Category Archives: Mobile Operators
MVNOs will increasingly focus on offering data services
Rating: Market will grow to 214 million subscribers by 2016
Outside of the North American and Western European markets, MVNOs have so far had a limited appeal, says Pyramid Research in a new report. However, mobile operators are focusing on migrating their customers to contracts from prepaid. The are also trying to offset declining voice revenues with more attractive data-based offerings. But, they simply cannot address all the possible niches which is where the MVNOs are beginning to thrive. Pyramid predicts the global MVNO subscriber base will grow to 214 million subscribers by 2016 and the area where they will concentrate on most is data. Continue reading
Londoners to make calls from Tube for 1st time in 19 yrs
Rating: GoMobile News remembers using a Rabbit (CT2) @ Russell Sq
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, announced yesterday [March 14th 2012] that Londoners would have access to Wi-fi on the Tube thanks to a new contract awarded to Virgin Media by Tfl [Transport for London]. Boris is quoted as saying that, “Millions of passengers will now be able to connect to their work, friends or access the latest news and travel information whilst on the move.” That’s not technically correct. Luckily, he didn’t use the phrase “for the first time.” Because that would have been completely untrue. GoMobile News recalls making a phone call from Russell Square (one of the deepest Underground stations in Central London) some 19 years ago. That involved using a handset supplied by Hutchison Rabbit using a standard known as CT2. It illustrates just how far behind the rest of the world London is lagging in terms of mobile telephony. Continue reading
Brit operators fail to announce Eurotunnel coverage
Rating: Only those entering Blighty roam onto French networks
Curiouser and curiouser. It appears that the situation with the Eurotunnel/Eurostar roll out of mobile services in the Channel Tunnel is far more complicated than it might first appear. GoMo News has just received a message from Ian Hood on behalf of a company called Axell Wireless. He explains that Britsh expertise is, in fact, being employed to provide wireless coverage within the tunnel. Axell does – as GoMo News hinted – use a fibre optic based Distributed Antenna System (DAS). Which is exactly what we suggested – except we mentioned a rival product from Zinwave. Reading between the lines, the major difference is that the French have announced availability of such a service but the UK operators have not. Continue reading
Brits’ phones to roam on Eurostar in time for Olympics
Rating: French blow raspberries at Boris Johnson’s London Tube
The French really do have a good sense of humour. A deal has just been struck between the Eurotunnel group and four French operators which will enable those travelling on the Eurostar to make and receive calls plus send texts via 2G and should also provide a degree of data access via 3G. The system is very definitely based on technology developed by France’s own Alcatel-Lucent. However, it doesn’t appear to use ‘leaky cables’ but instead appears to be a modified version of GSM-R. The R stands for Rail more information see here. The joke, however, is that although the deal will be officially sealed on March 6th [2012], it should be working in time for the London Olympics. But Brits who use it will be subject to high roaming charges. Ordinary French folk won’t have to pay so much. Continue reading
3 UK to pre-install eBay app on Android smartphones
Rating: Follow items without worrying about the data bill
UK mobile operator, 3 UK, has struck a deal with eBay to embed its popular online shopping app on around 700,000 Android handsets. Smartphones with the latest version of the Android software will be in stores with the app pre-installed from this Spring. “The deal with eBay is part of 3 UK’s efforts to allow people to experience the benefits of the internet wherever they are,” commented Neil Andrews, head of media sales and content services. Continue reading
China Mobile has long way to go to catch iTunes
Rating: China Mobile’s Li Yue reveals app store stats
Speaking at the Opening Keynote on mobile operator strategies at MWC 2012 in Barcelona, China Mobile’s president, Li Yue, revealed some interesting stats on the performance of its own app store – Mobile Market. China Mobile is, of course, the world’s largest mobile operator by both revenues and subscriber numbers. “Compared with Apple we have a long way to go, but it shows the potential,” Li Yue told the conference. “We are the gateway for selling services in the Chinese market.” Given the size of the Chinese market – which Nokia has just said it will attack with its W7 Mango Lumia phones – GoMo News wonders just how long it will be before Mobile Market overtakes the iTunes App Store? Continue reading
Turkcell partners with Telenity for telco 2.0 deployment
Telenity, a provider of service delivery, location based services, social media, mobile marketing and messaging platforms and solutions, has announced that Turkcell a Turkish operator with 34.4 million subscribers, selected its Canvas® CSP, Converged Services Platform components to be deployed in Turkcell’s Telco 2.0 Service Provider Gateway (SPGW). Continue reading
Interview with Thomas Enraght-Moony CEO Lumata on mobile marketing, the future and loyalty
I was delighted to have the pleasure to interview Thomas Enraght-Moony the CEO of Lumata last week. For those of you that don’t know, Lumata has been born out of Buongiorno (B!). Lumata is a new mobile marketing consultancy for the B2B space created by Francisco Partners and Buongiorno.
With many companies touting greatness in the mobile marketing space, I was keen to chat with Thomas to find out how the new mobile marketing consultancy was shaping and what his thoughts were on mobile marketing trends. The results were actually surprising. Continue reading
Synchronica gets in RCS via NewPace
Rating: Planning to offer RCS-e capability to operator clients
To date, there hasn’t really been much of a buzz around Rich Communications Service (RCS) – which is a GSMA driven standard that unifies different types of communication into a single service on a mobile handset. However, Synchronica has decided to cement an alliance with Canada’s NewPace Technology Development to cooperate in the development, sales and marketing of a Rich Communications Suite (RCS) product. No prizes for guessing that Synchronica is planning to offer RCS to its client base of over 100 mobile operators worldwide. GoMo News suggests that the company has spotted an opportunity which RCS can fill in developing countries without the need for high speed mobile internet. Continue reading
Samsung boosted by Rovio’s Angry Birds
Samsung has revealed the key highlights from its Christmas promotional campaign, which featured Angry Birds, one of the most popular mobile games of 2011.
Angry Birds players’ enjoyed 25 new levels of Winter Wonderland, as well as a special Samsung GALAXY Note level that was available from December 5th 2011.
Continue reading
Velti Launches mGage Exchange
Velti has launched mGage Exchange a new boutique or cherry picking style mobile advertising exchange.
What?
Velti has created a middle man with the mGage exchange. Instead of having publishers sell and brands buy – with the exchange publishers can pick their suppliers. This is a win-win as in many exchanges ad-fill techniques are used that sometimes don’t benefit the publishers. With the exchange the inventory and those supplying the ads can be vetted or accepted via the exchange. Continue reading
Mobilethink helps operators retrieve lost revenues from cheap phones
Rating: Fake IMEIs no longer problem for customer call centres
Mobile device configuration specialist Mobilethink believes it has found a way for mobile operators to recover revenues from handsets with ‘invalid’ IMEI numbers. The company claims thatin 2011 handsets sold by ’no-name’ manufacturers in China and India presently account for more sales than Samsung, Apple and LG combined. The problem is that these ultra-low cost GSM devices aren’t sold with a unique identification number (IMEI) – with manufacturers frequently re-using ‘old’ IMEI numbers. This causes the call centres of afflicted network operators serious issues in attempting to attach handsets properly to their networks when their IMEIs are fake. Mobilethink beleives it has over come this problem with the first generic settings solution for devices with invalid IMEIs. Continue reading
Guest Post from Stan Weitzman CEO mADtivity – What the Amobee Acquisition by SingTel means for the Mobile Advertising Industry
About Stan Weitzman
Stan Weitzman is the CEO of a mobile advertising start-up, mADtivity, and can be reached at stan@madtivity.com
Yesterday it was announced that Trevor Healy, CEO of Amobee, is in talks to sell Amobee to SingTel for $350 million. Here is the key: Healy came from Telefónica Europe PLC where he was Chief Innovation Officer and a Board Member. He managed advertising for some of the world’s largest brands. Continue reading
NFC first for Turkcell with contactless road toll payment application
Rating: Currently only available via own-branded T11 handset
Turkcell is claiming an industry first by introducing an application which enables Android handset users to pay the tolls when crossing bridges and passing motorway toll-booths contactlessly via NFC (Near Field Technology) technology. Currently the app is only applicable to Turkcell’s own-branded T11 Android handset. The handset is believed to be made for Turkcell by China’s ZTE and is therefore ZTE’s first released NFC-enabled handset. Continue reading
MACH unlocks lost data roaming revenues for TELE Greenland
Rating: Data roaming revenues grow 20 per cent in 7 months
State-owned mobile network operator, TELE Greenland revealed that it has experienced a 20 per cent plus rise in its roaming revenues, along with a 15 per cent increase in roaming traffic (particularly data traffic). It’s all down to MACH‘s, roaming implementation service which is part of the vendor’s cloud-based managed communication services. Using the system, the GSM based operator has utilised the business analytics functionality of the service to highlight missed revenue streams such as prepaid roaming. Additionally, the ability to optimise the roaming rollout list helped to increase the traffic. The gains outlines above have been experienced a mere seven months after deployment. Continue reading
