Tag: Azenby

Azenby turns 5

This month we celebrate our 5^th Birthday. How time flies. It really doesn’t seem like five years have passed since we started Azenby. We’ve certainly been busy, we have worked on over 40 client projects in 26 countries around the world. We have been engaged in almost every sector of the mobile industry helping large and smaller companies alike with a wide range of opportunity and challenges.

We wondered what we should use as our strap-line when we started out and settled on ‘Mobile is our thing.’ It just seemed right then and it still does today. It has worked well for us even though ‘mobile’ today encapsulates an ever widening industry as we move towards the connected world. It won’t all be wireless of course but for sure a lot of it will be and this coupled with IoT all adds up to a collective GDP contribution from the mobile industry of £3.3tn.

The growth in diversity of the wireless industry and the rush into mobile from so many other industry sectors is probably the biggest change we have seen in the 5 years we have been helping clients. Connected living, the connected city, mobile commerce, the dominance of apps, the introduction of new business models – especially from disrupters, the surge from the PC as the tool of choice for accessing the internet to the mobile handset and tablet, have all contributed to completely change the mobile landscape. Few industry observers would disagree that the pace of change in the mobile world is faster now than it has ever been and it shows no evidence of slowing down soon.

We are in an age where the long-standing rules of how Telco business models work are being torn to shreds. Consumers perception of value has shifted subtly from the cost of the connection (the line rental or monthly recurring charge) which were once the bedrock for Telco’s finances, to the content they can access. Content is the driver and customers just want the cheapest connection and factors such as network quality become less relevant. The access scene is increasingly WiFi dominated where the user sees this as being free at the point of use – even when they pay for the broadband behind it. Mobile Operators are well aware of the new challenges and are adopting different tactics to stay relevant to their customers.

At Azenby we have had a bit of a focus on helping MNOs to make radical changes to their network cost base by sharing and merging networks. Indeed, we do regard ourselves as somewhat of RAN share and Network share specialists. We have worked on many projects where MNOs have concluded that sharing expensive infrastructure in part or in whole makes a lot of sense.

We have enjoyed our first five years together and are looking forward to the next five. We wrote a blog recently on the next 25 years of the internet and we certainly do spend a lot our time looking forward and helping our clients find their own path in the highly competitive world of mobile services. But just for once, as a birthday treat, we thought we would take a look back at what was happening in our world 5 years ago when we launched.

April 2012 headlines

What was making the news When Azenby launched?

4G becomes a reality in the UK

Commercial 4G networks were being launched. In the UK EE claimed first mover advantage after it was allowed to re-farm its 1800MHz spectrum. Its local competitors cried foul – naturally!

EE Admits 4G Teething Problems

EE, Britain’s first 4G mobile network, admitted a “teething problem” after it was branded a “rush job” by customers who complained of difficulties obtaining SIM cards, connecting to the network, and dealing with “confusing” customer service systems.

Ah well, it’s not easy being at the bleeding edge! Nonetheless 4G was coming.

Meantime elsewhere in the world 4G was already a reality

In the USA Sprint announced it was launching in 15 US cities but was seen to be playing catch up with Verizon who had expanded to 304 markets and AT&T whom were reportedly the worlds single largest LTE operator with 10m sub’s in Q2. However, T-Mobile were still to launch when Sprint announced.

In Japan NTT DoCoMo announced that LTE sub’s had hit 4 million and that they had added 2 million subs since March 2012.

Whilst other network rollout approaches seem doomed to fail

Wholesale LTE network provider Light Squared struggled to make their business model work in the USA after spectrum interference concerns and a lack of approval for commercial use pushed them to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Network Sharing and consolidation continued to make ground

O2 and Vodafone in the UK announced they would bolster their existing deal from 2009 with a 50/50 JV via Cornerstone Telecoms to build out one consolidated national network grid sharing cell site equipment and backhaul infrastructure at 18,500 locations.

In July Vodafone Ireland and Three Ireland announced a strategic partnership to share physical network and site infrastructure at 2000 locations across the country.

In Denmark the existing joint venture between Telia and Telenor; TT-Netvaerket, won 800MHz spectrum which it said was a ‘major step’ in the build-out of its 4G mobile broadband network.

Tower deals were still continuing to be signed and in October 2012, IHS Africa completed a 284 million USD acquisition of 1,758 mobile network towers in Cote d’Ivoire and Cameroon, from MTN Group. Under the terms of the acquisition, MTN sold its passive infrastructure to IHS, and then became the main tenant of those towers in a managed network structure. Similarly, Wireless tower operator SBA Communications Corp bought more than 2,300 tower sites and some antenna assets from Mobilitie LLC for circa $1.09 billion

Devices dominated the news as they always have done. Its where the marketing bucks are after all!

Google Nexus 4 Leaked by Carphone Warehouse

The Carphone Warehouse blew the gaff on Google’s planned unveiling of the LG Nexus. The device was expected to be the centrepiece of a Google event in New York in October, when the web giant is also expected to update its Nexus 7 Android tablet.

The Nexus? Hmm, rings a bell!

Retailers line up for Samsung Galaxy S III

Yes, we really were only up to series 3 in the great Samsung Galaxy voyage.

I’ve still got mine.

Nokia Lumia 900 hit by launch bug

Oh dear, a memory management issue evidently. Perhaps a wider management issue inside Nokia?

No one admits to still having one of these

Boeing makes super secure Android phone

A Smartphone built for military officials and it’s the ultimate secure smartphone for all the top-secret goings on of military officials.

Anyone who admits to still having one of these must kill you afterwards, so don’t ask.

Xperia smartphones launched in style

More Xperia magic from Sony who launched the Xperia smartphones in style last week, with an exclusive Labyrinth concert in London. Some funky robot dancing was the highlight of the show

Great phones, so why don’t Sony do better in the marketplace?

BlackBerry Curve 9320 appears online

The company promised to go back to basics, with the BlackBerry Curve 9320 (following another set of disappointing results). It had a QWERTY keyboard. Remember them?

There are still some crackberrys around today who just didn’t want to give up on them. Just not enough of them alas. I have to say I do miss the BB OS though.

LG denies it is ditching Windows Phone

If that headline has said LG confirms it is ditching Windows Phone just think of how much agony LG would have avoided in the subsequent years.

New iPhone 5 touted for June launch

Another embarrassing leak, this time from China, told us that the iPhone 5 was coming soon. Some folks were sceptical saying that the iPhone 4S hasn’t really had a full year to pick up sales. But it could happen. When it does, it could also happen with a radical new design.

Everyone still has their iPhone 5

I think it appropriate to finish the device news with Apple. If anything, their dominance increases. For some, Apple is the mobile industry.

Another bumper quarter for Apple

25 April 2012

35.1 million iPhones sold in the first quarter of 2012. You can probably guess that Apple is doing well with its mobile devices right now, but just how well might stagger you a little. Figures for the first quarter of 2012 have just been published, with Apple confirming sales of 35.1 million iPhones and 11.8 million iPads in that 90-day period. That brings total sales of iOS devices up to an amazing 365 million. According to Apple, that’s 88% growth for iPhone sales and a 151% increase for the iPad compared to the same period last year. Yes, those sales figures just keep on growing. That could well be down to international growth, with 64% of Apple’s sales now outside the US.

The numbers would be bigger but the same article could be written today.

iPad mini rumoured to launch late 2012

Chinese sources claim six million units being readied. There were rumours that Apple was testing a smaller and cheaper iPad. Did we really need a mini? Doesn’t matter – we bought it anyway.

Outside of the device world a few other things caught our eye.

Instagram launches for Android

Instagram is now available to download for Android devices, meaning it’s no longer an iPhone exclusive.

I think it fair to say that Instagram have also had a pretty good last 5 years.

Google Drive gets an official launch

5GB of free cloud storage for your Android device. The front runner.

O2 Wallet launches in the UK

Barclays Pingit got some competition, in the shape of the O2 Wallet. O2-branded, but available to all mobile users who use iOS, Android, and BlackBerry OS 6 (and above), this is another way of using your mobile phone to pay for goods and transfer cash.

And saving the Best for last

Azenby offers professional services to the mobile World

London – April 2012. A new mobile specialist consulting firm was unveiled in London today when Azenby opened its doors to offer consulting and advisory services to the mobile world. A team of expert practitioners have come together to offer the mobile industry the benefit of their collective 300 years’ experience working at the mobile coalface – albeit at C and VP level.

From small acorns………………

26 April 2017
Three into two won’t go: A comment on EU Regulation of UK Telco Mergers

Certainly Three’s attempts to acquire Telefonica UK (02) have been thwarted – save for a possible legal challenge. Back in March of last year, when Hutchison Whampoa announced it had agreed a £10.3bn deal to buy 02 from Spain’s Telefónica, creating Britain’s largest mobile network, most industry insiders thought that this deal would happen. The new network was quickly dubbed ‘03’. Mobile is all about scale these days and in this, its largest ever overseas deal, Hutchison would combine 02 with its Three mobile business to bring together 31m customers, or about 41 per cent of the UK wireless market. After all, the precedent had been set already in Europe with the approval of similar deals in Austria, Ireland and Germany, all allowing a reduction in the number of operators.

This news broke only one month after BT, the former monopoly provider of conventional ‘fixed’ line services had announced its intentions to buy EE for £12.5bn and add 25 million mobile customers to its base and emerge as a very bulky fixed mobile converged player. Indeed, with its existing internet business and its more recent foray into content spending heavily on some of the Premier League football rights, BT was arriving as a real quad player, and crucially, one with huge scale. This was again subject to regulatory approval and again industry insiders were predicting a nod through and already speculating on what both of these deals would mean to the UK market. As is often the case when analysts analyse, they were coming up with different answers but very few, if any, were saying these deals would be blocked. In general, sentiment was positive that the deals would be good for the telecoms industry in the UK. It’s true the deals were different in nature as the ‘BEET’ deal was not reducing the level of completion in the mobile market but it was certainly tilting the playing field in mobile services. ‘03’ seemed like a necessary counter balance.

One year on and us industry insiders are one for two. The BT deal has glided through the regulatory process like a swan on water whilst the 02 deal has been holed below the water line. This week the EU Commission for Competition has decided that from their view in Brussels, the Hutchison acquisition of 02 is not a good deal for the UK consumer. I have read some accounts saying how dare these unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats block the deal which should be a matter for the UK to decide. However, those making that point probably have ulterior motives whilst another debate altogether about Brexit rumbles on and also ignores the fact that our very Ofcom and the UK’s own Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) were also putting the boot in in no uncertain terms. In fact, it was the UK’s very own CMA that referred this deal to the EU. In truth all the regulatory forces had seemingly combined to make sure that this deal didn’t happen. Quite what brought about this change of direction in regulatory bodies is still unclear but the industry is now left scratching its collective head on exactly what the policy is now in Brussels, or if there is even a policy at all, as the current Commissioner for Competition is taking a very different line compared with her predecessor. Industries prefer consistency from governments and regulators and dislike uncertainty.

Now I will be the first to admit that the 03 deal was, as Sherlock Holmes may have put it, a two pipe problem. Indeed, it was a weighty problem for sure and we can even put a figure on that; 2.6kg was proudly boasted by Competition Commissioner Margaret Vestager as the weight of the documentary proof and evidence behind her decision. There is a certain degree of ‘never mind the quality, feel the width’ going on here. We think the same decision would have been arrived at with ten pages of evidence as minds were made up from the very beginning of the review process, but there is a civil servants delight in producing a tome instead. The evidence is in there somewhere; but good luck in trying to find it. I think that few of us will force our way through the full document. We all have a will to live after all! Maybe the lawyers will be picking their way through it all, especially if Hutchison carry out their threat of a legal challenge.

I confess therefore to only having read a few grams of the report but we can see one of the main reason for rejecting the deal; it will reduce competition in the market place from four MNOs to three and that all the evidence shows that when a market goes from four to three players, prices go up. Much of the 2.6kg of evidence deals with this in great detail (I’m told) but I know I am not alone in thinking that all of this data is short term based and we are still to see the real impact over time in any market of three instead four operators. The EU Competition Commission also claims that the more competitors there are, the more innovation one sees in a market. We at Azenby are free marketeers, so we go along with this latter argument to a certain extent but where we begin to differ with the EU Competition Commission, Ofcom and the CMA, is that a lot of the innovation being sought by regulators requires an awful lot of investment and a lot of investment requires very strong balance sheets to support it.

At Azenby we have concluded that three bigger, stronger, more profitable operators, with healthy balance sheets is a better recipe for longer term forward investment in crucial elements such as 5G, rural expansion, high quality in-door coverage and much faster mobile broadband. The status quo of one giant quad player, another major MNO apparently disengaging from the wholesale market and two others without the wherewithal for substantial investment is not going to help consumers. We also accept that better services like 5G will cost us all a bit more money on our monthly bills but we are convinced three larger competitors is the optimal mix on between price competition and obtaining forward investment in new services and innovation.

In short the EU has got it wrong and more sadly Ofcom too. Industry insiders just wonder if economists really understand the businesses they are asked to regulate? The advancements they wish to see, are very expensive to deliver.

One of the other convincing factors for us at Azenby in thinking that the 03 deal would have been good for the market was that it was going to considerably increase the market power and presence of some of our virtual mobile operators like Talk Talk, Virgin, Dixons Carphone, Tesco and the soon to launch Sky mobile offering. Without this deal the landscape for MVNOs looks bleak. Baroness Harding, CEO of Talk Talk, has been quoted as saying that she believes Vodafone are in the process of withdrawing from the MVNO market and others in the industry take a view that 02 and Three alone, don’t have the necessary spectrum or network capacity to allow MVNOs to scale up. This leaves the MVNO wholesale market in the UK looking short of competition, a bizarre outcome from the competition regulator indeed!

This is a really important point. Were we really looking at a market going from four operators to three, or a market reducing to three MNOs but with the tempting prospect of as many as ten service providers, the majority of whom would be MVNOs, all competing with each other with retail deals on the high street? We believe that if Hutchison had followed through with their ‘open to all’ network strategy, it would have kick-started a new age for MNVOs and this would have forced both Vodafone and BT to respond, creating a new competitive market for wholesale. This would have increased competition for consumers.

Here is the case in a nutshell for us. Much of the investment needed is in the radio networks, that’s where the big sums of long term investment are required and do we really need four operators investing in the same infrastructure where the benefit to the customer is barely noticed? Surely we want investment in new products and services, all of which can happily share the same radio infrastructure. Radio network sharing is a reality today after all. We are much more likely to see faster, better, more extensive mobile coverage when radio networks are shared and co-invested in. If your view-point is the former, as would seem to be the case with the EU Competition Commission, then we think you are going to be disappointed because even though the EU has preserved the status quo, it is by no means certain that all four operators are going to be investing in infrastructure that has marginal value in differentiating themselves in the market place. When did you last see a coverage map in a phone store?

Perversely, the EU Competition Commission seemed to recognise this when they said that the deal would endanger the current RAN sharing initiatives in the UK. The very initiatives brought about because no one MNO can afford to make all investment needed in the radio network on their own! The economics just do not work. Now EE, sorry BT, with the Emergency Services Contract safely tucked away its back pocket, may change that but this is all the more reason we why we need effective competition to the new monumental kid on the block. We believe that 03 would have provided that necessary competition and without its promised new investment, we will all be worse of in the long run.

So what does happen next after this ruling? Hutchison may appeal the decision and ask for judicial review but that is a long drawn out process and not cheap to do either. Hutchison had said that following approval of the deal they would invest £10bn in the new combined network. Exactly what we do need to see happening. Does the EU Competition Commission believe that Hutchison will stick to this now? And what of Telefonica? The parent back in Spain seems determined to sell its UK business to reduce their own enormous debt burden. That’s doesn’t sound like they will be making big investments in their UK business. Perhaps others will now circle 02 and make a bid. That is possible and as long as the bidder is not an existing UK MNO, it should sail through the regulatory waters just as BT did with EE. Or perhaps others will look at the UK market now and realise that any further consolidation is out of the question for many years to come and think that this doesn’t look like a good place to piling in millions of pounds of new investment.

In our view this decision boiled down to whether three strong MNOs was better than four, inevitably, smaller ones. The EU has opted for the status quo hoping that will provide their desired outcome of more investment and deeper price competition. That old saying, be careful what you wish for, springs to mind and Ofcom, the CMA and the EU have all got their wish. Now they need to start praying!

20 May 2016
Bill goes to Apps World 2015

I went along to ExCel for the 7th edition of Apps World to find out what’s hot and what’s not. Apps World claim 10,000 visitors over the two days and 350 exhibitors from across the planet of the Apps.

A long standing friend of mine and a fellow frequent attendee to Mobile World Congress and its previous incarnations used to call that event the annual bump. He didn’t mean everyone is continually walking into each other – but with 80,000 attendees there is more than a bit of that going on. No, he meant it’s where you continually and regularly bump into so many people you know from the industry. So for me the big difference here is no bumps – what does that tells us about where the MWC crowd are and what’s important to them these days?

MWC has striven over the last few years to fully represent all seven layers in the classic OSI model as well as the ever burgeoning mobile eco-system. So layer 7, Applications, is well represented at MWC. Here at AppsWorld this is all about layer 7 and only layer 7. As the name implies, this is the Apps show! It does what it says on the tin. Are Apps important to Telco’s and Tier 1 vendors? It would seem not judging by their lack of interest and participation at this show. And isn’t that very strange because Apps is not just where it’s at today – it’s where the money is and where contact with the billions of mobile device users occurs. Without doubt, mobile device user’s moments of truth are though the apps they use.

So why stacks 1-6 are away doing whatever they need to do today, stack 7 comes out to play and takes centre stage. Much of what goes on at AppsWorld is about sustaining the App eco-system and it’s largely a B2B show but small B to small B in the main. Of the 300 or so exhibitors here this week, how many will be big and even very big B’s in the coming years? Who are the ones likely to get to escape velocity and become a moon-shot? I wish I knew. I am sure there are some who will make it big which does increases my amazement on why so much App activity carries on under the Telco radar. Have they given up getting in on App monetisation?

Perhaps that’s the case but I note a distinct change of tone coming from MNOs recently and an acceptance of the argument put forward by OTT and App players that they help carriers sell more data and that is good for the carrier. Certainly Vodafone’s recent half-year results seemed to support this. They told us that Data traffic in H1 grew 75% and the desire for Apps drives smartphone adoption meaning that Vodafone now have 29.9 million 4G customers across 19 countries with 9.7 million of them coming in H1 alone! Although these numbers are impressive that still only equates to 20% of their European customer base taking a 4G service. And here is the nub of it all: customers who move to 4G typically buy bigger data packages and see their data consumption double, and average usage per smartphone customer in Europe is up 39% year-on-year. I can hear Silicon Valley saying ‘told you so.’ The real growth is still ahead of us and is it customers’ desire to use apps that will encourage them to take up 4G price plans.

Let’s get back to what the data generators are up to. Well, Apps for everything is the phrase of the day as you would expect. There really does seem to be an App for everything you want to do and a whole lot more for things we never thought we needed! Innovation and invention is what will make the difference to the winners and the losers and we know that the vast majority of Apps on the market never make any money. So taking some time to get your App proposition right seems a very good thing to do. Our very own Julia Shalet was on hand to give start-ups some vital tips in the Launchpad zone. Julia told us “Don’t build it until you have looked users in the eye and see what their response is. Go validate all the assumptions you have made about how people feel and behave before you go too far”. Sound advice indeed. You can see Julia’s full presentation here:

Product Doctor presentation Apps World 2015 from Julia Shalet

Having the great idea is one thing. Getting the App built these days seems pretty straightforward judging by the sheer number of App builders there were promoting their services at the show. The tough part has always been the turning the App into a commercial service. The quality assurance, the de-bugging, the payment method (it’s really nice to get paid!), the customer experience, the analytics, the asset inventory, and anything else that’s needed to make the App a commercial success. It is here I saw a big difference between the show this year and that of a couple of years back when I last attended. The support eco-system is now very strong. An App developer doesn’t have to go it alone and reinvent things that are necessary but don’t add value to the proposition. The plug-ins are now abundant.

I hope next year I may bump into some of my colleagues from the MNO and Tier 1 vendor world. There really is a lot that they can learn from a day out at Apps World 2016!

23 November 2015
Will Small Cells become Big?

Small Cells have been a talking point for many years now. There was a time some years back when they seemed to be the next hot topic, the Small Cells forum was born and everyone was talking about small cell solutions. I often wonder what makes small, small and whether small will become big!

What do I mean by this? Well when small cells became the hot topic, MNOs were actually already doing small stuff – small footprint cells from a radio coverage perspective using small footprint equipment, small structures (such as mock lighting columns) and smaller capex budgets than what are required for a big macrocell – in fact they were rolling out microcells. Was this the birth of the small cell? Microcells were (from a classical radio coverage perspective) supposed to be a lower level of coverage, below the surrounding building clutter and hence providing street level coverage over a more limited area that a macrocell. Some MNOs in the UK found a loophole in the requirement for paying rent on highways land and hence a proliferation of mock lighting columns happened. I recall being part of the design team who created the whole “Lamp post site” concept with a major UK MNO and was somewhat surprised as to how over time many MNOs morphed these designs into ever larger structures and equipment cabinets and the term “Mini Macro” started being bandied about. It felt like the microcell had an identity crisis; it had been on steroids and grown bigger than intended! Some of this was driven by the economics of the solution, no ground rent, smaller capex than a full blown macro and the ability to push the design to achieve larger coverage footprints meant the MNOS wanted to squeeze maximum bang for buck from the designs and the associated capex budget.

Then came the Small Cells fervour and a lot of pundits thought that MNOs would be deploying Small Cells en-masse. It was easy to see why – many areas had been saturated with macrocells, some microcells had also been deployed and with increasing demands for higher bandwidth services and the associated capacity required to serve them it seemed logical that another layer of cells would appear below the macro and micro ones. “Ah a picocell” I hear all you die hard radio planners say – well yes, this classic layered vision of the radio network had been around for a while and it was expected that picos would follow micros in the layered rollout vision. In fact I recall going to Finalnd to see a new product from Nokia (before the NSN and the new Nokia days) that was specifically built to serve the pico market it was called “Insite” and I thought it was rather a good concept unfortunately despite the impressive investment in a mass production facility in Finland the product had limited functionality and as anyone who has worked in a radio engineering function will know, us engineers like our functionality. Anything below the required GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/LTE/LTE-A functionality is seen as a little undesirable by the engineering fraternity. The Insite was a GSM only non-EDGE capable base station at a time when data was started to become a reality on mobile networks. Due to lack of demand the rather cute A4 sized Insite was put to bed, never to be woken again.

Now I’m not having a good at Nokia here, the other vendors were also considering or doing similar things but there is a theme emerging regarding what MNOs demand from a product and how that impacts the cost of providing a picocell or small cell that meets their requirements.

Why does this matter? Well picocells have competition, there’s a another guy on the block whose been around for a while, somewhat seen as a sideshow by the MNOs for some time but becoming an increasingly serious contender for the small cell crown – Mr Wi-Fi Access Point, already rolled out en-masse and offering data services to cellular customers all over the world.

“It’s not a small cell” I hear the dissenters shout – “it’s not cellular, not part of the cellular network layers, an outsider incapable of mobility, data only, out of step with radio network equipment functionality, can’t be monitored as part of our network management systems…….” Well I would agree based on those arguments but based on the need to provide a small footprint of coverage to a dedicated location allowing customers to access data services from their cellular devices I would disagree – Wi-Fi access points are already out there providing “Small cell” type coverage.

I went to a base station themed conference in Bristol UK in 2012 and there was still a lot of talk about small cells, in addition there was a lot of discussion about “HetNets” – Heterogeneous Networks with lots of different spectrum bands, technologies and cellular layers needing to be glued together seamlessly to offer customers coverage, capacity and functionality where they needed it. Nothing wrong with that I say, but the small cell layer had still not emerged in the real world as seen by the visions of the presenters. I didn’t see a lot of people presenting on cellular small cell rollout success stories. What I did see was O2 presenting the success of their Wi-Fi network rollout in London particularly around Oxford St, Exhibition Rd and Trafalgar Sq. plus Virgin Media talking about their London Underground Wi-Fi deployment. Don’t get me wrong full blown cellular technology small cells were also being discussed and presented but very much in the trial phases.

OK this is a few years out of date but in the same year some commentators were stating that Small cells would account for 88% of all mobile base stations by 2016. I’m not convinced, even now – I’m still not seeing mass rollout headlines for small cells of the cellular kind. My ex colleagues in the MNO world do not appear to be planning large pro-active small cell layers across all their most populated areas of coverage. “What about AT&T?” I hear you shout “they were expected to deploy 40,000 small cells by 2015” – I haven’t seen mass publicity about progress on this initiative, it’s not easy to find.
Meanwhile that lean and mean Mr Wi-Fi Access Point continues to stride on emerging everywhere and anywhere – even my local Sainsburys is offering free Wi-Fi which makes it convenient for the budget conscious shopper when checking the price of a toaster at Argos compared to their special promotion………..but I digress.

So what does this mean anything, nothing or something? Well I haven’t got a downer on full blown cellular small cells there is indeed a place for them but it feels like the small cell is suffering a bit like our Microcell on steroids – it has an identity crisis. Is it cellular or Wi-Fi or both and which identity should it adapt to become big?
This is a complex issue (as all techies like to say) there may still be a wave of pro-active small cell deployments by the MNOs especially now the likes of 2600MHz spectrum is in their hands – an ideal spectrum band for small cell / hot spot coverage deployment. However practical challenges remain.

First and foremost location – as any homebuyer knows, location is key; the same applies to a small cell deployment. The fact is if you are using your small cell to soak up demand driven by your consumers then in today’s world of high bandwidth consumption they are generally located in a specific area sat streaming the latest episode of Game of Thrones or catching up on The Great British Bake Off in HD. OK so just put the small cell where they are then: simple to say but less so to do. A lot of this consumption is in cities in areas where there also happens to be a lot of retail and service industry presence – big brand names in desirable looking spaces or trendy boutiques in fashionable streets. So what? Well if you want shop front space in Bond Street expect to pay in excess of £900 per square foot – very nice for the landlord. Cue Mr MNO knocking on landlords door asking if they can come and drill the walls and mount base station, antennas and cables, disrupt the retail space, put something ugly on the face of the building (with a H&S warning about radiation on it) and pay a pitiful amount for rent. Oh you also need the local authority to approve you destroying the look of that nice regency façade with a bit of telecom’s kit. Guess what – you can’t get the Small Cell where you need it, you might be able to find another property a bit further away but then you are not quite covering the hot spot you need to.

In addition to being able to get the small cell exactly where you want it, you then need to connect it to your mobile network. You’re in a high demand area so you need a good sized backhaul solution, no line of site for a microwave transmission solution due to the environment so it’s a fixed line solution with similar pricing to a full blown macrocell leased line. OK I could try and use a non-line of site microwave solution but again – I get the feeling these solutions are limited in number in the real world.

Then there is the cost of the equipment. The engineering functions in the MNOs want a fully standards compliant small cell – a big stamp of 3GPP compliance and all the mobility and radio functionality expected. Fair enough that is their job but compare that to the required functionality for a Wi-Fi Access point and the associated cost and you have another headache to contend with – how do you justify the cost of the equipment.
So as an MNO you are struggling to locate your (cellular) small cell so you may not cover the area you need to, the transmission cost is relatively high and your equipment price point is way off compared to a WiFi Access Point – Is this good bang for buck for your capex?

Meanwhile the tenant in the retail space has brought some Wi-Fi access points, plugged them into the internet and started offering service to their clients.
Maybe I’m sounding like a fully paid up member of the Wi-Fi Alliance but frankly I have no bias either way. I accept that there are other variants of small cells that are a bit easier to deploy such as Femtoc ells that can be plugged into the internet for connectivity and look very much like a Wi-Fi Access Point but I guess I am trying to make a point about mass small cell deployment. The reality is that there are many challenges to small cell deployment of the traditional cellular kind as articulated above and whilst the MNOs have been struggling to justify a proactive small cell rollout, leaner and meaner Mr Wi-Fi has sneaked round the back and got all the customers, hell some landlords are even making sure they get Wi-Fi to ensure users of their premises get what they want – coverage wherever they are.

Whilst the MNO engineers continue to demand functionality from their small cell providers that is absent from Wi-Fi pushing the price point and complexity up, their network end users are happily using a much lower spec, lower price point, less functional solution because it gives them the hot spot data coverage they need. Allied to that the next generation of Wi-Fi access points are coming supporting radio functionalities such as Multi-User MiMO giving multiple users much higher data rates thus meaning Wi-Fi will continue to be the sole source of data coverage in many areas as consumer demand for bandwidth increases. Add to that Wi-Fi calling capability and suddenly you have a Wi-Fi solution that directly competes with your cellular small cell. Oh and you don’t get stung with data roaming charges when you use Wi-Fi solutions abroad with the many Free Wi-Fi services on offer.

One other issue that also contributes to the consideration of whether mass small cell rollout will become a reality is the very prudent practice of MNOs sweating their assets to the maximum. Having spent a fortune rolling out a macrocell network you want to make sure you get every available improvement possible from this network before you start rolling out another one. With the advent of lower band spectrum for LTE and techniques such as Carrier Aggregation (CA) offering more data throughput and capacity capability one could argue that MNOs will continue to try and cover those urban areas both indoors and outdoors with their existing macrocell base. The superior in-building penetration of low band spectrum and the improved data capabilities of CA could stave off the need for small cells just a while longer. Remember that MNOs are already companies with a high operational gearing and the addition of many hundreds of small cells just makes their operational challenges and cost base look even more scary than today – a time when MNOs are seeking to reduce site Opex costs through network sharing, not add to them with another major rollout!

So what’s the answer to my question – will small cells become big? I personally believe that from a Wi-Fi perspective they already are and will continue to get bigger but from a full blown cellular solution perspective there is still some way to go. If we believe the forecasts for data use and the need for very high bandwidth and ultra-low latency services there is no doubt many areas will need improved quality of coverage and capacity and it may be that the only way to achieve this and fully optimise it is with more, smaller cells (of the cellular variety!) connected to fibre backhaul and located closer to the end user.
There will always be practical challenges to deployment of any technology but I think the MNO and vendor community needs to consider what they think the end user needs and what end users are actually using as a solution today. Maybe a marriage of Wi-Fi and cellular is required with a fully open and functional relationship to really make MNOs end users and the Wi-Fi community benefit from the future of small cells. I don’t mean Cellular and Wi-Fi technologies sat together in one box either I mean a fully interoperable Wi-Fi/Cellular networking solution.

There are hints that 5G will deliver this kind of Multi Radio Access Technology, multi-layered interworking across licensed and un-licensed spectrum and vendors continue to talk about the need for ultra-dense networks with many small cells to enable users to get the throughput and latency required for next generation services.

However all this is just theory if you can’t get over the deployment practicalities and constraints and your cellular small cell solution price point. Much as the techies would love to roll-out masses of small cells, the truth is MNOs have limited capex and will continue to only do what is essential to keep up with the market; any mass small cell rollout programme will need the CFOs sign off, in no way an easy task in the current financial environment….

2 October 2015
NFV – Network Function Virtualization or New Financial Value?

Looking back over the past year, the most overused acronyms seem to be NFV (Network Function Virtualization) and SDN (Software Defined Networks). With so much hype surrounding these abbreviations, it can be difficult to identify what they actually mean. They are touted as disruptive technologies, which, to me, mean they will have a positive impact on the value chain for Communications Service Providers (CSPs).

I have been studying the positive impact of NFV, and the effect it will have on a mobile network operator. One of the most important things that NFV has the potential to achieve is positive cost reduction, and this is why I have come up with an alternative, and, from a financial perspective, a more accurate meaning of NFV — New Financial Value.

CSPs are faced with a myriad of complexities in network infrastructure procurement, for example: the licensing costs per subscriber, the cost for node license, capacity licensing, software licensing — the list goes on. Due to these complex costs, I maintain that it is an almost impossible task to come up with a highly accurate cost per subscriber, per month. Imagine if you could simplify the whole software buying cycle. No more license costs for capacity, subscribers, number of nodes etc. with a single charge.

The challenges involved in the exponential growth in data and the number of subscriber additions, together with machine to machine (M2M) traffic, such as wearables and automotive contributing to decreasing revenue per user factor, have never been greater. The opportunity to begin your NFV strategy has never been bigger.

Let’s take a look at what the telecom equipment manufacturer’s approach has been to NFV. So far we have seen proprietary hard and software ported over to virtualization of the various different network nodes, HSS, P-GW, S-GW etc. and their placement onto virtual machines running on Common Off The Shelf (COTS) hardware. So exactly what has changed with their approach? Nothing. The same nodes still exist, the same complexities of managing expansion, the same license cost.

NFV is just one technology that fundamentally changes the CSPs business into the data centre and cloud services model, allowing associated savings by running networks on COTS and more cost effective infrastructure. It allows for rapid expansion, earlier creation of services and the ability to create products in short timelines.

But NFV goes further than a change in technology; it fundamentally changes the value chain positively along with the procurement cycle. CSPs have to focus on the business and operational transformation to maximize the NFV opportunities and benefits. This goes all the way through the entire CSPs business, from planning to procurement, and design to implementation.

Here at Azenby, we are all change agents. Looking back over thirty years since most of us were involved in the launch of the first UK mobile networks, we have seen the transformation of the wireless industry and networks progress from 1G to 4G — and now we see the introduction of NFV. With our extensive knowledge of NFV, knowing the implications, the benefits and the positive value chain impact, we are well positioned to guide you through the profound change NFV will bring.

The time is right for extracting New Financial Value – NFV and unlock the hidden revenue in your network enabled with NFV.

19 February 2015
Charles gets at OBE!

The new year has started wonderfully for us at Azenby, with one of our very own, Charles Brookson, being awarded an OBE in the New Year honours list. Hearty congratulations to Charles from us all for this richly deserved recognition of a life-time’s dedication to making modern day telecommunications as safe and secure for users as possible.

Those of you who know Charles (isn’t that everyone in the GSM world?) will know he is a very modest chap and he won’t ‘blow-his-own-trumpet’, so we will do it for him!

Last year marked his 40th year in telecoms and he has certainly seen many changes. In the early days all the experts in the UK met in one very small room and nowadays there are thousands of busy security people. Yes, things have come a long way since Charles chaired his first GSM Security Group in 1987.

He recently stood down as Chair of the GSM security group after 25 years continuous service. But no fear! He is chairing a new Standards Group called TC CYBER, a new ETSI committee to standardise Cyber Security in Europe.

To mark his 40th year, Charles is taking a well-earned sabbatical for the next few months, however, before he “powered off”, he sent us some interesting fodder that we wanted to share:

In December he chaired a Panel on the Internet of Things in Doha, Qatar. This was at Telecom World, once a large exhibition based in Geneva and now an event that moves around the world offering a series of panels on the latest topics plus a large exhibition. He nominated the topic for his panel “The Internet of Things: Will it be our Panacea or Fuel our Paranoia?” Very typical of Charles this.

“Internet of Things”, like “Cyber Security” has become a very difficult term to define – it has become an umbrella term for many different ideas, concepts, platforms and solutions. The panellists discussed issues such as privacy, Cybercrime and Cybersecurity and the hacking of devices. The majority of questions from the floor were around privacy and security.

There was a great deal of discussion around minimising the risks, by being able to turn off some functions which are not required: After all, does playing a game necessarily require your precise geographical position? The conclusion of the session was that while we see some brilliant innovation in IoT, we must do the detail to make sure that the security risks are minimised.

In December, Charles addressed the Security Standardisation Research Programme held at the Royal Holloway in London. He took the audience back to the GSM – the Public Key standards that he had been involved with creating – and he pointed out that at the time no one ever expected the impact of these Standards. How well they have stood the test of time and have been used by millions of customers all around the world. He also touched upon the political, business and legal issues around Standards creation. Is there too much fragmentation in security work? Not enough collaboration going on when it seems to be needed more than ever?

Charles is very committed to encouraging new blood to create the next generation of security standards. The well-publicised cyber-attacks on Sony were a sobering reminder to us all that we are one-step behind the hackers and agents involved in industrial espionage, not to mention those seeking out the vast amount of private data about us that is held in servers. Keeping one-step ahead is proving to be a massive challenge for the industry and now more than ever we need to focus carefully on how we keep our telecom world secure. The new TC CYBER ETSI group certainly has its work cut out and we look forward to its output with Charles at the helm.

Perhaps we need to recognise that we may never be able to stop illegal intrusion into our networks and systems. It’s time to rethink how we store and use data. Security is much more than prevention alone – it’s about thinking how big does “Big Data” need to be and the debate needs to move towards making hacking a futile exercise rather than thinking we can ever eliminate it.

20 January 2015
Bill’s Best Awards!

20 years is a long time. It’s certainly a long time in the short history of Mobile but that’s how many years the GSMA sponsored Global Mobile Awards have been running. The next edition of the awards, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next March will be the 20th running of this programme. From humble beginnings it is now firmly established as the premier programme for the mobile industry with the most coveted and prestigious awards.

I have had the privilege of actint as the honorary chair of the judge’s panel for the last 8 years and have been involved in the awards since 2002. I have seen them grow and develop in to what they are today. The data supports my claim that these are THE mobile awards: Last year we saw over 700 entries from 57 countries around the world, our 35 different categories were reviewed by our 175 judges from 5 continents. Nearly 1000 people attended the awards ceremony, hosted by James Corden. He christened these awards the GloMos – it just might catch on! Winners came from Korea, US, UK, Japan, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Israel, India, Philippines, Turkey, Bangladesh, Norway, Taiwan, Finland, UAE, Spain, Lebanon, and Botswana. Yes, this is truly the most far reaching and prestigious international awards programme for the wireless industry.

One of the features of the GloMos over the years has been the line-up of awards presenters who have all added a bit of sparkle and no shortage of humour to the awards ceremony.
It’s very hard to pick a favourite but Stephen Fry showed he had a passion for all things technological and was probably the only industry outsider to turn up at MWC with more SIM cards in his pocket than any delegate. He was also outrageously funny.

To me the real indicator of how important an awards programme really is comes from looking at just who has won awards over the years. I think the GMA has a fantastic record in spotting trends and success stories for the future but people say to me “that was an obvious winner, wasn’t it?” Of course looking back that may be so but at the time many of these were either unheard of, unproven or still in a fledgling state. Here are my personal favourites:

1996: Chairman’s Award – Stephen Temple, DTI, UK – Author of the GSM Memorandum of Understanding
We all owe Stephen a big debt!

1997 Best GSM Service – Telecom Italia (Italy) for the successful introduction of the TIM prepay card.
This really was the world’s first mass market pre-pay service.

2005 – Best Infrastructure or Network Solution – Vanu, Inc. USA for Vanu Software Radio Base Station.
This really was the major breakthrough in Software Defined networks.

2007 Best Radio Access Product or Service – ip.access- femto3G.
The beginning of small cells as a serious deployment option for carriers.

2007 GSMA Chairman’s Award – Dr Mo Ibrahim, Chairman, Celtel.
I think Mo is truly one of the truly great thinkers and innovators in our industry (and he used to be my boss so I have to say that!)

2008 Best Mobile Money Service – Safaricom & Vodafone Group for M-PESA.
The defacto Mobile Money service.

2009 Best Mobile Music or Video Service – BBC for iPlayer on Mobile.
Very Innovative and has stood the test of time.

2010 Best Mobile Music Service – Deezer.
Sing-along!

2011 App of the Year: Rovio for Angry Birds.
Addiction therapy required!

2011 Best Mobile Broadband Technology – Ruckus Wireless for Ruckus Mobile Wi-Fi Gateway System.
Proof that these awards are bold and brave.

2013 Best Cloud Based Technology for Mobile – Jasper Wireless cloud-based connected devices platform for machine-to-machine (M2M) and consumer electronics.
IoT started here!

2013 Judges’ Choice – Best Overall Mobile App – Waze.
Bought by Google for $1.1bn!

And proof positive that the device world changes very quickly…

1996 Outstanding GSM Handset – Nokia 2110i

1997: Best Technical Innovation – Nokia 900 Communicator

2006 Best 3G Handset – Motorola RAZR V3x

2006 Best GSM Handset – Nokia 8800

So what has been my part in this phenomenal success? I help the GSMA team keep the categories fresh and up to date. Looking back at the changes in categories over the years alone is testimony to how fast our industry changes. My main role though is to help our panel of independent judges from all around the world to complete the judging process (nearly always done over Christmas and the New Year – so quite a task!) and help them with any questions they may have. A small cog in the large wheel of GMA. For me the main benefit is to be able to see and read all the entries. There is not a better way of staying in touch with what’s going on in our industry.

What’s New for the 2015 awards? Well, 14 New Categories bring the total to a whopping 42! All the hot topics are included, Wearables, Retail, IoT, Vertical convergence, Apps, Cloud etc. Plus a dynamic new award for Young Mobile Innovator of the Year. And there’s the promise of an exciting, cool VIP Awards after Party to celebrate the 20th edition in some style. Should be fun.

There is still plenty of time to enter the awards if you company thinks it’s sitting on a winner. Just visit the web site and see how easy it is to enter www.globalmobileawards.com.

5 November 2014
OTT Players vs Mobile Operators & Lemons

How is it that WhatsApp and iMessage could make such a large impact on the mobile operators with such apparent ease?

The mobile operators are not idiots or incompetents; they have access to enormous funds and huge logistical resource, so how could a near zero capex start up like WhatsApp hit their SMS revenues so hard?

We need to look back at the history of the industry to see how it has developed and then maybe the source of operator vulnerability will become apparent. Historically the mobile operators pretty much sold voice, SMS and data. If you dig a little deeper you can see that the main cost of providing voice and SMS was the cost of the radio network and the backhaul network. Once a suitable bearer has been created then the cost of layering voice or SMS on top is actually quite small from a capex point of view. Of course there are costs in terminating calls and SMSs but the retail charges have historically been quite a lot more than these termination costs.

So the operators ended up in a situation where they had set a price level and expectation for a service that did not reflect its true cost to deliver. It’s a bit like selling two lemons for a pound but saying that you are charging 50 pence for the lemons and 50 pence for the bag. You still get your pound and you are able to say that your lemons are cheaper than everyone else’s. But then there is a bit of a problem when someone else comes along with their own bag and insists on taking the lemons from you for just the 50 pence. Any time you end up with pricing realities and customer expectations de-coupled from costs, sooner or later someone will drive a coach and horse through your business plan.

The mobile operators have created a customer expectation that s/he is paying for voice and SMS and the coverage and capacity is somehow free. Then when an OTT player comes along and says that the voice or messaging service is free, the operators have nowhere to go other than a painful attempt to re-balance their pricing to reflect the real cost. This is what we are starting to see happen now.

What might the full costs look like? Building a large network from scratch? It is probably going to cost upwards of a billion pounds. Let us suppose a radio site costs at least £60k all up, including the radios, site acquisition, build and backhaul. Then assume for a country like the UK, the macro site requirement would be probably 15-20k to give good in-building coverage and capacity, maybe a few more at higher frequencies and a few less at the lower cellular frequencies. On top of the access and backhaul network, we then need to add in some equipment to handle mobility and route data streams to and from the internet and connecting networks. Let’s say these cost another £50 million. Lastly, we need to add in the servers that support SMS and voice. These are actually quite cheap, a high performance SMSC for instance costs less than £200k – a veritable bargain considering the revenue that it can bring an operator – and voice servers probably cost a bit more than that, say £5-15 million for an IMS based voice system for a reasonably sized network.

Now where does that leave us? Well, it seems to leave us at a place where the vast majority, some 90%, of the network cost, is actually in the access and backhaul network providing coverage and capacity, and very little is actually spent in the service layer (in terms of capex anyway).

Today however, in customer’s minds, the access and capacity is probably not something they particularly relate to in terms of what they are paying for. They relate to minutes, SMSs, and data bundles. So when someone like Skype comes along and says, “I’ll give you voice and SMS for free, all you need to do is get a mobile data bundle”, it sounds like a good deal, and one which could trigger a conversation with the operator along the lines of:
“I really don’t need all these SMSs, or minutes because I use Skype and WhatsAapp, so can I have a cheaper deal please?”

You would think that the response from the operators would be dismissive laughter, but far from it. In a headlong race to beat each other over the cliff, one operator after another seems to have replied: “Certainly Madam – let me just see how many more paper bags I can throw in with those pesky lemons!” This is really bad news for the operators because to remove the SMS and voice elements of a package won’t really reduce the operator’s cost of providing the package by very much at all.

So the answer to the question I first posed: “How can an OTT player damage an operator’s revenue line” is simple, they can’t, without the unconscious help of the operators which appears to be there in great measure. That leads us to the question of what is a good play for the operator to make, and that is a topic for our next blog.

31 July 2012