Challenger Mobile and Wireless Systsems Integrator iCELL Network Annouce Partnership
CommunicAsia2008 Conference - Singapore - June 18, 2008 : Challenger Mobile, the white label Mobile VoIP Company with a unique managed service approach to helping mobile operators and service providers enter new markets and reach new audience segments, and iCELL Network, one of Singapore's pioneering Wireless ISPs and system integrators, today announced a partnership to jointly deliver end-to-end Mobile VoIP solutions throughout the Asia/Pacific region.
Today the companies announced that Challenger Mobile has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with iCELL Network. iCELL has extensive experience in integrating wireless technology and providing wireless end-to-end services, including expertise gained while building one of the world's largest and fastest mesh Wi-Fi hotzones for Wireless@SG, Singapore's award-winning public Wi-Fi network. In the MoU, the companies agree to cooperate in Mobile VoIP projects, combining iCELL's expertise in wireless and Challenger Mobile's in VoIP to deliver an end-to-end Mobile VoIP solution to mobile operators and service providers throughout the Asia/Pacific region.
Esa Pollari, Challenger Mobile's Director of Business Development, says, "VoIP is already commonly used at home, but public Wi-Fi networks haven't seen much VoIP usage because of barriers like cumbersome log-in pages, unwieldy payment schemes and privacy concerns. Wi-Fi aggregators have introduced some usability improvements, but in order to reach its full potential, Mobile VoIP requires careful network planning and optimization, which you want to leave to an expert integrator. We have found such a partner in iCELL."
iCELL's CEO Ken Chua adds, "Mobile VoIP is an exciting opportunity for the whole ICT industry. It's not so much a technical challenge, but more a question of finding the right partners. Together, Challenger Mobile and iCELL can deliver an end-to-end solution. In contrast, service providers that shop around for bits and pieces, end up playing referee to vendors who blame each other when their products don't work. Our solution is pre-integrated." /PR
Online Content Revenues Grow in Asia
ABI Research forecasts that online content revenues in the Asia-Pacific region will reach $6.5 billion by 2013.
Improvements in wireless technologies and advancements in mobile devices are allowing consumers greater connectivity on the go.
"In developed nations such as Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong, many people are watching short clips, television, listening to music, or playing games on their mobile devices to kill time while commuting,” said Serene Fong, analyst at ABI Research.
“Telcos now regard media and entertainment as an effective means of replacing their declining voice revenues in a market where VoIP, IPTV, and fixed-mobile substitution are rapidly growing in popularity,” Ms. Fong added.
Japan is currently the regional leader in online content revenues, and ABI expects the trend to persist through 2013 as the market grows at a 6% annual rate. [eMarketer]
Legal Online Content to Generate $6.5 Billion in Asia-Pacific Region in 2013
The young and tech-savvy of the Asia-Pacific region spend vast amounts of time online in their pursuit of electronic entertainment. A new ABI Research study focused on online content usage in APAC forecasts that online media activities in the region will deliver at least $6.5 billion in annual revenues by the end of 2013.
“Telcos now regard media and entertainment as an effective means of replacing their declining voice revenues in a market where VoIP, IPTV, and fixed-mobile substitution are rapidly growing in popularity,” says ABI Research analyst Serene Fong.
Telecoms players in Asia are bracing themselves for the era of triple and quadruple-play, allowing their customers greater connectivity on their mobile devices, both at home and on the go. Improvements in wireless technologies and advancements in mobile devices have buttressed this concept.
According to Fong, “The availability of 2.5G, 3G, iMode, and HSPA handsets has equipped consumers with Web capabilities at reasonably high connection speeds even while they are on the move. In developed nations such as Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong, many people are watching short clips, television, listening to music, or playing games on their mobile devices to kill time while commuting.”
Japan is currently leading the legal content revenue market in APAC and is expected to continue doing so, growing at a 6% six-year compound annual growth rate. But ABI Research also notes that while the prospects for the legal online content market are very good, the birth of high-speed connectivity has also inadvertently given rise to P2P file-sharing sites that have perpetrated widespread content piracy. [ABI Research]
Fixed Mobile Convergence Market Set to Expand to 250 Million Users by 2012
Operators are now rolling out converged services on fixed and mobile networks, converting trials to commercial deployments. 2008 will see another spate of trials, as femtocell technology begins to become available.
The move to FMC infrastructure is a natural evolution for the mobile network as broadband services, including Voice over IP and other Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) services, begin to be deployed. Both Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) and SIP infrastructures are being deployed and dual use Wi-Fi and cellular devices will be joined by femtocells in 2008. According to a new ABI Research report, operators are fully aware of the increasing threat from mobile VoIP services and FMC will allow them to offer similar services and tariff packages.
“As we move to the end of the decade, mobile networks will emerge with a flat all-IP architecture using 3GPP standards to deliver multimedia services and VoIP,” says principal analyst Ian Cox. In the meantime operators want to offer attractive calling plans to consumer and enterprise users. This will enable a single device to use both mobile and fixed broadband networks, improving business efficiency and enabling users to access directory information easily from their favourite devices.”
For operators, says Cox, FMC provides data offload onto the broadband fixed network and improved indoor coverage from the mobile network.
For users, a wider choice of mobile devices is coming along that will remove a barrier to service adoption. This will speed up the development of content and services, to the advantage of the whole industry. [ABI Research]
Japan, Korea Approach VoIP Differently
By the second quarter of 2007, there were 15.3 million VoIP subscribers in Japan, representing 56.5% of broadband users and accounting for 28.2% of total voice subscriptions.
VoIP uptake in South Korea has been low, despite promotion of additional functions such as personalization and mobility. There were only 200,000 subscribers at the end of 2007, out of a total of 14.6 million home and work broadband subscribers, according to PointTopic.
The introduction of number portability in early 2008 leads Ovum to predict that 2008 will be the year VoIP catches on in South Korea. It expects VoIP to reach a 10% telephone market share by year-end.
"The different market development in the two countries implies that high broadband penetration is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the success of VoIP," said Ovum senior analyst Suran Seong. "A favorable regulatory framework, including interconnection arrangements and numbering reform, is also needed." [eMarketer]
Partnerships Vital in Developing Enterprise Voice Over Wi-Fi Markets
While Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi) has made some inroads in consumer markets, several inhibiting factors are temporarily restraining its adoption by business, according to a new study from ABI Research.
“The future is pretty bright for VoWi-Fi, but it will be a little while before it becomes a horizontal application that’s attractive to mainstream enterprises,” says ABI Research vice president and research director Stan Schatt.
“We’re seeing historic early Wi-Fi adopters with special needs that are addressed by VoWi-Fi once again becoming early adopters of this technology, in key verticals such as healthcare, retail, manufacturing and hospitality. Large enterprise clients, however, have tended to be more conservative.”
There are several hurdles to overcome.
One is the complexity of this embryonic technology, which in almost all cases requires extensive partnering between manufacturers and vendors of individual system elements, both at the handset and network levels. “Enterprise VoWi-Fi is a complicated market because there are so many disparate pieces of technology that have to work together,” says Schatt.
“That requires a lot of partnering, and some vendors are better at partnering than others. Cisco Systems, Trapeze Networks, Xirrus Networks, DiVitas Networks and the SpectraLink division of Polycom have all found partnering models appropriate to their niches and needs.”
Other problems include the lack of industry-wide standards. The Wi-Fi Alliance is scheduled to start enterprise VoWi-Fi equipment interoperability testing only in Spring 2008. “With key standards still not in place,” notes Schatt, “vendors have jumped in with proprietary solutions. So for now you’re still forced to go with a one-vendor solution. The start of certification testing on enterprise-grade Wi-Fi handsets will go a long way towards opening this market up.” [ABI Research]
Broadband Brings Broad Changes
Will zippier delivery speeds zap slower players?
As broadband connectivity spreads around the world, so do the value-added services of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and Internet protocol television (IPTV).
"VoIP is a genuinely disruptive technology; it is already changing the telecommunications landscape," says eMarketer Senior Analyst Ben Macklin, author of the new Broadband Services: VoIP and IPTV report.
Internet telephony, both free and paid services, grew rapidly during 2006, driven by the rapid uptake of high-speed Internet, a greater awareness of VoIP and attractive bundled offerings from service providers.
According to the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), VoIP subscribers will account for over one-third of all US landline subscriptions in 2010, up from approximately 10% in 2006.
eMarketer estimates that 46% of US broadband households in 2011 will subscribe to a VoIP service, equating to 41.3 million VoIP subscribers.
"eMarketer expects approximately 30% of broadband households worldwide to subscribe to a paid VoIP service by 2011," says Mr. Macklin. "In addition to paid subscriptions, millions of broadband households are regularly utilizing free Internet voice services from companies such as Skype, which recently reported 171 million registered users at the end of 2006, up nearly 100 million from a year earlier."
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Display Ads Still Get the Job Done
Static ads remain an important arrow in the online marketing quiver.
Vonage has brought the high tech of VoIP to the masses, but when it comes to online ads, it still believes in the basics, according to new data from TNS Media Intelligence.
Need data for presentations? eMarketer subscribers have over 46,000 charts to choose from. Request Info
The Internet phone company spent over $185 million on display ads in 2006, outspending both rival Verizon Communications and display ad giant Netflix.
eMarketer senior analyst and online ad specialist David Hallerman estimates that budget share for display and classified ads will remain relatively flat through 2011, with paid search inching up and rich media and video gaining sharply.
Despite display ads' humble stature, Vonage and its fellow big spenders are onto something. A December 2006 study by Datran Media revealed that display ads remain an important tactic for US marketers, behind only e-mail and search marketing. In fact, display ads were named as important by more than twice as many respondents as online video.
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China VoIP Takes Off, in Legal and Illegal Forms
Long distance is expensive in China, which is making voice over IP (VoIP) a big hit there, according to In-Stat.
Broadband VoIP subscribers who get their service from telecom carriers are estimated to number 9.53 million by the end of 2011, up from 720,000 in 2006. Both standard VoIP service and IP-based calling cards are selling briskly.
Only traditional service providers are allowed to legally provide broadband VoIP in China, but demand is so great that an illegal option already has over a million subscribers.
"Virtual VoIP carriers (VVCs) provide PC to phone services by deploying soft-switching systems on Internet and media gateways between the Internet and public switched telephone networks," reported Kevin Li of In-Stat.
"They operate illegally and have little phone-number resources (most subscribers can only make outgoing calls). However, due to intense competition among voice service providers, and VVCs' lower price compared with traditional long-distance calling or IP card services, VVCs are having success."
VVC consumer broadband IP telephony subscribership is estimated to reach 12.96 million by 2011, up from 1.23 million at the end of 2006. [eMarketer]
Dual-mode Handsets To See Impressive Growth
A new Juniper Research report says that worldwide VoWiFi equipment revenues will likely reach more than $82 billion by 2012. North America will lead the market with $35 billion in revenues, EMEA will come in second with $23 billion, and Asia Pacific will bring in $21 billion. other findings:
- Dual-mode cellular/VoWiFi mobile handsets will be the main source of revenue, generating nearly $68 billion in revenue by 2012.
- Single-mode VoWiFi handsets will see a relatively slow increase in revenue owing primarily to high pricing (total revenues by 2012 will hover around $1.5 billion).
- Enterprise VoIP-supporting APs will garner more than $5 billion by 2012.
- Enterprise VoIP-supporting WLAN switch/mobility controllers will reach nearly $8 billion by 2012.
Basharat Hamid Ashai, the study's author, says that "the dual-mode handset market will pick up much faster in the coming years than the single-mode WiFi handset sector. The handset market is moving to a stage where no one wants to carry two or three devices in their pocket, so the ability to have a single device for all calls is a compelling proposition."
The report notes that another trend that will become more important in the next five years is the use of wireless mesh technologies for VoIP. These networks are currently used mostly for data applications, but the in the coming years the technology will be used more and more for voice. [FierceWiFi]
IBM and Nortel Drive Network Convergence
IBM and Nortel have reached new milestones in helping telecom carriers drive network convergence. Their joint efforts are designed to give their subscribers a seamless voice, data and video communications experience across a wide range of devices accessed from any network — wireline, wireless or DSL/cable broadband.
This includes fostering an expanded ecosystem for third parties to develop and test new converged applications, and build joint innovation centers. Nortel is also integrating with IBM's WebSphere software.
In addition, the newly forged agreement facilitates the inclusion of Nortel Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) applications in IBM carrier solutions.
"IBM and Nortel are extending our market leading offerings to give carriers an enhanced and interoperable service execution environment," said Tim Greisinger, vice president, communications industry, IBM Software.
"Further, we are enabling a global ecosystem of third party independent software vendors (ISVs) to deliver next generation telecom services leveraging IBM's open, IMS and SOA standards-based service delivery platform."
The new arrangement builds on an existing relationship that has led to successful IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) carrier customer trials across the globe. As part of the new agreement IBM and Nortel will use each of their current IMS developer and interoperability testing programs to accelerate and enable telecom application providers and carriers to bring new multimedia services to market, such as: presence capabilities, IP security/surveillance, child tracking, "find-your-buddy," video dating, and enterprise business applications with click-to-call capabilities.
"Our partnership with IBM will give subscribers a more interactive and entertaining communications experience because they will be able to access their services from any device and roam seamlessly, with uninterrupted service, across any network."
"By combining the strengths of Nortel and IBM, we are simplifying communications and giving our carrier customers the tools they need to deploy new services and applications quickly and cost effectively," said Alf Decardenas, general manager, Converged Multimedia Networks, Nortel.
Microsoft Files With FCC For Wireless Device, Zune?
Microsoft submitted a filing to the FCC for a prototype of a wireless device that could be used to talk over the Internet (VoIP), which would make it an Internet Phone, or I-Phone. The filing is similar to the one Apple filed ahead of its iPhone unveiling, except Microsoft is not going the cellular route with what many believe to be its Zune phone.
Microsoft chose OFDM technology, which Sprint and privately-held Clearwire have tested and deployed. Microsoft claims the device will be used for "consumer broadband access and networking." Sufficiently vague.
The announcement makes the iPhone saga that much weirder. Here's a potential music phone (Zune-phone), which everyone expected to weakly compete with Apple's iPhone. Unexpectedly, Microsoft goes the VoIP route.
Meanwhile, Apple is fighting Cisco's trademark of "IPhone" by arguing that a VoIP phone and a cellular phone are effectively different things. A VoIP-enabled Zune certainly won't drum up the fanfare Apple has with its iPhone, but it just might give Apple's trademark lawyers a headache.
Source: FierceWireless. For more on Microsoft's Zune phone, read this article from MarketWatch
Next-Gen Networks To Top $1 Trillion in Capital Investment by 2015
According to a new ABI Research Brief, network operators are slowly beginning to roll out all-IP next generation networks (NGN). The move to an Internet Protocol-based infrastructure is a natural evolution for the fixed network as broadband services, including Voice over IP, take over from the Public Switched Telephone Network.
Mobile networks have a parallel evolution to IP (although at a slower pace), but the standards work is accelerating. By the end of 2007 there will be full NGN standards for fixed and mobile networks allowing IP-based services to be deployed on NGN, a process that ABI Research analysts expect to be largely complete by 2015 for a total cumulative investment of more than $1 trillion.
“As we move to the end of the decade, bandwidth-hungry services such as IPTV will need an IP infrastructure to support them. Operators will also want to control operating costs by moving all services over an IP network,” says ABI Research analyst Ian Cox. “This will enable deployment of service delivery platforms and IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) in the network, streamlining operations and allowing new services to be introduced quickly.”
For users, says Cox, NGN provide better and more compelling services and deliver higher data rates, for video and rich voice sessions. For operators, NGN allow services and transport in the network to be separated and to evolve independently. This will speed up the development of content and services, to the advantage of the whole industry. [ABI Research]
267 Million Residential Voice over IP Subscribers Worldwide by 2012
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone services, which last year counted less than 38 million subscribers worldwide, should have a subscriber base of over 267 million in 2012, according to a new study released by ABI Research.
"Hosted service providers, the pioneers of commercial VoIP, are going to grow to some extent, but it will be cable operators and other broadband providers trying to leverage their high speed data networks who will really push VoIP in the future," says principal broadband analyst Michael Arden. These operators want to add value to their broadband "pipes," and they want to generate new revenues over and above what they earn from their basic data services.
While traditional telcos have been slow to embrace VoIP due to their huge investment in conventional telephone networks, their desire for total control of service quality and their fear of upsetting their existing customer relationships, the development of VoIP markets will play out differently in the world's major regions.
"In the US," says Arden, "it's driven by competition: cable operators are offering VoIP, hoping to take some customers away from the telephone companies. Eventually the cable operators will start offering converged services, and to compete, the telcos will have to go to VoIP as well."
"In Europe, though, many telecom operators are currently upgrading and implementing Ethernet networks for increased operational efficiencies. (BT is doing this on a huge scale right now.) When they do so, they're taking VoIP into consideration and making it part of their network upgrade. Meanwhile in Japan, the drive isn't coming from the telecom operators or even from the cable operators, it's really the third-party broadband players such as SoftBank."
Consumers' decisions to switch to VoIP telephony are at present based largely on its lower cost and the offer of simplified billing, but Arden sees those reasons as temporary. By around the end of the decade, be believes, the driving motivation will be how VoIP telephony is converged with video, online gaming and other services.
Source: ABI Research
Fusion Launches Non-PC VoIP
Fusion Telecommunications International, Inc. today announced the launch of Mobilink, a revolutionary new service that allows subscribers to access its retail Efonica VoIP services from their mobile phones, without Internet access or special software.
Mobilink allows subscribers to enjoy the low cost and excellent quality of VoIP from their mobile phones. Subscribers simply dial an access number, which automatically authenticates their Efonica member status and allows them to call virtually any number in the world at savings of up to 80% compared to their mobile carrier. This service will also be available from landline telephones.
An important Mobilink feature allows users to call any in-network Efonica subscriber worldwide for free by simply dialing '10,' the Worldwide Internet Area Code, prior to the registered phone number of the called party. Subscribers to Mobilink also have access to Efonica's full suite of Internet based VoIP solutions. Consumers subscribe to Mobilink by visiting Efonica's new website at www.efonica.com and completing an easy registration process.
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