There’s a lot of radical thinking going on in the mobile business these days and here’s the latest. Vodafone and Orange have signed a non-binding agreement to let each other to use the others 3G infrastructure.
It’s all about their RANs – Radio Access Networks, which connect customers mobiles to the operators networks.
Until now they’ve gone around installing their own, but are now realising that this is a mighty expensive business, seeing as the cost is several £100k per base station. In rural areas these may only service a handful of people, thus rending their investment uneconomic.
The core of the proposal is to
- Continue managing their own traffic independently
- Retain full responsibility for the quality of service they offer their respective customers
- Remain competitors in the UK mobile wholesale and retail markets
The summary – share infrastructure, but compete on service.
What’s forcing this?
When the mobile companies bid for the 3G licenses, not only did they pay over a huge amount of money, but they also took on obligations to provider 3G services to a certain percentage of the UK population.
As not many people have signed up for 3G, the mobile companies haven’t wanted to spend the money on servicing a population that isn’t giving them money with subscriptions and they’ve let their obligations slip. Until now Ofcom hasn’t been pursing them on this.
Three, the largest 3G provider in the UK, has recently been saddled with three little letters by Ofcom – SMP – Significant Market Power. They’re not too happy with the restrictions that this imposes on them, so have been pointing out to Ofcom that the other 3G license holders aren’t fulfilling their coverage obligations.
To ensure that they don’t get saddled with substantial fines by Ofcom, the other 3G holders will need to expand their infrastructure. By sharing costs on this, they save money.
More details of this will be provided by Steve Kennedy, an expert in this area, in an article later today tomorrow.
According to a report in yesterday’s Observer, Google has been cosying up to mobile giants Orange with a multi-billion-dollar plan to knock out a ‘Google phone,’ offering easy Web searches on the move.
The Observer reported that the phone could access Google’s databases to offer a wealth of location-based searches, including personalised listings of local cinemas, restaurants and other amenities, and maps and images from Google Earth.
O2 Ireland has become the first European mobile operator to offer Napster Mobile.
O2 has spend a considerable amount of money tying themselves to music, attempting to benefit from all of the ‘cool’ that it can bring. You only have to witness the party they threw at IFA last year to understand how successfully they’ve been with it – it was definitely the best party at IFA, rammed full of young things gyrating.
Smartphone unit sales are soaring, with sales almost tripling between 2004 and 2005, and increasing a further 50% in the first half of 2006 compared to the previous year.
Despite the spectacular sales, Hughes advised caution, pointing out that many smartphone users continue to lug around the very devices that smartphones are supposed to replace.
3 has seriously stepped up the offerings for providing services to mobile handsets. Their new service, X-Series, offers viewing of your own TV using 
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There will be repercussions – not least from the TV companies who really don’t like the idea that people can watch their TV when they’re on the move. To be precise it’s the fact that they don’t make any money out of it, is the bit they don’t like.
Although we’re not alone in thinking that the Palm Treo is the best smartphone around, the device suffers from one tragic omission; Wi-Fi.
This design has obvious advantages and disadvantages; the advantage is that the sled offers its own power supply, giving users a considerably enhanced battery life compared to handheld-powered Wi-Fi cards; the disadvantage is that the thing adds bulk to the phone.
The unit must be charged for two hours before use, with a small amber LED blinking while charging. This turns to solid green when the Treo is connected to a Wi-Fi network.
The first few times we tried this, it took so much effort to pull the phone in and out of the sled we began to fear we’d end up breaking the thing.
UK satellite operator, Sky is building on their video offerings on the Sky Mobile service, by adding the Extreme Sports Channel.
A visual communications company, All New Video, have announced a deal with BBC to enable feedback and input into TV programmes from viewers, video calling from 3G phones, Web cams and ISDN. On the voice side, it will add VoIP to its inbound voice channels.
The system give the assistant producer the ability to carry out a video chat with the viewer letting them ascertain their suitability of the show – frankly, filter out those not relevant. Each person can also be ranked and some notes made about them.
The new BBC system will let people do the same from the safety of their own bedrooms, where they’ll be able to leave their five minutes of video wisdom in a video mail system.
Vodafone is hotly denying that its enthusiasm for 3G has waned, after rumours began circulating that the operator was cutting handset subsidies and abandoned all hope of the technology ever becoming a lucrative commercial success.
Video calling
Not surprisingly, the UK’s only 3G-only network, 3, were quick to quibble about the claims, insisting that the wild popularity of their downloadable music and mobile TV services is proof positive that the demand is there – if the technology is marketed correctly.
Well they got there finally, Vodafone UK have announced that they’re releasing the less than catchy named Vodafone Mobile Connect USB Modem in the Autumn. It will support their 3G data service and, surprise, surprise, connect to computers using a USB lead. Rather neatly the software disks aren’t needed, as they’re installed directly from the modem.