There are no new mistakes - just old ones that we make again and again.  This truism applies to all aspects of life and business, and never more so than to the launch of a new mobile generation.  It seems that everytime we begin the process of launching a new generation of mobile (1G to 2G;  or 2G to 3G) we delete the painful memories of how we got it wrong the last time, and blindly repeat the usual mistakes.  Lets try and break this cycle with LTE! First of all lets talk about the...

The speed at which Cloud computing has planted its feet firmly in the center stage of the IT and Communications world is quite interesting.  It's not a technology play - in fact I would be hard pushed to identify a single piece of new technology that is fundamental to cloud. And unlike Twitter or Facebook it's not a social-psychology phenomenom in any real sense - there is no "man-in-the-street' movement that is driving the uptake or need for cloud computing.  It is one of those rare beasts - a...

The topic of Net Neutrality has waxed and waned over the past three or four years as more fashionable and sexier topics have dominated the media.  But it has not gone away - nor can we expect it to.  In truth Net Neutrality is a central issue for the future of communications.  In its simplest form it is an argument about whether the people who provide and operate the networks should be able to charge differently depending on which type of service is consuming their network capacity.  The Operators argue...

Billing used to be so important for telecoms service providers that it lived in its own domain with direct links to Finance and IT. But how times have changed. Billing has been banished back to the back room again where it's just part of the broader BSS group. What's happened? Time was when billing conferences attracted thousands of delegates to prime locations like London, Paris, Rome and Cannes. And it attracted the brightest and the best. It turned out that billing people could really let their hair...

Just when you thought it was safe to stream all the video you want and download all the huge files your heart desires, pay-as-you-go charging models are back stalking the land and pressurizing “all-you-can-eat” flat-rate plans. In April, Time Warner started billing some customers based on how much bandwidth they used. As you can imagine, customers were unhappy when it was announced that the company would expand the trial run of this new billing system. The company relented, but not before saying it really has...

You may remember my angst when I launched the Charging Debate almost a year ago, as TM Forum embarked on updating the Business Process Framework (eTOM) to include “charging.”  The responses to the suggested definitions came thick and fast in what I later described as “The Light of the Charge Brigade” featured in Inside Revenue Management, September 2008. This time around, we are adapting the Online Charging applications definitions in the Application Framework (TAM) to process definitions...

The boom in smartphone sales and higher data usage is both a blessing and a scourge for mobile operators, and it may be the driver for new billing models to be adopted. The Singapore Straits Times is the latest to pick up on the phenomenon that operators hate to hear about — ‘bill shock’! The reason is simple: somebody (in this case an MP no less), appears ignorant of data charging while roaming. Once the customer is hit with a big bill, all hell breaks loose.  In this case, Ms. Lee Bee Wah chalked...

Volumes of data continue to grow rapidly - we now frequently talk in terms of Petabytes – AT&T transfers 16Pb of data through its network daily, while Google processes 20Pb of data per day.  When such companies upgrade their systems, reorganize or acquire new companies, they face a new scale of problem from previous generations of enterprises.  And it isn’t simply a volume problem, because the data they use to manage their operations is frequently inter-related and shared across both processes and...

As anyone who regularly reads my blog will know I am a fan of the potential of LTE.  In terms of speed of growth, my gut feel tells me that it will move on a much faster curve than 3G - but in reality it couldn't be much slower!  A recent report by Pyramid research tells us that LTE will grow at around 400% between 2010 and 2014 - much faster than 3G.  To date, 27 mobile operators worldwide have publicly committed to deploying LTE, with 12 of them expected to roll out commercial services in 2010 and the...

For the first time ever, the entirety of this year’s Management World conference was captured on video. All of the videos are now available via Virtual Management World.l   The Virtual Management World is a great resource for our attendees, who gain free access, and also for all non-attendees who can purchase the pass for a fee. Visit the Virtual Management World home page for instructions and fee information.