Vodafone Spain Launches ‘HomeZone’ service for SMEs

On May 24th Vodafone Spain launched ‘Office Vodafone,’ targeting SMEs and SOHOs. Office Vodafone is an all-mobile ‘fixed-mobile substitution’ service, which allows the end-user a fixed-line number prefix with his/her mobile handset.

Recommended Competitive Responses

► All competitors should anticipate a high level of marketing and publicity for Office Vodafone. The ‘homezone’ concept has been tremendously successful in the German consumer market – this is a proven service model which already has Vodafone Spain’s confidence (and marketing resources).

► Telefonica Moviles should consider adopting the homezone service concept for its own SME customers. Such a service initiative would be considerably easier, cheaper, and quicker to market than a full-blown ‘converged’ competitive response.

► Competitors which, for one reason or another, choose not to deploy their own HomeZone service in the business space should attack Office Vodafone with the following silver bullet: all-GSM mobile services offer extremely poor voice quality and coverage in steel-framed office buildings. Businesses should be wary of Vodafone’s claims that this solution will enable them to discontinue PBX investment cycles, or, for that matter, fixed telephony subscriptions.

► Amena should learn from BT’s experience with BT Fusion and anticipate slow uptake for its planned UMA-based service in the short-to-mid term.

Recommended End User/Customer Responses

► All businesses contemplating this service should ask Vodafone Spain to explain the shortcomings of indoor GSM services, especially if their office building is of a steel construction. All businesses should ask for a trial of this service before purchase.

► Businesses looking to ‘cut the cord’ and make users ‘all-mobile’ should choose to take a slowly-slowly approach to migration. The ‘big bang’ approach to fixed-mobile substitution (i.e., junking the PBX, cancelling all fixed-line subscriptions and making all office workers ‘mobile’ workers in one go) is simply not advisable.

WiMAX World Europe: Moto Announces Carrier-Class WiMAX Base Station

On May 23rd Motorola announced its carrier-class 802.16e WiMAX base station, joining the previously announced Ultra Light Access Point. Launched at the WiMAX World Europe show, the new product was used to demonstrate data services using a data card incorporating an 802.16e chipset from Beceem Communications.

Recommended Competitive Responses

► A carrier-class (AKA, high-capacity) 802.16e base station does nothing to set Motorola apart in the market. For Motorola, a high-capacity WiMAX product is clearly important – it fills out the vendor’s portfolio, standing as a complement to the Ultra Light access point. Yet, key competitors – Alcatel, Nortel, Samsung – have already launched their own high-capacity products, simply putting Motorola on an equal footing.

► References to Motorola’s Carrier Access Point (CAP) architecture provide limited insight into what CAP is or does.

► From a spectrum perspective, Motorola’s WiMAX portfolio lacks the flexibility required in the market and delivered by competitors. Ultra Light products support 3.5 GHz – but not 2.5 GHz (like the carrier-class solution) or unlicensed operations (like Motorola’s successful Canopy line). The new carrier-class product will support 2.5 and 3.5 GHz spectrum, but not niche bands which may be important to many operators (700 MHz, 1.5 GHz, etc.).

► Motorola’s WiMAX products need better branding in terms of product names. The concept of MOTOwi4 as an umbrella for all of Motorola’s broadband wireless products (ex-3G) is a simple one. Naming the products within the portfolio is harder.

	Free Podcasts and Report O-Day: How Will Orange Business Services Impact the Global Carrier Services Market? In line with France Telecom's NExT strategy, the Orange brand is sweeping throughout the France Telecom Group, including domestic and foreign subsidiaries, to usurp the former Equant, Wanadoo and France Telecom brands. Listen to a Podcast as Current Analysis analysts discuss the impact, read intelligence report, or listen to French translation.

The Wireless Event, London: BT Unveils ‘Wireless Cities’

On May 17th BT announced its plan to create wireless cities across the UK. In an initial phase of 12 cities, BT announced agreements with six. People in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, Cardiff and Westminster will benefit from wide-area wireless (WiFi) networks, giving them access to information and services.

Competitive Concerns

► BT’s wireless vision, including the wireless cities initiative, is a ‘work in progress’ for the company. With traditional cellular players set to launch HSDPA (offering broadband-like bandwidth) later this year, they will be able to demonstrate wide-area services ahead of BT.

► As yet, the availability of dual-mode GSM/WiFi devices is severely restricted. Whilst many manufacturers are looking at developing such devices, the range will always be a subset of the total number of GSM devices.

► Cellular operators are already targeting business customers and public authorities with services to mobilise workflow and sales force tasks. With these customers already tied to contracts with operators, this limits BT’s ability to muscle in on this market.

► Offering wireless services is essentially about coverage and capacity and traditional cellular players have many years head start in this area. Whilst WiFi hotspots might offer contiguous citywide coverage, this solution lacks the sophistication of a well-designed wide-area cellular network (offering handovers, power control and location information).

Unlimited: (adjective) not limited or restricted; infinite

Recent announcements by T-Mobile and Vodafone have caught the eye of the press and advertising community. In both cases ‘unlimited’ was used to describe mobile Internet offers when this was clearly not the case. Whilst fixed-line ISP have in the main got past the hype and offer reasonable download limits or fair usage policies, mobile operators have yet to learn this lesson.

Recommended Vendor Actions

► Mobile operators should carefully implement fair usage policies to replace their ‘unlimited’ data tariffs. As data usage increases and video and music become commonplace, the download limits will be approached by a larger number of customers. Operators need to avoid the churn so a sympathetic ear to ‘over-use’ needs to be adopted.

► Operators should carefully evaluate the impact of new services such as VoIP or IM on their networks as soon as possible. With T-Mobile’s heavy-handed ban of VoIP and IM services on its new Web’n’walk tariff attracting adverse publicity, operators need to realistically evaluate the number of users for these new services and decide on their policy for fair usage.

► Mobile operators should seek out ISPs and broadband providers and learn from their customer experiences as new tariffs and services were implemented. Bringing the Internet to a mobile device is, for the end user, the same as signing up to an ISP for a broadband package. Mobile operators should learn from other industries and not continue to repeat their errors in the mobile space.

Recommended End-User Actions

► Customers should be rightly sceptical when operators describe services as unlimited or free. There is no such thing as a free lunch and customers should be prepared to root out the restrictions and hold operators to account for them.

► Customers should look for mobile operators that are prepared to offer data packages couched in end user language. Mbyte and Gbyte download limits are not intelligible, but average e-mail usage or phrases such as ‘average use of five minutes of video per day’ are more user friendly. Customers should churn to more user friendly operators.

► Customers should seek out an ‘unlimited’ package that meets their specific needs. Customers for just e-mail should be offered different packages from customers that play online games or download video. One package will not meet the needs of all customers and operators should be offering different packages.