Our survey looking at future business models for internet video distribution closes at midnight tomorrow (Friday).

Last chance to have your say here.
It takes 10-15 minutes to complete. We guarantee it will be stimulating. If complete it, you’ll get a free summary of the analysis in a few weeks time. A big thank you to all those who have taken part to date.
Background to it here. It’s part of a major new study being published in November (described here).

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We’re delighted by the response to the event. There will 250-300 people taking part in the mass brainstorm, drilling down on how to turn two-sided business models into reality. Here’s an example of some of people booked in:
* Senior representatives from the corporate strategy departments of: BT, Telenor Group, FT/Orange Group, T-Mobile and Telefonica O2 Europe.
* Senior technical people: SVP/CTO, TeliaSonera; VP Technology Strategy, T-Mobile International; CTO, Telstra; CTO, Carphone Warehouse; CIO, Colt; VP Technical Strategy, 3UK; CTO, HP.

This complements the list of senior speakers/panelists which includes: CTO, Amazon.com; Group CTO, BT; CEO, BT Wholesale; CEO, Habbo Hotel; Group Director Internet Services, Vodafone; Exec Director, JP Morgan; CEO, Phorm; EVP, M:Metrics; VP Payments, France Telecom; VP Europe, Intel; CTO, Microsoft; Chair, Mobile Entertainment Forum; CTO, T-Mobile International…
Readers of this blog can claim a 10% discount on the price of attendance. Just contact us here. There are only 50 places left.

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YouTube has been so successful that it’s become one of the three applications that have fundamentally changed the infrastructure of the internet (email and the web are the others). As the first real ‘broadband’ application it has more than filled the pipes that were overbuilt in the boom time and it’s forced carriers to peer with a content provider for the first time (see our recent analysis of its impact here).

So, how has YouTube coped with the traffic? Below is a short case study of YouTube’s business model and its impact on others. It deals with the vital importance of aggregation and a major shift in the industry’s internal economics. [Ed - this is a short extract from our new report on ‘Fixing the broken Internet Video distribution value chain’, to be released in November. Pre-order now for a 10% discount here]

Continue reading "How YouTube wins with Web video" »

Posted at 06:08 PM | Link to this article | 1 comment

Operators are familiar with the benefits of device management for their own services. The challenge ahead is to re-model the device management architecture that was originally put in place to address in-house needs so that it becomes a revenue generator in new two-sided business agreements with third parties. This involves a change in mindset, away from the “blackbox” telecom culture and towards more open thinking. Dominique Schmid, CEO of Sicap (a specialist in this field) explains further…

Continue reading "Guest Post: Device Management - The last leg is in your hands" »

Posted at 12:49 PM | Link to this article | 2 comments

In Today’s Issue: Sprint selling Nextel; personalisation is dead; new enterprise voice at Sprint; harassing your customers; Apple iPhone NDA dropped; new Nokia, HP iClones; bloggers drool over Gphone; no new Nokias before Noel; S60 5th Edition; Web apps vs mobile apps - synthesis achieved; Nokia music; T-Mobile phone-router; weird concept phones; BT outsourcing whole of Openreach?; C&W/Thus spaceship gaffe; T-Mobile in 17 megacustomer datafart; MTN buys small country in West Africa; transit costs the same in London and Bucharest; Georgia seeks revenge in the courts

Having finally launched its WiMAX service, Sprint is moving closer to a sale of the Nextel iDEN network it bought for $35bn and has since written down to zero. Because of the vast accounting writeoff, the sale is certain to make Sprint’s books look a sight better, at least for those with short memories. It also opens an interesting opportunity for someone interested in better voice and messaging, what with its specialisation in push-to-talk and emergency service comms; however, it’s more likely that private equity buyers will squeeze it for cash.

Continue reading "Ring! Ring! Hot News, 6th October 2008" »

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We’re delighted to be working more closely with Dean Bubley, one of the most insightful analysts on wireless technology and author of the superbly acerbic Disruptive Analysis blog. Dean will be helping us to create more tangible roadmaps to the two-sided business model.

After our upbeat post on embedded broadband, we asked Dean to share some of his detailed analysis and give us a ‘reality check’:

The last few weeks have seen much fanfare about notebooks shipping with built-in 3G modules. Vodafone announced it was selling Dell’s new Mini 9 netbook, while T-Mobile is working with LG, Acer and Asus on embedded notebooks of various types. The GSMA has just announced its “Mobile Broadband” certification scheme and sticker for PCs, backed by $1bn of marketing. It hopes this will emulate the past success of the WiFi Alliance and Intel’s Centrino badging in driving the “attach rate” of embedded connectivity. In the background, various silicon and module providers (notably Qualcomm and Ericsson) have been loudly evangelising their products.

Disruptive Analysis has been working on a new report, due for publication soon, on Mobile Broadband Computing, which examines the various options for connecting PCs and new “MIDs” (Mobile Internet Devices). One early finding of the research is that embedded-3G (and, for that matter, embedded-WiMAX) notebooks will not follow the rapid growth trajectory of WiFi. Instead, the overall proportion of PCs attached to mobile networks will grow relatively slowly, and those that do will use a mix of dongles, embedded modules and other options.

Continue reading "Why 3G ­Embedded Notebook Forecasts are Overhyped" »

Posted at 08:06 AM | Link to this article | 6 comments

Two weeks ago we presented a very gloomy picture of the developing stress in the financial markets, and its likely implications (positive and otherwise) for telcos. Two weeks is an awfully long time in today’s markets, and while it hardly gives us pleasure to acknowledge that much of what we previously envisaged is now playing out before our eyes, it probably makes sense to revisit the topic.

In short, things have gotten much, much worse since our original post only two weeks ago. Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave in Afghanistan, you have probably noticed the fitful attempts in the US to pass an economic stabilization package, to the tune of $700bn, with a lot of enhanced corporate governance provisions and regulation attached. The independent investment banks once known as the “Bulge Bracket” no longer exist, and the stagnation of the credit markets is now resulting in a wave of nationalisations, quasi-nationalisations, and government-orchestrated private sector bailouts in Europe, as well as in the US. Business confidence in Europe is at its lowest ebb since the shock and awe of 9/11, and investor concern over the health of commercial banks, as reflected in a flight of capital into Treasuries, is at its greatest point since the Great Depression.

Continue reading "Credit Crunch - Silver Lining for Telcos? (Part 2)" »

Posted at 08:11 AM | Link to this article | Add a comment

Our readers and clients are asking for more details on how the two-sided business model concept can work in practice. As a result we’re developing a set of ‘use cases’ that illustrate how telcos might get to the $375bn opportunity that we modelled and sized in great detail in our recent report (currently selling like hot cakes).

Below are details is a draft list of the Use Cases we’ll be developing. We’ll be presenting some of these at the Telco 2.0 event on 4-5 Nov in London. (PS: early bird discounts end this Friday).

First, though, here’s a new presentation on the two-sided telecoms business model that we’ve been presenting around the world to senior execs recently.

The Use Case project is described below.

Continue reading "Use Cases for Telco 2.0 - making it tangible" »

Posted at 08:36 AM | Link to this article | 2 comments

We are currently doing consulting work on the future of telephony and what future business models might look like. A recurring theme is understanding what the underlying sources of value are in the voice and SMS products that we take for granted. The excerpt below from our report on the future of consumer voice and messaging highlights some of our core ideas and themes.

As telephony becomes a feature of other applications, rather than a service in its own unnecessary right, we expect to see a corresponding inversion in the business model. The graph below compares average per minute wages in the US to average per minute fixed and mobile telephony prices, all rebased to 2006 prices. Ten years ago, it would have made sense to employ a college graduate for an hour if that saved you the cost of a one hour wireless phone call.

Continue reading "The inversion of the telephony business model" »

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In Today’s Issue: Bankers’ favourite BlackBerry bears brunt of banking bust; IBM and Salesforce.com, again; MSFT’s new Unified Comms server, works with Asterisk; Cisco launches Web-based unicomms with VZ; Dell’s business model diverges; Apple lawyers’ war on books. FACT!; Motorola deploys android hordes; HTC keeps on making Windows gadgets; funny prepaid broadband prices; awful EU telecoms bill defanged; roll-your-own MVNO; Joost and the browser plugin to end plugins; CWN vs Pirates; Roshan’s M-PESA deployment vs Taliban; Singapore’s fibre deployment, none more Telco 2.0; global M2M alliance formed

Crisis at RIM; the maker of BlackBerrys issued a profits warning for the fourth quarter, as thousands of bankers handed their company-issued devices over to the administrators, filed last-minute expense claims, and packed their belongings in the traditional cardboard box.

Continue reading "Ring! Ring! Hot News, 29th September 2008" »

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