I was thinking back to when our alternative narrative on mobile becoming the central platform started. I think it was when Divakar Goswami and I were invited chair some sessions at ITU Telecom World in Hong Kong in December 2006. I listened to the various talks on fiber to the cabinet and home and felt like I was on listening to Martians. Our demand-side work was telling a completely different story. Our alternative narrative went into the 2008-10 research proposal that was written shortly after that.
The perception is that 3G networks are not being rolled out rapidly in India. But it could be that the Indian consumer is ahead of the operators and regulators, as we saw in Thailand where smartphone sales picked up well before 3G frequencies were assigned. Global smartphone shipments jumped 47 per cent to 229.6 million in Q2 2013 from 156.5 million units in Q2 2012, according to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, with Samsung accounting for much of the growth.
Telecom operators know exactly how many smartphones are in use in their networks. Therefore, Wireless Intelligence will know. But Reuters appears to be relying on ITU estimates. This year, the number of mobile Internet users in the developing world will overtake those in the developed world for the first time – growing 27 times since 2007, compared to the developed world’s fourfold growth, according to estimates from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). “The centre of gravity in the mobile ecosystem is likely to shift from the United States and Western Europe toward Asia,” Mary Ellen Gordon, director at mobile advertiser Flurry Inc, said in an emailed interview.
Fiji follows Papua New Guinea in assigning 4G frequencies. It appears the auction is going well. Notices posted by the Department of Communications yesterday showed that of the three telecommunications providers, only Vodafone filled their 30 MHz quota and had left the ongoing 4G spectrum auction leaving TFL and Digicel to bid for the remaining frequencies. Each company had a quota of 30 MHz. In total, there were 20 lots of spectrum to bid for with bids ranging from $131,500 to $504,700 by the close of the auctions yesterday.
Facebook is about to announce the results of a major initiative to make its services accessible to those at the bottom of the pyramid who do not yet use smartphones. More than 100 million people, or roughly one out of eight of its mobile users worldwide, now regularly access the social network from more than 3,000 different models of feature phones, some costing as little as $20. Many of those users, who rank among the world’s poorest people, pay little or nothing to download their Facebook news feeds and photos, with the data usage subsidized by phone carriers and manufacturers. We saw this phenomenon back in 2011 when our researchers were in the field in Indonesia and heard them say they use Facebook, but not the Internet. I have also discussed the possible rationale for serving low-income users who may not be generating revenue at this time.
Now that the licensing is done, it’s time for post mortems on the failed bids. Here is one on Viettel’s failed bid: In 2012, Telenor reported the total turnover of $16.5 billion and the net profit of $1.4 billion. The group has committed to develop the mobile network in the market the next year with the nationwide coverage within five years.
I have little sympathy for whinging about roaming regulation by operators, because I’ve heard it all before, in relation to reforms in international telephony. The sky was predicted to fall and rural areas deprived of needed investment. Yet we took away their cash cow and investment actually increased. But I had not psycho-analyzed their grief this well: Kroes also suggested that mobile operators will react to the loss of roaming revenue via various stages of grief. “They say that when faced with loss there are several stages of grief – from denial to anger to bargaining to acceptance.
We’ve been writing about spectrum sharing on and off. There is mention that sharing will be encouraged in the Indian National Telecom Policy 2012. Indications were that actions to implement the policy were underway. But it has come up against the need to raise more money from auctions. I came up against this problem in Bangladesh early this year.
Nathan Eagle is well known for his big data work in the Kibera slum in Kenya and elsewhere. Now it looks like he has monetized his knowledge to the tune of USD 15 million. On Monday, the Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s largest advertising holding companies, will announce a $15 million investment in Jana. The investment is the first by the company in a mobile technology start-up. As part of the investment, Maurice Lévy, the chief executive of Publicis, which is based in Paris, will join the board of directors at Jana.
If most people will access the Internet over mobile platforms, those in our countries must actually start using mobile broadband. Turkey seems to have some lessons. Turkey has been one of the main mobile broadband growth engines in the region and all three operators in the country benefitted from significant data revenue growth in the year to Q1 2013. Turkcell has been particularly active in marketing data services, with its own-branded range of low-priced smartphones (the “T” series) contributing to a smartphone penetration of 22% at the end of Q1 – some 6.9 million devices.
The 90 day period for finalizing the licenses is still not over, but information has been released on the planned pricing structures (this is unusual, since normal practice is to keep it secret until the day the products are launched). But then we should not expect normal from Myanmar. Norway-based Telenor said it will charge 25 kyat ($0.03) per minute for calls, while Qatar’s Ooredoo will put the price at 35 kyat ($0.04) per minute for on-net calls and 45 kyat ($0.
It’s been a few weeks since this presentation, developed on the basis of work Tahani Iqbal did while she was at LIRNEasia. It had one piece missing, the importance of timing. This was pointed out by my colleague M. Aslam Hayat. If MNP is introduced when a new and hungry entrant comes into the market, it could make a difference.
Travel broadens the mind. Maybe. I doubt that sometimes. Makes me reflect, at least. Since being asked to think about Sri Lanka-China relations recently, I’ve been paying attention to the ascendant Chinese model.
We used to talk about the hegemony of Wintel, the ironclad command exercised by Microsoft and Intel. The world changed. Internet came center stage. Mobile became the new thing. People like Jobs figured it out.
Xenophobes are not very bright. What Myanmar needs to achieve its target of connecting its people very quickly is massive investment. Myanmar Buddhist capital could not connect even five percent of the population in all these years. Now the government has decided to allow foreign capital to do the job. What color is money?
These were framing comments I made at the Panel discussion on “Regulatory challenges arising from the new mobile ecosystem,” GSMA Public Policy Forum at the Mobile Asia Expo 2013, Shanghai, 27 June 2013. The keywords are ecosystem and regulatory. It is widely recognized that the emerging Internet-centric communication system is far more complex than the old voice-centric one and that many more actors are involved, beyond the telecom operators, their vendors, regulators and policy makers. In particular, content and applications providers play an increasingly important role. Unfortunately, they are not represented on this panel, a shortcoming that I hope will be remedied in future episodes of what has to be a continuing conversation.