Operators Are Essential to the 4G Mobile Ecosystem

(Mar 1 2011) Mobile Broadband , Mobile Internet , Mobile Money

1. By Declan Lonergan, VP of Research, Yankee Group

   Mobile network operators (MNOs) might not be enjoying the dominance they once had in the mobile ecosystem, but they remain influential and valued partners for other players. This was readily apparent at this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, where MNOs rallied around three key themes: Openness, usability and innovation.

   Openness

   The world’s leading MNOs—including AT&T, Telefónica and China Mobile—used MWC 2011 as a platform to once again call for the creation of user experiences that are agnostic to device, OS and network. Examples of advances in this direction include:

   • HTML5 is big news. HTML5 was one of the most-used terms at the show. MNOs in particular are excited by the promise of the write-once-run-anywhere approach.
   • WAC gets a boost. Eight major MNOs announced they are connected to the WAC platform: China Mobile, Russia’s Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), Orange, Smart, Telefónica, Telenor, Verizon and Vodafone.

   Usability

   MNOs are also attempting to boost their market influence in content and device usability. MNOs addressed discoverability and usability challenges in numerous ways, including:

   • Orange’s Gestures. Gestures allows one-touch shortcuts to apps and features 27 designs that can be assigned to individual actions or applications, such as speed dialing or sending an SMS to a specific contact. Stroking across a Gesture symbol initiates the app or service, obviating the need to scroll or click through several menu steps. Gestures will be available in Q2 2011 on Orange Android devices that use the company’s Signature home screen.
   • MNOs enhancing OTT. MNOs are exploring improved usability of OTT content and services. Kevin Thau, Twitter’s VP of business development, offered some support for MNOs playing a role in content delivery. MNOs and handsets vendors are already building Twitter into the fabric of devices. Twitter now has over 200 partnerships with MNOs to deliver tweets as SMSs.
   • Telefónica and eBay teaming up. Telefónica announced a new agreement with eBay whereby the companies will introduce an eBay app on smartphones and feature phones sold by O2 U.K.

   Innovation

   MNOs also focused on good old-fashioned service innovation. Here’s a small sample that illustrates where MNOs will be innovating during 2011:

   • Near field communication (NFC): If there’s one topic that can claim to have dominated this year’s MWC proceedings, it’s NFC and mobile money in general. Orange announced it will launch a new generation of SIM cards and handsets to enable NFC-based mobile contactless services, and it extended its partnership with Samsung to deliver more NFC-enabled handsets during 2011. Orange claims that by the end of 2011, more than 50 percent of its new smartphones will be NFC-enabled.
   • Technology advances: Telefónica showcased several technologies that are not yet commercial. These included generation of 3-D avatars based on videos recorded using ordinary smartphones, mobile identification solutions and one-number voice services.

   MNOs still hold an important position in the mobile ecosystem; MWC made clear that rumors of their demise are greatly exaggerated.

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