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Top Stories
1. Skype partnership may blow apart mobile international and roaming ripoff
2. O2 offers deal to i-mode content providers
3. Telstra tells the Empress that she has no clothes
1. Skype partnership may blow apart mobile international and roaming ripoff
It's with great irony that just as DoCoMo was gearing up to join the world-wide telco roaming ripoff of consumers that its i-mode alliance partner in Germany - E-Plus - has joined forces with Skype to potentially blow the scam apart.
E-Plus, Germany's third largest mobile operator, has 9.8 million subscribers. In another ironic twist it is under attack by another i-mode alliance partner - O2 Germany - in its home market.
Why would E-Plus do this, and potentially break ranks with the international roaming cartel? Because:
- they don't have big ambitions for global business roaming customers, and
- they are in a life and death battle for their domestic market segment, and
- they get more kudos and brand recogition from the assocation with Skype than from a lifetime of other PR and advertising.
And in fact E-Plus will spill out of its target demographic and rapidly capture business and frequent international callers who will be immediately attracted by calls at Skype rates on their mobiles. This is the biggest story for consumers to hit mobile - not content, not ringtones, not SMS but really cheap voice calls - anywhere anytime.
The Register reports: The landmark deal will give E-Plus users access to fixed rate mobile internet access for €39.95 (US$50) per month and free Skype voice over IP (VoIP) calling.
And in Unstrung: "E-Plus is the first mobile operator to partner with Skype, taking the first step to deliver Skype's vision of making Skype available over any network, including 3G. Now anyone with an E-Plus data flat-rate subscription will be able to enjoy the benefits of Skype's personal communications service when they are on the move in Germany", said Niklas Zennstrom, Skype CEO and Co-founder.
Skype will be the only company offering calls over the Internet on the E-Plus mobile network. Mobile users of the Skype/E-Plus bundle will benefit from the ability to control call costs using the E-Plus flat-rate data subscription and "the freedom to call from home, office or on the road using their Skype account". Skype said it is also working with handset manufacturers, including Motorola, to offer its services on devices.
All that's now needed is dual-mode wifi handsets and links with wifi partners internationally (e.g. SkypeZones), or competitive international data roaming, and the roaming charge ripoff will be on its knees - and it can't happen too soon!
2. O2 offers deal to i-mode content providers
Offering the best deal in Europe among i-mode alliance partners, O2 has announced that it will offer CPs 86% of revenues. It’s higher than the 80% offered by Telefonica’s i-mode service and the 85% offered by Telstra for example, while dwarfing the 50% standard on European operator WAP portals.
Of course DoCoMo offers 91% in Japan but no partners have seen the same need as DoCoMo, apparently, to stimulate the content supply market to the same fiscal degree.
The Inquirer ran the story along with this angle on the i-mode launch:
What O2 stalwartly has refused to do is reveal exactly how many i-mode handsets it will have at launch. Nor will it name the handset suppliers although Sagem is a strong favourite along with the likes of LG, and Panasonic. Market leaders Motorola, Siemens and Samsung could easily provide i-mode handsets too.
One company who knows the answer to which handsets will become available is Volantis but a spokesman flatly refused to be drawn on even how many different terminals would be launched initially.
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3. Telstra tells the Empress that she has no clothes
Telstra, DoCoMo's Aussie i-mode partner, kept up its headline-grabbing track record that has been the norm since the arrival of new CEO Sol Trujillo.
Sol has been hitting headlines in a "shock-horror" scenario of him and his team making attacks on the Government and Government policy towards Telstra and telecommunications in general.
A host of reports have suggested that Sol has been ill advised, and that the Telstra Board and Chairman were caught with their pants down. However wiser heads have suggested that this is a very well orchestrated campaign and that in fact Trujillo telegraphed several of his moves well in advance in staff briefings and elsewhere. And indeed, in the face of the doubters, Telstra chairman Donald McGauchie has thrown his support behind Trujillo's "battle against government regulation".
The latest reports suggest again that "Telstra's management team has been sharply rebuked by all sides of federal politics today, as the relationship between the telco and the Federal Government deteriorates". This is in response to Sol's hand-picked US-imported head of PR for Telstra, Phil Burgess who has inflamed the already raw issue of Telstra's services in the bush by complaining that in forcing it to provide for rural areas, the Government is turning Telstra into a loser.
Burgess told a newspaper that "the telegraph and smoke signals" was how far things would have progressed if telecoms carriers in other countries had been forced to treat the country and remote services equally with the heavily populated areas.
The Communications Minister Helen Coonan has responded by telling Telstra's managers to stop complaining and to get on with their jobs. And the Prime Minister of Australia weighed into the boxing ring and "issued a sharp rebuke to the American executive of Telstra, Phil Burgess"!
These events expose two great lies of the current telecommunications debate in Australia. The first is that Sol and the new boys are naive and lacking in cultural and political judgement - that's just an easy way out of a serious debate in which the agenda is being carefully crafted by Trujillo's team.
The second great lie is that the "digital divide" debate is about bringing broadband to the farmers. This lie is a political smokescreen for the necessary vote-buying, but most importantly a smokescreen for the the wealth-destroying disaster hit upon by Burgess which is that Australia itself (not the farmers) is on the poor side of the digital divide - as compared with other nations. The government is living in denial on this fact. This has been the case for years but noone has had the gumption to not only say it but to stick with the issue.
- for more see this interview: Telstra Maintains Attack On Australian Govt.
- and this one: Telstra execs told - learn the Aussie way
4. Nokia to capture share in emerging markets
TelecomTV reports on analysis by both Banc of America Securities and Citibank showing the increasing relevance of emerging markets to global handset makers, despite the lower margins they provide. Citibank's report, coming as a preview for its annual Technology Conference in New York, states, "we believe that 2005 will mark the first year in which emerging market unit shipments exceed the shipments in the mature markets".
India, China and Russia are driving sales growth in new additions.
There's a warning for the Asian handset makers from BAS analyst Tim Long, who said "going forward, we believe that the most successful handset vendors will profitably sell into both emerging and developed markets," and, "we think Nokia best fits this profile."
5. DoCoMo props up Symbian - for now
In an extensive article in Wireless Week Motorola makes it clear that it is only developing some Symbian handsets at the request of carrier partners "such as NTT DoCoMo", which have invested in Motorola to keep the Symbian development going.
"We are trying to grow in Japan, and DoCoMo has asked us to continue to invest in Symbian devices," says Greg Besio, Motorola's corporate vice president of mobile devices software.
"So it's not a broad portfolio strategy, but we'll have some particular products that will support the Japanese market."
Going forward, Motorola's primary OS emphasis is on its Linux/Java platform and Microsoft's OS, neither of which is as expensive in royalties or implementation costs as Symbian, Besio said.
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