Digital Lifescapes

Mobile operators are now making key decisions about the future of their consumer fixed-mobile convergence offerings. While enterprise FMC services are clearly following the route of VCC- and SIP-enabled solutions, consumer FMC services will take one of two major paths -- based on each mobile operator's view of the market, and the nature of its existing network assets. According to ABI Research principal analyst Philip Solis, "Today, consumer FMC services that are based on Wi-Fi use UMA to manage the connection choice and handover between Wi-Fi and cellular networks. These services are ramping up quickly in Europe, due to intense competition between Orange, BT, and other mobile operators. In North America, T-Mobile USA is about to go nationwide with its UMA-based FMC service as well." "However," adds research director Stuart Carlaw, "mobile operators such as Vodafone, SFR, Softbank, and Sprint are at the leading edge among carriers exploring femtocell techn...

TD-SCDMA represents a significant opportunity for China to establish a global communication standard, to lead the development of the technology, and to own more intellectual property rights, which in turn will lower royalty fees and manufacturing costs, according to In-Stat. However, homegrown TD-SCDMA standard has made China's road into 3G complex and tortuous, mainly due to the Chinese government's concerns about Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), the high-tech market research firm says. "The awarding of 3G licenses has been delayed due to the technological immaturity of TD-SCDMA," says Kevin Li, In-Stat analyst. "In-Stat regards the current round of testing as the pre-commercial application that embodies the Chinese government's preference for promoting TD-SCDMA's development ahead of WCDMA or CDMA2000." Recent research by In-Stat found the following: - TD-SCDMA subscribers will experience fast growth after 2008, and will approach 52 million in ...

While the last year has seen many new fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) services appear across Western Europe, it has also highlighted how truly difficult it is to get the service off the ground and stimulate market demand. In its most recent study of FMC, IDC examines the experiences of Western European broadband service providers in launching FMC services and analyzes the key factors that contribute to their successes or failures. "Though Orange has had the most positive start with its Unik service in France, other operators have struggled," said Jill Finger Gibson, research director, IDC EMEA. "This shows that FMC technology is moving in the right direction and is not the major hurdle to FMC adoption, at least in the consumer segment. That hurdle is getting the customer proposition correct, launching the service only once the necessary prerequisites are in place, and positioning an FMC service as a must-have rather than a nice-to-have." I believe that an underlying ...

Worldwide wireless LAN equipment revenue reached $775 million in the first quarter of 2007, up 5 percent from the previous quarter, according to the Infonetics Research latest quarterly market share report. The enterprise segment of the WLAN equipment market is especially strong, with double-digit annual revenue growth expected through 2010 as end-user organizations across most verticals adopt WLAN equipment to leverage the benefits of mobility for data and voice networking. "The consumer and enterprise segments of the wireless LAN market continue to swell, with a new cycle of equipment upgrading now underway, spurred on by the availability of Wi-Fi 802.11n products in the first quarter. Additionally, VoIP over wireless will help push the popularity of wireless LANs in all segments," said Richard Webb, directing analyst for wireless at Infonetics Research. Infonetics market study highlights include: - Worldwide WLAN equipment revenue is forecast to grow to $4.7 billion in...

Mobile WiMAX equipment, which just started shipping enough product in the previous quarter to be appreciably counted, increased 35 percent in the first quarter of 2007, says Infonetics Research in its latest market study. The small but fast growing outdoor wireless mesh access node segment is also posed for strong long-term growth, although worldwide revenue dipped 2 percent to $120.1 million in 1Q07 from 4Q06. Meanwhile, after jumping 39 percent in 4Q06, the worldwide fixed WiMAX equipment market dropped 40 percent in 1Q07. "The fixed WiMAX market could be inhibited by the launch of mobile WiMAX, but fixed remains viable where connectivity needs outweigh mobility needs, so this is just a growth blip following a strong previous quarter," said Richard Webb, wireless broadband analyst for Infonetics Research. "The mobile WiMAX ecosystem of components, equipment, handsets, and service providers is not yet fully realized and will take time, but we expect healthy growth. The ...

While mobile phones are widely used across most segments of the U.S. adult population, this is especially true for those under 30 years old. Remarkably, over half of U.S. adults who only use a cell phone are under 30. And, furthermore, one-third of 18 to 29 year olds only use a cell phone or the Internet for making phone calls. These are some of the results of a special analysis of three Harris Poll surveys conducted online between October and December 2006 by Harris Interactive. In total 6,748 U.S. adults were surveyed. I believe that these latest findings are further evidence that most U.S. mobile phone service providers are missing a huge revenue opportunity -- by not engaging more young Americans to use their cell phone to access value added services (VAS). Furthermore, the implied lost opportunity for American advertisers to connect with this important segment of the market is perhaps the greater disappointment. Specifically, The Harris Poll study uncovered the following: - Over e...

Total U.S. consumer spending for home technical support services will reach nearly $1 billion by the end of 2011, according to the Parks Associates report entitled "Digital Home Services: Carriers, Retailers, and the Consumer." This new market study predicts that remote or on-site technical support services for home computers and networks will grow from approximately $450 million in 2007 to $977 million by year-end 2011. Simultaneously, in-home services for the installation and configuration of new PCs will generate revenues exceeding $700 million by year-end 2011. "Consumers have been very consistent in expressing both their frustration with the complexity of today's digital home products and services and their willingness to seek professional assistance to solve these issues," said Kurt Scherf, Parks Associates' vice president and principal analyst. "Customer service and support are not just critical challenges for retailers, manufacturers, and servic...

The Nielsen Company will begin measuring mobile phone users through a new service called Nielsen Wireless. This service will measure how many people use content services such as mobile Internet and mobile video and what impact this has on established media behavior. Nielsen Wireless is designed specifically for the wireless industry and also complements Nielsen's Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement (A2/M2) initiative, which will measure television usage on all television and video platforms, including personal video devices such as mobile phones. Nielsen already supports the wireless industry through customer segmentation, ringtone sales tracking (Nielsen RingScan), attitudinal and behavioral surveys and mobile polling. Nielsen Wireless will work in tandem with these existing Nielsen services. Nielsen Wireless' first product -- Mobile Vector -- will launch in the U.S. in July 2007. It will use information culled from Nielsen's existing "National People Meter TV"...

Following a 13 percent increase in the 4th quarter of 2006, the cable modem termination systems (CMTS) market fell 12 percent to $245 million in the first quarter of 2007, reports Infonetics Research in its quarterly "CMTS Hardware and Subscribers" report. Port shipments also were down. Regardless, Infonetics believes that the CMTS market is expected to pick up and grow annually in the single to low double digits through 2010, when it will reach just under $1.5 billion. "The traditional first quarter slowdown shouldn't be misconstrued as a general slowdown in the CMTS hardware market. There is no question that MSOs are expanding the bandwidth capacity of their networks via pre-DOCSIS 3.0 wideband solutions to remain competitive with telco DSL and FTTH offerings, and to build on their early success in adding voice subscribers by expanding their range of digital voice services. This will keep investments in upstream and downstream ports on existing CMTS equipment and n...

According to the Infonetics Research latest "Broadband Aggregation Hardware and Subscribers" report, worldwide DSL port shipments are up only 4 percent in 1Q07 from the previous quarter while overall broadband aggregation hardware revenue is down 13 percent to $1.5 billion. Reports of strong growth in worldwide DSL subscribers continues, however, indicating fundamental demand for broadband connectivity is still on the rise. Despite a growing percentage of FTTH deployments, fiber-to-the-building deployments using ADSL2+ and VDSL technologies for the subscriber's connection are also increasing significantly. "Broadband service providers, including DSL operators and cable MSOs, continue to upgrade their networks to support higher bandwidths and more transparent services, such as voice and video, by pushing fiber deeper into the access network. They are also upgrading to higher speed ADSL2+ and VDSL technologies. These trends will push the IP DSLAM and MSAP segments to s...

The worldwide broadband Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) market totaled $1.5 billion in 1Q07 -- up only 2 percent from the previous quarter, as broadband connectivity grows while vendor sales margins shrink in some regions, according to Infonetics Research. The market continues to get a push from service providers seeking to entice customers to subscribe to a "bundle" of voice, data, and video services, and their demand for intelligent CPE to prioritize traffic coming into and out of the home. "We continue to see a shift away from traditional modems and, to a certain extent, broadband gateways, to IADs, EMTAs, and digital home gateways, all of which allow service providers and cable MSOs to offer bundled services today, but also provide the necessary traffic prioritization and security capabilities to easily layer on home automation, security, and home media services." said Infonetics Research analyst Jeff Heynen. "The increase in these more expensive devices w...

Following six years of decline from a high of $39.7 billion in 2000 to just $32.1 billion in 2006, the value of the global music market is set to reverse and grow again -- back to $38.8 by 2011, according to a new market study by Portio Research. In 2006 the major mobile handset manufacturers (Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, LG and others) have been shipping MP3 enabled handsets in some volumes. At the same time, many mobile network operators (MNOs) have started to distribute MP3 enabled phones and launch OTA (over-the-air) music download services (Vodafone, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, Cingular, DoCoMo, SKT, O2, Orange and many more) thus creating a new digital consumption market. Worldwide, the mobile services market dwarfs the music industry in revenue terms, and Portio believes that the music companies need to be taking a very, very serious look at mobile operators as they may possibly become one of the future's biggest channels to market. In the portable digital music device marke...

Worldwide sales of IPTV set-top boxes (STB) will grow to 7.9 million units in 2007, a growth rate of 111 percent, according to Strategy Analytics, the global market research and consulting company. Their report entitled "IPTV Set-Tops: SD, HD and DVR -- Global Market Forecast," predicts that more than 3 million HD-enabled IPTV set-top boxes will be sold in Europe alone this year as pay-TV operators make the switch to the new H.264 standard technology. The share of Digital Video Recorders (DVR) is also growing rapidly, rising to 29 percent of the global market this year from 15 percent in 2006 as new IPTV service providers seek to compete with the established satellite and cable pay-TV incumbents. "In our view, any IPTV system that does not have, or is not planning for, HDTV upgrades will not be competitive in the long term," says Peter King, Director, Connected Home Devices. "DVR functionality is also becoming an increasingly important competitive tool in the b...

Mobile phone operators now have the ability to market a downloadable navigation application that is just as good as, if not better, than personal navigation devices (PNDs), according to a new market study by In-Stat. As a result, handset-based mapping and navigation applications could cause a major change in the overall navigation market, which is now dominated by relatively expensive standalone devices, the high-tech market research firm says. "Unlike MP3 players and digital cameras, handset-based navigation applications provide the only low-cost alternative product in a market of growing popularity," says David Chamberlain, In-Stat analyst. "The value proposition for handset navigation applications is very strong compared with that of PNDs and, in some ways, the functionality is superior." In a recent market study, by another research company, I recall that the most requested "wish list" capability -- by U.S. consumers that were surveyed -- was a GPS nav...

The traditional role of corporate and agency public relations (PR) has reached an important juncture, as the growing body of informed citizen journalists gain market momentum and a multitude of social media platforms enable the potential for self-publication. Being relevant, and newsworthy, can be an ongoing struggle. Historically, the distinction between advertising and PR was that the latter is meant to be inherently newsworthy. That said, most people on the receiving end of today's typical technology sector "professionally produced" press release would argue that this objective is not being met, most of the time. Regardless, the vast majority of the current investment in PR is centered on this 20th Century activity-oriented marketing communications (Marcom) busy work. But the people who pay the bill for this activity are now demanding a measurable ROI, and this has forced PR professionals into a mode of creative exploration and experimentation. Some PR folk talk of the...

comScore released a study on the relationship between paid search marketing and retail e-commerce. The study revealed that e-commerce sites are the most frequent users of search engine marketing, with each of the top ten search engine marketers being either retail or comparison shopping sites. In March, nearly 20 billion sponsored links were served to U.S. Internet users from the top search engines, with eBay.com leading the charge as the top search engine marketer with 802 million sponsored link exposures. In March, paid search activity in the U.S. generated nearly 20 billion total sponsored link exposures. The top ten paid search advertisers, generating 16 percent of all sponsored links, were all retail or comparison shopping sites. Again, eBay.com led with 802 million sponsored link exposures (4.1 percent), followed by Smarter.com with 366 million (1.9 percent), and Shopping.com with 357 million (1.8 percent). "It's clear that retail e-commerce sites are the most aggressi...

Advertisers will spend $1.4 billion on mobile media this year, rising to $14.4 billion by 2011, according to a new Strategy Analytics report entitled "Global Mobile Advertising Update: Outlook Bright as Inventory Expands." Strategy Analytics predicts that mobile media advertising will account for a fifth of global spending on Internet advertising by 2011. However, given the current rate of mobile advertising within the U.S. market, I believe that this predicted growth will likely continue to come from the Asia-Pacific and European markets -- where value added services (VAS) have greater market penetration. Phil Taylor, Director, Global Wireless Practice, notes, "The outlook for mobile advertising spend has significantly advanced in the past 12 months. The supply of advertising inventory is rapidly increasing as mobile publishers look to develop advertising as a revenue stream. Major mobile network operators like SprintNextel, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone have all accele...

As part of the recently released report entitled "Positive Learning Curve for Touchscreen Devices," the Strategy Analytics Wireless Device Lab evaluated mobile user perceptions of, and reactions to, touchscreen input on a range of mobile devices. The Wireless Device Lab benchmark sessions uncovered a very strong, positive learning curve for touchscreen input as well as an absolute requirement for finger input capability to supplement the traditional stylus. David Kerr, Vice President of the Global Wireless Practice, noted "Propensity to select a touchscreen-only device increases by 23 index points once users find that they can produce accurate and fast input either by hand or with an option to choose stylus or digit input." "Durability of the screen remains the number one concern for touchscreen devices. However, accuracy-enhancing technology and visual -- rather than haptic -- feedback are also keys to success," added Paul Brown, Senior User Experience An...

Converged Mobile Devices -- Smartphones, PDA-style phones, and BlackBerrys -- have become indispensable tools for mobile workers, according to an IDC study. While the majority of formal enterprise adoption to date has been within large enterprises, predominately in the United States and Canada, potential for strong growth exists among small businesses in all markets and enterprises throughout other regions of the world. Furthermore, individual business users are coming in through the backdoor of corporate networks with their own (individually purchased) devices. IT departments will move to remedy this and gain control of such actions. According to IDC's latest mobile enterprise device usage forecast, worldwide shipments of corporate-liable mobile devices will experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 54 percent to reach more than 82 million units shipped in 2011. IDC data shows that the U.S. market accounted for 42 percent of enterprise shipments of converged mobile devic...

The growing popularity and increasing complexity of home networks will spur a doubling of fee-based home network support service subscriptions in North America in 2007, according to a new market study by In-Stat. Home networks are still primarily set up by "tech-savvy" consumers for themselves, their family, and their friends. However, consumer electronics retailers and broadband service providers are also offering home network support services, the high-tech market research firm says. "As the number of nodes on a home network grows, the support headaches tend to increase, and even the tech-savvy guru in the household reaches a point where they no longer want to provide all the support for their friends and extended families," says Joyce Putscher, In-Stat analyst. "Another driver for these services is the broadband provider wanting to promote customer satisfaction, reduce customer churn, and protect revenue streams." Early market leaders, such as the Geek ...