Where will the next tranche of telecoms revenue come from.  The conventional wisdom is that we will continue to grow and grow the available fixed and mobile bandwidth, and we will then monetize this through the delivery of multimedia entertainment services (High Definition Video and Music and Games).  I just don't buy this vision of the future.  For better or for worse, the world has grown to believe that on-line video and music (and possibly games) should be free.  There are so many 'free' multimedia downloading...

The telecoms industry may have shown resilience during the recession but the focus on driving efficiencies and reducing costs looks set to continue, according to Ovum. A new report, entitled Telco Strategies for Recession and Recovery (March 2010), examines how the economic downturn has impacted service providers and how they are shaping up for recovery. Ovum warns that although the economic downturn hasn’t resulted in the downward pressure on telco top lines that many expected, revenue growth is in decline for many mature...

Maine (USA) legislators continue their determination of a bill requiring mobile phones to carry health warnings about the dangers of brain cancer. Supporters of the bill claim that Ignoring the health risks of heavy cell phone use invites a cancer epidemic, despite the fact that there is little scientific evidence supporting the claim. "We can do nothing and wait for the body count. That's what happened with smoking before warnings on cigarette packs were mandated”, David Carpenter, director of the Institute...

My background is not in telecom or software development, but business. Perhaps that is why I get lost in translation when our industry discusses the future role of Communications Service Providers (CSPs) in terms of dumb pipes or smart pipes. In my view, the discussion should probably go in a different direction.According to Wikipedia, the term smart pipe refers to “an operator’s network which leverages existing or unique service capabilities as well as the operator’s own customer relationships to provide value above and...

Google looks to do for the ‘cloud’ what Apple successfully did for the mobile world by setting up a Cloud-based app store. But that could be easier said than done. For third-party apps to successfully proliferate in this environment they will first have be integrated with existing Google Apps. The Google Apps Marketplace is an online store where Google Apps users can browse different cloud-based applications and select from a suite of online tools. The ability to share data between existing apps like Gmail and Docs,...

Back in China this week, working on my chop stick skills and have now mastered (almost) the art of taking noodles, one of my favorites, out of a big bowl without leaving most of them in the bowl or all over the table!  Also, tried some new things– cold goose with fresh chopped garlic and a soup of mushroom and donkey..that’s right donkey. Speaking of noodles, I often call my brain my noodle or when trying to come up with an answer to a question, I often say “I am noodling it out”.  So, here I’ll noodle out a question about...

One of the hot topics that I'm predicting is going to dominateour thinking by the end of this year is the topic of Mobile Money.  Thishas had an interesting niche role for the past few years in Africa and Asiawhere the mobile infrastructure & credit is being used as an alternative tolegal tender in regimes with either high inflation or little generalaccess to banking facilities.  That in itself is an interestingdevelopment, but in parallel with this we have seen a serious growth in mobilepayment, using near field...

I’ve just read a heart-wrenching story about a Somali man robbed of $200 then shot dead by his assailants, no doubt a common story in a country racked by over 19 years of anarchy. However, a new mobile money transfer and banking system being introduced by mobile operator Hormuud Telecom could have saved this one life and is set to save many others. Hormuud Telecom is the biggest network in Somalia with more than a million subscribers. It designed the software for its SAAD money transfer service, but was helped by neighbouring...

You know times are a’changing when the CEO of Microsoft announces that 90 per cent of his staff will be working on cloud platforms by next year. Steve Ballmer even went one step further when he said he was "betting the company" on the Windows Azure cloud platform. These are serious announcements and demonstrate how seriously he is taking threats from the likes of Amazon, Google and other cloud services vendors. Ballmer was presenting at the University of Washington's Computer Science and Engineering Department,...

The iPad is not the elusive “second side” of the telco business model.  Nevertheless the economics of the deal between Apple and at&t can be used as a primary example of the types of new business models that CFO’s of service providers need to consider experimenting with in order to replace the long, slow decline of their fixed-line businesses.  It also can serve as a model of how to work with other device manufacturers in the future.When the iPad was announced on January 27th of this year with a $30 USD per month pre-paid...