RIM Stays
on a Roll
RIM
continues
to
aggressively pursue UMA
and Wi-Fi in a broad
range of products. Its
first three UMA-enabled
Blackberry models, Curve,
Pearl and 8820, were top
sellers for T-Mobile and
other operators. Rumors abound of a new round
of UMA devices, including the Bold, Kickstart
and Javelin.
Jim Balsillie, RIM's co-CEO, is bullish on UMA,
saying "I think [UMA/Wi-Fi] is just so compelling
and so inevitable." Clearly this sentiment has
translated directly into RIM's product plans. Can
we attribute RIM's gravity defying stock price to
its unwavering support for UMA?
RIM has a compelling UMA implementation
whereby traffic is dynamically routed onto Wi-
Fi or UMA, depending on the application. This
ensures that internet applications like Google and
YouTube are offloaded directly to the internet,
whereas network-based services like voice, SMS
and MMS are connected to the mobile operator.
Home Zone Services Help
Operators `Mind the Gap'
As mobile data usage explodes, mobile operators are
noticing a growing gap between bytes delivered and revenue
generated.
With voice traffic, each additional minute of traffic typically
generates an equal amount of revenues.
Today, data revenues
have jumped from per
byte to flatrate pricing
and usage is exploding,
generating a traffic/
revenue gap.
With estimates indicating
as much as 50% of mobile
traffic is generated in
the home, a home zone
service offer, based on
low-power in-home radios
like femtocells or Wi-Fi,
are helping mobile operators
`mind the gap.' With a
home zone service offer,
operators are able to offload bandwidth intensive media-rich
applications onto the user's own fixed-broadband network,
thus lowering costs.
The result is a win-win situation for operators and users.
Operators collect the flat rate fee, even for traffic not carried on
their network, whereas users receive high quality broadband
access on their mobile phones.
Femtocell Forecast:
Sunny... with a Chance of Rain
Analysts continue to predict a bright and sunny future for femtocells. The latest re-
port issued by Informa Telecoms and Media indicates more than 40 million femtocell
units will be delivered in the next five years, with 22 million units worth a total of $3.7
billion to be deployed in 2013 alone.
Yet the same report outlines a litany of issues, ready to rain on the femtocell parade,
including service positioning/marketing, customer service issues, automating manage-
ment/provisioning and more.
For its part, the Femto Forum is tackling these issues head on. The forum has en-
dorsed the 3GPP's work on Iu-h, a new `Home NodeB' femtocell connectivity interface,
and announced support for TR-069, the DSL Forum specification for remote CPE man-
agement and provisioning.
Stuart Carlaw, vice president of the mobile practice at ABI Research, recently summed
up the femtocell market forecast best: "The next nine months will show whether we are
in for a booming market or whether the market looks doomed to tanking."
Pack the sunblock and an umbrella.
HEADLINES
Traffic & Revenue Challenge
Mobile operator
revenue & traffic
de-coupled
Traffic
Revenues
Voice Dominant
Data Dominant
Time