Every mobile operator in the world has built up its subscriber base by attracting customers with prepaid charging models. Indeed, prepaid subscribers, despite carriers' attempts to migrate them onto post-paid contracts, make up the bulk of European wireless carriers' customer base. This presents a challenge to carriers if they are to deliver profitable, value-added services such as mobile content to the masses. John Aalbers looks at the issues

Ensuring value-added experiences for the customer is crucial to the success of any business. To achieve this in today's pre-paid wireless market, one of the biggest issues that mobile carriers must address with their prepaid charging systems is the monitoring and control of peer to peer (P2P) traffic.
The popularity of P2P applications on broadband networks has risen dramatically in recent years, largely off the back of music downloads and, more recently, Voice over IP (VoIP). Indeed, as more mobile versions of these applications become available, the industry is beginning to see more and more take up by mobile users. Some of the same impacts that have plagued the broadband sector are now starting to bite the mobile operators. For example, users are beginning to cotton on to the fact that they can avoid high call charges    associated with international roaming in the same way that international fixed line calls are virtually free these days, by taking advantage of VoIP offerings.
Manufacturers are already launching handsets to meet new demands for cheaper, high broadband phone calls, and service providers are jumping on the bandwagon. British company AQL, for example, has recently unveiled a mobile Internet voice and text service that will cost customers a mere £2 pounds a month. Calls and texts to other VoIP phones will be free, while text to normal mobiles will cost just 5p a minute and calls 8p a minute. A big bonus to these types of service offerings is that charges will remain the same wherever callers are in the world because the Internet is not bound by geography or location.
Network operator 3 is also conscious of customer demands for cheaper communications abroad and is currently offering a worldwide mobile e-mail option for an extra £5 a month on top of its ridiculously competitive monthly tariffs.  So instead of shelling out tons of cash to make a mobile call from abroad, users can send unlimited e-mails to friends and family left at home.

Traffic jams and unhappy customers
Innovative charging models such as these will add to the operators' current struggle against the negative impact of existing peer to peer traffic usage generated by established applications such as BitTorrent and Kazaa on their networks. Indeed, the two biggest negatives for the operator in this busy world of traffic is the degradation of the overall customer experience as the network congests and increased costs associated with increased bandwidth and network transit fees are tagged on to a customer's pre-paid charge. With P2P VoIP however, a third and more harmful problem is added – the cannibalisation of traditional voice revenues and SMS services by innovations such as Skype, which provide a free or low rate alternative option.
This is becoming a pressing issue as the shortcomings of mobile VoIP are being resolved by advances to the technology. For example, the biggest disadvantage of a VoIP phone was that it only worked if a user was within range of a signal. But there is enough know-how in the market place to envisage a near future when mobiles combining this new technology with traditional networks, such as Nokia's 6136, will become increasingly popular modes of communications. What this will mean is that users will be able to instantly switch between the Internet and traditional networks as they move in and out of range. This will help people save a massive sum on calls made overseas. 
Can operators' survive this type of revenue erosion? According to the GSM Association, European network operators currently make close to £6 billion a year from roaming charges generated by customers making and receiving calls while abroad. Innovations ushered in by VoIP could cut this figure by 35 per cent in less than three years. 
Indeed, the complexity for charging and giving customers what they want – without losing money – is greater than it's ever been for operators. That is why monitoring and controlling of P2P traffic is crucial and can only be established with real-time subscriber usage monitoring and charging technology. Real-time is key to making things work in this new mobile environment.
Fortunately for the mobile business world, technological advances have been made to enable carriers to gain a greater understanding of their prepaid customers' habits while providing them with clear pricing options in real time whenever and however they want.
The biggest breakthrough is the ability for operators to use cutting edge subscriber usage monitoring and charging solutions to better understand the nature of network usage for marketing reasons. For example, SFR France uses such a solution strictly for data analysis of SMS usage. Through the data they receive they get a clear view of which of their handsets are being used the most for data services and how to capitalise on this knowledge by offering premium rates and plans for that phone. 
Orange's mobile operation in the Dominican Republic also uses the latest real-time charging platform as a marketing tool through effective data analysis. The company built successful bundling packages specifically for the teenage market when its data analysis revealed that the most frequently downloaded items among the under 18 market included certain multi-media innovations such as music videos and wall papers. Orange Dominicana picked the top data services and offered them at a price that was both attractive and affordable enough for the young market – thereby securing the operator a major slice of the mobile services market.
Before the installation of a charging solution Orange Dominicana could only charge its customers for each kilobyte used. This approach meant that users paid almost nothing for accessing services, which greatly reduced Orange's revenue opportunities. The latest charging technology gives the cellular provider the capability to charge for individual content and to let customers pay the true value of each service, according to size, complexity and bandwidth usage.
How do real-time subscriber usage monitoring and charging applications work? By monitoring and gathering information in real time as the user is attempting to access the service, over protocols including a full range of P2P protocols. This information can immediately be used for operator applications such as reporting, charging, controlling access or revenue assurance. The information collected by many of today's solutions can help operators detect and act on applications that potentially undermine their overall revenue possibilities. This is achieved by enabling operators to block, restrict, re-route or charge users for traffic at a premium rate or on a subscription basis.
The right monitoring, control and charging solution should provide intrusive and non-intrusive detection capabilities and classification for many types of protocols, as well as detailed information of IP network usage. It should have the flexibility to allow operators to tag a protocol so that subsequent downstream components can act on that specific protocol. It can then be controlled, blocked and charged, providing operators with a high degree of revenue and network protection.

Pre-paid fraud of a different variety
The aforementioned need for a safety net above the network is a crucial requirement in the pre-paid world, especially with the expected ubiquity of mobile phone Internet access. As we all know, what always follows a new innovation is an equally clever fraud to match, and operators must be prepared to respond to money-losing attacks. Indeed, fraud can strike in places where its least expected. One of the recent cons to grab headlines is the so-called 'click-fraud' which, according to analyst Jupiter, is costing the advertising world over $800 million dollars a year. Based on the 'pay-per-click' model, advertisers are charged each time a surfer clicks on a link. But according to many industry experts, at least one in ten clicks can be fraudulent. What this means is that competitors are setting up virtual 'click sweat shops', whose sole raison d'etre is to automatically surf and click on an opponent's link hundreds of times an hour. This sneaky tactic is obviously aimed at draining the marketing budget of the competitor. And, sadly for the ad execs of this world, the problem will escalate as Internet mobility takes off. Clicking will not be bound to one computer terminal. Anyone will be able to engage in a sneaky 'click-a-thon' anywhere, anytime – from the comforts of a home office or on a secluded beach in Thailand.
From a technical perspective a real-time monitoring and charging system can help monitor such deviant behaviour by, once again, tracing and blocking these competitors from specific networks altogether. These systems can be used to analyse all kinds of traffic entering the network – regardless of type or volume – thereby enabling operators on behalf of clients such as       advertisers, to filter, control, and block any data from reaching the end user – and possibly taking away potential revenues.
Of course, big business clients like advertisers are not what prepaid is about. What will keep operators in business are the billions of people using their mobile phones on a regular basis. Prepaid is no longer just a uniform, flat-rate option peddled to the masses. In this tech savvy world, customers want more and more from their mobile phones. They want free Internet access, cheap calls from abroad, quick video downloads and minimal fraud interference. They want to carry unused free call minutes over to the next month and to switch service contracts at the speed of light. Add to this the growing threat of Skype and its no wonder operators are pining for the good old days of undiscounted top-up cards and ridiculous roaming fees.
The best advice to this silent but tangible panic is to relax and think carefully about what the right monitoring and charging platform can provide for a wireless network. Simply put, real-time monitoring of P2P traffic can be managed more efficiently, giving the one thing that many mobile players feel they currently lack:  control. Control over the growing Internet traffic flooding the network. Control over free VoIP calls. Control over the endless sizes and volume of broadband services demanded by a growing number of mobile customers. Most importantly, control over revenue streams.
The main issue for operators today is that they don't know what their network is being used for and by whom. Monitoring and charging platforms give telecoms providers visibility on what is happening to assess whether they need to be looking at singling out particular services or particular groups of pre-paid users. With the relevant information provided, operators can then implement appropriate charging strategies to address potential lost revenue and ultimately stay ahead of today's – and tomorrow's – competition.                     

John Aalbers is CEO of VoluBill
www.volubill.com

Joel Hughes discusses the challenges operators face when delivering new services and how they are being met with the aid of open technology, which protects existing investment, enables easy integration and supports the migration from TDM to all-IP networks

The tide is moving slowly from TDM-switched networks to all-IP networks. New services heralded by the arrival of IP include interactive multimedia applications such as peer-to-peer video and multiplayer gaming; business applications such as interactive voice recognition, audio conferencing and video IP conferencing; and community applications such as video blogging.
The challenge facing operators, developers and telecoms equipment providers is that the majority of the existing service infrastructure is still TDM circuit-switched, so they must be able to deliver services on existing infrastructure, as well as steering a steady course to the all IP environment of the future. This is why it is critical for operators to make the right choice on the equipment lying below the surface of this new wave of IP services.
In addition to the migration to IP networks, there is a parallel shift going on in the form of the convergence of mobile and fixed networks. Network operator Opal Telecom plans to deploy a converged IP network to the UK market during 2006, and BT has promised to follow up its Fusion consumer fixed mobile convergence (FMC) offering with its SIP-based enterprise FMC early in 2007. Meanwhile mobile operator Orange has announced that its OnePhone service will launch before the end of 2006, and Wanadoo and Equant are to be rebranded to 'Orange' to reflect the integration of its mobile and fixed services. Analyst firm Ovum predicts that there will be 69 million FMC devices in Western Europe by 2015.
Carried on this tide of convergence is the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). IMS is a convergent   application service architecture built on IP and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), which is access network-agnostic. IMS grew out of market demand by carriers, for an open architecture and was standardised by the 3GPP in Europe then adopted and endorsed by 3GPP2 for North American and Asian deployments over CDMA 2000 networks. BT has based its new 21C network on the IMS architecture and Opal's IP network service will include IMS for consumers, demonstrating the maturity of the architecture.
Telecoms research firm Analysys has stated that: “IMS will be widely deployed by mobile operators within five years, enabling faster and more efficient service delivery and helping to accelerate fixed/mobile substitution.” However, Analysys has also warned that in the short term, operators need to focus on core revenue-generating services such as voice and messaging. This means that telecom equipment vendors need to ensure that IMS-based applications delivered today on current TDM networks will run on the all-IP networks of the IMS future.

Industry workhorse
Make no mistake about it, the TDM-switched network is still the workhorse of the communications industry. Because carriers are trying to run existing operations on their TDM networks while introducing IP services, they need to install service delivery platforms that can support all of the standards and networks.
In truth, the majority of vendors that are currently selling IP media servers are in fact selling pre-IMS products that deliver new data services over the current network, but which will require further investment when the networks migrate fully to IP. Other vendors offer a full IP media server but no TDM or SS7 support, for example. These interim delivery platforms will require major reinvestment once IP networks become ubiquitous. What is needed are platforms that run in the operator's heterogeneous environment with support for TDM and open industry standards such as SS7, SIP and IMS, which are good today and good tomorrow.
The challenge facing operators is to drive adoption of new data services that significantly raise ARPU, while also ensuring that they can track and bill for service usage using existing back end systems. Industry commentators have suggested that a combination of SIP-based gateways and servers that support open industry standards are the ideal bridging solution for a network in transition. This is because they enable rapid application development and delivery, while also enabling the operator to track and bill new service usage.
A perfect example of the complexity involved in delivering a new service over a heterogeneous network is mobile TV and video streaming. The IP network is still not robust enough for time-sensitive applications such as these. Therefore, the 3G 324M standard was defined to enable delay-sensitive multimedia communications to be delivered over the circuit-switched part of the network. Streamed packet video technologies can suffer delays of between 12 – 20 seconds, which is simply not acceptable to end users.
Using broadcast technology, the DVB-H standard delivers better video quality than 3GPP, but because DVB-H handsets require a separate radio to receive the TV signals, these handsets are vastly more expensive than other 3G handsets, and it will be between 5 – 10 years before they are widely adopted in the market. What the operators need to figure out is how to charge for this content that is fed to the mobile phone through their infrastructure.
One US telecoms magazine has criticised the intermittent service and delays offered by current mobile TV standards. Hong Kong CSL, the first operator in its region to introduce mobile TV delivered on 3G-324M, made its technology choice based on standards based circuit switched video technology, which processes the images in a different way, removing latency and allow interactivity to provide a far superior user experience. 3G-324M circuit switched video takes advantage of stored content on IP media servers in the operator's network, delivering a high quality of service experience today, with the ability to reuse the same backend systems and content in the all IP future. Beyond Mobile TV, the interactivity supported today in 3G-324M allows users to interact in real time with applications like video sharing and vlogging (video blogging). This enables sharing of clips between handsets, with all content stored by the operator, a service that differentiates and one which users may pay for.
As mentioned earlier, some mobile operators are getting around the billing issue by using intelligent SIP-based gateways as a migration solution from mobile networks to IMS. Using these gateways, the operators can roll out IMS-like applications, while retaining the  ability to bill for the multiple services IMS enables. Disruptive Analysis analyst Dean Bubley has starkly warned of the impact of SIP-based applications cannibalising the IMS applications market before IMS handsets are widely available. Bubley estimates that by 2011 there will be 980 million more 'naked SIP' phones sold than 'closed IMS' handsets. Operators need to ensure that end users adopt and pay for IMS-services before the market is swamped with naked SIP phones that can run non-operator generated SIP applications.
Reducing development time and cost is critical to enabling operators to generate revenue from new services. Application developers including Openwave, Ubiquity, Unisys, CINtel, VoiceMobility, TeleDNA and Sonus need to know that their applications will run on any operator's equipment. This removes the risk of lock in and reduces time-to-market for new applications and services.
The goal is to be able to re-use resources and maximise integration. The application developers' ideal is to write once, use anywhere. To this end, developers want to use common resources rather than proprietary platforms. Therefore, the emergence of open standards such as VoiceXML, SIP, MSML and SS7 has been key to helping move the industry forward by speeding the development of new applications, while reducing the cost and therefore the risk for operators to bring these new services to market.

Extremely relevant
All of these standards, bits, bytes and pieces of tin don't mean much to the man in the street, but if you tell me that they will allow me to create content on my mobile phone and share this with my friends and family around the world, or that this is the stuff below the surface that will enable me to have video conferences with my team or leave a video mail for a prospective employer and watch TV on my mobile, then it becomes extremely relevant.
Future applications delivered over IP media servers include conversational video. An advertisement by Hong Kong CSL has humorously used the example of a mother holding a video conversation with her son to consult him on why her stereo isn't working, while showing him the stereo wires.
As well as mobile entertainment services such as mobile TV, applications are moving towards supporting group communications such as video sharing, vlogging and user created content. In addition, IMS-based applications open the future to multiplayer realtime gaming on mobile phones.
IMS-based services also include more familiar services such as voice messaging, multilanguage IVR call forwarding, pre-paid calling and call screening. Push-to-talk was the first service to make use of IMS and was adopted by 12 million subscribers on the Nextel network in the US. However, Analysys has warned European operators to focus on current revenue-generating services rather than new services such as push-to-talk, which are as yet unproven in the market. Operators are looking to push to video (PTV), and as with most telecoms innovations, PTV is seeing early adoption in Asia, which will likely spread to Europe and then finally America.
Since the market is moving from TDM to hybrid and SIP-based IMS-style applications, to a true IP model, carriers need to seek open IP-based platforms that support TDM, SS7, SIP and IP, enabling them to manage that migration, while protecting existing investment and billing for new services. Since the market is still predominantly switched, it will take three-to-five years for us to see a truly IP network. That's an awfully long time in the telecoms business, so operators need to ensure that they have equipment that can deliver services in today's environment and keep on working as the balance shifts to IP.
Vendors of open media servers and solutions can act as an anchor in this sea of complexity by removing the need for carriers, telecom equipment manufacturers and service providers to develop their own platforms, enabling them to concentrate on developing next-generation applications, that enable the communication, community and entertainment services of the future.
From the point of view of the operator, they must be able to take a least cost and lowest risk route to developing and trialling new services. Compelling new data applications such as video conferencing, peer-to-peer video and vlogging can be deployed today using current network infrastructure, while still being ready for IP networks of the future. For the users, they don't care how the services are delivered as long as they provide an easy, useful, pleasurable and consistent experience, no matter whether they are delivered over mobile, fixed or IP networks. What the operators have to figure out is how to get them on board as paying customers.                                                     

Joel Hughes is VP and General Manager of NMS Communications' Platform Solutions Business
www.nmscommunications.com

European Communications presents its regular round-up of the latest developments in the world of telecommunications

Group therapy
Implementation of the outcomes of the recently concluded World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) gathered momentum with the launch of the United Nations Group on the Information Society (UNGIS).
High-level representatives of twenty-two UN agencies met on Friday, 14 July 2006 at ITU Headquarters in Geneva under the chairmanship of ITU Secretary-General Yoshio Utsumi to facilitate the process.
UNGIS will serve as an interagency co-ordinating mechanism within the UN system to implement the outcomes of WSIS. The Group will enable synergies aimed at resolving substantive and policy issues, avoiding redundancies and enhancing effectiveness of the system while raising public awareness about the goals and objectives of the global Information Society. UNGIS will also work to highlight the importance of ICTs in meeting the Millennium Development Goals.
To maximise its efficiency, the Group agreed on a work plan in which it would concentrate its collective efforts each year on one or two crosscutting themes and on a few selected countries.
In the coming period, UNGIS will focus on bringing the efforts of the UN system to bear on expanding access to communications, for instance through multimedia community centres, teleshops, etc. Drawing on the respective competencies of the different members of the Group, UNGIS will also focus on applications related to e-health and e-tourism.
Details: www.itu.int

Let battle commence
The worldwide subscriber base for Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) services is expected to expand by a factor of more than 26 from 2005 to 2010, spurring a competitive battle between video providers both old and new, iSuppli Corp predicts.
Global IPTV subscribers will grow to slightly more than 63 million in 2010, rising at a stunning Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 92.1 per cent from 2.4 million in 2005.
The IPTV subscriber base will generate more than $27 billion in overall IPTV services revenue in 2010. While video services will account for the largest portion of these dollars, value-added media services and IPTV operator advertising will combine to represent more than 14 per cent of IPTV services revenue in 2010. Furthermore, across all IPTV services, the corresponding content licensing revenue will reach $11 billion in 2010.
“The fight to capture the expanding base of IPTV subscribers will put telecom operators on a collision course with existing pay-TV market competitors and with a new class of broadband video portals as they roll-out progressively more sophisticated offerings,” says Mark Kirstein, Vice President, Multimedia Content and Services for iSuppli.
iSuppli categorises market deployment of IPTV services in three phases. The current global IPTV market is early in its first phase: basic service deployment.  The second phase will add an array of value-added and interactive services. Phase three will bring dramatic improvements in integration and interactivity.
Thus, in this pending battle for subscribers, providing a competitive video offering is merely the cost of entry for IPTV operators. Differentiation of IPTV services will be essential to bringing new capabilities to TV-based entertainment and attracting subscribers.
On a geographic basis, the European market has taken the early lead in the global IPTV market, both for subscribers and for revenue. However, Asia will generate faster growth than the other regions and will achieve the largest subscriber base by the end of this year. The Americas region will lead the world in terms of IPTV dollars starting this year because it will yield the highest Average Revenue Per User (ARPU).
The iSuppli report, 'IPTV Content and Services: Bracing for the Subscriber Wars', includes a comprehensive analysis of IPTV, content providers, network operators, equipment manufacturers and technology suppliers. Forecasts for IPTV revenue and subscribers are included, by tier of service, including value-added services and IPTV advertising. Additional forecasts are also provided for pricing, platforms and regions.
Details: www.isuppli.com

In the pipeline
Demand for mobile TV is still unclear, but according to a new IDC Insight report, moves are being made to ensure that there is a dedicated pipeline to serve this market.
“Current and future mobile services will not be a replacement for existing TV services,” says Paolo Pescatore, research manager, Consumer European Wireless and Mobile Communications. “Strategies are such that mobile TV services will be complementary, thus offering an additional means for users to watch their chosen programming or content.”
The market currently consists of streaming TV-like services over 3G, but the European market is still quite fragmented mainly as a result of issues surrounding spectrum availability as well as how many licenses will be awarded (which will be very few) and who will be successful.
Pescatore believes that there are plenty of strategic and technological decisions that need to be made. From a technology perspective there appears to be much more backing from vendors as well as industry support for DVB-H. It may not appear to be the strongest from a technology perspective, however, when compared to the other standards in the marketplace such as MediaFLO. Another option is being evaluated, with two variants based on the digital audio broadcasting (DAB) standard: terrestrial-digital multimedia broadcasting (T-DMB) and enhanced packet mode.
From a strategic perspective, operators and broadcasters need to converge two separate worlds and work in harmony to realise a unique user experience, and users need to demonstrate a willingness to pay for services that they deem to be of value to them, so the business model will be of paramount importance.
The IDC Insight Mobile TV and the Broadcasting Landscape in Western Europe looks at developments in mobile TV in Western Europe. In particular, it focuses on the current marketplace for mobile TV streamed over current 3G networks and how this will evolve in the future, including further cellular updates as well as broadcasting.
Details: www.idc.com.
Mutually assured destruction
New research from analyst Ovum reveals that Software Vendors must change their pushy sales techniques as users need a more open attitude. Ovum advises vendors to adopt an approach based on helping end-user organisations to buy and to create simple, clear and fair pricing.
“After our research note at the end of last year, 'Software sales: crossroads blues or wonderful life', we received a litany of emotional responses about sales tactics and how they had been used for revenue extraction,” says David Mitchell, Software Practice Leader at Ovum. “We decided that further research was needed with end-user customers, but focusing on the question: 'what should vendors do to make a better job of selling to you?'.”
After interviewing senior 'Technical buyers' within 40 end-user organisations in North America, EMEA and Australia, it was apparent that end-user organisations are becoming immune to the sales tactics of vendors, the adoption of sales methodologies, and the introduction of 'solution sales speak' in their organisations.
Vendors and sales gurus develop ever more sophisticated sales approaches, while end users and procurement gurus develop stronger and stronger defence mechanisms.
“It has become akin to an arms race, in a process of mutually assured destruction,” comments Mitchell.
Ovum found that several phrases commonly used by vendor organisations cause immediate and adverse reaction within some end-user organisations – “sales cycle”, “owning the customer”, “solution selling” and “value proposition” are among the trigger phrases.
One surprisingly common complaint was that the sales staff from vendor organisations did not understand the functionality of the products that they were selling. In some cases, the technical staff in customer/prospects were more aware of the latest product features and functions than the sales staff.
Vendors also had a tendency to be “economical with the truth” regarding the ability of their products to deliver specific functionality. Finally, respect for ethical standards was an important factor in how vendors were viewed by the majority of the end users that were interviewed.
“In conclusion, many organisations held the view that they would prefer not to do business with a vendor that they knew would adopt sharp commercial practice," says Mitchell.
War of the Worlds: advice from end-user buyers to software vendors, David Mitchell
http://store.ovum.com/detail.aspx?ID=2113

European local and regional authorities – and potential private sector partners – are examining projects designed to promote broadband penetration. Emanuela Lecchi and Malcolm Dowden look at how it’s all supposed to function

The European Commission vigorously supports the Lisbon i2010 goals, citing broadband access as crucial to e-Learning, e-Health and e-Business initiatives, and as the key to future prosperity and the creation of jobs in Europe. As at January 2006 the Commission estimated that there are over 58 million broadband subscriptions in Europe.
While this represents a considerable increase over previous years, take-up remains patchy and the 'digital divide' remains a concern. Throughout Europe local and regional authorities and their potential private sector partners are looking closely at projects designed to promote broadband penetration, fearful of lagging behind others, but mindful of the complex EU rules on State Aid. 
The State Aid rules are designed to ensure that government interventions do not distort competition and intra-community trade. State aid is defined as an advantage in any form whatsoever, conferred on a selective basis to undertakings by public authorities, whether at national, regional or local level. As well as grants or interest-free loans, State Aid can include non-financial aid, such as privileged access to local authority land or fast-tracked planning consents.
The stakes are high. Where State Aid is given without clearance from the Commission then the recipient can be required to repay the full amount. For any municipal broadband project, therefore, potential State Aid issues must be considered and dealt with at the earliest possible stage. With experienced advice, steps can be taken to minimise the risk of projects falling foul of those rules.
On rural projects, the European Commission speaks with one voice. Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media has said: “Deployment of broadband may be hampered by market failures in rural and remote areas. In such cases, well-targeted state aid may therefore be appropriate...but we have to make sure that state aid does not crowd out private initiative, nor distort competition to an extent contrary to the common interest.”
Danuta Hübner, Commissioner for Regional Policy has added: “Where there are genuine market failures, the EU Structural Funds play a vital role in stimulating investments in broadband infrastructure and services, boosting competitiveness and innovation and enabling all regions of Europe to participate fully in the knowledge economy.” And the Commissioner responsible for competition law and policy? Neelie Kroes has spoken warmly of the Commission's policy of promoting broadband access in rural and remote areas. Together, the Commissioners have encouraged member States to make use of the full range of available policy instruments to ensure broadband for all by 2010.

Growing body of clearances
A growing body of State Aid clearances shows this policy in action. In February 2006 clearance was given for the Welsh Development Agency's FibreSpeed Wales project. In 2005 clearance was obtained for Spanish government's proposal to allocate a total of E26.4m in direct grants and E111.9m in interest-free loans for three years to allow providers of electronic communications services to supply broadband in specific areas where such services are currently not available. Also in 2005, clearance was also given for the 'Broadband for Kärnten' project in Austria.
In each case, the Commission found the aid to be compatible with the EU rules on State Aid.  The common factors are: (i) subsidies are provided only to the extent necessary to enable and develop the use of broadband services in geographically disadvantaged areas, and (ii) safeguards are included to ensure that the aid is kept to a minimum and does not distort competition to an extent which would be contrary to the common interest. For example, the schemes do not favour a specific technology and provide for procurement through open tenders.

Can municipal projects get clearance?
In urban, suburban and urban hinterland areas some provision is already likely to be in place. This can make it difficult to persuade the Commission that public intervention is needed. Indeed, in July 2006 the Commission blocked State Aid on these grounds in the case of a fibre-to-the-home project in the Dutch town of Appingedam.  Further, where some private sector investment has already been made, any municipal scheme could face challenges from the incumbent providers. UPC France v the Commission (2005/C315/29) provides an example of the difficulties that can arise in these circumstances.
Experience suggests that clearance is more readily available for projects that aim to make infrastructure available to all, and not just to business. Service projects for 'end-to-end' provision tend to be viewed with more suspicion, the Commission's view being that subsidies for the provision of end-to-end services tend to favour the dominant operators. Nonetheless, projects have been approved in England's East Midlands and Scotland. So what lessons can be learned from those projects to avoid problems and secure approval? At the earliest stages, consider the following points:
• Is there a market failure? If the project is concerned with areas in which infrastructure is sparse or non-existent because it is not financially viable to roll out network without public intervention, then State Aid clearance ought to be obtainable. This will be the case whether the area is urban or rural.
• Procurement: Private sector partners should be selected through rigorous advertising and procurement procedures with clearly set criteria. This competitive process reduces the risk of accusations of selectivity towards a particular partner and supports the inference that all interested parties will have had an equal opportunity to bid. It is also sensible to have only a three/four year contract before initiating another open tender. This minimises the risk of distorting          competition in favour of the initial partner as the project grows. Open tendering also provides a better guide to the amount of public money that will be needed to make the project happen.
•  Profit share:  A joint venture is generally considered to be free of state aid if the public and private contributions to and profits from the project are symmetrical. For example, if project funds are 75 per cent public and 25 per cent private, then the private partner should receive only 25 per cent of the proceeds. By the same token, just as all profits should be shared between public and private, so should all risks, again in proportion to their contribution to the venture.   Alarm bells should ring where the public sector subordinates its returns to ensure that a commercial return is available to the private investors.
• Timing of contributions: Wherever possible, public funds should not be made available to the joint venture before the private funds. It is recommended that each contribution be synchronised although there is nothing to stop the private money preceding the public.

How long does it take to get clearance?
The Commission has sole competence to decide and review what constitutes a State aid. This means that the Commission has the ultimate say in all State aid matters - subject to limited review by the European Court of Justice. The Commission (DG COMP) has considerable powers to monitor, control, and restrict the forms and levels of aid given by Member States.  The Commission has to take a decision within 2 months of a complete notification. However in practice the timetable is longer. Allow at least 6-7 months.  The Commission can start a further period of two months by asking for further information if they consider the notification is not "complete" (the further period only starts once the Commission receives the answers). At the end of the final two-month period, the Commission may decide to approve, or to open a second-stage formal investigation which adds at least another 6 months to the process. In appropriate cases clearance can be obtained. The key is to take advice early, analyse the rules carefully, and allow ample time for the Commission to reach its view.                           

Emanuela Lecchi is Partner and Head of EU & Competition Group, and Malcolm Dowden is an Associate  with Charles Russell LLP.  They can be contacted via tel: +44 207203 5388; e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Will mobile IM turn out to be the next big thing for the industry, or will users vote it a turn-off? Priscilla Awde looks at some of the issues which may make or break its future

This time it is not only youngsters who are leading what some believe is the next wave of mobile services. Spreading like a virus, Instant Messaging (IM) has migrated from home PCs to infiltrate most business desktops. Now it seems set to become the next 'must have' mobile application.
The big question is whether mobile IM will be a value add or a big yawn as users opt instead to continue relying on ubiquitous, easy to use, understand and above all cheap SMS. If IM is not simple and inexpensive people will stay with what they know and continue texting.
So, what does mobile IM contribute to the communications mix? Will the addition of 'presence' add anything or will users see it as an unwelcome intrusion?
To succeed, operators and fixed IM application giants such as Yahoo, Google, MSN and the like must decide whether to collaborate or battle it out for eyeballs. Telcos must not only define this relationship but ensure IM works across networks. Interoperability, that bugbear of previous applications, is being addressed by GSM Association initiatives to solve potential problems and launch services consistently.
The number of signalling messages must be controlled to prevent overloading networks and there must be ways of identifying IM traffic so users can be billed for value add not just bandwidth. Jonathon Hindle, director, mobile service provider marketing at Cisco believes mobile IM will explode, providing handsets have easy to use interfaces which will eventually be voice activated.
“It's a natural progression to have IM on handsets,” he said. “Compared to video streaming it adds value without using a large amount of bandwidth. The economics rely on knowing people are doing IM, assigning value and charging appropriately.”
IM can be quickly launched over flexible IP MPLS networks which make it easy to set up and tear down applications fast and cost effectively to discover what works best. “The whole idea behind IP is that it allows people to try something new without either significant risk or capital investment for operators. People can sit  on the edge of IP networks and put applications through quickly and easily – so they can add whatever interface, devices or applications make sense in a particular market,” continues Hindle.
Success depends on co-operation between fixed IM providers (which already collaborate), and mobile operators wanting to control access via walled gardens. Combining forces brings benefits to both as the fixed players get onto mobile networks and operators get new revenue streams. Skuli Mogensen, CEO at Canadian mobile IM company Oz, thinks both sides have a strong future and will find ways of working together. He believes the industry needs to settle other issues including whether to pre load IM as a client on phones, complete with icons, or make users download it from carriers.
“There is no need to complicate issues,” says Mogensen. “It's very hard to get mass market adoption of anything new but as handsets improve, prices drop and MSN, Yahoo and others appear on phones, it will increase usage. SMS is ready to move to the next level but it's important to change the underlying technology to increase more functionality gradually without changing the acronym.”
Rather than numerous ways of sending messages, users prefer one intuitive, simple, reliable and secure system which works regardless of device or network. They want easily customised handsets and applications and all messaging integrated on one simple to use client.

End-to-end approach
Taking an end-to-end approach to converged messaging from device to IM/presence platforms, with all the OSS (Operational Support Systems) in between, Chris Lennartz, marketing/business development director at Logica CMG Telecoms says: “Operators only need to add a server to provide mobile IM. Not much changes but text will move toward convergence and be enriched. The bearer will change to SIP (Session Initiated Protocol), or IMS (IP Multimedia subsystem), but the level of complexity for users must be managed. Device management must be simpler and it's important to ensure users can communicate with legacy systems/handsets.”
Platform agnostic mobiles can be programmed so operators can install applications including a common IM standard when it emerges. Phone manufacturers are pre-installing standard clients on devices but that limits the end user experience. Operators want their branded clients; fixed IM providers want access via HTML and users just want Internet access without the restrictions of walled gardens. “Logging on via a web page is the easiest way to get IM via mobiles which become a thin client,” says Mark Squires, head of communications at Nokia UK. “3G is on every phone, therefore all are capable of IM which is just another option.”
Currently mobile IM is more popular in North America where SMS did not really take off. Although European operators are launching mobile IM it will take time to achieve the success of SMS. Many see mobile IM as an evolution of multimedia messaging: “IM sits within the mix of MMS, picture messaging and e-mail,” says Mike Short, VP for R&D, O2. “It's a Cinderella service compared to the 40 billion SMS messages sent this year. IM is useful for people to communicate between PCs and mobiles but e-mails may be more appropriate – there seems to be less desire to hold textual conversations than to send SMS. Mobile IM is behind video and TV and is catered for with SMS and MMS.” The much vaunted presence facility of IM, Short believes, plays a lesser role in mobile communications where people protect their privacy.
Forecasting can be dangerous in the fast moving mobile sector but convergence is happening and devices will become extensions of PCs if not as powerful. People used to IM at their desks will want it on their mobiles and operators see it as increasing data traffic and therefore revenues. Paul Ashton, director of product management at BenQ wants to replicate the PC model on phones and says lack of standards has delayed take up. “The market will take off now we have 3GPP standard specifications,” he believes. “Phones already operate as PCs handling audio/video files and include very sophisticated processing power so they can easily handle IM.”                                             

Priscilla Awde is a freelance communications writer

The converged delivery of voice services to mobile devices via IP networks is a practical, exciting opportunity to be grasped today, not a conceptual threat to traditional telephony services, argues Paul Crann

What products and services do you immediately associate with the mobile Internet? Chances are you conjure up an image of a chunky smartphone or PDA gamely powering a cut-down browser, an e-mail client that synchs up with a remote inbox, and perhaps some real-time text or video messaging applications. Strangely, very few of us associate the mobile Internet with the most obvious application – voice calls. All this is about to change forever.
Voice over IP (VoIP) continues to gain adoption rapidly, offering mobile telecoms operators a number of new revenue-generating opportunities. This starts with mobile operators leveraging the very large installed PC base and beginning to offer mobile/PC convergence with innovative product bundles. In addition to PCs, there continues to be an increasingly large number of new devices, such as PDAs, smartphones, gaming consoles, and so on, that will be capable of delivering services over IP access networks to offer an excellent complement to a mobile operator's network. 
Many of these devices will be standalone IP devices, but increasingly many will also be multi-mode devices capable of working on the mobile operators WWAN network, in addition to IP access networks such as Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and WiMax. Successful mobile operators will leverage these alternative networks and IP devices to offer value-added services to subscribers, expanding coverage into buildings and other areas covered by WLANs, and the chance to cut infrastructure costs and service charges. This combination will drive mobile VoIP penetration and usage while reducing costs, allowing operators to introduce new voice services as well as the rich multimedia services we often read about.  The best part for the mobile operator is that these service expansions leverage alternative IP access networks, such as home user DSL connections or enterprise WLANs, and devices that often do not require any subsidy, such as PCs or gaming consoles, already purchased by the end users. 
With the continued proliferation of higher performance 3G/4G data networks, VoIP will also become a major service offering across WWAN networks. Innovative carriers will recognise the attraction of these services for subscribers and deliver innovative offers to satisfy customers, avoiding cannibalistic or competitive battles. 
Mobile operators themselves are coming under increasing pressure to maintain revenue levels in a maturing marketplace displaying downward trends in traditional voice revenues. A greater slice of fixed-line business promoted via innovative new service packages would certainly drive top line growth. In addition, compelling bundles such as these can also prove very 'sticky', helping to retain current customers as well as enticing new business, reducing churn and maintaining market share.
Putting aside a mobile network neutrality debate, it is not unreasonable to expect certain end users to use VoIP for outbound international calling given significantly lower costs.  The challenge for a mobile operator then becomes how to offer a superior service to retain these customers for all telecommunications services. The alternative is that a mobile operator will capture a mobile broadband monthly fee, but forgo many of the services revenues from value added applications, including VoIP.
As VoIP becomes ubiquitous in the mobile sphere, it will be the early adopting mobile operators and MVNOs that will reap the initial rewards and set the agenda for the future of mobile VoIP services. Some analysts believe that the wider adoption of PC-based VoIP clients in businesses and for consumers was a necessary spur to kick-start demand in the mobile sphere. Wireless research specialist ONWorld, for example, now expects mobile VoIP to accelerate rapidly over the next few years, predicting over 100 million users by 2011.
It's high time we thought about mobile VoIP being delivered today, not at some point in the future. Of course it is no longer a question of solely competing with mobile operators. Web insurgents are now a very real threat in their own right, while widespread consolidation in the market between players like Verizon, AT&T, Orange and others is creating organisations with the right combination of assets to package fixed and mobile services and more.

Strong opportunity
But mobile operators do have a strong opportunity to deliver real services immediately, leveraging the broad set of PC devices already deployed and providing users with a softphone to make and receive VoIP calls tied to their mobile phone number. This offers all the benefits of a 'Skype-like' client, some of which already boast SMS capabilities integrated with multimedia VoIP messaging, with the key differentiator that the user has a single identity for voice and messaging across IP networks and the mobile world. A service from a mobile operator can also include a complete set of converged services across networks, including voice, SMS, and IM.  Additionally the mobile operator is in a unique position to include an extension of other 3G services, such as MMS or other content, to users on IP networks. 
These services can start with PCs today and quickly extend to the increasing set of multi-mode PDA and smartphone devices coming to market over the next twelve months. Additionally PC devices can be used in traditional fixed line locations, such as home or the office, or offer an excellent complement for mobile users, such as an international business traveller using a laptop from a hotel where coverage does not exist or roaming tariffs are otherwise cost prohibitive.
Imagine the benefits for your business of having a converged solution available to mobile workers using a single number. Such a converged mobile solution could enable nomadic services that retain a subscriber's existing mobile phone number and identity across any IP network encountered, as well as traditional mobile networks. This is particularly useful for certain vertical market segments, like international travellers, who often find it is impossible or cost-prohibitive to use their mobile phones. This could also be important in the consumer segment, as a way, for example, for mobile operators to retain usage from university students who otherwise would be using a low cost VoIP alternative to make international calls home to friends and family.
A 'one-number VoIP' solution yields a quick return on investment for carriers looking to deliver new service revenues to maximise their existing networks, while building effective foundations for a graceful transition to more advanced IMS applications. IMS uses VoIP based upon a standard implementation of SIP (session initiated protocol). Unlike interim solutions such as UMA, IMS will give operators controls for each service provided. IMS is the only networking architecture that genuinely merges the Internet and mobile environments to provide end-to-end seamless connectivity and a wealth of potential, exciting applications.
These solutions are being demonstrated today in market trials with major carriers. This gives traditional mobile operators and MVNOs, the opportunity to participate in the growing VoIP market and see for themselves how these convergence services can benefit customers, while creating flexible new channels for revenue. Operators could now extend existing voice services across a variety of private and roamed networks outside 2G/3G coverage, such as in offices or perhaps on Wi-Fi enabled commuter trains.
Not only could they profit from charging for this service, of course, but they can also retain any subscribers who might otherwise have jumped ship to sample rival VoIP services. It's all about time-to-market where churn is concerned, so it's important that mobile providers without a PC-convergence plan or a VoIP strategy establish these very soon. This will also enable them to get a head start over standalone Internet or VoIP providers by delivering a consistent and converged set of voice and data services under one brand across end-users' most significant devices – their handsets, PCs, laptops, PDAs, gaming consoles, and so on.

Many advantages
But we're forgetting the many advantages for the users themselves. Converged VoIP services lets businesses route internal calls over their own WLAN data networks, cutting external PSTN bills while providing consistent in-house coverage for converged mobile handsets, plugging traditional 2G/3G coverage holes. These savings can really add up for large distributed enterprises. Also, of course, subscribers are naturally eager to see the introduction of cheaper call tariffs and more advanced services that VoIP systems promise, including roaming across public access areas. A single operator deploying converged services wisely will be able to offer all subscribers a single identical package of flexible options to opt in and out of; replacing the various subscriptions they currently have for mobile voice, fixed voice, data and entertainment access. From a user point of view, it will just be a case of opting into services and seeing them just work, seamlessly.
So how long will it be before you and your colleagues carry single, sophisticated converged devices in your pockets? It's already possible to use a single provider and point of reference, just one consistent identity and 'phone' number, and to enjoy rich services like VoIP, push-to-talk, instant multimedia messaging, presence applications, slick content sharing, and any number of other rich converged services still under wraps?
Why not later this year?                     

Paul Crann is Vice president of marketing, Tatara Systems

The proliferation of laptops, PDAs, smartphones and USB sticks means that corporate data is no longer confined to the office. And, without a joined-up policy on mobile security, protecting and keeping track of it becomes impossible, says Martin Allen

For the staff member who needs to work at home in the evening, or at other remote locations such as customer sites, transporting data out of the office has never been easier.  Just plug a PDA, smartphone or USB stick into a desktop PC and drag the required files onto it. If none of these devices is to hand, a digital camera or an MP3 player will suffice.  Windows will instantly recognise them, without the need to install any drivers, so users don't even need administrative privileges on the desktop in order to do this.
If the staff member has a laptop PC, things are even easier. Just plug the machine into the company's network and copy the required files directly from the server.
But all this convenience comes at a sometimes hidden but high price. Without the necessary procedures and technical restrictions in place, companies can easily lose track of their sensitive data. Just how many files have been copied in this way? Where are they all now?  Are legitimate users working with outdated versions because they have neglected to copy the most recent ones? Are dishonest employees copying files that they don't need? How many former employees, now working for your competitors, still have your data in their possession? How often do staff copy a file to their spyware-infested family PC to work on at home during the weekend before unwittingly bringing the infected version back to the office on Monday morning?

The solution
What's needed is a mobile security solution which the users isn't aware of, so it's easy to use, totally transparent and doesn't affect the performance of the device in anyway. It needs to be configured so that its use is mandatory by all users and on all mobile devices. In addition, it should include key recovery facilities so that any file can be recovered by designated administrators in an emergency without the co-operation of the user who created it. Most importantly, the technology should be vendor-neutral, capable of working on every mobile device from USB stick, iPod, camera and smartphone to Windows laptops.
If you have always assumed that such products don't yet exist, prepare to be surprised. They do exist, and have done for a few years, albeit as part of a market that has only recently reached maturity. The whole sector is now growing rapidly, as more and more companies accept that they can't stand idly by and watch their data spread itself far and wide. If you've been avoiding the problem, you really shouldn't continue to do so.  Now is the time to roll out a mobile security policy.                                               
Opting for a centrally-manageable, cross-platform solution ensures that the roll-out runs as smoothly as possible. Everything is managed and controlled centrally so there's no need to manually install client software on each device since it is being encrypted transparently in the background. Nor to wait for a couple of hours while the client software encrypts the entire contents of the protected device. And because all future upgrades and support are included in the package, it's easy to work out the cost and to calculate the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the product. Which is significantly less than the cost of crisis-management that would be required if a key laptop or smartphone containing your most valuable data files was lost or stolen while away from company premises.

Choosing a strategy
One crucial question that many companies consider when evaluating mobile security products is whether to go for the 'big-bang' approach and roll it out to every mobile machine from the start, or whether to start with just a few devices and complete the rollout over an extended period. We would always suggest you rollout from the start as staggering the process is just asking for trouble. If a machine gets stolen or lost, you can just bet that it will be one that hasn't been protected yet.
Whichever supplier you decide to go for, choose carefully. If there's an offer of some reference sites, contact those references and ask questions. If no reference sites are offered, ask why. Look, too, for industry certifications within your business sector, and for an organisation that can support you 24 x 7, just in case problems do arise. In short, go with an established player and a market leader, so that you can have confidence that the product you choose will continue to be supported and developed in the future.
Rolling out a mobile security project used to be difficult and expensive, but such practice is now becoming widespread in companies of all sizes and in all areas of industry. The ubiquitous laptops, PDAs, smartphones and USB sticks in every department of every organisation nowadays means that your network no longer ends at your main gate, but extends to every employee's home and every customer site. Rolling out a mobile security policy will ensure that your data protection efforts will do so too.                                                     

Martin Allen is Managing Director Pointsec Mobile Technologies  www.pointsec.com

The term Mobile Device Management (MDM) has been on the radar as a revenue prospect and market opportunity for some time. As more complex devices and mobile services continue to hit the market, MDM has now reached a stage where operators are beginning to understand the value of such solutions. Nils Granath defines MDM and explains where its benefits lie

Mobile phones have become an integral part of both consumer and business users' lifestyles. No longer a simple piece of equipment for making phone calls and sending SMS messages, mobile handsets have become more and more like miniature PCs when it comes to operating systems and applications. 
Carriers are continually bringing more sophisticated services to the market, such as multimedia messaging, video streaming and multimedia gaming; and consumers are increasingly demanding mobile content across all the major genres: games, music, film and sport. According to Juniper Research, consumer spending on mobile content is expected to grow to E59bn by 2009 globally. As the market continues to speculate on the development of next generation 'killer' applications, including mobile TV, mobile IM and interactive gaming, operators face a challenge to keep their users interested in just what these ever-developing services can really do for them.
Ensuring continued growth
In a competitive market full of consolidation, and with voice services becoming saturated, it is important for mobile operators to drive new service opportunities for continued revenue growth. Operators are desperate to convince subscribers to buy into these new services after the large financial investments made in this space, with European mobile phone companies spending in excess of E100bn on 3G licence fees since 2000.  The challenge is that, with the increased complexity of mobile devices, every new development can potentially lead to new problems. With handsets becoming increasingly complex and function-led, will the average consumer actually be able or even want to access these services?
It comes down to this; unless setup and delivery of new and existing applications and services is easy, reliable and hassle free for customers, new revenue growth is at risk.
Carriers and handset manufacturers understand that the adoption of new services depends on fast, trouble-free deployments, and MDM solutions are required to contribute to the success of new services. MDM can enable operators to drive new revenue opportunities, offer lower operating costs and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Inside MDM
So what exactly does MDM do? It is used by operators to remotely manage the complete lifecycle of mobile handsets. Crucially, this includes optimising handsets to enable users to access and utilise cutting edge applications including IM, video streaming and mobile content. MDM also ensures that all handsets and their features are always up-to-date and fully functional while in the user's hands. It works by connecting a mobile phone to the MDM provider's server, which analyses the device checking its configuration and software version.   The appropriate software updates for that particular device are then selected and remotely downloaded and installed straight onto the end-user's handset.
If the handset is struck with a virus or software bug, then MDM prevents the need for costly and time consuming patches and security updates. Software patches can be transferred to the phone in a matter of minutes, preventing the significant financial and reputational burden of a recall, keeping the customer happy and protecting the device manufacturer's image and reputations. MDM can also provide automatic back up of subscriber phonebook information on the SIM card as well as on the device itself, meaning that if the device is lost or stolen, the phone can be locked or have its data deleted and then be quickly reinstated. 
Mobile data revenue opportunities are sometimes hindered by problems with initial device configuration, which in turn makes it difficult for customers to automatically access certain services. Poor content adaptation can also make services difficult to use, for example, sending a picture that does not fit the display. Operators need to take end-to-end responsibility for delivered services, from the mobile device through the mobile network to the content. In order to manage this, operators must know which devices are in their mobile network. MDM allows operators to automatically detect the handset and remotely configure all of its features. 
As the adoption of new services gradually rises, the benefits of MDM become more transparent. Research company M:Metrics recently revealed that the popularity of MMS is on the up, helped by events such as the recent World Cup for example, with a 32 per cent rise in use in the US, and by levels of 16 - 20 per cent across Europe this year alone. Operators are sitting up to this news and want to ensure that their customers' phones are correctly configured for services such as MMS – because if they aren't, then the message will fail and there is a chance users will not come back to try these advanced services. Simply put, operators are losing significant revenue from customers who don't know how to use the range of multimedia applications available.
For example, a customer might want to send a video message but wouldn't have the first idea of where to start. The majority of users will tolerate an average navigation time of 30 seconds to reach a service, and it is a known fact that they only call the customer care line when they have a problem. By sending updates from a central source, the operator can pre-empt this and ensure that the customer's handset is enabled with these revenue-generating services.

Moving content from handset to handset
Mobile phones can store large amounts of data such as pictures, contacts, music and e-mails; and users value this information a great deal. One of the main customer concerns when upgrading to a new phone model is the danger of data loss, with stored information such as downloaded screensavers, games, and ringtones having already incurred significant expense.  This, in combination with the complexity of new phone models and interoperability problems, often leads to an increased number of calls to the customer support departments or visits to retail outlets. Data being trapped on the mobile handset also presents a problem for mobile operators as they rely on users upgrading in order to increase the usage of data services like mobile TV or MMS, and to keep handset subsidiary costs relatively low.
Offering the customer a simple and convenient solution for retaining personal data is an effective way for mobile operators to help minimise churn and is an important element of MDM strategy. In fact, 15 to 20 per cent of mobile subscribers express a strong need for a mechanism to back-up contacts entered on mobile phones and other handset content, according to Zelos Group. Due to technology developments like megapixel cameras in mainstream handsets and the launch of exciting multi-player mobile games, it can be assumed that the handset replacement rate will increase from the current average upgrade cycle of 18 months and therefore data migration will grow in importance in the minds of mobile users. Such data backup could even create an additional revenue stream as many users are prepared to pay extra for an effective backup and restore solution. 
To date, there have been very few solutions that can handle data transfer between different handset models and manufacturers. The vast majority of handsets do not support a mass-market solution for preserving personal data, with very few solutions in the marketplace able to transfer information between different handset models and manufacturers.
Off-the-shelf solutions tend to target early adopters with a high technical competence and administrative rights on their PC. This requires a conscious decision when changing handsets to also purchase a solution for data management – plus have the readiness and technology know-how to actually use it. It also requires a certain amount of discipline from the user since the software needs to be kept up-to-date by downloading new releases.
Over-The-Air (OTA) solutions, enabled by the emerging SyncML standard, are one alternative. This is an important step towards automatic and transparent synchronisation and backing-up of personal data. Yet, when implemented independently it has drawbacks as it is a protocol, and thus is only an enabler not a customer solution; simply owning a SyncML-enabled handset does not provide data synchronisation. SyncML works for well-defined data, such as calendar, contacts and diary, but is not well defined for other personal data equally important to the user like settings, call register, messages, pictures, ring tones, applications, MP3s and games.  SyncML also provides little support in the area of interoperability in a multi-vendor environment where suppliers implement incompatible standards or maintain different interpretations. 
Due to its limitations in availability and functionality however, SyncML will never be a competing technology to a Point-Of-Sale (POS) solution, but rather an excellent additional tool for ongoing synchronisation after POS-side activation and data transfer. POS solutions, typically located in mobile phone shops, are ideal because they can be used when users are in the process of upgrading as an add-on service. However, most solutions currently available generally have limited scope in device support and are unable to transfer data amongst devices of multiple vendors.

The new solution
As part of a MDM strategy, the ideal POS solution should make it possible for the user to back-up, restore and transfer all personal data from one mobile phone to another, regardless of the make or model. POS solutions operate via Bluetooth, Infrared or USB transfer and can only be enabled by mobile operators, meaning that consumers are unable to transfer content from their handset to that of a friend, preventing any digital rights infringements. As they can be located within an operator's retail outlet, the consumer simply requests all content is transferred to the new model at the time of upgrading handsets.
As mobile content can only be authorised for transfer to a new handset by the existing operator, customers have a compelling reason not to churn. In addition to this, the POS element of a MDM strategy provides a significant opportunity to generate revenue and encourage new handset adoption. Benefits to the consumer are clear, with paid-for mobile content, existing contact details and messages all preserved. 
With a variety of solutions available to the operators to help them remotely manage their users' handsets, including OTA and POS, it is important that all options are assessed in line with both operators' and customers' needs. As the plethora of increasingly complex and dynamic mobile content continues to develop, and operators are increasingly asking themselves how they can reduce churn and build their customer base, MDM is fast becoming a vital and strategic solution that operators cannot afford to ignore.                                       

Nils Granath is Director of Product Management at Sicap  www.sicap.com