers (Auchan Telecom, Carrefour mobile) can't go far. Data-centric Ten or M-VNOs with an ethnic / geographic focus (MobiSud, Breitz Mobile) won't bring the whole house down. Nor will such players as Coriolis or Transatel. "Entertainers" NRJ Mobile and Virgin Mobile play the card of rates a more subtle way, offering more for the same price. Both are enjoying a good position on the market (over 300k subs), the latter contributing to the success story of Omer Telecom, the Phone House / Carphone Warehouse VNO behind Breizh Mobile and the Virgin Mobile JV.
But triple- / quadplayers hold the best entry points as mobile voice rates start converging with landline ones, as mobile and landline start making one. neuf cegetel started ahead of Free Iliad, but Orange and SFR, now also an ISP, won't let their market share shrink that easily. The timing seems definitely interesting for the sale of Bouygues Telecom*.

* see "Bouygues not for sale ? How about TF1 ?" (20070509)

MSN, Mobile Centric, Mobisud

In the latest Orange - Microsoft deal, France Telecom's DNA prevailed over Hans Snook's. France Telecom the incumbent and former monopoly, not France Telecom, the brilliant innovator and solutions provider, father of the CNET (now France Telecom R&D).
Competitors can worry now that two major predators team up in the convergence arena. They're meaning business, market share and furthermore, share of client.
Bouygues Telecom remains a Microsoft partner, but with a less exciting revenue sharing deal and a smaller pie to share. And don't count on i-mode for a long lasting differenciation. Convergence ? Sorry lads, rival SFR keeps an eye on your pal Neuf cegetel (as a strong minority shareholder and a friendly M-VNO host for Neuf Mobile) while building an ADSL offer on the ashes of Tele2 France.
"Mobile Centric" SFR also promotes its own SFR Messenger and a teletubby-sounding Happy Zone. Cute, but will this stop pervasive MSN and ubiquitous unik ?
In a cross continental move, Vivendi is building a telecommunity MVNO on SFR's network through another subsidiary, Maroc Telecom. MobiSud* will naturally serve France's strong Moroccan community as a start, but Telefonica should expect quite a few skirmishes accross the Mediterranean ring.

* dot fr or dot com ? Both have recently been locked, the latter by the adco JumpFrance.

Tele2 - the end of the affair ?

Tele2 for sale ? The telecom hotspur stucked in a Metro station and missing the broadband wagon ? The leader of cheap voice knocked down by VoIP and genuine category killers ? The Sverige AB nemesis laughed at by Stockholm's establishment ?
Thank the Swede Lord for small mercies : Jan Stenbeck didn't live to see this. He could have sold the business for a much higher price a couple of years ago but back then, Tele2 was still about swiftness and smartness, the most ambitious challenger getting ready for the broadband era, ready for the shift from solid value chains to more disruptive value networks.
That Daredevil somewhat turned into a rusty Iron Man ; the leader of the pack into a follower in the pack. Can the spirit revive ? Is there still something not virtual to be salvaged up there ?

Satellite of love

Tele2 eventually goes mobile in France on a bitter slice of Orange : the future is bright but the rates "retail minus"... even if they just recently broke Wind in Italy, France Telecom obviously don't give a fart about pleasing this once heavyweight telco.
Excuse my French but the closest thing to a media empire Kinnevik hold in France are a couple of local Metro editions and some radio or 3G TV broadcasts for their Luxembourg commuters (ie Tango.TV)... Nothing to be compared to NRJ, M6, TF1, TPS or Canal+, to name a few players that matter for France's MNOs.
Back in 2001, Bouygues Telecom used to be the laggard among the three but now that SFR & Vodafone Live! are acting as leaders in mobile multimedia, Orange tend to stick to #3 with a common minorange minority front : first on EDGE and now on DVB-H, where #3 brings Bouygues' #1 in free TV (TF1) and #2 in pay TV (TPS). To match this impressive crowd for their own DVB-H trials, SFR will partner with 3 born-again leaders : Canal+, Towercast and Nokia. And to make it spicier, Vivendi may even replay the Telecom Developpement episode with 9 Telecom, once again snatching away from Bouygues a promised bride.
The fun is just about to begin.

Over the air

Easy does it again : a few weeks after the UK and T-Mobile (where they expect between 250 and 500,000 subs end of year 1, reaching the 1M mark within 2-3 years), easyMobile will land on Telfort's network in the Netherlands thanks to Stelios' Danish partner TDC. Opening new routes gets simpler by the day for M-VNO airlines. When will the big companies go for their own discount carriers ? Austria's One just said YESSS! : an orgasmic brand for a rather non sexy service which could crash the same way as KLM's buzz. The sky isn't fully crowded yet but CWH's new M-VNO (SIM-Only) starts cleaning it with very aggressive international rates (Mobile World cards charge 7p per minute for Europe, 5p for the US, even if the national rates remain as Fresh as 15p).
The war is on and many will fall but one player just found the perfect niche : 100,000 loyal subs and a lovely £2.9bn contract with the Home Office... TETRA is eventually making it in the UK. O2's Airwave O2 service will protect and serve The Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) and thus the policemen and women of the whole United Kingdom.
And while O2 expose their bobbies, Tele2's Tango expose boobies over the air in Luxemburg : they've been broadcasting free TV over 3G for almost a month now, following the launch of radio over 3G (Sunshine Radio Luxembourg). Tango TV (TTV) is available through the T.TVMobile wap portal (wap.ttv.lu) and of course hosts an erotic channel.
Over the air again, different vibes, different game : the same day Samsung Electronics introduced their 3D game phones with vibration capability (SPH-G1000 & SCH-G100), 3 UK launched over the air real-time multiplayer gaming services. The games are sold between £3 and 7.50 but can also be rent 25p per day or 50p for up to 3 days. Three hope it will be as successful as their football services. This could actually become Chelski and Hutch's year : Hutchison's 3G squad (3 + HTIL) reached 8M subs end of T1, adding 1.7M within the last 3 months.