A Kbiz MNO ? SMEs vs Korea Inc

The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Businesses (KFSB or Kbiz) wants to join SK Telecom, Korea Tecom and LG U+ (LG Telecom) as Korea's fourth mobile network operator.

This bid looks like a complete joke : a Kbiz-led consortium of 900 small businesses would invest about KRW 100 bn (USD 94 M) in "4G Wibro". How could it succeed where much stronger players failed and where MVNOs themselves cannot thrive* ?

Kbiz claims 2.7 million SMEs, but I don't see this greenfield player take those demanding customers from the big boys.

WiBro, a WMAN technology competing with WiMax, remains a Koreano-Korean thing with a convenient 4G label. Typically, KT is advertising about their "4G WiBro" coverage as SKT launches its LTE as the "real 4G", but eventually all 3 MNOs will implement LTE. Note that KT is also willing to close its 2G CDMA networks and proposing nice 3G/4G plans to die hard users, some of which have been keeping prehistoric handsets because of unbeatable unlimited rates.

Kbiz needs Samsung to propose WiBro, and that could be the actual aim of the game : not the candidacy to a license, but the PR operation behind the announcement.

Samsung is the ultimate chaebol, the perfect symbol of those almighties who rule over Korean economy and are often blamed for the weakness of the nation's SME ecosystem. Worse : they create their own SMEs to benefit from pro-SME incentives and suck even more value from the market. Even LEE Myung-bak, the CEO president who came from Hyundai Engineering and Construction, is campaigning about a 'fair society' where chaebols would allow small fish to survive.

I don't know if Kbiz will really go all the way, or if Samsung will pretend to play their game for image's sake... but Korean market remains fun to observe.

mot-bile 2011

* see "Korea : Onse Telecom wants to be a MVNO", "Korea Telecom signs the country's first MVNOs"...

HTC EVO 4G : Sprinting to 4G... or rather 4G WiMAX/3G EV-DO Rev. A

Sprint unveiled the HTC EVO 4G at CTIA : "America's first 4G phone" will be "Coming Summer 2010", and offer "3G/4G mobile hotspot capability-extend the power of the Now Network"*.

4G ?!? Don't expect LTE but simply 4G WiMAX combined with 3G EV-DO Rev. A. Yes, WiMAX got the 4G label**, just like DECT was 3G ITUwise.

But this HTC EVO is far from being a dud, dude. It also features :
- from Google : Android 2.1, Android Market (30,000 apps up to now), and among Google mobile services clearly advertised by Sprint : Google Talk and Google Voice.
- from HTC : a 4.3-inch screen ("with unique kickstand for easy media viewing", a connection "to your HDTV so you can watch HD movies" on a bigger screen), HTC Sense UI (with "social networking integration with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and more"), 1,500 mAh Lithium battery, dual cameras (8 megapixel primary, 1.3 megapixel front-facing), proximity and motion sensors, digital compass, 1 GB ROM, 512 MB RAM
- from Qualcomm : 1 GHz Snapdragon processor
- from the air : Wi-Fi, GPS Navigation, Stereo Bluetooth, FM radio
- for the plug-ins : microSD Card slot, micro USB, 3.5 mm headset jack, HDMI output...
- from Sprint : Now Network, Sprint TV...

Yeah. The operator is not doing much beyond rolling out his 27-market WiMAX network and putting a sticker on the phone. The real PR winners here are HTC, Qualcomm (stuck to its proprietary 3G but associated to "4G"), and even more Google : Android starts outhyping iPhone, and Google mobile VoIP gets a front seat.

Hoping that Sprint's networks and HTC's batteries won't spoil the fun.

mot-bile 2010

* see now.sprint.com/evo
** as we saw earlier ("Aloha's long goodbye, Standards Wars Episode 4G and the phantom menace"), the ITU has been kind to WiMAX.

License IV

France went for a hybrid or double-stage solution to their 3G dilemma : since no 4th operator could enter the market without a ticket discount for all players (see "3G license part III - France's fourth wedding or a funeral ?"), the Government and NRA ARCEP decided to split the remaining spectrum.

The potential new entrant will get 5 MHz of 2.1 GHz + 5 MHz of 900 MHz (call for tender expected by EOY 2009), and lawmakers will discuss about what to do of the last 10 MHz of 2.1 GHz, probably putting back incumbents in the loop (friendly auction ?), and about how much this license will cost. I guess a little bit more than the EUR 10,000 a year needed for a Licence IV, which allows bars to sell alcohol without dishes (I mean dishes for food, not for satellite access).

The almost concomitant consultation about 4G allows incumbents to fry some fish or remain one step ahead. Analogic TV spectrum (the 2.6 GHz and 790-862 MHz bands favored by LTE) will be freed in November 2011.

An ambitious new entrant should position itself on both 3G and 4G, as well as on the fixed broadband last mile, where ARCEP is carefully monitoring the development of FTTH / FTTO : trials are under way (until March 31st), and a precise regulatory framework will be published before this summer.

Without a claim by Iliad/Free, the Regulator wouldn't have reserved 3M numbers starting with 06 for the new entrant, who would then have mostly to rely on 07 numbers, soon to be devoted to the same purpose.

Strong of more than 4M subscribers and on the way to 5M by EOY 2011, Iliad-Free remains the front runner and main lobbyist for the 4th license. The company already brought major disruptions to the French market, starting with their ISP business model as none Networks, and most dramatically by introducing the successful home "box" concept, now implemented by all incumbents (Orange Livebox, SFR Box, Bouygues Bbox). In an agressive lobbying campaign, Free announced 1,000 euros savings per year per household with 3 mobile subscriptions. With brand new pipes to fill, unlimited offers seem likely.

But it may take a new and wealthy partner (not a commodity nowadays) to build the said pipes : optic fibers were already a major challenge on the fixed access with a EUR 1bn CAPEX planned by 2012, but covering a country as geographically challenging as France with a 3G network is quite another.

That, or another disruptive "none Networks" model... not to mention "other networks" : Free already holds the only national WiMAX license*.

Or "another player", or course. Foreign (ie Orascom and the usual suspect...), national (some day, Carlyle will have to monetize Numericable's 4M subs), or more probably a combo of the two. But the deepest pockets could hesitate between player #4 and player #3, should Martin Bouygues seize the opportunity of this reshuffle to sell its mobile arm.

Yet another scenario ? No one goes for the network. Incumbents won't accept too cheap a price tag nor too loose coverage obligations for the new entrant... even if Bouygues Telecom was not precisely crushed for being behind schedule.

---
addendum 20090205

The price tag is eventually EUR 206M per 5MHz, similar to the 619M paid by each incumbent for their 15MHz load. Free may only take 5MHz, but the Government reminded the audience the existence of coverage obligations, insisting on a contribution for rural areas...

IPTV wars and WiBro truce ?

The Korean telecom regulator awarded IPTV licenses to KT (mega TV), Hanarotelecom (HanaTV), and LG Dacom (myLGTV). Trials start next week, and negociations with broadcasters are still raging.

Up to now*, the trio mostly competed on VOD exclusivities (price for myLGTV), but after an intensive summer of lobbying, they expect to propose real-time TV from major broadcasters from October on.

Korean authorities are also considering Voice over WiBro, the very day KT announced a MOU with a Japanese player.

But UQ Communications Inc is not likely to roll out WiBro : it is supposed to launch a WiMAX service next year, and recently inaugurated its first WiMAX trial base station. Besides, Intel owns part of its shares (other investors : KDDI Corporation, Kyocera, East Japan Railways, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, the Bank of Tokyo, and Daiwa Securities Group).

The MOU is about finding roaming solutions at the hardware and middleware level, so that WiBro users (mainly pro users) can somehow use the same device when they travel to Japan.

Korean players making the first move, and the regulator giving a push to the techno... combined the same day, these two pieces of news don't sound that positive for WiBro


* see "IPTV in Korea" (20080508)

Viacom - vae victis, YouTube

Viacom had better prove the importance of copyrighted content for YouTube users : the traditional media giant had its nextgen rival (now a Google brand) ordered by a NY judge to release user data, but at the bulk level. So no User-Generated Discontent ahead : John and Jane Doe shall remain anonymous criminals. And the blame (if any) on YouTube's broader shoulders. Or the shame on Viacom's, should the figures turn out to be disapointing.

Across the Atlantic Ocean, another safe was apparently cracked as the European Commission allowed NRAs to open for WiMAX part of the 2.6GHz spectrum devoted to FDD / TDD. Not the kind of news John and Jane Does love to download, but who knows, some may find some value in it.

Mobile TV for WIMAX, lingo-free

What's in a name... From IPWireless to NextWave Wireless* and from TDtv to MXtv, the TDD champion abandons the techno lingo for a vocabulary fitter for this meshy / cloudy / blurred world.

Let's forget about the recent controversy about WiMAX, TDD (now), and FDD (soon according to Bill Gateses, someday according to Steve Jobses, maybe according to Arun Sarins, never according to WiMAX haters) ; let's forget about that fabled path towards 4G**: this is about next gen "waves", about giving you the "MAX", about TV on the go.

If you enjoy techno lingo and old style hardware, you can also try Huawei's E510 HSUPA datacard. If your device still has the slot for it next June the 5th.

* see "Social networking for social networks" (20080214)

** see "3G & 4G - WiMAX flirts with ITU" (20070303)

VizaOzavi and other bull's eyes

What's in a name ? With zaOza*, Vivendi decided to drop 2 "vi"s at the edge of Vizzavi, and to add a bull's eye in the middle. Like : this time, I don't want to mess around but to go for the real thing ?... Maybe they purchased Activision to enhance their eyesight and optimize their chances to hit the said bull's eye.

Vodafone and Telefonica are into better targeting too : the Anglo-saxon leader and the Latino leader took a stake in Amobee Media Systems, a mobile advertising joint.

The Shoogle application must target Parkinson disease victims, blurring the frontier between handsets and handshakes. Next time you go to the pub, don't forget to fill her up with scotch.

SMobile Systems targets the soft spot of mobile linux : the first Android app is as sexy and useful as Norton. SecurityShield is the name, paving the way for developpers the game.

Elsewhere :

- NFC takes the tube - the London Underground before a greater coming out ?
- Outdoors, the OFCOM allows UK Broadband switch from TD-CDMA to WiMAX. If they can make it, that is. WiMAX seems to be losing ground in the US, where Verizon picks LTE.
- Korea keeps migrating at high speed : HSDPA claims 3.2 M subs end of Q3 2007 (2.02 for KTF). Users are discovering the beauty of (U)SIM cards and the easyness to drop a handset or an operator for another.
- Turned down by Sprint-Nextel (while KTF and DoCoMo snatched each 17% of U Mobile in Malaysia), SK Telecom takes 38.89% of Hanaro Telecom (including a 25% market share in fixed broadband). SKT discovers true convergence even later than Vodafone - and postpones a much needed boost in internationalization.


* the commercial name of "Vivendi Mobile Entertainment : Vizzavi's Second Life ? " (20070526)

Aloha's long goodbye, Standards Wars Episode 4G and the phantom menace

Here's AT&T's farewell gift for Aloha Partner, a phantom company full of spectrum, meant from the start* as an empty shell for sale : $2.5bn.

Here's the ITU's gift for WiMAX promoters : OFDMA / 802.16 joins FDMA, TDMA and CDMA in the IMT-2000 3G family just on time for the IMT-advanced kick-off. The 3GSM crew already knew this promising rival would be casted for Standards Wars Episode 4G, but this means intel & Co are here to stay beyond a phantom menace.

Here's 3's gift for Qualcomm : the Skypephone uses the Brew platform. San Diego joins Cupertino in the hype zone. Up North, Redmond is just starting to scratch the surface - a third Halo and a phantomatic 1.6% of Facebook**.


* see "Hiwire - Aloha Partners, Goodbye Stranger" (20060502)
** see "Microsoft outpervasived by Facebook and RIM" (20071025)

iPhone is not my Oyster 3G

Apple's iConic handsets started to fly off the shelves.
They do looks beautiful, provided you keep your gloves on. They have Apple fingerprints all over, but a rather black, Korean touch as well. They will give AT&T a boost, but on a 2G network and with a Blackberrish herd of servers to support the service. Jobs love Gates, but the iPhone uses the same H.264 video format as YouTube, and is meant to give Safari a boost in the nascent mobile browsing market*... are Steve and Bill considering keeping their marriage secret for another ten years ?

ip.access also offers good looking devices ; their Oyster 3G femtocells even won a GSMA's Global Mobile Award earlier this year. But Frost & Sullivan awarded IPWireless with a Technology of the Year label last march, and two months later NextWave Wireless (better known for PacketVideo and WiMAX) completed the acquisition of the TD-CDMA - TDtv champion...

What else ? 3 items picked (almost) randomly :

. The EC and Viviane Reding keep pushing DVB-H. Sorry, no spectrum. And no cash back for those insane 3G auctions either.

. Saudi Telecom, a laggard in booming Middle East, eventually joins the investing frenzy. Malaysia's Maxis is their first foreign target ever. What a coincidence... after islamic banking, there could actually be a big market for islamic telecom... Infrastructure Shariah anyone ?

. Wells Fargo & Company and Visa USA pursue their NFC mobile banking trials. After Phase I (this spring : employees, Wells Fargo Customer Experience Research Lab) and before Phase II (this summer : employees, Visa payWave enabled merchants), WFC released their new CEO Mobile services (that's Commercial Electronic Office). Real customers - 300-500 Wells Fargo Visa cardholders - won't be involved before Phase III (this autumn ?). After that, you should be hearing about some operator... beyond Visa, that is.


*Safari's web browser usage share is well below 5%, but has been significantly improving lately.

mAdSense and Google Phonies (Google Phones ?)

"Don't Be Evil" is embedded in Big G's DNA. They said we were the next Microsoft, they now say we are the next Apple. But we neither want to rule the hardware / OS entry point nor rule the hardware / DRM entry point. Do we ?
One thing is sure : if Google's plans remain evasive, their ambitions remain pervasive. And mobility a must have, whatever the path. Speculations, analysts and pundits keep fueling expectations (gPhone, WISP, M-VNO, VoIP, WiFi, WiMAX, mobile suites...), but Google shouldn't care about it.
... if it weren't for its shareholders... I don't want to spoil the party but $462 per share and $143 bn overall look like a lot of dough to me. Like that insane, neverending hike in the Vietnam stock exchange, not even dented by the Shanghai hiccup.
Come to think of it, the ultimate stage of mobile advertising by the king of online advertising will be called mAdSense.

What else ? The CeBIT is over. Which means it was open before. Talking about bomb news : cellcos are eventually realizing the golden years of mobile voice ARPU will soon be over and the bulk of mobile data is bound to go flat. At last.

What else ?
- BT and KPN are working on M-VNOs in Spain. Belgacom, Swisscom, Eircom declined to comment.
- Viviane Reding wants DVB-H to outperform Galileo and Airbus across and beyond Europe. China already decided to launch a competitor to Airbus and Boeing, another to 3GSM and cdma2000. Why not split from Europe over the GPS-killer / killee and why not launch a specific mobile.TV.cn ?
- The WiMAX Spectrum Owners Alliance (WiSOA) wants to promote both WiMAX roaming and the survival / resale of its exotic founders
- I'm still stuck with a broken foot and a broken club - I can't move and Paris Saint Germain keeps sinking towards second division. Mobility definitely sucks.

free without Boukobza

Mickael Boukobza, who brilliantly ruled for 7 years over the development of France's most disruptive player in the telecom arena, will quit by this summer. His successor took part in some of TF1's most exciting moves beyond its core business (TPS, Metro, production...). A protege of Patrick Le Lay, Maxime Lombardini leaves the TV giant just before his boss retires, and joins Iliad at a rather exciting moment : here, the whole business is about to venture in unknown territories.
free should easily reach its target of 2.8 M ADSL customers EOY 2007*, and 4 M EOY 2010 doesn't seem a totally farfetched goal... It's just that the competitive landscape and the nature of the job are bound to change with WiMAX and FTTH (not to mention 3G**). It's just that you'll have to be strong to make it in the convergent, troubled, boost or bust times ahead.

The capacity to deliver, but also to anticipate and to evolve quickly have been free's trademarks under Boukobza. Let's see if this survivor of the internet bubble manages to reach yet another level with a different player at the joystick.

* EOY 2006 : 2,278,000 - 75.9% undbundled - ARPU EUR 34.5
** see previous episodes : "3G license part III - France's fourth wedding or a funeral ?" (20070309) "3G & 4G - WiMAX flirts with ITU " (20070303) "Free WIMAX and quadruple play" (20051226)

3G license part III - France's fourth wedding or a funeral ?

France's NRA, the ARCEP, reopened the 3G beauty contest for a fourth license : previous tenders were launched in August 2000 (SFR and Orange got their pass in June 2001) and December 2001 (Bouygues Telecom in December 2002). The price tag remains at EUR 619.2M (+1% of the turnover afterwards), and the first contenders look as French as the 3 incumbents.
They also look less like "beauty pageants" than like brides looking for grooms : even with reasonable coverage obligations (Bouygtel still hasn't launched but must cover 20% by April 2007), 2G national roaming agreements, and site sharing opportunities, neither Iliad / Free nor Noos / Numericable can really afford 3G as they are today, especially with their ambitious FTTH rollout plans. Iliad and Noos are even considering same-sex marriage to strenghten their position on the French market.

Who would invest in a greenfield venture with such tenderfeet ? At a time when even a Vodafone takes some distance with network management ?

Actually, the main bidders are the 3G license holders who want to get a slice of spectrum leftovers and pushed for the consultation last year. What's up for grabs ? 2*15 MHz FDD + 5 MHz TDD in the 2 GHz range. Note the FDD and TDD thing, plus the "UMTS" title over the ARCEP communique : if you intend to seize the opportunity and promote an alternative 3G technology, go knock at some other door*.

So here we have a minister saying "let them now speak, or forever remain silent" without even having a marriage to perform. Actually, his job seems to make sure no wedding will ever take place.

France is too busy filing for divorce with new entrants. And as usual, people are fighting over child care. No price tag is set yet for this not-born / not-borne spectrum. Fish to fry and money to collect for France's next president.

Big operators also put a lock on digital radio : the government seems to be pushing T-DMB instead of DAB, more popular among small players. The winners in digital TV (TNT) were also major players (TF1, France Televisions, Canal+, Lagardere...). Everywhere, infrastructure and operating know-how remain the best barriers to entry. To become a big fish in the pond, you either have to invest in them (ie NRJ Group with Towercast) or to build a media empire as quickly as possible (ie Bollore).

* 3G is mentioned in the ARCEP annex as IMT 2000. The recent courting of the ITU by WiMAX (see "3G & 4G - WiMAX flirts with ITU" - 20070303) adds some spice to the affair, considering Free already holds WiMAX licenses (recycled WLL).

3G & 4G - WiMAX flirts with ITU

Following the WiMAX Forum's whitepaper on "WiMAX and IMT-2000" (20070122), the ITU could consider mobile WiMAX as an official 3G technology. Along with W-CDMA and CDMA2000, but also EDGE or DECT.

And this time it could work, since major cellcos may not want to counterlobby the IEEE on that one. Arun Sarin recently warned fellow MNOs about the risk of letting WiMAX kill 3G but Vodafone may want to trade its nod with a permanent lock on its GSM spectrum. And cellcos don't want another battle for 4G licensing (beyond the colossal sums paid to governments, they have to cope with license fees from Qualcomm & Co, not to mention the complexity of technos overloaded with unnecessary specs). Even in the 3GSM world, WiMAX could be welcomed as a convenient cornerstone for 4G LTE (better have them with us than against us).

But the IT-telecom war ain't over till it's over, and I'm not sure European manufacturers will tolerate the gift to Cisco & Co that soon. In France, Orange, SFR and Bouygues won't let Iliad end up with 3G for Free that easily.

Unless you consider IT gave up the war and decided to join the telecom band. Not unlike Qualcomm's GSM1x, the large IEEE 802.16 family's latest avatars are advertised as the natural evolution of their main competitors (TDD inside, MBS combining DVB-H and 3GPP E-UTRA...). Even WiBro, that prodigal son, is welcomed back home. How cute... Charles Ingalls will have to cut a lot of wood for the party tonight.

IEEE 802.16m* evolution looks great, but so did 802.16n, with n the variable for the number of years before actual delivery. And this is not your own OFDMA out there, but "IP-OFDMA". Indeed, from WiFi to WiMAX and 3G, "Pervasive Computing" would completely claim the W-LAN - W-MAN - W-WAN spectrum, and fulfill its dream of stealing both seamlessness and security from the 3GSM DNA, locking a firmer than ever grip on the femtocell level, where a massive herd of wild devices roam not always peacefully.

Convergence ahead, at last ? Universal Mobile Telecommunication System ahead, at last ? Negociation ahead, for sure.


* "1Giga 4G" or rather 100 Mbps for mobile apps and 1 Gbps for fixed apps.

AT&T U-Verse 1 - better than chapter 11

Born again AT&T introduced its U-verse concept at the 2005 CES, with the ambition of covering 18M homes by the end of 2008. FTTH IPTV services only started late last month in 5,000 homes in San Antonio, TX with the help of Verizon's FiOS network.
This offer would look rather disappointing to Korean eyes and wallets : no more than 6 megs, up to $120 per month for a wireless bundle... but hey that's a start and ain't that much competition in SBC's 13-state-wide kingdom, so let early adopters finance innovation.

AT&T already rules in SBCland with 7.4M ADSL lines, but they intend to reach 100% in broadband coverage thanks to various fibers in urban areas, satellite broadband in rural areas (Project Lightspeed is supposed to reach 5.5M low-income households by the end of 2009), and fixed wireless (WiMAX a top pick) to fill the blanks.

The first 13 states before the whole country... this state of the AT&T-SBC union address should resonate as a warning to competing superpowers : we're not only focusing on homeland security ; we're also preparing preemptive strikes everywhere. But the old Texan way : we don't want to make it sound like an aggression, so no need to add "bring it on".

I also find rather clever their partnership with Yahoo! and Verizon Wireless "for a generation of tech-savvy consumers who rely on the Internet and wireless phones as their primary communications tools" (to wit : the smart ones who are leaving the incumbent - a speechless and voiceless carrier). AT&T position themselves as a central integrator of services : we help you subscribe to AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet, and to Verizon Wireless as well if you need a wireless service, but you can still chose AT&T for voice services at home. Beyond the usual "free" LLO services (Call Waiting, Three-Way Calling, Call Forwarding...), the AT&T CallVantage package proposes well marketed bonuses :
- Call Logs (with "click to dial")
- Do Not Disturb (only emergency calls pass through)
- Personal Conferencing (10 people overall)
- Locate Me (when you're away from home, incoming calls track you by ringing up to five phones all at once or one right after the other)
- Web-Based Voice Mail (AT&T just couldn't not include it in such an offer)

Why is it so interesting ? I'm not sure it will work, but it's neither some double-stage VoIP thing like Skype, nor an ugly plug-in like Vonage's latest USB gizmo. It's a truly operated service from a genuine operator or better, a Virtual Network Operator on its own network. It's both a win-back and a win-period approach, an attempt to sublimate voice services and fully give them their value back. I wish it weren't that expensive and I wish it could go beyond fixed and mobile, and even beyond the now traditional homezone concept.

Wanted : a stronger Asian CDMA alliance

In a rather Vodafonish / DoCoMish move, SK Telecom recently secured $1bn worth of China Unicom bonds - the equivalent of 6.6% in shares (if converted next year)*. The vehicle of this partnership, China Unicom Limited (CUHK), owns 100% of China Unicom Corporation Limited (CUCL), a mainland operator strong of 130 M subscribers of which 35 M are CDMA.
SKT seems to claim the leadership in CDMA-3G-and-beyond across the world, their US M-VNO Helio being another key part of this vast jigsaw puzzle. Korea's leading cellco didn't get the 10% it wanted but had to do something : it can't support the evolutions of an ailing CDMA community on its own, China pushes TD-SCDMA and Japan's NTT DoCoMo drafted its rival KTF in an impressive regional W-CDMA alliance.
SKT are also launching WiBro these days in Seoul, a few weeks after KTF** and also with Samsung. The Korean manufacturer is said to eye the Indian market for this "han-made" techno but doesn't bet everything on the same horse : a dual mode WiMAX-GSM handset will be up for grabs next year.

* that was the only event during SEK 2006 (Security and Content Exhibition Korea - www.sek.co.kr).
** see "Commercial HSDPA live in Korea" (20060517)

J:COM's quadruple play - within the fence

"J:COM Mobile powered by WILLCOM" will start on March the 1st, 2006. J:COM customers will naturally get a discount fee, and the second line will cost them 2,000 yens instead of 2,500. "WILLCOM Flat-Rate" and "Toku-Toku Talk" plans are also meant to boost multiple subscriptions and intra-customer base traffic. Handsets are of course provided by Kyocera, a major Willcom shareholder.
J:COM aim for a "grand slam" on a relatively medium sized ball park ; a little more than 2M subs overall end of 2005 (3.5M for Willcom) : TV 1.8M (of which 650k digital), internet 911k, telephony 970k. Their homes-passed potential stands at 7.89M.
DoCoMo & co are not facing a power hitter either : J:COM Mobile are a 2G PHS M-VNO. A few hundreds of thousands of subs and a local flavor could mean a sustainable business model. For J:COM, that is : in the long run, WILLCOM must find a way out of 2G... or rather into 3G.
Japan's new 3Greenfield operators should be open to partnerships with wireless players bringing a few million customers along. After being awarded their licenses, IPmobile have remained relatively silent while the other two didn't seem to waste their time.
Significantly, Fidelity Investments Japan Limited just took 11.41% of eAccess last January. A few weeks earlier, eMobile would welcome aboard another financial partner : Goldman Sachs Group. But other players joined too, including Yoshimoto Kogyo Co., Ltd, a specialist in entertainment contents. eMobile keep the same TTM target : data services by the end of next fiscal year and voice services one year later.
BB Mobile Corp (Softbank) announced a nationwide mobile broadcasting service by 2012. That will be 5 years after 3G launch but content has already been locked : Softbank's Yahoo! BB are massively doping their movies, music and games portals for IPTV and other screens.
And yes, both BB & e keep talking about WIMAX... Obviously, a xDSL-3G TDD combo is not enough.
But still, there's no shame in drafting minor league cable-PHS customers for pre-season training.

See also : "3Greenfield Japan" (20051113)
J-Com : http://www.jcom.co.jp
eMobile : http://www.emobile.jp

Chindias Regal

2005 was the year China became passé. Everybody pulled out of the Middle Empire and invested massively in India where developpers speak perfect English and bubbles (real estate, financial, political, social, ecological, stock-marketal, Mittal...) are less likely to burst in the very short term. Besides, luxury brands eventually realized India would soon become their main market (the country will go from 11 to 20% in about the same time it takes a Ferrari to go from 0 to $200 fines).
Wireless India gained 3.5M subscribers last January and if big metrocities keep claiming the bulk of Bollywood consumer bases, mobile network operators seem committed to roll out in rural India and lower handset retail prices as much as they can : the race has started with the promoters of "fixed-wireless" solutions, supported by your usual suspects from Redmond, WA or Santa Clara, CA, but also by ambitious WIMAX players from Asia.
Don't expect a massive crop of antennas across the Indian horn fields, though : medium-sized cities are big enough for a sound business model, and Monsanto already sprayed Roundup everywhere.

Free WIMAX and quadruple play

Iliad remains a great wonder in the ever consolidating telecom world. When the minitel specialist launched its disruptive None Networks in the late 90s, I must confess I didn't think they could last very long. Freesbee (now the triple-and-soon-quadruple player Free) looked like the kind of free ISPs the founders would sell right before the bubble burst.
But they're damn good at what they do and since they're actually free, they don't have to cope with international partners and don't care about standardization* : they can go straight to the point with the solution they need, even if they have to develop it for themselves. The Freebox was the ultimate proof of their ability to deliver the goods - even technically tricky ones - with a very aggressive TTM. From an ADSL2+ basis, they recently reached 174 / 18 Mbit rates with a home made "F-ADSL". "Asynchronous" ? You bet, from a competitor's point of view. And it shows in the "Digital Subscriber Lines" : two thirds of Free's 1.5M ADSL customers (France Telecom's main challenger) can enjoy TV over DSL (Europe's leader). Following the deal with Altitude Telecom, Free enjoys a nationwide Wimax license and announces disruptive quadruple play offers... nothing seems to stop them. Hell, thanks to Michaël Boukobza's well deserved aura, Iliad even survived a nasty scandal involving its founder Xavier Niel.
2006 looks like another make or break year and could turn out to be both the best and the worst year to confront France's big guys : the 3 MNOs have just been heavily fined for anti-competitive behaviors and the broadcasting landscape is being totally reshuffled after the CanalSat - TPS deal.
Guess what ? All could face yet another disruptive new entrant.

IEEE 802.11number and number - I'm waiting for the LAN

Five year ago, IT players would seize the opportunity and boost 802.11b as telecom players were all popping 3G bubbles. Now that 3.5G & 4G are under way under a tighter control by their rivals (soon embedded in a Dell near you), wintel & co want to repeat their gig. Cisco & intel, Toshiba & Gateway... the newly formed EWC (Enhanced Wireless Consortium*) sounds like another boring alumni banquet. Sony & apple bring some color but they don't look very motivated. They just didn't want to miss the broadbandwagon...
Especially since it's about providing a more performant version of WiFi to satisFi more demanding needs (ie handling multiple HDTV streams). IEEE 802.11n means 600 Mbps, Space Time Block Coding (STBC), beamforming, a truly next gen LAN. Whoa.
And we were just getting used to 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11b-Cor1, 802.11d, 802.11e, 802.11F, 802.11g, 802.11h, 802.11i, 802.11j, 802.11k, 802.11m, 802.11REV-ma, 802.11p, 802.11r, 802.11s, 802.11T, 802.11v, 802.11u, 802.11w, 802.11.1 and 802.11.2... not to mention 802.15 and PANs, 802.16 and MANs, WiMAX and WiBro (eight oh too)...
The success of WiFi was based on a quite simple scenario and quick decisions. Now IEEE's 802 Project could fuel a few X-Files seasons. Anyway, long life to Enhanced Wireless Complexity.

* The 27 initial EWC members : Airoha, Apple, Atheros, Azimuth, Broadcom, Buffalo, Cisco Systems, Conexant, D-Link, Gateway, Intel Corporation, Lenovo, Linksys, LitePoint, Marvell, Metalink, NETGEAR, Ralink, Realtek, SANYO, Sony, Symbol Technologies, Toshiba, USRobotics, WildPackets, Winbond, ZyDAS.

Voice Discounted, data embedded, TV Finnished

18 eurocents per mn, Alles Klar. klarmobil.de is mobilcom's latest vehicle to claim more customers and lower even more their revenues. Because subscriptions are up (4.55M end of June) but overall turnover down (-8% vs Q2 2004). So the operator communicates on a growing EBITDA per customer... New owners Texas Pacific Group obviously wanted to add sexier assets to their kolossales spectrum... up for sale but when and to whom ?

At last, 3G starts being embedded in laptops : Dell are working with Cingular on UMTS and should add HSDPA Q1 2006, and in the cdma2000 family, with Verizon on EV-DO (along with HP & IBM-Lenovo). W-CDMA and EV-DO proved their reliability and MNOs shouldn't miss the window of opportunity before the WiMAX - WiBro wave.

Nokia waited for the 2bn mobile sub mark to announce handset #1,000,000,000, so that stupid analysts can praise their 50% market share. Less stupid : the choice of Taiwan for a new R&D center devoted to 3G. The Mobile Services Development Center (MSDC) is a JV with the Institute for Information Industry and the perfect bridge with mainland China. This side of the Thames, Nok-Nok are about to start their Oxford DVB-H trial with Ariqva (see Row vs wideband), but 02 customers won't pay for the TV service... the aim of the game remains to duplicate an easy experiment everywhere across Europe and lobby regulators, not to validate the potential of a commercial service. And working with Microsoft definitely changed the way Nokia annouce future products : I cultivate the buzz far in advance (i.e. 4Gb Nokia N91 will combine W-CDMA and WiFi and laminate iPods) and I postpone the launch because of Redmond's embedded bug-and-glitches function.