Convergence Conversation

We're running a major online research survey to gauge views across the industry on the relative threats and opportunities presented to telcos by the main Western adjacent market players - Google, Apple, Facebook, Micorosoft/Skype, and Amazon. It is to support our new strategy report on strategies for co-opetition with these players to be published in H2 2011.

To say 'thank you' for your input, if you complete the survey (click here - it should take about 10 minutes), we'll give you a discount of 20% on a personal single-user license or a 10% discount on a multi-user license for your organisation on this report, as well as sending you a copy of the survey results when complete. More...

We were discussing this at the Intellect Financial Services Group the other day, so I thought I'd put forward a concrete suggestion based on an article I've been writing for a magazine. What the Group was discussing was interim report from the Independent Commission on Banking "Consultation on Reform Options". This report raises the subject of bank account number portability. Section 5.17, to be specific, says that:

Beyond improvements to the existing system, full account number portability would enable customers to change banking service providers without changing their bank account number.

More...

Are we heading towards an all out vendor battle for prospective new tablet buyers? According to the latest market assessment by In-Stat, they believe the tablet market will eventually support many sub-segments -- based upon usage. Therefore, demand will be driven by innovation in the technology, the usage models and ultimately vendor business models.

"When you compare the iPad 2 to the most recent competitor, the Xoom from Motorola, you end up with two devices that are very similar all the way down to the basic specifications of the processors," says Jim McGregor, Chief Tehnology Strategist at In-Stat. More...

Conventional wisdom has it that operators are looking forward to smartphone prices dropping, and it means they will need to spend less on subsidy to acquire and retain customers.

Leaving aside the likelihood of iPhones continuing to stay at the top of the range, it's certainly becoming true that the lower end of the Android device range, as well as Symbian, Bada and BlackBerry, are falling precipitously, already in some cases to below $150-200.

Now while there will always be the tech enthusiasts wanting the ultimate 2GHz, super high-res screen, OS version 9 smartphones, it's possible that Joe or Joanne Average will be happy with something with a decent browser, fairly responsive screen, OK camera, good Facebook client and a screen big enough to watch kittens doing backflips on YouTube. More...

Interesting article by Tomi T Ahonen (ex Nokia), who says that the smartphone war is being fought not over handsets or even brands, but over OS.

http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/07/understanding-smartphone-market-share-battle-not-for-phones-is-for-platform.html  

Yesterday HKBN made an announcement that they were lowering the price of their bandwidth guaranteed 100Mb/s symmetric fiber service in Hong-Kong to HK$99, roughly US$13. HKBN already is one of the only providers worldwide to offer 1Gb/s symmetric service, and the only one (to my knowledge) to offer a moneyback guarantee on broadband quality. They currently own a little above 20% of the broadband market in Hong-Kong according to their latest numbers, and they are the fastest growing (and most profitable) broadband provider there.

This is no insignificant price decrease since HKBN's 100/100 offer was previously HK$268! Awesome indeed! Yet more proof that acquisition is more important than ARPU in the FTTH game. More...

Internet Video is a booming business in it’s own right, a key driver of broadband volumes and costs, and increasingly an important component of telcos and other broadband service provider’s (BSPs) packaged broadband offerings (see our recent Strategy Report “Online Video Market Study: The impact of video on broadband business models” ). The Goliath US Sports network, ESPN, has just entered the UK market, and we analyse here their history, strategy, and lessons for BSPs and other content aggregators both here in the UK and elsewhere.

Introduction

In the rush to find a working model for monetizing internet video, the most obvious solution is often overlooked – the payTV model. More...

Today's announcement about BET perpetuates more than one Big Lie, and sadly many will believe that this is "job done" for long lines.

Let's keep banging on about this until we get it, shall we?

In 1984, broadband was defined as a service that was capable of simultaneous transmission and receiving of voice, video and data. We have allowed commercial entities the opportunity (often through ignorance and a failure to listen to experts, grassroots and consumers) to lower that bar to the point where this country now lags behind in the information and knowledge economies.

Even in 2009, 1Mbps asymmetrical is NOT broadband and it is utterly useless for bringing 21st century communications to rural citizens and businesses of this country. More...

What is happening with Blyk? There has always been a slight whiff of cordite around the ad-boosted, two-sided MVNO, with mutterings aplenty around the viability of their retail business. We’ve been long time admirers of elements of their business model, even if we have admittedly sat on the fence about their prospects.

Now, Blyk is apparently preparing to hand its customers over to Orange UK; some people are describing this as Blyk “giving up”, or as signs of serious problems there. We disagree, and we would like to point to the simultaneous deal they signed with Vodafone in the Netherlands as evidence. More...

Last night's Convergence Conversation was revealing in what it did not reveal. With experts from PA Consulting, Vizioncore, Memset, various analyst houses and the legal profession (including our esteemed hosts Bird & Bird), you'd think we'd have enough brainpower and complimentary skills to paint the finest picture of Cloud to help Cloud-newbies get in on the action.

But what is Cloud?

Some participants didn't think we needed to define it. Personally, I'm not sure how a group can discuss any thing without a common agreement on what the thing is, so, as I was in the chair, we attempted a definition off the bat. More...