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MobileMonday News
Sun Jan 24 11:49:23 EST 2010
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Remote radioheads are coming -

Remote radioheads will a billion dollar market in five years, predicts a new study from ABI Research.

According to the merket research company the demands of cost reduction and greater efficiency in cellular base station design are leading to a rapidly growing market for remote radio heads.

Cellular base stations are now undergoing a design revolution; the trend is towards “distributed base stations” in which the RF portion (along with suitable processing and an optical interface) is placed into a weatherproof box mounted on the tower near the antennas. This is the remote radio head.

Remote radio heads are also very ‘smart’: almost all are software-controlled and can be configured remotely to handle a variety of technologies within a given air interface family. The result: greater efficiency, lower power consumption, and the possibility of placement in locations with coverage issues. A single distributed base station can even have multiple remote radio heads for MIMO operation.

Finland-based Tieto today announced that it has provided consulting services for China Mobile's online application store called Mobile Market. The delivery includes the technical solution regarding how to encapsulate China Mobile's network-end capabilities into the Symbian/S60 client-end and a demo that verifies its feasibility. The solution forms a base for China Mobile to further explore the development of its proprietary Software Development Kit.

The deal is a significant opening for Tieto into the Chinese marketplace, and it further strengthens the company's position as a major services and software partner in the Symbian Foundation.

This project has required a deep understanding of Symbian/S60 UI frameworks and application development, as well as knowledge on a wide range of development techniques, such as Symbian client/server, SDK authentication and network management and data interaction techniques. Tieto is a member of Symbian Foundation .

”Our aim is to introduce new services that will help Chinese enterprises to increase their productivity with advanced usage of IT and R&D innovations. To make this happen, we are increasing substantially our investments in the People's Republic of China," says Pekka Viljakainen, head of Tieto International.

There were more than 450 million mobile Internet users worldwide in 2009, a number that is expected to more than double by the end of 2013.

Driven by the popularity and affordability of mobile phones, smartphones, and other wireless devices, IDC's Worldwide Digital Marketplace Model and Forecast expects the number of mobile devices accessing the Internet to surpass the one billion mark over the next four years.

"The number of mobile devices with Internet access has simply exploded over the last several years," said John Gantz, chief research officer at IDC.

"With a wealth of information and services available from almost anywhere, Internet-connected mobile devices are reshaping the way we go about our personal and professional lives. With an explosion in applications for mobile devices underway, the next several years will witness another sea change in the way users interact with the Internet and further blur the lines between personal and professional."

The most popular online activities of mobile Internet users are similar to those of other Internet users: using search engines, reading news and sports information, downloading music and videos, and sending/receiving email and instant messages. Over the next four years, IDC expects some of the fastest growing applications for mobile Internet users will be making online purchases, participating in online communities, and creating blogs. Accessing online business applications and corporate email systems will also grow rapidly as businesses move to empower their mobile workforce.

The IDC's forecast also said that more than 1.6 billion people – a little over a quarter of the world's population – used the Internet in 2009. By 2013, over 2.2 billion people – more than one third of the world's population – is expected to be using the Internet.

More than 1.6 billion devices worldwide were used to access the Internet in 2009, including PCs, mobile phones, and online videogame consoles. By 2013, the total number of devices accessing the Internet will increase to more than 2.7 billion.

China continues to have more Internet users than any other country, with 359 million in 2009. This number is expected to grow to 566 million by 2013. The United States had 261 million Internet users in 2009, a figure that will reach 280 million in 2013. India will have one of the fastest growing Internet populations, growing almost two-fold between 2009 and 2013.

Presently, the United States has far more total devices connected to the Internet than any other country. China, however, is the leader in in the number of mobile online devices with almost 85 million mobile devices connected to the Internet in 2009.

Worldwide, more than 624 million Internet users will make online purchases in 2009, totaling nearly USD 8 trillion (both business to business and business to consumer). By 2013, worldwide eCommerce transactions will be worth more than $16 trillion.

Worldwide spending on Internet advertising will total nearly USD 61 billion in 2009, which is slightly more than 10% of all ad spending across all media. This share is expected to reach almost 15% by 2013 as Internet ad spending grows surpasses USD 100 billion worldwide.

Some Finns have for years lamented the lost leadership of Finnish mobile development. Now MobileMonday is rubbing salt into the wounds by bringing Estonians to Helsinki strut their mobile stuff.

MobileMonday December event on December 14th extends active discussion as of why Finland has lost the leadership in mobile development (not everyone agrees) by asking: Why and how Estonia became the true mobile development lab in Europe?

The program includes overviews, stories, and cases from Finnish-Estonian Fromdistance Ltd, Ericsson, MobileMonday Estonia, Nutiteq, Fortumo and Positium LBS.

Doors at Molly Malone’s Irish Pub open at 17:30 with Glögi, light buffet, and drinks provided by Enterprise Estonia, the largest state foundation providing financing, counseling, co-operation opportunities and training for the corporate sector, research institutions, the public and the NGOs. Enterprise Estonia also is the implementing agency for the EU Structural Funds business and regional support programs in Estonia.

Agenda:

18:00 Welcome by MoMo MC

18:10 Mobile market overview - Priit Salumaa, MobileMonday Estonia

18:30 Ericsson experiences in Estonia – Indrek Petersoo

18:45 Fromdistance experiences from Estonia-Finland – Jouko Vierumäki

19:00 Case presentations from: Nutiteq, Fortumo, Positium LBS.

The Western European mobile phone market rose for the first time in the last 15 months.

During the third quarter of 2009 (3Q09) the Western European market grew 5% year-on-year, according to IDC's European Mobile Phone Tracker. Handset shipments totaled 46.8 million units, representing sequential growth of 11%, which shows that consumer demand is picking up and operators are not so reluctant to stock up for the Christmas season.

"The mobile phone market is showing strong signs of improvement since the onset of the economic crisis," says Francisco Jeronimo, European mobile devices research manager with IDC.

"The quarter's growth was supported by the traditional mobile phones (TMP), the biggest segment of the market, but affected by the trend towards smartphones. Samsung and LG have been particularly strong in the TMP segment, with their portfolios boosting sales of feature phones. On the other hand, converged mobile devices (commonly known as smartphones) saw negative growth due to the lack of materials and supply chain problems experienced by some of the major vendors, which were not able to supply the high demand from operators."

Traditional mobile phones increased 6% year-on-year and 14% sequentially, driven particularly by touchscreen and messaging devices from LG and Samsung. Converged mobile devices (CMDs) experienced a slight decline of 2% year-on-year, but grew 2% from the second quarter of 2009, supported by RIM's 87% YoY growth and Apple's shipments, while all the other vendors declined over the quarter in the smartphones segment.

Overall, Nokia continues to be the market leader, with 35.3% market share in 3Q09, followed by Samsung with 30.5%. The gap between these two has been narrowing, and Nokia is facing a significant threat of being overtaken by Samsung in Western Europe in 2010. The Korean manufacturer is already the leader in the traditional mobile phone segment, and is developing a wider portfolio of smartphones, with several devices running Windows Mobile, Android, and LiMo, which will allow Samsung to significantly increase its smartphone shipments in 2010. During the quarter, LG overtook Sony Ericsson's position, becoming the third biggest player in Western Europe for the first time.

Android OS continued to grow its market share from 4.2% in 2Q09 to 5.4% in 3Q09. Several operators listed Android devices in 3Q09 for the first time, which helped Android shipments to grow, though consumers steer clear of Google's OS and sell-out is below everyone's expectations.

Consumers recognize the Google brand, but still do not understand what Android is. The lack of devices available didn't help to raise awareness, though this is expected to change, with more handsets from LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and other vendors hitting the market soon.

BlackBerry OS continued to perform well, growing 87% YoY and increasing market share among smartphones from 13% to 16% during the quarter, with BlackBerry Curve 8520 shipping well on the consumer channel.

Windows Mobile continued to lose market share, mainly due to Microsoft's strategy of launching all new devices running the new WM6.5 in October and not throughout the summer sales season, which negatively impacted market performance. The new OS is getting good track from operators, and WM market share is expected to improve in 4Q09.

Symbian was hit hard by growth in Mac OS, BlackBerry OS, and Android, and its market share declined from 59% in 2Q09 to 48% in 3Q09. It remains the biggest OS among smartphones, however.

Apple's strategy of opening to other operators in Europe helped increase market share from 16% in 2Q09 to 24% in 3Q09.

Mobile infrastructure market revenues declined 10 percent in the third quarter of this year to USD 9 billion, due in large part to fewer 3G deployments in China during the quarter, Dell’Oro Group reports.

The Dell’Oro report indicates that the vast majority of 3G deployments in China were completed in the first half of 2009, which resulted in WCDMA and CDMA base station shipments in the third quarter experiencing double-digit declines over the record-setting second quarter of this year.

“The lack of 3G spending by China Unicom and China Telecom in the third quarter had two major consequences on the market,” stated Scott Siegler, Senior Analyst of Mobile Infrastructure research at Dell’Oro Group.

“First, each of the top five vendors experienced steep declines in base station shipments during the third quarter due to their slower sales to China. Second, the average selling price of wireless infrastructure equipment rose in the third quarter, because a greater percentage of equipment was sold in more developed countries, where prices are generally higher than in China.”

While 3G spending in China is expected to stay depressed for the remainder of this year, the report indicates that heavy spending by China Unicom and China Telecom is expected to resume in 2010, and will be a prime contributor to both the WCDMA and CDMA markets.

Shanghai police in Changning District is tackling mobile phone scams by offering rewards of 200 yuan (EUR 20.00) to bank clerks and security guards who prevent remittances being sent. This a part of campaign aimed at eliminating crime during World Expo.

"The most effective way to prevent phone swindles is to stop the remittance from the victims at the bank and enhance awareness," said He Minzhong, deputy director of Bank of Shanghai, Changning Branch according to Shanghai Daily online edition.

The district police has uncovered 226 cases where people had been swindled out of a total 10 million yuan (EUR one million) by responding to SMS messages on their phones. The number of cases has more than doubled this year.

The swindle take various forms, including fake phone calls supposedly from the government providing a "safe" bank account, and kidnap warnings.

Changning police has cooperated with local banks by installing warnings, and organizing training courses for bank clerks. The program has prevented 14 cases covering 1.84 million yuan since July.

The total value of the global mobile marketing and advertising market will grow from one billion euro in 2008 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 43 percent to EUR 8.7 billion in 2014. This will then correspond to 11.7 percent of the total digital advertising market, predicts analyst firm Berg Insight.

At the same time the digital convergence blurs the differences between devices. The definition used by Berg Insight says that mobile advertising is digital media exposed on a mobile handset screen.

The report predicts that the mobile media will become a natural part of the marketing media mix.

“Handsets are highly private devices that offer a unique platform for personal interaction with consumers” , said Marcus Persson, telecom analyst, Berg Insight.

“Advertisers are increasingly aware of the opportunities and seek new ways to exploit them. Just the simple fact that people are able to make a phone call or send a text message anywhere at any time has changed the conditions for marketing in general.”

He adds that many marketing campaigns are designed to trigger a response in the form of a voice call, SMS/MMS or a visit to a mobile web site. On-screen advertising on mobile displays has not taken off until very recently but is becoming increasingly relevant with the rising popularity of advanced Internet-enabled smartphones.

Berg Insight anticipates that there will be increasing convergence between traditional web and mobile advertising as the PC and mobile technological capabilities will come to merge. The most likely result of such a development is the formation of a few dominant digital advertising networks spanning all types of devices. Corporations such as Google and Microsoft openly aspire for this position in competition with among others Apple, Nokia and Yahoo!. Ultimately the control over advertising in handsets will reside far beyond the traditional mobile network environment.

MobileMonday German National Summit will take place for the third time on November 30th, 2009. The event will culminate on the second event of the Kudos Award Ceremony. The summit will focus on "Our Mobile Future".

The speakers will discuss following topics:

• What do consumers want from smart phones?
• What will Augmented Reality bring to the people?
• How will media itself develop in the years to come?

The speakers will be:

Lars-Christian Weisswange, HTC Europe: "User, App & Market Trends"

Nick Sohnemann, TrendONE: "Mobile Augmented Reality"

Gerhard Leonhard, Media Futurist & Author: "Media 2.0: Mobile, Social, Open...Free?"

The speaker panel will also be joined by Dr.** Christine Woesler de Panafie**, Cosight.

The event will be highlighted by the announcement of the winners of the Kudos Award. Audience and Jury Award for the best German "Mobile Site" will be presented. You can register here.

By Shaun Thanki

Last night MoMo launched its 84th chapter in Karlskrona, Sweden. Karlskrona is a very small Swedish town but home to the world class telecom cluster TelecomCity - a regional and global "hot spot" within the IT and telecom industry.

It was here were Europolitan was founded, one of the first and subsequently largest mobile operators and an important contributor to the development of the Swedish mobile market. Today the TelecomCity network consists of a number of leading companies. Ericsson and Telenor, among others, as well as a variety of innovative product and service companies. In total the network consist of 40 companies including the Municipality of Karlskrona and Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH).

The kick-off event that was meant as a workshop started with Richard Linden, Managing Director of TelecomCity talking about how he sees the MoMo concept could evolve as an informal knowledge arena within the local industry that consist of more than 10.000 employees and 5000 ICT students. And as a connector between the academia and the industry - one of the ideas was that Ph.D students from BTH could present their thesis in an executive summary format. Among the other speakers was Niclas Melin, Marketing Director Revenue Management at Ericsson whom presented their new concept "Mobile Money" and how this could leverage social change in developing countries and Shaun Thanki, Founding Director of MoMo Scandinavia whom has over the last year been working on connecting the mobilist community in Scandinavia.

There was a good crowd that represented almost all aspects of the industry - from global players like CyberCom Group to master students and researchers from BTH.

One of the telecom students, Erkin Gunay originally from Turkey had previously attended the MoMo events in Istanbul. Said he was very happy seeing the MoMo concept launching in TelecomCity and had great hopes for this initiative. Also iclas Melin said that MoMo as a meeting point for individuals and not the companies could really give a new social knowledge arena that would increase the personal relations within the local ecosystem.

After the speakers had presented there were some very good discussion on how MoMo TelecomCity could develop and organizer Therese Hogblad was very happy with the feedback and that finally MoMo had launched after being on the agenda for some time!

Nokia follows its last week’s research and development (R&D) reduction announcement by announcing job cuts in Japan. Nokia says that it is setting its operations to be in line with its focused portfolio of future products. In Japan this m means that 220 employees will lose their jobs.

Last week Nokia announced plans to reduce some of its R&D activities in Finland and Denmark by cutting 320 jobs.

Nokia says that it will continue its sourcing activities in Japan.

“Japanese manufacturers are important partners who play a critical role in Nokia's global supply-chain strategy and with whom Nokia continues to develop its world-class logistics operations, Nokia’s press release says. It goes on to say that the Japanese operation of Nokia Siemens Networks, Nokia's network infrastructure business, is not affected by this announcement and continues uninterrupted.

Vertu, Nokia's exclusive line of handcrafted mobile phones for the luxury market, will also continue operations in Japan unaffected by today's announcement.

New devices from RIM are generating an increasing percentage of the total number of requests for the platform, according to the October 2009 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report. The recently launched RIM devices that are gaining traction are the Tour and new versions of the Curve (8900 and 8520).

The older 8100 Pearl series has seen its share of RIM traffic steadily decrease from 28 percent in April to 16 percent in October. However, the 8300 Curve series has maintained approximately 44 percent share over the last six months.

The Android Operating System is a relative newcomer, having turned one year old in October.

Worldwide requests from Android devices increased 5.8 times since April 2009 in the AdMob network. The HTC Dream (G1) has continued to experience strong growth over the past six months and the launch of new devices is driving significant incremental growth in Android traffic. The Motorola Droid already represented 24 percent of all Android requests in AdMob's network two weeks after it launched.

The iPhone, Palm and RIM OS's all run exclusively on devices manufactured by those companies, while the Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile OS's run on devices from a variety of manufacturers.

Highlights from the October 2009 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report include:

• In October 2009, 70 percent of iPhone OS requests came from the iPhone while the remaining 30 percent came from the iPod touch.

• In the US, the RIM 8300 Curve and 8100 Pearl series devices have consistently remained in the Top 20 devices over the last two years. In the UK, the 9000 Bold and 8900 Curve have seen strong growth and are now the number 10 and 11 devices, respectively.

• In the US, Android had 20 percent share of smartphone traffic, up from seven percent six months before, and the HTC Magic (myTouch 3G) and HTC Dream were both Top 10 devices. In the UK, the HTC Dream, HTC Magic, and HTC Hero are all Top 10 devices in the AdMob network.

  • The Motorola CLIQ has also seen fast pickup since its launch at T-Mobile in the US and generated six percent of Android traffic on November 18.

• The top Symbian and Windows Mobile devices have not changed in 2009 and both platforms have lost smartphone share. One of Nokia's first touchscreen models, the 5800 XpressMusic, is the one of the few newcomers to the list of Top 20 Symbian devices in 2009.

Google earlier this month announced that it has acquired AdMob for USD 750 million.

AdMob stores and analyzes handset and operator data from every ad request in its network of more than 15,000 mobile Web sites and applications to optimize ad serving. Each month, the AdMob Mobile Metrics Report aggregates this data to provide insights into major trends in the mobile ecosystem. The AdMob share is calculated by the percentage of requests received from a particular handset; it is a measure of relative mobile Web and application usage and does not represent handset sales.

Global shipments of Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs) will peak at about 50 million units per year in 2012 and slightly decline thereafter, predicts a new research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight.

Growing shipments in emerging markets are not likely to fully compensate for the decline in Europe and North America, where higher adoption of handset-based navigation services will become the primary navigation solution for occasional users. Nevertheless, multiple navigation solutions and device types are likely to co-exist also in the future. Most PNDs and in-car navigation systems still provide a better user experience than many handset-based navigation services. The report also explains that handset navigation services are also well suited as a complement to other solutions, especially for use outside the car.

PND vendors are increasingly looking at value-added services enabled by new devices with wireless connectivity to combat slower market growth, increasing competition and commoditization of entry-level devices. Berg Insight forecasts that 88 percent of PNDs shipped worldwide in 2015 will have integrated cellular connectivity.

“The connected PND segment has had a slow start, but now seems to be on-track as business models have been refined”, said André Malm, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight. Although Connected PNDs are unlikely to account for a significant share of total shipped units next year, rapid growth can be expected once customers get used to new live services such as traffic flow information, speed camera databases and up-to-date maps. “In only a few years time, wireless connectivity will be taken for granted also in Personal Navigation Devices”, said Malm.

There is no such thing as too much bandwidth, but sometimes bandwidth speeds seem to catch up with processor speeds and the content that is available. We seem to be near such junction right now.

According to the number from the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), mobile industry is setting the next base line mobile broadband peak downlink data speed at 21 Mbps. Even if this is the peak rate, it means that networks can deliver more bandwidth than end user devices can consume.

21 Mbps bandwidth is can also support comfortably laptop computer communications. This is important because there needs to be a need for applications and content that demand faster data transfer. Otherwise mobile operators won’t turn on the faster networks or they set the prices so high that only a few are willing to pay it.

It would be very nice to see positive signs towards faster networks also from the operator association, GSMA. It would be unfortunate if we get stuck once again in the egg and chicken syndrome.

The GSA press release describes the industry uptake on near future.

Mobile broadband is continuing to grow at a fast pace due to the ever increasing introduction of new technologies, new networks, new devices and competitive innovation in the market. On July 27, 2009 the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) announced that 7.2 Mbps had become the new baseline for mobile broadband globally, since at that time half of the HSPA networks in commercial service globally were capable of supporting a peak downlink data speed of 7.2 Mbps or higher, supported by almost 600 user devices capable of 7.2 Mbps or higher which had been launched in the market. Some HSPA systems support a peak downlink data speed up to 14.4 Mbps.

HSPA Evolution (HSPA+) is the next step for many operators, which increases data rates by using higher order modulation schemes and multiple antenna technology (MIMO). 3GPP Release 7 introduced 64 QAM modulation, increasing the downlink peak data bit rate by 50% to 21 Mbps. In the uplink, 16 QAM doubles the peak data bit rate from 5.76 Mbps to 11.5 Mbps. Release 8 allows for combining 64 QAM with 2×2 MIMO for peak rates up to 42 Mbps downlink and 11.5 Mbps uplink (per 5 MHz carrier). Further evolution of HSPA will utilize combinations of multi-carrier and MIMO to reach peak rates of 84 Mbps downlink and 23 Mbps uplink. 62 operators worldwide have committed to HSPA+ network deployments.

The announcement by GSA of the 7.2 Mbps benchmark prompted the question from a number of industry players about what the next baseline might be, when, and why. In other words, what would be the mainstream mobile broadband technology capabilities – interpreted as meaning more than 100 networks in service, with a supporting eco-system of several hundred user devices in the market.

GSA launched an industry-wide global survey lasting 10 weeks, via its website and on the ground at conferences, etc. to obtain industry views first-hand from network operators, suppliers and other stakeholders in mobile broadband.

The results are now available in Mobile Broadband - The Next Baseline, and show that most people believe that the next baseline for mobile broadband peak downlink data speed will be 21 Mbps HSPA+.

There was little difference between respondent groups (operators, suppliers, others) as the majority in each group selected 21 Mbps as the most likely. Most agreed that the new baseline of 21 Mbps peak downlink will be reached by 2010 due to it being reasonably cost effective and straightforward to achieve, and is thus seen as the next logically evolutionary step for mobile broadband.

Some respondents said that speed alone is not a sufficiently complete indicator for the user experience. An end-to-end approach is required when considering the user experience, and a Holistic Indicator for Quality of User Experience has been proposed. This holistic indicator would embrace context awareness and the essence of the network capability to deliver services and applications to a mobile user. GSA will consider this aspect further.

The survey also asked for views about when HSPA+ as a technology will become the new benchmark i.e. supporting some HSPA+ features but not necessarily a higher peak data rate, for example, utilizing such features as: * Discontinuous Transmission and Reception (for extended battery time) * CS Voice over HSPA (increases talk time) * Shorter set-up times

The results confirmed that most (59%) believed that this would be reached in 2010, 29% stating it would be 2011, and 12% indicating 2012 or later.

While accepting the majority view is for 21 Mbps as the next benchmark, it will take time to build the terminals market for widespread availability, especially where MIMO is to be implemented, since this will add complexity and cost to devices. Operators may also be unwilling to increase subsidies for such devices. And although 2010 is the timeframe that more than 60% agree on for 21 Mbps, it will be a key challenge for the industry to ensure sufficient terminals in the market by that date, which in the end might be more like 2011/12.

The latest GSA survey on Global HSPA+ Network Commitments and Deployments (November 19, 2009) confirms:

• 62 operators in 35 countries have committed to HSPA+ network deployments (Australia, Austria, Bermuda, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong SAR, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Lebanon, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, S. Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, UAE, USA, and Vietnam)

• 36 commercial HSPA+ systems are now launched in 23 countries

Nokia plans to cut its research and development (R&D) operations in Finland and Denmark . It will lay off up to 230 employees at Nokia's Oulu site in Finland and approximately 100 employees at Nokia's Copenhagen site. The total number would represent approximately 2 % of Nokia's R&D personnel globally.

Nokia aims to support the employees with alternative solutions, such as finding new positions within the company for as many employees as possible. Nokia will begin consultations with employee representatives about these plans where voluntary severance packages among other topics will be discussed.

Nokia maintains a strong R&D presence in both sites; the company has over 2 000 employees in Oulu and over 1 000 employees in Copenhagen. Overall, Nokia has more than 17 000 people employed in its research and development activities.