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Mobile broadband is on the rise in Brazil

Brazil is showing an appetite for mobile internet, as internet traffic from non-PC devices, such as tablets, mobile phones and gaming consoles, has grown rapidly in recent months.

Although non-PC device traffic accounted for just one per cent of total internet page views in August, this marks an increase of more than 60 per cent since May, according to comScore.

The research provider said that this trend shows that tablets and smartphones are rapidly growing importance in Brazil.

“Internet consumption in Brazil is changing as consumers embrace a growing number of connected devices,” said Alex Banks, comScore managing director for Brazil.

He added that this trend offers firms opportunities to engage with an increasingly connected audience base, but it also presents challenges in understanding how multiple platforms may influence consumers’ media consumption habits.

Nearly 60 per cent of this non-PC traffic comes via Apple devices, according to the research. Apple iOS accounted for 58.5 percent of non-PC device traffic in August 2011, while devices running the Android operating system accounted for 16.7 per cent.

Other findings were that mobile phones accounted for the largest share of non-PC device traffic, representing 59.8 per cent. Tablets accounted for 36.5 percent, while other devices, including iPods, e-readers and gaming consoles, accounted for 3.7 percent.

Apple’s iPad led the tablet market driving 94 percent of tablet page views in August 2011 in Brazil.

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In the age of the Mobile Internet, with 4G networks looming on the horizon and a rapidly expanding array of intelligent devices making their way to consumers, competition for subscribers among wireless service providers is fiercer than ever. As a result, operators need to become more creative in delivering a user experience that their customers just can’t live without – and thereby monetize the proliferation of traffic in their networks.

Participants in this webinar will learn from panelists T-Mobile International, Informa and Bytemobile how operators can strengthen network performance with currently available network resources to meet consumer demand and build brand loyalty with stickiness. Specific questions on the table for discussion will include the following:

• LTE, Wi-Fi offload, femtocells, optimization, traffic management – which solution best positions operators to serve their customers over the long term? Or, will they all be required to deliver the ultimate user experience?

• With video overcoming web browsing in the mobile traffic mix, what are the most viable options for operators to manage network congestion and provide uninterrupted video streaming?

• In terms of consumer expectations and usage profiles, where will the iPad stack up against the iPhone, netbooks and laptops?

• Will web and video optimization be obviated by LTE and WiMAX, or will the perennial leap of traffic over bandwidth sustain a perpetual value proposition?

Speakers:

Jeff Sanderson – Head of Pre-Sales EMEA/LATAM for Bytemobile

Desmond O’Connor- Head of mobile ISP domain Development for Deutsche Telekom

Mike Hibberd – Editorial Director for Telecoms.com

Realising the full potential of the mobile internet

The Holy Grail for analytics will be its ability to form predictions of what is likely to happen in the near future, based on historical and circumstantial facts.

It goes without saying that mobile internet usage has experienced significant growth over the past couple of years and has become an integral, irreplaceable part of many people’s lives. Analyst firm Forrester predicts that 125 million Europeans will access the mobile internet by 2013, more than tripling today’s users. On a more global scale, Cisco Systems estimates that mobile data traffic will double every year through 2013, reaching over two exabytes per month by 2013 .

On the one hand mobile data usage is being driven by our changing professional and social lifestyles: consumers expect faster, simple and omnipresent access to the internet. On the other hand, the rise in usage is a direct result of the way in which mobile operators, device manufacturers and all the other associated players in the industry make the web available to us on the go.

Increasingly, we are seeing userfriendly payment options for mobile broadband with bundled-rate and pay-as-you- go billing models; faster and higher bandwidth networks; and continuous improvements in mobile device capabilities.

The regular churn of new device models entering the consumer market is driving the range and quality of key features and functionalities; particularly in the area of user interface (touch-sensitive screens are the most obvious).

More traffic is good news for mobile operators and their bottom lines, but too much of a good thing can create significant challenges as operators struggle to fortify their networks for the growing number of transactions. Failure to prepare for this growth can have a dramatic effect. If operators are unable to accurately predict future growth in data volumes, they could miss out on the inevitable increase in ARPU.

‘One Web’ Experience

Bringing a high quality web experience on mobile devices has historically proven to be a challenging feat, specifically with regards to harnessing the power of a system that was designed to be used and viewed on personal computers with large screens and at broadband speeds. The launch of the iPhone changed everything – moving the industry toward a unified one web experience where the web experience on a mobile became tantamount to the PC.

Whether or not you bought an iPhone or one of its many clones, you understood what was possible. Mobile operators understood as well; one by one, their walled garden internet portals came down. They quickly realised that they could not sustain their revenue growth – let alone increase it – if they were to prevent access to off-net services. Their subscribers would just churn over to an operator that allowed open internet access.

New Rules for a New Game

Of course the f lipside of embracing a more open approach to off-net content is the risk of losing control of subscribers. Traditional WAP1 or WAP2 feature phones go through an intermediary proxy gateway owned by the operator for authentication, access control, transcoding (if applicable) and potentially other value-added services. This model allows the operator to maintain control of the user experience, and by suitable manipulation of proxy server logs, access a wealth of knowledge about users’ online behaviour. This includes trends relating to most popular sites, device types and average browsing duration.

Smartphones typically do not have proxy settings pointing to the intermediary gateway. They are similar to laptops in that their data traffic goes directly to the internet unaided. More importantly, most of the mobile internet traffic comes from smartphone users. According to comScore, in the UK nearly 80 percent of iPhone owners accessed news and other information via a browser, nearly four times the rate for all mobile phone users, and mobile e-mail was used by 75 per cent of British iPhone owners, making it the most popular type of mobile content consumed on the device .

Translation: operators are seeing a short term gain in data ARPU as a result of increased mobile internet usage, but they have far less visibility into what these high value subscribers are doing. The question is: how can these operators monetise the increasing amount of off-net traffic? The answer lies in regaining that bird’s-eye view of subscribers’ online behavior so they can offer them revenue-generating services which are deemed relevant and useful to each individual user.

The Role of Analytics

Operational Analytics

Mobile analytics services provide operators with business intelligence and reporting that not only describes what is happening in their network, but also provides insightful information as to why it is happening. The Holy Grail for analytics will be its ability to form predictions of what is likely to happen in the near future, based on historical and circumstantial factors. One of the major benefits of this type of service is its capability to provide early identification of mobile data trends and proactively help operators avoid potential bottlenecks.

Operators can leverage analytics to assist with critical operational functions such as network and capacity planning. This helps operators identify network congestion areas and predict trends where congestion is most likely to occur in the coming months. By proactive capacity planning, operators can defer CAPEX/OPEX costs and use bandwidth management solutions to address capacity problems.

Marketing Analytics

An in-network mobile analytics solution can turn the raw data on an operator’s network into actionable intelligence to help improve traffic flow and monetise traffic. Mobile analytics solutions can provide aggregate data that allows operators to understand what is occurring in their networks, both on-portal and off-portal, at a more granular level, so they can build a 360-degree view of the mobile subscriber.

Using the 360-degree-view of the customer, operators can understand the subscriber and the effectiveness of services by asking:

• What are the subscriber’s interests?
• What is the subscriber’s demographic profile?
• Which products has the customer subscribed to and how are they being used?
• Is the subscriber on contract or pay-as-you-go?
• Which products does the subscriber use while at home or at work?

Once the subscriber is profiled, mobile analytics can enable up-selling of new services and service bundling. For upselling, operators should analyse the subscriber’s product preferences, their needs and spending threshold in relation to their particular segment.

For example:

• Is the new service pricing within the subscriber’s spending limits?
• Does the device provide a superior user experience?
• Can the subscriber share the same services within his/her social network?
• Does the network have sufficient capacity to offer good quality of service?

Successful service bundles are those that are tailored to address the subscribers’ specific needs. Using mobile analytics, operators can analyze usage patterns of subscriber segments and then develop highly targeted services for those segments, driving increased ARPU.

Ecosystem Analytics

Mobile analytics offers real business value to competitive markets. It is critical to ensuring successful targeting by operators wishing to promote their own services. It also provides valuable information for advertisers. Besides increasing ARPU and improving customer satisfaction, mobile analytics can turn operators into information brokers engaged in powerful partnerships with advertisers, content publishers, and Web 2.0 companies who will pay a premium to reach a specific audience to create new revenue streams. Using mobile analytics, an operator can aggregate, anonymise and sell access to consumer data to ecosystem partners as a subscription service.

The mobile operator continues to occupy the ideal position in relation to the consumer who is also a mobile internet user. From their vantage point the operator uniquely collects the knowledge that is key to monetising the mobile internet. The more an operator can understand about their subscribers, the more they will be able to determine, and then provide, services that are not only relevant, but ones which subscribers might be willing to pay for.

The Time is Now

With mobile internet usage continuing to rise unabated through 2010, it is clear to us that the scale of the challenge facing the mobile industry is immense, but so is the opportunity. Leveraging the mobile operator’s network ownership and direct relationship with the consumer can deliver a fast, safe and seamless user experience, while providing operators with the monitoring tools to manage traffic and effectively market their services.

It is therefore paramount that operators embrace the situation head-on, invest in capacity and begin to develop services that will protect these investments and make the most of the coming opportunities. Some are already doing this, but if the industry and consumers are to really benefit, more need to follow.

Ken Denman is CEO of Openwave

Less than 10 per cent of available IPv4 addresses remain unallocated

Last week analysts predicted that global mobile data revenues will rise from an estimated $208bn in 2009 to over $330bn in 2013, driven by explosive growth in smartphones and dongles. But with legacy internet addresses almost exhausted, the internet community is running out of time to prepare for future demand.

At present, 2G mobile technologies still account for 90 per cent of the world’s subscriptions, but by the end of 2012, this figure will fall to 70 per cent, and by the end of 2014, over half the world’s 6.7 billion mobile subscriptions will be moving onto 3G and 3.5G+ technologies giving an enormous number of mobile devices internet connectivity, according to Informa.

But this week the Number Resource Organization (NRO), the official representative of the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) tasked with ensuring the fair and equitable distribution of iInternet number resources, said that less than 10 per cent of available IPv4 addresses remain unallocated.

“With less than 10 per cent of the entire IPv4 address range still available for allocation to RIRs, it is vital that the internet community take considered and determined action to ensure the global adoption of IPv6,” said Axel Pawlik, Chairman of the NRO. “The limited IPv4 addresses will not allow us enough resources to achieve the ambitions we all hold for global internet access. The deployment of IPv6 is a key infrastructure development that will enable the network to support the billions of people and devices that will connect in the coming years,” he said.

There are currently two versions of IP in use, IPv4 and IPv6. IPv6 includes a modern numbering system that provides a much larger address pool than IPv4. With so few IPv4 addresses remaining, the NRO is urging all internet stakeholders to take immediate action by planning for the necessary investments required to deploy IPv6.

According to the organisation, IPv6 allocations increased by nearly 30 per cent in 2009, suggesting that the problem is being addressed by the internet and communications industry. In a white paper on the subject last year, leading handset vendor Nokia said that when cellular devices come online in a mass, only IPv6 will be able to provide a sufficient number of addresses.

“As the mobile broadband becomes increasingly available, sharing of the mobile broadband connection to other devices, such as PCs, is becoming an increasingly attractive use case. In the IPv4 domain, sharing can be implemented by using network address translators on a sharing device, but for IPv6 more advanced solutions should be used in order to avoid introducing IPv6 network address translators. Cellular operators should take this use case into consideration when designing and building their IPv6 networks,” Nokia said.

Webinar overview

Join Michael Rodgers, Product Management Strategist at Openwave Systems, and Informa Senior Research Analyst, Shailendra Pandey for an informative webinar outlining key opportunities for operators to meet growing demand for mobile value added services (VAS) in developing markets.

As part of the webinar, Shailendra Pandey will preview content from an upcoming Informa report, highlighting which mobile VAS are driving data ARPU in emerging markets, as well as key drivers, market requirements and new opportunities for mobile VAS.

Webinar speakers:

Shailendra Pandey, Senior Research Analyst, Informa Telecoms & Media

Shailendra Pandey is a senior analyst and covers Mobile Content & Applications within Informa Telecoms & Media’s Industry Research division. Shailendra focuses on providing in-depth research and forecasts on topics including mobile music, games, TV/video, mobile Internet, mobile marketing and advertising, social networking, user generated content, and mobile payments and banking. Shailendra has been quoted on numerous occasions in both print and online media including The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Financial Times and The Independent.

Michael Rodgers, Product Marketing Strategist, Openwave Systems

Michael Rodgers is a product marketing strategist for Openwave with over 15 years experience in telecoms, 10 of which have been spent in product management primarily of large scale server-side mobile internet data products and value added services. At Openwave, Michael is responsible for contributing to the product marketing strategy for Openwave’s mobile internet products. Prior to Openwave, Michael spent five years with Ericsson where he held a variety of positions including technical trainer, systems engineering and product management/marketing roles.

Best Practice for the Mobile Internet (Part 2)

Published by Streamezzo March 2009

In the late 1880′s, Almond Strowger, an undertaker from Kansas City was unhappy when he found out that the telephone operator was routing business to his competitor, who was the operator’s husband! He subsequently invented the first version of a switching system that was to remove go-betweens and power direct connection between users.

Click here to read more: Key to a great user experience PDF

Published by Streamezzo March 2009

According to Informa Telecoms & Media, the market for content and services on cell phones is expected to grow to $150 billion by 2011. All the bets are placed, yet end users are ultimately the ones who hold the cards. In 2007, the iPhone jolted the industry just as Macintosh, and later Windows, shook the PC world over twenty years ago, and for a similar reason: by again emphasizing that user experience is a decisive factor to generate enthusiasm and build Web 2.0 fan clubs. It is clearer than ever that success will be predicated both on the nature of the services offered and upon the ease with which users are able to discover and access services, as well as interact with these services and with fellow users.

Click here to read more: Rich Media Development and Deployment PDF

User generated content and social networking will be the driving forces behind the mobile internet, with the global market for Mobile Web 2.0 services forecast to be worth $22.4bn in 2013, up from $5.5bn in 2008.

The key to this growth, according to industry analyst Juniper Research, is that the Mobile Web 2.0 provides an ideal framework for the delivery of collaborative applications, further enhanced and contextualised by Location Based Services (LBS).

Juniper believes a fundamental shift in internet usage patterns is shaping mobile web development, driving subscriber adoption and forcing structural changes within the industry.

At the core of this evolution is the user as a creator as well as a consumer of content and the advent of the social web, which has ushered in a wide variety of social computing tools enabling users to develop detailed web identities, create online communities and communicate with like minded individuals.

“Combining the power of the social network map – namely: ‘who I know, how I know and where I know’ – with that of mobility, presents the greatest opportunity for revenue generation of any of the applications as defined within Juniper’s Mobile Web 2.0 framework,” said Juniper analyst Ian Chard. “The phone is carried with us most of the time and contains a huge amount of personal data, making it a logical extension for the social network and a host of other collaborative Web 2.0 applications being mobilised.”

In all, Juniper predicts that the total global revenues for mobile social networking and UGC will rocket from $1.8bn in 2008, to $11.2bn in 2013, accounting for 50 per cent of the Mobile Web 2.0 market, while growth in mobile search and mobile IM will be more measured.

Within this market, service revenues will account for the lion’s share of total revenues, although the analyst believes mobile advertising represents a significant opportunity.

However, the Mobile Web 2.0 era also creates fresh challenges over and above those typically associated with mobilising internet applications. Carriers must adjust to advertising sponsored strategies and accommodate partnerships with web-based players, while device manufacturers and technology vendors must somehow find the means to stitch together what is at present, a highly-fragmented market.