Smart Signal Share project is part of a £1.5bn network evolution

The UK parent of T-Mobile and Orange, Everything Everywhere, said Wednesday that it has completed its signal sharing project, dubbed Smart Signal Share. Wireless devices such as smartphones, tablets and dongles, will now switch seamlessly between the two networks, depending on which signal is strongest.

Olaf Swantee, CEO of Everything Everywhere, said: “Smart Signal Sharing marks the completion of the Orange and T-Mobile signal integration project, which provides our 27.5million customers with the widest 2G and 3G coverage available in Britain today.” The company said that the Smart Signal Share project is part of a £1.5bn network evolution, with £1.4m being invested every day.

Everything Everywhere said that HSPA+ 21, now reaches 95 per cent of the UK population. But if no 3G coverage is available, all Orange and T-Mobile devices will seamlessly switch to 2G signal and back on to 3G when either network comes back into range – even if a customer is browsing the internet. Customer charges remain the same when using the other network’s signal.

Google can now close the Motorola acquisition

Internet giant Google has cleared the final hurdle in the way of its acquisition of handset manufacturer Motorola Mobility. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce Anti Monopoly Bureau (MOFCOM) approved the deal over the weekend with several conditions.

The Chinese authority’s concerns were similar to those of the European Commission (EC), which gave the go-ahead to the deal in February. The EC said its primary concern was whether Google would try to prevent Motorola’s competitors from using its Android operating system. However, it found that given Google’s core business model is to push its online and mobile services and software to the widest possible audience, Android helps to drive that spread and it is unlikely that Google would restrict the use of Android.

Similarly, MOFCOM found that Google occupies a dominant market position in the Android ecosystem, and could potentially treat other mobile device manufacturers non-preferentially. Or, with respect to Motorola’s patent portfolio, Google could set unreasonable licensing conditions, for other vendors.

As a result, MOFCOM has set down a list of requirements Google must agree to. These include: Providing Android on a “free and open basis” for at least five years; treating all original equipment manufacturers on a non-discriminatory basis; and complying with Motorola’s current fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory patent obligations. Google must also commission an independent trustee to monitor fulfilment of these obligations, the Chinese authority said.

Google is now cleared to close the acquisition and is expected to do over the next week.

Earlier this month Motorola Mobility posted a loss of $86m in its first-quarter earnings for 2012. The loss is $5m deeper than the $81m loss the company made in the same quarter last year. The firm, which is on the verge of being acquired by Google, is still to post an annual profit, having recorded losses for the four years since it was established.

Viettel is seeking more African opportunities

Vietnamese carrier Viettel has expanded beyond Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, this week lighting up its first operation in Africa – a mobile network in Mozambique.

Viettel acquired a licence for the country in January 2011, and said it has since built out 12,600 kilometres of fibre optic cable and 1,800 mobile stations in Mozambique. The carrier said this network represents 70 per cent of the total of Mozambique’s available fibre optic cable and 50 per cent of the country’s mobile stations, effectively tripling the density of Mozambique’s telecom infrastructure per one million inhabitants.

“This is the first time many areas will have had access to telecom services, so the company has made a major contribution to the implementation of Mozambique’s socio-economic development and poverty reduction strategy,” said Mozambican president Armano Emilio Guebuza.

The Movitel-branded network doubles the network coverage commitments identified in the mobile licence, while Viettel is also providing free internet for 4,200 schools as part of the group’s pledge to the Mozambican Government.

“Mozambique is Viettel’s first market in Africa. Viettel is seeking for new opportunities to expand its investment in other African countries,” Viettel said in a statement.

T-Mobile is to cut 900 more jobs

Deutsche Telecom’s US mobile operation, T-Mobile USA, is to cut a further 900 jobs, following the unit’s failed $39bn purchase by AT&T late last year. The latest cuts come on top of around 1,900 job losses announced earlier this year.

Last week T-Mobile USA said it has seen revenue and profit deteriorate over the past year, and is now stepping up its efforts in the market, bolstered by the rollout of an LTE network.

Revenue for the US operation during the first quarter of 2012 increased two per cent year-on-year to reach €3.8bn, while adjusted EBITDA grew 12.9 per cent to €1bn. However, this was in part due to exchange rate gains made by the US dollar. In local currency, revenue decreased by 2.3 per cent, although adjusted EBITDA increased by eight per cent.

“Relaunching the T-Mobile brand on the US market and significantly enlarging the sales network in the country are important steps in implementing the strategy,” the firm said in its statement. “In addition, initiatives for cutting costs and reducing churn are having a positive impact. There was a 0.1 percentage point improvement year-on-year in branded contract customer churn, representing a 0.5 per cent improvement on the fourth quarter.”

So it looks like the cost cutting initiatives are set to continue. Most of the recently announced job cuts are to come from the closure and consolidation of call centres.

“We are restructuring the organization and optimizing operations so that we can make critical decisions better and faster in response to market and customer demands. Further, by reducing our cost structure and streamlining operations, T-Mobile will be able to invest in areas where we anticipate the strongest return: modernizing our 4G network; aggressively pursuing the B2B segment; and re-launching our brand,” the company said.

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HTC and Samsung are flying the Android flag

Android retains its lead position as the most popular smartphone OS, with HTC and Samsung dominating the market between them. According to handset sales statistics released by research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Android’s global market share for the three months to April is just over 50 per cent, up from 44.6 per cent last year.

Between them, handset vendors HTC and Samsung are dominating Android sales, holding 86 per cent of the market.

As noted by Dominic Sunnebo, Kantar’s global consumer insight director, when it launched in May, the HTC One X became one of Britain’s ten best-selling smartphones within one week. Meanwhile, the release of the Sony Xperia S and the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S3 also added to a surge of interest from consumers looking for their next upgrade.

Yet, despite the release of the Xperia S, Sony’s share continued to dwindle taking just 10.4 per cent of Android sales over the 12 weeks to mid-April, while LG holds less than one per cent. Both manufacturers have struggled to convince their existing featurephone consumers to switch to their smartphone ranges, with only 11 per cent of Sony featurephone users trading up to one of the firm’s smartphones over the past year. This figure is even lower for LG at just four per cent, Sunnebo said.

But there is some good news for the vendors, with Kantar expecting some big changes in manufacturer market shares over the coming months, with almost 22 million consumers aged 13+ changing their mobile device and almost 80 per cent upgrading to a smartphone.

The research suggests that Android’s stronghold is now becoming more prevalent across Europe, particularly in Spain where it holds 72.3 per cent of the market with year-on-year growth of 39.5 per cent.

With smartphone penetration in the UK at 53.1 per cent, the pool of featurephone users left to trade up is beginning to diminish, which according to Sunnebo, means smartphone manufacturers need to step up their game and find ways of stealing consumers from their competitors.

“Rich new content and features are a big driver for consumers looking to trade up.  However, convincing users to switch brands requires an emphasis on the user experience – an area in which Apple excels.  Consumers have come to expect top-end hardware and manufacturers are responding with innovative software, good services and exclusive content partnerships.  These expectations from tech-savvy customers are yet another obstacle for Asian manufacturers, such as Huawei and ZTE, who will attempt to make a splash by releasing high-end models in the coming months,”  he said.

OS (Operating System) Share – Smartphone Sales

The deals marks Huawei's first such UK deal

Chinese equipment vendor Huawei said Monday that it has won a five-year agreement from Telefónica’s UK operation, O2, to manage the operator’s multi vendor core transmission and mobile access network.

Under the deal Huawei will be responsible for planning and managing the core transmission, mobile access and core network build, marking the first major managed services deal for the Chinese firm in the UK.

Huawei already works with Telefónica in a number of markets and this latest deal extends the companies’ relationship in the UK. The deal may come as a disappointment to Ericsson, which has a long-standing agreement with Telefónica to supply field maintenance services, but had also undertaken a core network modernisation initiative on some parts of O2’s UK network last year. As a result, Huawei will likely be managing a lot of Ericsson kit.

The agreement will see 56 permanent roles transfer from Telefónica UK to work for Huawei’s managed services business.  A further 62 contractor roles will also be transferring alongside the permanent employees.

Huawei is Platinum Sponsor at the 2012 Managed Services World Congress, taking place in Berlin on the 18-19th September 2012. http://www.managedservices-world.com/home/home

MSpot, based in California, confirmed the purchase, for an undisclosed sum, on Wednesday. The deal will give Samsung a cloud-based services suite, catering to music, video and radio services for users of its devices, while extending mSpot’s existing cloud and streaming offerings to a broader base.

“mSpot’s entertainment services will be a key integrated offering on newly announced Samsung mobile devices,” the firm said.

The cloud firm’s existing offerings are akin to digital locker services like Google Music or Amazon Cloud Player, allowing users to upload content and access it via a variety of web-enabled devices. MSpot also offers a streaming user-defined radio service as well as a movie purchase and download platform.

TU Me offers similar functionality to existing OTT plays

Telefónica Digital, the innovation arm of the Spanish incumbent telco, has offered its first retort to the third party messaging apps like WhatsApp, Skype and Viber that are threatening operator business models. The TU Me application enables rich communications between users on any network, mimicking the functionality of OTT applications and tying them to the subscriber’s phone number. It has much in common with what is expected of the RCSe collaboration Joyn, which was announced by Telefónica with other leading operators in February.

The application will initially be available for iOS users, with an Android version in the works. It can be used regardless of network, as long as a wifi or data connection is enabled, but will be marketed as part of a bundle for users on its O2, movistar and Vivo branded networks. Telecoms.com notes that the operator said the app will be “free to use at launch,” and “will continue to be developed with added value functionality,” which suggests premium functionality—and associated pricing—is in the post.

Users of the application can exchange text messages, make calls, leave voice messages, share photos and location information. Unlike Skype however, users cannot yet call circuit switched lines, so all communication is within the boundaries of the application itself. Interactions are stored in the now popular timeline format with all content stored in the cloud so that it is always available whenever users log into the app.

“We’ve seen the growing popularity of communications apps on smartphones but we believe we’ve gone one better with TU Me using our knowledge and insights of how people use their devices,” said Stephen Shurrock, chief commercial officer at Telefónica Digital.

According to Informa, the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger among other OTT services are set to take almost four per cent of voice and messaging revenues from the mobile operators in 2012. And while the operators can’t afford to lose this money, they also can’t afford to lose the relationship they have with their customers.

A compelling user experience is essential but making the service cost free is also likely to be important as this is what consumers already get from OTT players. This makes Telefónica’s hint at some kind of ‘TU premium’ a potentially tricky issue.

Yet Dario Talmesio, principal analyst at Informa, believes the carrier is quite right to think about a monetisation model which can be implemented further down the line. While the service as it stands does not have any unique attributes and is largely an OTT copycat that has appeared two years behind the pack, there is scope to integrate it with other operator run cloud services such as storage facilities, Talmesio said. He added that rich communications offerings make interaction more fun and therefore more sticky.

The TU programme shifts more traffic from the voice to data, which seems somewhat at odds with plentiful reports of operators struggling with data traffic and the lowering of data usage ceilings.

Although it is app-based, from a functionality perspective TU foreshadows the network-based Joyn RCSe initiative, announced by the Spanish offices of Telefonica, Vodafone and Orange as well as T-Mobile and Telecom Italia at MWC in February. In a bid to stave off the threat from the over the top players, the five carriers are banding together to deliver their own brand of rich communications candy to their existing subscriber bases.

At MWC there was much speculation as to whether this plan was a last ditch bid for service supremacy from the operator camp. The TU offering launched by Telefónica today stands in direct competition with what is planned for Joyn, yet will likely in future be run in parallel. This is not the first time that Telefónica has pushed out its own version of a product on which a collaborative effort is in the works. O2 UK recently unveiled its mobile wallet service, while its Project Oscar JV with Vodafone and Everything Everywhere remains held up by EC investigation. Interestingly, TU, like the O2 mobile wallet, is designed to appeal to subscribers of competitor networks as well as Telefónica’s own customers.

Telefonica will be speaking at Global Messaging World Congress 2012, to be held in London on the 19-20th June 2012: http://globalmessagingcongress.com/

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Facebook is building its talent pool ahead of its imminent IPO

Social network Facebook added another acquisition to its books this week as it seeks to shore up its talent pool ahead of its imminent IPO.

Glancee is a mobile discovery firm started in 2010. The US company claims that it’s not a dating app or a social network, but is designed to bring users into contact with others that share similar interests. The focus is on location enablement, with the app running constantly in the background and alerting users whenever others with similar profiles are in the immediate vicinity.

The price tag for Glancee is not known, but it is expected to be some way below the $1bn Facebook recently paid for photo sharing startup Instagram.

As with the Instagram purchase, the Glancee acquisition should give Facebook more leverage in the mobile space and follows the idea that, as the Facebook proposition gets ‘fatter’, the company needs to refocus on core features and functionality. Mark Little, principal analyst at Ovum, said: “The Facebook proposition is becoming fat, allowing sub-propositions like photo-sharing to get lost or become difficult to access.”

The company’s stock price had been in decline since late last week

The chief executive officer of Brazilian carrier TIM Participações – part of the Telecom Italia group – has stepped down effective immediately. Luca Luciani will be replaced by TIM’s group chief financial officer Andrea Mangoni in the short term.

TIM did not give a reason for Luciani’s departure, but the company’s stock price has been in decline since late last week, when Italian press reports speculated on the executive’s future.

Luciani had been named, but not charged, in a 2011 probe into allegations that Telecom Italia’s subscriber numbers were artificially inflated. Last year, Luciani worked at the parent company in Italy during a time when allegations were levelled at TIM that the company had issued around 1.5 million artificial SIM cards to inflate its subscriber numbers.

The probe has since ended, but the Italian press is now speculating that a prosecution may be imminent.