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TELECOMS AND SOFTWARE NEWS
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Mobile World Congress breaking news: day three
Ovum Analyst Team
Mobile World Congress breaking news: day three
Announcements continue to come thick and fast at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Here we provide our opinion of the most interesting announcements made since yesterday's Straight Talk. For further information on any of the following, please contact the analysts named below.
Verizon Wireless announces LTE vendors: no Nortel - by Steven Hartley and Julien Grivolas
Verizon Wireless CTO Dick Lynch today revealed the long-awaited winners of its LTE deployment contracts. Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent are the radio access providers, with Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent providing an IMS layer to a Starent packet-core network. Alcatel-Lucent must be breathing a huge sigh of relief this morning. It has emerged as the main winner at Verizon Wireless, winning both radio and IMS elements. This puts the company, which has had a torrid time since the merger of Alcatel and Lucent, on a strong footing for future deals. Ericsson's involvement is also interesting as it has not worked with Verizon Wireless in the past. Today's success suggests that Vodafone's influence may be at play. CEO Vittorio Colao has emphasised that global co-ordination will be key moving forward, and this may be a first sign. The key loser is Nortel, which seems to have suffered from poor timing. It has a relationship with Verizon Wireless and a strong technology offering in this space. However, Verizon Wireless is clearly looking for a long-term relationship and entering Chapter 11 protection is certainly not conducive to that. Finally, Starent's involvement is another indication that this strong player in the core network domain is well positioned for LTE migration. Its experience in CDMA and expansion to UMTS makes it a strong candidate for other CDMA operators seeking to migrate to LTE. Mobile operators can lead the way out of the downturn - by Raymond Yu
Yesterday, the heads of Vodafone, Telefonica and Telenor jointly communicated the message that mobile investment needs to continue despite the current economic conditions. The belief is that mobile telecoms can help the global economy overcome the credit crunch - and we agree. So far, mobile operators around the globe have adapted well to capture current demand for mobile services. The economic conditions have meant that demand for mobile services is now more price-focused, so operators have employed measures such as offering more price-competitive tariffs, and pushing SIM-only and prepaid offerings to accommodate this change. As Cesar Alierta, executive chairman of Telefonica, said, “Our success will come from providing the consumer with a much better experience based upon providing value.” Yet in order to be well placed to capture future mobile demand cost effectively it is important for MNOs to work together, as stressed by Vodafone's Vittorio Colao: “We should have a common technology roadmap, and look more closely at sharing towers and possibly fibre.” Yahoo refines mass-market mobile web vision - by Tony Cripps
The new Yahoo! Mobile application (which will be available in 2Q09 for most handsets, including Apple's iPhone) takes the basic elements from the popular Yahoo! Go application and expands them to finally include third-party web widgets and full web browsing (crucial for long-tail access and previously an oversight) via Opera Mini. Yahoo's pragmatic approach to blending the web with the mobile phone may not enable it to compete directly with more tightly integrated, and higher-end, user experiences from Google, Microsoft, Nokia and Apple. However, with Yahoo's web properties attracting over half a billion unique users per month according to comScore, Yahoo! Mobile could prove a thorn in the side of similar offerings that rely on operator partnerships and revenue-share deals to make them viable, such as Qualcomm's Plaza - and, potentially, Sun's JavaFX Mobile if it is developed this way.
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This article is an extract taken from Ovum's Straight Talk service. This daily email bulletin provides our expert's views and opinions on important news and events in global IT and telecoms. If you have a comment or question regarding this article then please submit your details here:
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