Latest Blogs
China’s online-video players face tough task in going ‘straight’
The decision by China’s leading online-video players, such as Tudou.com and Youku.com, to move toward a more orthodox business model by signing licensing deals with content providers and even beginning to produce some of their own content seems like good news for everyone. But there is a long way to go before any of the country’s online players can really claim to have “gone straight.” Read more »
Diversity is clear in Eastern European broadband
Having recently read Slavenka Drakulic’s marvellous and wholly wry little book Cafe Europa, I think it is worth noting the real differences that exist in the fixed broadband markets of all the countries in Eastern Europe. And that is the theme of Slavenka’s book: that culture matters and that generalisations are dangerous. Read more »
Small cells challenge the macronetwork model at the MWC
The fragile economic climate and continued downward pressure on operator spending probably helped ensure that this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was a more grounded and businesslike affair than has been the case in some previous years. It’s clear that the explosion in mobile data traffic, coupled with the squeeze on operators’ capex and opex, is prompting some radical thinking about the future shape and structure of the network. Increasing network capacity will be critical, but until operators start to see data traffic turning into revenues, they need to focus on optimizing network performance and lowering costs. Read more »
Portugal joins world FTTx elite…sort of
Portugal crept into the world’s elite group of broadband connected nations at the end of 2009. With 41,500 FTTH subscribers, just under 2% of Portugal’s broadband homes used FTTH at the end of last year and the measure of eliteness used by the FTTH Council Europe, is that more than 1% of connected homes must use FTTH/B. Read more »
German public broadcasters face flak over HD picture quality
They have only been broadcasting in HD for a week, but German public-service broadcasters ARD and ZDF are already facing hefty criticism for their HD picture quality.
Read more »
Can OTT players really beat pay TV operators at their own game?
With the “over the top”-content game attracting IT giants, such as Apple and You Tube, huge regional players, like Tudou and Yukou in China, and many other global media brands, it’s not hard to imagine that the world’s pay-TV operators could get pushed aside in the battle for consumers’ wallets.
That is, until you take a step back from the hype and talk to hardened pay-TV executives, who say OTT players are in for a mighty shock if they think that getting subscribers to part with their hard-earned dollars in return for access to video content is anything but hard work. Read more »
Highlights from Day 3 of the MWC in Barcelona
RIM champions BlackBerry traffic efficiencies
In Asia-Pacific markets, operators are putting pressure on Apple to address some of the signalling issues made increasingly worse by continued growth of smartphone adoption, in order to reduce the iPhone’s impact on the network. We’re hearing from the operators we speak to that the device is proving more inefficient in the way it handles signalling versus other competing devices. Somewhat controversially citing BlackBerry devices as a solution to the capacity crunch, RIM CEO stated that ‘you could carry five BlackBerry devices for each iPhone on the network’. Whether true or not, this bears no relevance to consumer purchasing decisions – whether it convinces operators to push the BlackBerry more aggressively is unclear.
Indian and Chinese investors are making their play for Africa
As the great and good of the mobile industry browsed the exhibits at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona this week, they may have overlooked a couple of watershed moments in emerging-market telecoms. Read more »
Highlights from Day 2 of the MWC in Barcelona
Voice takes centre stage
It’s the end of day two here in Barcelona and despite the wind, rain and the long queues at the entrance gates (not to mention the food halls), it’s been another overwhelmingly positive day. The hustle and bustle in and around the stands here at MWC is obvious and there’s clearly an upbeat mood generally, a marked contrast to last year’s event.
Perhaps one reason for the general positive feeling is that operators have remembered just how big this business is. There’s a lot of talk about the importance of data and whilst it will, of course, be the main revenue driver in the future, it’s worth taking stock of just how much the mobile industry has grown. Informa’s latest forecasts suggest that more than US$700 billion will be generated in operator service revenues from voice in 2010 alone.
Read more »
Highlights from Day 1 of the MWC in Barcelona
An agreement between 15 of the world’s largest mobile operators to combat the dominance of Apple in mobile applications dominated proceedings on Day 1 of the Mobile World Congress here in Barcelona.
Other highlights in Barcelona today included Microsoft’s latest attempt to build an attractive, user-friendly operating system for mobile phones and Ericsson’s entree into the already-crowded mobile applications space. Read more »
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