Latest Blogs
AsiaInfo tightens its grip on the Chinese OSS/BSS market
Life for Western OSS/BSS vendors looking to take a slice of the Chinese telecoms software market got tougher this week with the news that Chinese vendor AsiaInfo is to buy one of its competitors, Linkage Technologies. Not only does the US$733 million deal remove a potential partner/target for an aspiring player, but it also strengthens AsiaInfo’s largely BSS portfolio with the addition of Linkage’s OSS know-how.
Can mobile operators compete against web-based service providers?
Cloud based service providers are entering the mobile market at an increasing rate, offering services that compete directly with operator offerings directly. Google Voice, Skype, Apple’s MobileMe, Facebook Mobile and Twitter are examples of services that introduce value by demoting the mobile network into a dumb pipe. Although operators have attracted subscriber attention by offering exclusive high-end smartphones - including the Apple iPhone, Palm Pre and Motorola Droid - there is limited revenue potential since aggressive subsidies are necessary to achieve mass market penetration and in several cases, handset manufacturers impose stringent requirements to partner with mobile operators.
Mobile operators have realized that they are facing a crossroad.
Nokia underlines its commitment to DVB-H but hedges its bets on DVB-T too
Nokia publicly underlined its commitment to broadcast-mobile-TV standard DVB-H with the recent unveiling of the mobile TV edition of the Nokia 5330 and its pretax, presubsidy price tag of €155 (US$230), after some in the industry had questioned its enthusiasm for launching new DVB-H devices. Nokia also quelled any suggestions that it might start supporting the MBMS standard with its future device launches. Read more »
African operators are focusing on data services
At Informa Telecoms & Media’s Africacom conference in Cape Town earlier this month, it was apparent that major operators across the continent are looking more to data and other value-added services to stimulate future expansion, as the strong growth in mobile subscription count seen in the past few years begins to slow. Read more »
Why News Corp’s gamble with Bing makes sense?
It’s all speculation with no clarity yet. But if it is true that News Corp is in talks with Microsoft, to charge for its content to be indexed on Bing (and eventually others) then it does make sense. Read more »
Verizon’s attention-getting ads frustrate AT&T, peak consumer interest
Verizon Wireless has raised the hackles of rival AT&T Wireless with an ad campaign that highlights the coverage gaps in AT&T’s 3G network, but is that marketing push enough to stem the tide of customers flowing to AT&T solely because they want Apple’s iPhone, for which AT&T still has the US exclusive? Read more »
Industry fumbles to find some light in the shadow of Apple’s iPhone
Almost three years after the launch of the iPhone, it was clear at this week’s FT World Telecoms conference that the mobile industry is still catching-up with the new paradigm the device has created. Read more »
Google has issued a wake-up call to the mobile advertising industry by highlighting the fact that it doesn’t yet have an SMS advertising capability
The mobile industry is buzzing about Internet giant Google’s proposed US$750 million, all-stock acquisition of mobile advertising network AdMob, which was announced November 9. It is a huge deal, and seemingly an acknowledgement by Google that it has not been able to sufficiently develop its own mobile advertising capabilities internally, even though it has been offering mobile display search advertisements for some time.
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Plain old billing is where the real pot of gold could be for carriers in the content-and-apps world
In the rush by operators to roll out app stores, cross-network widgets and other services designed to lure Web developers and users, it is easy to forget that perhaps the greatest asset that operators have to secure themselves a long-term place in the digital-content value chain is plain old billing. Read more »
BT results: ploddingly unspectacular is no bad thing
Gone are the days when the tabloid press could proclaim with not a little veiled snarling, that BT was announcing super-profits equating to x million pounds a second. Today results showed that it amounted to about 70 quid a second over the first six months of BT’s financial year. I did a brief slot on BBC Breakfast this morning before the results were announced and I was asked if I thought BT’s problems are now behind them. I said that I thought they were and on the whole, and on the evidence of these results, they are.
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