One of Telco 2.0’s key associates in the ‘Content Distribution’ space is Alan Patrick from Broadsight (see his excellent blog). He’s been working with us on a new report on Future Business Models for Online Video Distribution, which will be published later this month. Alan presented some of this analysis at the Telco 2.0 event last week. We asked him to sum up his thoughts:

Over the last two months we’ve created a hypothesis on how the online video market may evolve - based on desk research, interviews, online questionnaires, a workshop with the avant garde new media users at the Tuttle Club and a “Wisdom of Crowds” session at the Telco 2.0 Brainstorm last week. First, here’s the stimulus presentation I made:

Continue reading "The Future of Online Video - new hypothesis" »

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In Today’s Issue: Crunch crunches Chinese corporate creativity; Nextel spinout shaky; Sprint execs “industry’s most overpaid”; WiMAX smartphone leaked; VZW starts charging for bulk SMS delivery; IfByPhone understands your call centre campaign; vendor-pays data is here; RIM’s AppStore for enterprises?; Comcast gets social TV; Vodafone buys more of Vodacom; IBM: still has money; Indian cellsites get fuel cells; MBNL-BT backhaul superdeal; xG shenanigans; yet another security nightmare at DTAG; GSMA without the GSM; mobile filmmaking to fight the Taliban. scary!

This week’s main theme was telcos calling off planned corporate action in the face of the financial crisis; Huawei, like so many other vendors, has been thinking of getting rid of its handsets business, a low-margin job better left to cheap Chinese ODMs…hold on, some of us remember when Huawei was a cheap Chinese ODM. But this week, the sale was put on indefnite hold for fear someone might bid one euro and get it.

Continue reading "Ring! Ring! Hot News, 13th October 2008" »

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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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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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Continuing our series of interviews with major industry thinkers, Steve Zimba is Microsoft’s Managing Director, Global Telecoms Business. We interviewed Steve about their ‘Telco 2.0’ strategy. This integrates their PC, IPTV and mobile offerings with a combined software and services offering, supported by telecoms-specific capabilities and a third party ecosystem.

Steve Zimba

Microsoft is a particularly interesting company to us because they are in a unique position. They bridge the consumer and enterprise markets, which places them well to create technologies and operational businesses for two-sided markets. Their Internet competitors are consumer-centric, and don’t have channels into the enterprise. Rivals such as IBM don’t have the consumer brand or media properties to run experiments on the scale Microsoft can. Furthermore, Microsoft is active across all of the B2B value-added service areas we believe will drive future telco growth: identity, advertising & marketing services, e-commerce, order fulfilment, content delivery, billing & payments, and customer care/CRM. The difficult challenge is whether Microsoft can make the whole more than sum of its software conglomerate parts.

Continue reading "Telco 2.0 Interview: Steve Zimba, Microsoft" »

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Today we launch a new survey, part of a major investigation into new business models for internet video distribution (kindly supported by the TM Forum, TelecomTV, the Mobile Entertainment Forum, and TVoverNet.)

By ‘internet video distribution’ we mean: any video material (movies, TV, infotainment, sports, UCG) distributed via internet technologies (IPTV, web streaming or P2P downloading) over any bearer (fixed or mobile broadband networks) to any device (PC, TV, handheld). We exclude traditional broadcasting and physical means of distribution, although the consequences of internet video distribution are looked at.

Do take part here. It takes 15-20 minutes to complete and you’ll get a free copy of the summary results if you invest the time to complete it properly. (The system allows you to come back to complete it if you need to take a break). Survey closes 1st October 2008.

Some of the questions are pretty challenging, so it’s well worth reading the context for it below first:

Continue reading "New Internet Video Distribution Survey - have your say" »

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Following the publication of the new Telco 2.0 Manifesto, we’ve refreshed our overall strategy research programme for the coming year. (Like the fashion industry, our products change with the seasons.) This new programme will address the key strategic challenges that lie at the heart of creating new value in Telecoms and adjacent markets. Here’s a quick preview.

5 x New “Research Practices”

We’ve organized our research into 5 Research Practices to address the key Telco 2.0™ strategic challenges.

Continue reading "Telco 2.0 Research Programme, Autumn/Winter 2008" »

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BT is at last moving on fibre. This is of interest because BT don’t own a cellular network, and their current residential copper access network is functionally separated — a very ‘Telco 2.0’ horizontal model. Is it possible to make money on new network builds without complete vertical integration and a monopoly on services?

We dig into the numbers, and work out whether BT’s shareholders should be concerned, or delighted.

The details are more than a little sketchy at the moment, but we can be fairly certain of some points:

1. Both FTTC and FTTH are in prospect.
2. Speeds are to be “up to 100MBits/s” for the FTTH element, 40-60Mbits/s for the FTTC element.
3. The service will be available wholesale.
4. The project is costed at £1.5bn over five years.

Continue reading "BT fibre roll-out: Do the numbers add up?" »

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The current EC review of Telecoms Law and the UK government consultation on Illicit P2P Downloading (announced last week) threaten the ISPs relationship with its customers. Legislation alone will not solve the Content Industries problems with the internet - ISPs have capabilities they can bring to the table to help ease the pain.

Throughout history, whenever an industry is in meltdown, bullets of blame are sprayed everywhere and the industry players turn towards governments and the legal system for protection. These days, the music industry is in meltdown and the bullets of blame are targeting the ISP industry. Failure to react could cost the ISP industry dearly. We examine some of the options below.

Note that music is not suffering from a demand-driven meltdown: consumer demand for music appears as strong as ever. The problem appears to be music is being increasingly delivered by the internet, and it is proving difficult to monetise this demand across the whole of the value chain.

All the evidence seems to point towards a significant number of consumers who are sharing music without the rights holder’s permission and without compensating them. Demand for legal online services pale into insignificance compared to the illicit demand. Even worse, consumer behaviour and expectations seems to have changed — free sharing of music is becoming the default mode. Not surprisingly, music companies are looking for the law for protection and other content industries fearing a similar fate are jumping onto the bandwagon.

Continue reading "Close to Boiling Point: ISPs, Aggregators and Music Rights Holders" »

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Online Video consumption is booming. The good news is that clearer demand patterns are beginning to emerge which should help in capacity planning and improving the user experience; the bad news is that an overall economic model which works for all players in the value chain is about as clear as mud.

We previously analysed the leffect of the launch of the BBC iPlayer on the ISP business model, but the truth is that, even in the UK, YouTube traffic still far outweighs the BBC iPlayer in the all important peak hour slot - even though the bitrate is far lower.

Looking at current usage data at a UK ISP we can see that the number of concurrent people using YouTube is roughly seven times that of the iPlayer. However, our analysis suggests that this situation is set to change quite dramatically as traditional broadcasters increase their presence online, with significant impact for all players. Here’s why:

Continue reading "Online Video Usage Scoreboard: YouTube thrashing iPlayer" »

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