With smartphones becoming ever more feature rich and data intensive, mobile network operators need to assess whether their network is ‘iPhone 5 ready’. Staying ahead of the next wave of new devices, features, apps and technologies is challenging because innovation doesn’t stay still, traditionally forcing operators to take a reactive approach. However, with a clear understanding of their network readiness, operators can take proactive measures to ensure bandwidth requirements are available and enhance the customer experience, thus minimising churn rates.
Facebook has announced that it will shortly launch its App Center, a new portal for its users to discover and rate smartphone apps.. Due to be launched “in the coming weeks”, the App Center will showcase iOS, Android and HTML5 apps. Facebook will use indicators such user rating and engagement to select the apps it feels are of the highest quality.
The ongoing patent disputes between Apple and Google and its Android partners is killing innovation, according to Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media.
There’s no rest for a busy network. With video now accounting for the lion’s share of mobile data traffic on wireless networks, peak demand has become an almost all-day phenomenon, running from noon to midnight daily.
In a clear bid to make up ground lost to Android and iOS devices, embattled Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) has announced its acquisition of German social-gaming outfit Scoreloop. With sales of the Blackberry PlayBook reported to be less than stellar, commentators are suggesting that Scoreloop’s in-app billing capabilities played a hand in the deal as RIM looks to play catch-up in an increasingly cut throat apps market.
As tit-for-tat patent infringement litigation steps up a few notches in the telecoms world, people with a sense of irony will no doubt appreciate the news that Microsoft has signed up as the first member of a new organisation challenging specious software patents. The company that has threatened the likes of Salesforce and TomTom over their use of Linux (which Redmond claims infringes on Microsoft IP – an assertion that has yet to be tested in court) has signed up for Litigation Avoidance, a crowdsourcing service “designed to help companies analyse and act on patents of questionable quality.”
When 24 of the telecoms world’s biggest players announced the formation of the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) at the Mobile World Congress in February 2010, it’s fair to say the pundits’ response was overwhelmingly sceptical. Peters Suh, WAC CEO, tells Telecoms.com such scepticism was misplaced.
Lean and MeanWith summer supposedly fast approaching, many look to trim some fat and get in shape for the sunny months. The Informer has never been a huge fan of gyms; in fact his favourite machine in the gym is the one that sells chocolate. Telefonica’s UK arm O2, is one business that is looking to get lean for the holidays, though, and this week it announced that it is to trim 3,500 UK employees.
Cross-border opportunities are there, but Telenor has work to do in BulgariaPan-European operater group Telenor is making another move into Eastern Europe, this time buying Bulgaria’s Globul. The move makes sense for several reasons, but success won’t come easy in a country with high mobile penetration and a sluggish economy.
Telecoms.com speaks with Ali Agan, who has risen through the ranks of TeliaSonera Group to become CEO of KCell in Kazakhstan. With a young population Agan is keen to deploy LTE and exploit nascent demand for data services.
Jonathan Bell, VP of Marketing at OpenCloud, discusses how policy and pricing are just two dimensions along which telecoms operators can differentiate their propositions. By adding a third dimension, the service behaviour itself, operators can define and bring true innovation to the market that surpasses the traditional approaches of the past, he says.
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Calls for consolidation in the European mobile market grow louder by the week and four-operator markets look increasingly challenged. Now, those mobile operators that have already built scale seem to be suggesting that there is no option but to expand yet further through diversification.