Mobile Europe 2014 February March
Mobile Europe 2014 February March
Mobile Europe 2014 February March
Sponsored Interview
LTE evolves
to LTE-A
the
essential
facts
By Stamatis Georgoulis,
Aeroex Limited
28 | Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk
TE is rapidly evolving to LTE-Advanced
(LTE-A), promising to reduce OPEX/CAPEX
and improve spectrum utilization, and also
to benet subscribers by improving data speed and
capacity.
LTE-A promises true 4G connectivity, and the main
reason operators are keen to take advantage of it is
not just the benet of higher data rates up to 1Gbps,
but also the massive demand for data from users
of smartphones and tablets running data-hungry
applications such as social networking and video
streaming. LTE-A helps meet this demand by improving
coverage and capacity, and its advanced technology
also gives operators faster deployment and prompt
troubleshooting, getting users connected quickly
and keeping connections operational and generating
revenue.
Table 1 summarizes the main features of LTE-A and
how they relate to the benets described above.
Testing LTE-A networks
LTE-A brings a new range of challenges for testing
and verifying network performance under real-world
load conditions. Aeroex has a complete range of
end-to-end test systems for LTE TDD and FDD network
equipment, based on the TM500 Test Mobile platform,
used by almost every base station manufacturer
and regarded as the de facto standard for eNodeB
development and testing.
L
Table 1: Benets of LTE-A
compared with LTE
Right: Growth in mobile subscriptions by technology up to
2013 (actual) and to 2017 (forecast) Cisco Visual Networking
Index: Global Mobile Data Trafc Forecast Update, 20122017
M-Payments
M -payment options increase but
winning hand still proves elusive
Paul Skeldon analyses the current state of the m-payments market and assesses what mobile
operators need to be aware of this year
30 | Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk
obile payments spent much of 2013 being the
next big thing in mobile and commerce 2014
should be no different. But m-payments is a
tricky beast to tame. Big names have dabbled with little or
no success: witness O2 shutting down its wallet, unofcially
because no one used it; Google Wallet hasnt yet set the
world alight and even Barclays PingIt is struggling to get to
critical mass.
Yet these early players possibly were just that: too early.
2014 now offers a chance for a host of new technologies
and services to start to break this potentially enormous
market and disrupt the old order of things. So what should
telcos be looking out for?
Forget Apple but not the banks
Just like every other year, Apple is poised to take the world
of m-payments by storm. This isnt going to happen; at
least not in a compromising way to operators or banks. If it
does happen, it could kill off a swathe of edgling payment
providers, but this is unlikely.
If Apple does enter the m-payments space it is going to
be offering a customer-facing end to payments: it is not
going to set itself up as a bank or a carrier, it will simply be
an interface. It cant take its customary cut as it has done
in music, lms, books and newspapers for running this
gatekeeping service as neither consumer, retailer nor bank
will swallow this cost.
While Apple may be a red herring when it comes to its
impact on m-payments, operators need to be wary of the
banks and in particular bank-integrated payment solutions.
These are the offerings that are most likely to gain consumer
traction and, other than carrying a bit of data about, cut
operators out of the m-payments loop.
Most notable of these is Zapp. Backed by ve major
UK banks HSBC, rst direct, Nationwide, Santander and
Metro Bank and running on the faster payments network
operated for the banks by Vocalink, Zapp integrates into
consumers existing banking apps and essentially res up
the banking app when the Pay By Zapp button on a site is
clicked.
It is fast, simple and secure and is really so far the only
seamless integration of phone and bank account that is easy
to use. And this is the key to m-payments it has to make
paying easier than it is with any other form of payment tool
otherwise what is the point?
Paul Marriott-Clarke, Commercial Director of Metro Bank,
says: Metro Bank is committed to offering customers the
best in service and convenience through whatever channel
they choose to use for their banking. Zapp is an exciting
innovation that will provide something extra to those who
want to bank through mobile devices.
Ovum analyst Eden Zoller agrees that Zapp could really
change the face of m-payments: The ability to provide
scale is a critical success factor for mobile payments and
Zapp has made a promising start by signing the nancial
brands announced. However, to succeed in its ultimate
goal of becoming a single, industry wide m-payment
platform, Zapp will need to get the other major UK nancial
institutions behind it, such as Barclays whose own Pingit
app is proving popular in its own right. Alongside this, with
more countries and regions developing faster payments like
infrastructure, if Zapp proves successful in the long term,
it could prove to be a model for other markets. Visa and
MasterCard will likely be watching developments closely.
Operator billing
Where mobile networks have a foot in the payments door is
in carrier billing. Putting charges for things usually digital
goods, but in some countries physical goods too on the
phone bill is a tried and tested way of billing. Extending this
is really where mobile operators can enter the payments
game.
We need to get away from it being thought of as
premium rate, stresses Sharan Rattan, head of mobile
payment services at Three UK. Currently in the UK these
charges are seen as a premium rate offering but more
and more people are using SMS or voice shortcodes or
Payforit to charge things like car parking or extras in games
and apps to their bill and not at a premium. This is where
MNOs need to concentrate.
According to Rattan, there needs to be a big push by
operators to encourage app developers, games companies
and businesses such as Netix and Spotify to look at how
to use carrier billing as a quick and easy way of delivering
M
2014 will
not be the year
that near-eld
communication
takes off and neither
will 2015
M-Payments
While a lot of focus has
been on NFC, networks
should be focusing on
carrier billing for a suite
of services.
Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk | 31
what are essentially micropayments in a convenient way.
Operators arent going to compete with banks and retailers
for card-like payments in shops, but they do have a huge
potential in offering services that help make quick payments
possible.
Regulators need to reclassify these things as just
payments not premium rate payments if this is to work,
says Rattan. They also need to look seriously at lifting daily
payment limits as well, if these payment tools are to stand
a chance.
NFC and beacons
According to Ovums Zoller, the revolutionising impact of
NFC isnt going to deliver any time soon and as such it is
a busted ush in terms of m-payments. 2014 will not be
the year that near-eld communication (NFC) takes off
and neither will 2015, she says. A growing number of
alternative enabling technologies are readily available, and
at lower cost to merchants and consumers, such as beacons
and possibly hosted card emulation (HCE), but pure NFC is
not going to make it big this year. Or next.
HCE where card details are hosted in the cloud and
NFC used to trigger interactions with this rather than
storing the card details on the device offers some
hope that NFC payments may start to be used, but the
investment in hardware is still a barrier to entry and NFC
trials have all but proved fruitless in most geographies.
Instead, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons look
to have a much brighter future for offering contactless
payments among other things to retailers of all stripes
on a budget.
With both Apple and PayPal pushing BLE technology,
there is clearly something in this tech. It clearly offers a great
marketing channel, but can it offer much to payments and
can it do so with more popularity than NFC?
Once the customer is ready to check out, because
they are already checked-in at the merchants location,
and assuming the customer has set up payment either
through a service like PayPal or via a mobile wallet on their
smartphone, that information can be accessed by store
clerks who can automate the payment process, says Erik
Vlugt, VP of Product Marketing at VeriFone. BLE only
allows for approximate pinpointing location in store, but
is not granular enough to bypass individual authentication
so when used for payment using a linked cloud wallet,
merchant will be paying card-not-present rates.
mPOS
Mobile technology for retailers to take payments is an area
that is going to hot up considerably in 2014. The likes of
Square and others have already brought card payment
handling capabilities to mobile workers such as plumbers
and market stall holders, but the big play for device makers
and network operators is in how to leverage the in-store
Point of Services market and revamp the idea of how
consumers pay for things.
One of the key innovators in this space is Monetise,
which has seen not only the potential of the mPOS market
for MNOs and banks, but has also seen the threat to these
sectors from innovators such as Square.
The Monetise approach offers an interesting model
for MNOs in that it is a card handling system that will let
operators build not only a payment handling facility, but
allows them to offer the full gamut of loyalty services,
offers and tokens, as well as a suite of CRM and stock
management tools too.
Such all-encompassing tools are the future of how MNOs
can morph their payment offerings into something much
wider and more clever which is what they need to offer
the market if they are to play in this space. While Apple
was somewhat cavalierly discarded above, this is a role that
it could fulll to the detriment of carriers. This perhaps is
really what the carrier community should be looking at:
how to involve more mainstream companies in using carrier
billing and how to extend carrier billing into a whole suite
of services.
Payment in the background
Perhaps the ultimate in m-payments is in making the
payment process disappear. Witness taxi app Hailo: this
essentially hides the actual act of payment within the app.
If you have registered your card and agree to just pay on
completion of the journey then you dont in effect have to
actually do anything to pay.
It has simplied the process down to something that
happens as part of something else. This is the key to mobile
payments: making it more simple than existing payment
methods. Perhaps looking beyond overly complex wallets
and expensive retail hardware is what network operators
should really be considering. They have the devices,
customers, networks and billing mechanism its just how
to cleverly use them that seems to be missing for now.
Connected Cars
Connected cars: operators
driving ambitions
Paul Quigley analyses the challenges involved in the emerging technology behind
the connected car market
32 | Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk
hen the Galvin Manufacturing Company
launched the rst car radios back in 1930, the
cost represented around one-fth the value
of the entire car. After several years of struggle, Paul Galvin
nally managed to convince automakers to install a car
radio as a standard feature in Fords and other cars. As the
decade elapsed, the concept of music and news in cars took
hold. Galvins company became Motorola and the rest is
history. Today, a similar paradigm shift is upon us.
The arrival of the connected car is having its birth pangs
in the same way and, for mobile operators, making sure the
promised new services actually work is a major challenge.
The US is motoring ahead, with AT&T blazing a trail for
other operators around the world to observe.
The future car is going to be a smartphone with four
wheels and powerful capabilities specically built for a safe
and enhanced customer experience, says Chris Penrose,
Senior Vice-President of Emerging Devices for AT&T. As
4G LTE networks reach more and more people in the US,
virtually every automobile manufacturer is working toward
a connected car that takes advantage of next-generation
data speeds, from voice-controlled apps and infotainment
to advanced diagnostics.
However, the engineering and technical mayhem
that new systems and marketing ideas have on existing
operations can be fraught with dangers. Systems
integration, backhaul infrastructure, network and device
security as well as big data content management and
privacy will form the major technical challenges facing all
mobile operators and their solution partners in rolling out
connected car applications.
In order to integrate new systems into the existing
infrastructure, adequate and robust APIs, type approval
of devices and certication will be essential. The
continued development of connected car technology
will have signicant consequences for the existing
network infrastructure, says Peter Nicholson, head of
Spirent Communications automotive business unit. The
automotive and mobile industries need to work closely
together to deliver certied, secure, interoperable and
quality [products]. Certied connected car technology
and its associated applications will require development of
open policies, plans and procedures that include all parties.
Certication is primarily to verify that the equipment and
application will not damage the network it is operating in,
whether that is cellular, wireless or in-vehicle.
According to Nicholson, a certication standard that
sets the testing bar at an achievable level is a superior
approach to setting onerous testing standards that can stie
innovation and delay technology rollout. Developing these
procedures may be a challenge for the automotive industry
and this is where mobile operators could assist, sharing their
understanding and experience of this connected market,
he adds.
Software and security
Moreover, software is now every bit as vital as new
hardware as systems integration marries disparate industries
such as telecoms and autos together. APIs are becoming
vital for network operators to consider and will be the
glue holding partnerships together. The roll out of APIs
in the automotive industry means drivers are now more
connected than ever before, says Antoine Rizk, Vice-
President of Solutions Marketing and Corporate Strategy
at Axway. In-car connected apps call on such APIs to let
users access digital music players on the go, use navigation
software on multiple devices, update statuses from their
dashboard and even remotely lock and unlock their car.
Billing, operational support systems and revenue
assurance, as ever, remain the cornerstone of mobile
networks core businesses, something that the infrastructure
and operational management need to have front and
centre in any connected car roll-out plans. Rebecca
Prudhomme, Vice-President of Product and Solutions
Marketing at Amdocs believes that connected cars will
call for new considerations when it comes to charging,
billing and partner relationship management. A dynamic
solution that provides all of these capabilities is essential
for a communications company so that they can split the
connectivity charges for separate services occurring in
the same car, she says. Consumer applications, such as
navigation and entertainment can be billed to consumers,
while connectivity for car diagnostics, vehicle telematics
and safety services may be included in an automakers
subscription charge.
Security is, as always, a top priority for mobile operators.
W
The future
car is going to be
a smartphone with
four wheels
Connected Cars
34 | Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk
The connected car
market is predicted to
unleash new products
and services from
operators.
Samuel Loyson, Head of Connected Cars at Orange
explains: Security is an engineering challenge, but we
are condent the industry as a whole will nd the right
solutions. Security is fundamental to all of our services, and
Orange constantly invests in and reviews the security of our
services.
Dr Hongwen Zhang, CEO of Wedge Networks and
co-Chairman of the CloudEthernet Forum security group,
believes security will come as a standard service for those
who can afford luxury cars. History tells us that, in the car
industry, advanced features typically start from the high-end
and move down to standard cars. Ordinary drivers will
depend more on the smartness of their cars. As one can
imagine, security will be a life and death issue if the cars
start driving themselves.
Given that the telematics side of the connected car
opportunity is primarily an M2M issue, some are mindful
of the capacity issues that may eventually arise if the
market takes off as many predict. The relentless pace of
technological innovation provides a challenge for telcos,
who have to account for ever increasing demands for data
connections from consumers. Internet-connected cars will
only accelerate this trend, explains Axel Pawlik, MD of
Regional Internet Registry RIPE NCC. If telcos cannot build
networks which can handle connections from cars, they
will experience long-term problems monetising usage. For
example, without investing in IPv6, they may run out of
IP addresses and not be able to accommodate more users
on the network, which would see both the telco and the
consumer suffer.
John Collins, Industry Analyst with Inter Orbis concurs:
There is an imperative to make efcient use of bandwidth.
To do this, the car will be expected to process and analyse
much of the information gathered itself, rather than
transmitting it all to an OEM cloud or service provider.
According to Collins, connected cars will therefore be
operating as thick client vehicles and will transmit only
about two to ve percent of the most useful and relevant
data that they generate. In addition, data compression can
reduce bandwidth usage by a further 70 to 90 percent,
adds Collins. The car will be able to provide data and
diagnostics to OEMs and others whilst minimising data
costs. Karthikeyan Natarajan, Senior Vice-President and
Global Head of Integrated Engineering for Tech Mahindra
agrees. Operators will need to address the infrastructure
challenges posed as these bandwidth-hungry services take
off with network solutions to ensure seamless connectivity.
Big data and privacy
Nevertheless, many third-party corporates and others
are lining up, salivating over the prospect of indirect
revenues they hope to tap for services derived from the
exchange of premium data such as infotainment and
vehicle probe data between connected cars and others.
Such revenue-sharing opportunities are, however, fraught
with complexities over data privacy and other legalities,
which is set to become a veritable mineeld given recent
developments in mass breaches of privacy and data
monitoring.
For operators, however, the network data issues remain
regardless, with big data and content being a major
issue. According to Oranges Loyson, creating customer
trust around privacy takes more time. At Orange, we
have a very clear policy on data privacy, and we promote
transparency on data usage. Users will gain clear benets
from technologies like connected cars, and as long as
service providers and manufacturers are transparent about
how personal data is utilised, and provide tools to manage
privacy, we believe any issues or questions around privacy
can be mitigated.
Tech Mahindras Natarajan also sees major ethical hurdles
ahead for engineers and privacy. This technology does not
come without its challenges; one of which is that they bring
a certain amount of threat to personal privacy. Autonomous
vehicles are built with advanced sensing and tracking
capabilities, and are constantly under surveillance, making
them traceable at any point in time. While this feature is
intended to complement vehicle performance, we cannot
overlook the fact that this may create new privacy issues
and lend itself to harmful application and potential misuse.
Ultimately, for mobile network operators, the connected
car market represents an opportunity for a fundamental
shift from a largely capex business model to a more opex-
orientated one, even potentially shifting the focus of both
manufacturers and operators core businesses to embrace a
new focus on new products and services.
The key to its success will ultimately be the willingness
of the driving public to pay for extra services, as Samuel
Ropert, Senior Consultant in Internet Services at IDATE
concludes: Will these connected capabilities be seen as
nice to haves but without a sufcient appetite from the
masses to pay for them? Undoubtedly, those that can
harness the opportunities of the connected car will have a
very protable future.
Sponsored Feature
G LO BO : Company O verview
36 | Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk
LOBO was founded in 1997 and is listed in
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Globos Enterprise Mobility product family consists of
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Studio (cross mobile platform application development
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With solutions ranging from tailor made plug and play
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GO!Enterprise MDM
As mobile devices continue to penetrate the workplace,
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GO!Enterprise MDM is designed to provide IT
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GO!Enterprise247
GO!Enterprise247 is an innovative, all-in-one, cloud-based
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Using the intuitive GO!Mobile Client , employees can
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G
Sponsored Feature
Alcatel-Lucent:
LTE express ebook review
38 | Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk
TE is not just about adding capacity to a network.
Alcatel-Lucent has written a series of ebooks to
explain what else mobile operators (MNOs) need
to consider from getting to market rst to reap the most
benets, building a cutting edge, future proofed network,
and putting in place innovative services to differentiate
from the competition before they begin deploying a next
generation network.
LTE express is a series of ebooks to address all aspects
of LTE deployment, providing operators with a complete
view of LTE. The titles are easy to read and understand
and presents the material in an interesting manner. The
LTE express series is a must read for any MNO that has
not yet deployed LTE.
1. LTE Now
This ebook focuses on why MNOs should move to LTE
sooner rather than later and is targeted at marketing and
network planning and deployment teams. The rst operators
to launch LTE get the largest increase in market share and
ARPU. Operators also benet from reduced costs, with a
cost per bit that is 57 percent lower than other services. By
moving to LTE, operators
not only have their
investment reap the
benets of a long life, but
they also see their need
to invest further in 3G
capped.
Consumers are not the
only market to demand
LTE, with the enterprise
sector viewing next generation mobile as an important
business tool that can increase productivity, cut costs and
win new customers.
To read more, the LTE Now ebook can be downloaded
from www.alcatel-lucent.com/solutions/lte-express/lte-
now
2. Fast-track rollout
Getting to market fast is essential in this ercely competitive
sector, so this ebook outlines
what operators can do to
deploy their LTE network
quickly and effectively.
Among the topics
that are explored are
choosing the right
path with LTE overlay
compared to converged
RAN, which could lead to a time saving of between 40
and 50 percent. The ebook also looks at how operators
could benet from existing spectrum, by using VoLTE
and refarming to launch 4G services ahead of the
competition.
The author also outlines the benets of using external
LTE integration experts to deploy, rather than taking a
DIY approach. By looking beyond your own workforce for
help in deploying a network, this can cut the time it takes
to integrate the network in two.
This ebook is aimed at marketers, as well as the
network planning and deployment teams within an
MNO.
To read more, the Fast-track Rollout ebook can be
downloaded from www.alcatel-lucent.com/solutions/lte-
express/fast-track
3. Massive capacity
By 2018, mobile data is expected to grow sixfold, with
one billion LTE subscribers in the market by 2017. Given
this expected growth, it is essential to build a network that
enables massive capacity.
This ebook explores how operators can get the most
capacity and coverage from each macro cell site by
deploying advanced next generation equipment. By
optimising their network
with LTE-Advanced
Carrier Aggregation,
operators will be able to
get the most out of their
spectrum.
The author also shows
how, by deploying as few
as three LTE and carrier
Wi-Fi small cells per
macro site, capacity can be trebled a cost-effective way
of boosting capacity in urban hotspots. Networks can
meet the challenge of reducing the massive bandwidth
required for video by deploying eMBMS.
Aimed at the network planning and deployment teams
within the MNOs organisation, this ebook shows how
by carefully planning how to deliver massive capacity,
an operator can deploy max capacity smartly and cost
effectively.
To read more, the Massive Capacity ebook can be
downloaded from www.alcatel-lucent.com/solutions/lte-
express/capacity
4. Cost efciency
While capacity can be increased to meet mobile user
L
Sponsored Feature
Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk | 39
demand, it is important to put an efcient cost structure
in place or your business case will be broken. If a network
team plans ahead, not only will it build an LTE network, but
deploy one that is cost efcient and helps protect margins.
Aimed at management
and nancial teams, this
ebook explores the ways
an operator can cut costs
by deploying LTE. One
example is by rolling
out LTE overlay, which
can reduce deployment
costs by as much as 48
percent. By densifying the network with metro cells
as well as macro cells, an operator can save up to 31
percent. Moving on to a cloud RAN architecture by
deploying centralised baseband units can produce total
cost of ownership savings of 25 percent, meanwhile.
By bringing together all three of these methods, an
operator can reduce its TCO by 57 percent per bit.
To read more, the Cost Efciency ebook can be
downloaded from www.alcatel-lucent.com/solutions/
lte-express/efciency
5. High QoE performance
While subscribers always crave more capacity, they also
want a better quality of experience (QoE). So, operators
who implement outstanding QoE when rolling out an LTE
network will get the most rewards.
For a network to ensure it has rst class QoE across
its business, it must start with excellent access and
ensure ubiquitous coverage and capacity everywhere by
building metro cell HetNets.
This ebook examines what operators need to do
to deliver an excellent subscriber experience. Among
the ways to improve this is to boost the average user
throughput rate. If an operator lacks the spectrum to do
so, it can use VoLTE to free up bandwidth on an existing
spectrum holding. VoLTE offers subscribers a higher
QoE by enabling HD voice,
enriched messaging services
and by enabling LTE data
services before, during and
after a voice call.
Another way to boost
QoE is to combine real-
time network intelligence
with policy management
to intelligently manage trafc, optimise services and
control how subscribers access an operators network.
This title is mainly aimed at the marketing and
network planning and deployment teams.
To read more, the High QoE Performance ebook
can be downloaded from www.alcatel-lucent.com/
solutions/lte-express/performance
6. Cutting edge network
By using the latest advanced technologies that future proof
networks and offer leading edge subscriber services, MNOs
can stay one step ahead of the competition. Innovation
is crucial for an operators future and by deploying
advanced radios today, they can benet from advances
in tomorrows technology. Advanced radios enhance
capacity, coverage, and subscribers QoE through a wide
range of technologies,
including higher order
MIMO and variations of
beam forming.
Among the other methods
of building a cutting edge
network is to use wideband
ratios and LTE Advanced
Carrier Aggregation. The
latter not only increases user rates and capacity for bursty
applications such as web browsing, but also opens the
door to more exible and powerful service delivery.
Through carrier aggregation, multiple services can be
simultaneously delivered over multiple carriers to a single
subscriber.
Other advantages of building a cutting edge network
are the ability to create compelling experiences for
subscribers with innovative venue and event-based
applications and content, like on-demand video
replays and commentaries at football games. A leading
network maximises coverage and capacity at the event,
enables the selection of the best access for the content,
optimises content delivery (for example, by using
eMBMS for video delivery) and guarantees the best
possible QoE for video by leveraging video optimisation
techniques.
This ebook, which shows operators how to be
innovative in building their LTE networks, is mainly aimed
at marketing professionals, as well as the network planning
and deployment teams.
To read more, the cutting edge network ebook can be
downloaded from www.alcatel-lucent.com/solutions/lte-
express/cutting-edge
Discover more on how to jump ahead with LTE express at
www.alcatel-lucent.com/4g-lte
By using the
latest advanced
technologies
that future proof
networks and
offer leading edge
subscriber services,
MNOs can stay one
step ahead of the
competition
Sponsored Interview
O racle: M onetising the
digital lifestyle
40 | Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk
s businesses and consumers increasingly adopt
a digital lifestyle using mobile platforms such as
tablets and smartphones, communication services
providers (CSPs) are asking how best to monetise services
while lowering costs. CSPs want to maximise yield per
customer and reduce the churn for users consuming a range
of data, voice and SMS text services.
Monetising the smart ofce or digital lifestyle is doubly
important as revenues from voice dwindle in mature markets;
text messaging continues to grow but comes under attack
from Internet Protocol (IP) services such as WhatsApp and
iMessage; and as CSPs rack up high costs to build IP-based
networks and cater for 4G.
Viewing these trends, IT and telecommunications giant
Oracle believes that customer-centric strategies are vital for
CSPs, particularly when faced with competition from third-
party content providers. Their apps and content require
CSPs networks, but they can also provide new revenue
for CSPs that want to capture more market share of higher
value services.
Over-the-top (OTT) services are growing at an annual
rate of more than 50 percent, US-based technology market
intelligence company ABI Research reported in 2013.
So whats the big plan? We believe that monetisation
has to be done in a coherent way, says Gordon Rawling,
Director of EMEA Marketing, Oracle Communications.
Put another way, Rawling maintains that convergent
charging and policy systems bridging network and IT
functions are the key to customer-centric strategies that
win and retain customers and capture a larger share of their
spend.
Having a platform to manage the interaction experience
of the customer is not new per se, but that platform now
needs to be informed in a very different context the
lifestyles of the future because of consumer expectations
and also the pace of movement, Rawling says. There is also
the element of cost: who will have the most cost-effective
platforms from both the consumers and the enterprises
perspectives to deliver these services?
As Oracle sees it, customers demand constant connectivity
that is both location- and device-agnostic but also want some
personalisation and control as well as service plans and tariffs
tailored to lifestyles and budgets, and exibility to adjust
plans. Customers also want their experience with the CSP to
be trouble-free, easy and predictable.
Thus, Oracle advises CSPs to pursue excellence in product
differentiation, customer engagement and operational
efciency and has designed and engineered its Oracle
Communications Convergent Charging and Policy solution
with this in mind.
Oracle positions this as the only such solution allowing
CSPs to achieve three key aims: combine business and
network policies to design and launch innovative offers
rapidly; empower customers to personalise and control their
service usage experience; and to deliver predictable and low
operations cost.
All elements of a CSPs operation and support come
together in the Oracle product which is now being used by
100 out of the top 100 CSPs around the world, including
leading providers such as Vodafone, Orange, SFR, Telefnica
and KT (Korea Telecom).
The rapid design and launch of relevant services can
attract, keep and inuence customers. Useful real-time
customer engagement with proper levels of personalisation
and control maximises spend and loyalty.
Operational efciency delivering effective, efcient and
low-cost IT and network operations leads to a good quality of
service (QoS) that customers appreciate.
The need for speed is more than a glib phrase: Broadly
speaking, the product release life cycle of a service
provider has not changed much since Alexander Graham
Bell (patented the rst telephone in 1876), Rawling says
with a smile.
Operators are good at network integrity, but it is
important to work out how to leverage the dynamism of the
new capabilities in order to be more anticipatory and reactive
to what is happening in the digital lifestyle.
With decades of experience in hardware and software
integration behind it, Oracles approach is to get all the
elements network integrity, quality of experience, QoS to
work towards monetisation and lower cost.
Many CSPs spend a large part of their IT budgets in
making all the pieces work together and inevitably integrate
them around the lowest common denominator, Rawling
says. Oracle ensures that all our pieces across the entire
data and process landscape come together around the
higher common denominator, which is really important as a
foundation for delivering the good experience that will keep
customers paying for the services.
The company sees product innovation in the sector being
inhibited by: fragmented design tools and methodologies
across business, IT and network departments; long
development and testing cycles; and limited re-usability of
policy and charging rules for different markets and business
models.
As an example of how it has responded to these challenges
through the Oracle Communications Convergent Charging
and Policy solution, the softwares design tool for users in the
business side of a CSP allows these personnel to easily dene
pricing structures for an offer or promotion.
A
Sponsored Interview
Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk | 41
Almost anything that is measurable e.g. the application
being used, the users location, the customer, the network,
the QoS, and the device being used by the customer can
be set up as a pricing attribute for incorporation into pricing
rules that charge for what the client consumes or commits
to take.
The tool means a commercial offer can be worked up
without being coupled to the network and IT. This speeds
up development and testing and ensures that network or IT
system changes have no impact on those commercial offers
that are actively being promoted at the time others are under
development.
Commercial offers created with the business tool can
nonetheless be visible to other customer-facing interfaces,
such as the web, customer relationship management (CRM)
software, or mobile applications.
Moreover, the Oracle Communications Convergent
Charging and Policy solution is agnostic as regarding
network, service and event, so network and business policies
can be reused for different markets and business models as
market conditions change.
When it comes to customer engagement, the system
allows what Oracle calls order for one, which means
individual customers can choose precisely the voice
minutes and SMS and data limits they want in a plan priced
specically for them.
We think there is opportunity for additional revenue from
this kind of approach, Rawling says. Thus Oracles solution
allows subscribers real-time granular control of plans. So
for example, a family could set different limits for different
services for each of its members within a single family plan
and tell the network how to restrict or block access e.g.
blocking text messages to and from a child in school hours.
Knowing the application that a customer is using, on
which device, and where, allows the CSP to react in real-time
to offer revenue generating opportunities. For example, by
offering a high-denition video of replays or highlights of
other matches in a football league to a customer already at
one. Top-up reminders can be sent when prepaid minutes
are running low.
The Oracle Communications Convergent Charging and
Policy solution also allows CSPs to gamify service offerings
to make non-game apps more engaging. This can also
incentivise actions by awarding points, badges or titles for
customers to share on social media sites or maybe use as a
form of currency.
Social media can be key CSPs understand the power
of reaching new potential customers through a subscribers
social network: family, friends, colleagues, and followers on
popular social networking sites such as Facebook.
When it comes to enabling operational efciency
through predictable, lower cost operations, the Oracle
Communications Convergent Charging and Policy solution is
built around standards-based open architecture and interface
standards such as 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).
The entire solution and its components are certied and
compliant to the TM Forum (TeleManagement Forum),
Business Process Framework (eTOM) and Information
Framework (SID) models.
Oracle has taken these approaches to simplify and speed
solution deployment, reduce risk and comply with proven
and familiar industry design and process principles.
The Oracle Communications Convergent Charging and
Policy solution is engineered with modern and proven
technologies for extreme performance and the exible
scalability needed to address the demand made on networks
and IT by fast escalating data consumption.
The charging system, for example, is built around in-
memory data cache grid technology, so processing and data
are co-located and replicated automatically throughout the
grid. This means there is high availability, low latency and
extreme transaction processing speed. Yet it can run on
commodity hardware for low cost.
A cross-functional roadmap engineered into the solution
lowers lifecycle management costs and expertise for
common management tasks such as upgrades, patches
and maintenance activities which are all handled by a single
operational management tool.
Taken together all these operational efciency features
in the Oracle products are designed to address challenges
still facing many CSPs. These include closed and proprietary
integration between network and IT, which adds to the
difculty and expense of maintenance and upgrades.
Also, high costs to scale and meet network performance
requirements, with IT systems usually sized for peak usage,
thus leaving unused network and IT capacity wasted for
most of the time. And high costs of maintaining multiple
product versions across a number of IT vendors, each with
different product release schedules and multiple operational
management applications and consoles.
www.oracle.com
Operators are
good at network
integrity, but it is
important to work
out how to leverage
the dynamism of
the new capabilities
in order to be more
anticipatory and
reactive to what is
happening in the
digital lifestyle
*Further reading
The Thinking Networks Revolution: A Digital
Lifestyle Call to Action for Communications
Service Providers. An Oracle White Paper,
publ. September 2013.
Five Minutes With...
Professor
Andy Sutton
42 | Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk
Please explain what V-Band is and the
capabilities it has
It depends on definition as V-band can be
considered to be frequencies in the range
of 50 to 75GHz. However, more commonly
V-band generally refers to the band of 57
to 64GHz, also commonly known as the
60GHz band. V-band millimetre wave radio
systems can provide high throughput with
low latency transmission over distances of
several hundreds of metres and potentially
out to 1km.
Why are operators such as EE starting
to look into it?
Historically network operators have steered
clear of 60GHz systems due to the high
atmospheric attenuation (oxygen absorption)
in this band. A new use case focused on small
cell backhaul has emerged and suddenly the
very characteristics which have restricted the
use of 60GHz previously are now considered
beneficial. This change of position is due
to the small cell deployment scenario, in
this case public access outdoor picocells
which will be deployed in the urban clutter
to add capacity to mobile networks. Small
cell backhaul deployments will require large
numbers of low-cost links to provide the vital
connectivity back to the mobile operators
existing network, V-band millimetre wave
radio system is one of the solutions to this
requirement. Link lengths will be short
therefore atmospheric attenuation is easily
managed within the RF path budget while
high frequency reuse is possible.
How does V-band compare with other
small cell backhaul solutions?
V-band is one of several wireless solutions
available for small cell backhaul, and there
are pros and cons associated with each. The
V-band cost point is increasingly attractive
as chipsets, components and sub-systems
for this band become increasingly common
due to the wide range of use cases (not just
small cell backhaul). The small form factor of
V-band radio systems is also beneficial when
compared with more traditional point-to-
point radio systems.
What are the operational challenges
associated with implementing V band?
Planning of individual links (given the
possible volume), antenna alignment and
implementation of nodal/hub sites. Using
point-to-point links for a nodal or hub site
in the urban clutter is a challenge with radio
systems which require one unit per link, as
common with V-band systems, point-to-
multipoint and multipoint-to-multipoint
solutions offer an alternative approach
here; however, these tend to operate in
traditional microwave frequency bands. If a
nodal/hub site has four radio directions then
an operator must manage the individual
Ethernet cables from each radio unless they
can be cascaded between radios. However,
this impacts MTBF therefore serious thought
is required to optimise V-band network
topology.
How are these challenges being
overcome?
There are ways to overcome these
challenges. The cost point is reducing making
this technology commercially viable while
innovative design and implementation is
addressing the antenna alignment challenges.
In the main V-band is an attractive solution
for small cell backhaul. Itll certainly be part
of the solutions tool-kit for many mobile
network operators who require a range of xed
and wireless solutions to address the various
deployment scenarios. The capacity and
performance that can be achieved with V-band
radio systems is ideally matched to small cell
backhaul requirements.
Principal Network
Architect, Network
Strategy at EE, discusses
the V-band millimetre wave
radio system