Convergence Conversation

The Telco 2.0 team will be at the 2012 GSMA Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona in force - let us know if you'd like to meet. Here are the seven good reasons why we'll be there:

1. Networking. Apart from our own brainstorms, MWC is one of the few places where we can meet most of our key clients as well as new innovators. This year we've partnered with European Leaders on a 'Hot Topics' evening networking event on Monday 27th February, where our latest analysis on M-Commerce and OTT-player impacts on Voice and Messaging will stimulate two panel discussions comprising senior execs from Foursquare, Groupon, Vimplecom, Telefonica, Skype, Visa, Telenor and others. More...

Telco 2.0 and European Leaders are running the 'Hot Topics Mobile' senior panel and networking event at this year's Mobile World Congress (MWC) on the 27th February 2012 at the Hotel Omm, Barcelona.

At this invitation only event, 250 thought leaders of the mobile industry will talk to a select group of wireless influencers about what's on their mind, stimulated by the latest Telco 2.0 analysis.

• Debate topic #1 Mobile Communications - Is Facebook the Future?


• Debate topic #2 Mobile Commerce - Changing the way we shop

...from mobile communications... More...

• Strategy & Finance: Smartphone Q4s: Apple, Samsung, Nokia, AT&T
• Broadband Connectivity: Verizon, AT&T, TWC Q4s: fibre and cable beating VDSL soundly
• Google: Wallet chief quits, troubled fibre project, privacy row, search criticised, chromebooks don't sell
• Customer Data: O2 tells everyone your phone number, Facebook IPO watch
• Technology Disruptions: Must-read - are we risking a repeat of the 1986 Internet congestion collapse?
• The Sixth Bullet: Why can't you have the MWC agenda in your calendar?

[Ed: This is the last week that 'Early Bird' rates will be available for the New Digital Economics Brainstorm in Silicon Valley on the 27th-28th of March, so book now if you can. More...

• Strategy & Finance: Microsoft, Intel, IBM beat expectations - Windows Phones behind WinMo, though
• Smartphones: Google beats expectations - the wrong way, RIM sacks both CEOs
• Content 2.0: Feds seize Megaupload, SOPA wars are over
• Voice 2.0: DECIX launches open ENUM, Startup watch: Vox.io
• M2M & Embedded Mobile: Vodafone - No.1 in the world for M2M?

[Ed: 'Early Bird' rates are still available for the New Digital Economics Brainstorms in Silicon Valley on the 27th-28th of March, and then in London on the 12th-13th of June for our spring EMEA event. Email contact@stlpartners.com or call +44 (0) 20 7247 5003 to join us.]

It was a busy results week - and, as Businessweek reports, Microsoft, IBM, and Intel beat the spread. More...

Our latest research examines 'Under-The-Floor' Players - the strategic threats and opportunities presented by wholesale providers, outsourcers and government-run broadband networks.

The telecoms industry often puts so-called OTT (over-the-top) players like Google and Facebook at the forefront of its concerns, as they pose new competition for services and applications. But what about encroachment of companies "underneath" the telcos, displacing them from their core asset, the network?

To read an extract from the report, please see our research portal here.

• Strategy & Finance: Free Mobile - reaction, excitement, price war
• Google: Upping the ante on social, or the biggest mistake ever?
• Broadband Connectivity: Telenor CEO on the Telco 2.0 challenge
• Technology Disruptions: Intel, Lenovo, Motorola Mobility push x86 chips into mobile
• Social Media: Facebook IPO for late May?

[Ed: 'Early Bird' rates are still available for the New Digital Economics Brainstorms in Silicon Valley on the 27th-28th of March, and then in London on the 12th-13th of June for our spring EMEA event. Email contact@stlpartners.com or call +44 (0) 20 7247 5003 to join us.]

Benoit Felten reviews the impact of Free Mobile's launch, pointing out that it implements two of their historic selling points (low prices and simple propositions) but not the third (innovative services), although there is an argument that the heavy use of WLAN offload and femtocells represents an innovative solution on the cost side. More...

This chart highlights the serious concerns we're now seeing for messaging and voice revenues across the telco industry.

The c.300+ Telco 2.0 community members we asked in late 2011 across our EMEA and APAC Brainstorms predicted remarkably similar declines, which were also in keeping with our findings in the 'Dealing with the Disruptors' report.

While it's difficult to take these views as a definitive absolute guide to the ultimate revenue impact, many telcos worldwide are starting to see real impacts from so-called 'Over-The-Top' (OTT) services, which were unambiguously identified by delegates as the main cause of these predicted drops. More...

A BlackBerry design concept from 2009 has been leaked and divides opinion at Telco 2.0.

Perhaps the really interesting question is whether the state-of-2009 BlackBerry OS, hardware, and service experience would have benefited that much from more exciting industrial design. After all, a very big chunk of the iPhone's appeal has been concentrated in the software and in the supporting cast of iTunes features and services.

While other vendors (naming no names) came up with some very complex streaming models, Apple concentrated on keeping your content in sync between different devices and making sure you could get it from any of them to any playback device that might be hanging around. More...

The web is agog about the launch of Free.fr's mobile network, long awaited. Om Malik interviews CEO Xavier Niel, and it's quite impressive how much Telco 2.0 comes up.

"Since it is our own set-top box, we can innovate around it," he says. "In the U.S., they buy their set-top boxes from other providers." That's a mistake and lost opportunity, Niel says and proceeds to outline how pivotal these set-top boxes are for his company and its future.

They're referring to the Freebox Revolution devices Free pushed out last year. We've long been arguing the importance of better CPE, and pointing to Free as a case study of how to do it (they engineer them in house, based on open-source software). More...

• Technology Disruptions: CES - another push for smart TV, more DISH/VZW rumours
• Online Video: UK Netflix is go for launch, pricing above Lovefilm's
• Smartphone Roundup: Apple loves Flash storage, Samsung Q4 - impressive or just soft numbers?
• Strategy & Finance: Vodafone announces a new partnership strategy, Free.fr mobile launch
• Voice & Messaging 2.0: Cisco quietly exits consumer telepresence

[Ed: 'Early Bird' rates are available for the New Digital Economics Brainstorms in Silicon Valley on the 27th-28th of March, and then in London on the 12th-13th of June for our spring EMEA event. Email contact@stlpartners.com or call +44 (0) 20 7247 5003 to join us.]

It's CES week, and expectations are high because early sales numbers for Christmas are depressing. More...