Newsletter: Warming up for MWC 2010
HSPA+ and LTE will be key issues to keep an eye on at MWC 2010
This year’s MWC Barcelona challenge: Spot the winners
Yet another annual Mobile World Congress beckons, and once again it will be conspicuously Apple-less. This year I have set myself the gargantuan challenge of trying to spot any future mobile industry winners besides Apple that might eventually replenish our crisis-ridden industry. And to anyone who feels like it, please by all means join me in this quest and let me know how you fare.
For my new search I will of course not be looking among the ranks of the time-honoured dinosaurs of the industry - who shall remain nameless - and whose clumsy thumping around is rather predictable anyway. Instead, I will be keeping a watchful eye on the smaller, more agile hopefuls scurrying about in the Barcelonan undergrowth. Are there any start-ups destined to become the next great Google or awesome Apple? I already imagine scores of venture capitalists looking on, frothing at their mouthes. But seriously folks - and for the wider industry’s sake - I sincerely hope a few will materialize. We really need a new heard of Seth Godin’s purple cows.
I will also be providing a more traditional report from the event to posit on my website. So watch this space. If any of you should find yourselves wanting of an independent MWC industry report on a specific area of interest let me know, as I would be happy to provide that also (as a paid service at a very reasonable price, of course). I promise to leave out the sly remarks and stick to the facts.
Finally – and on special invitation - I will be paying a bit of extra attention to my friends the Israelis who once again will be on hand in droves, 65 companies strong. Apart from trying to spot something interesting among this lot, I have a real mystery to solve. How does a country of just 7.5 million people mobilize such an imposing presence, while 5.5 million Danes – or for that matter any number of similar smallish countries - can congregate only a small handful? What’s Israel’s secret of success? Frankly, I have no idea. But I shall endeavour to find out and report back to ye faithful readers. Maybe we have something to learn.
Stockholm's LTE disappoints - exactly as predicted
As I accurately predicted in a previous newsletter (OK - so I admit to being more than a little bit proud that I was so fantastically and precisely right on this subject) real LTE speeds are a far cry from the ultra-hyped 50 or 100 megabit per second rates that industry evangelists can’t stop bragging about. According to this recent article the Stockholm LTE network of TeliaSonera delivers a mere 12 megabits per second (downlink) as tested by my excellent consulting colleagues at Northstream. This is an improvement of a factor of 3 on current HSPA (2 mbps average) speeds as expected (when taking into account the bandwidth difference) and as argued in my article. Not that this is all that bad. But I still think marketers and PR folks are better off working within the general area of a little thing called The Truth. Anything else has a tendency to bite back where it hurts most. Or am I stating the obvious here?
My take: HSPA+ could seriously delay LTE
And this elegantly lands me at the feet of my next subject: Many attentive CTO's heads must have been sent spinning following the recent announcement by Ericsson and 3 Networks that the next generation in HSPA - called HSPA+ or HSPA Evolved - will reach theoretical peak user rates of 86 megabits per second, and that this is happening already this year. Could HSPA+ be a threat to LTE? To me the answer is a resounding YES.
Firstly, with HSPA+ you don't need to build a new radio access network as in LTE, and for starters you don't need new spectrum for it to work. Secondly, you also don't need a brand new multi-mode series of devices as you do with LTE, and presumably anything in the HSPA+ family will be backwards compatible with everything all the way back to Release 99. Thirdly - and in scandalous contrast to LTE - HSPA+ works together with Release 99 so it's capable of voice, which is sadly not the case with LTE (what on Earth possessed the 3GPP to leave out voice from the LTE standard? That's hands down the dumbest thing they've ever done - excuse the pun). Fourthly, with HSPA+ there's a much higher likelihood that subscribers will be able to roam internationally. LTE has a challenge in this respect - as pointed out in this article.
In LTEs favour we're left with the high capacity - meaning a lot of allocated spectrum - and the higher end-user speeds. In the wake of the 86 megabits per second announcement the most important of the two is clearly the capacity boost. This is clearly important, although to my knowledge not many operators seem to be particularly concerned about service degradation due to current capacity limits (although they should be!). My best guess is that LTE will happen (and will be on track in certain markets) but is at a serious risk of being delayed because of the obvious attraction of HSPA+.
Sadly that means that we may have to wait even more years before we can finally abolish archaic circuit-switching. It really should have died a long time ago.
Simplicity in mobile industry consulting? Really?
Yes, really. "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!" said the great American philosopher Henry David Thoreau. Time to heed his advice and carve out a fresh approach to mobile industry consulting.
Contrary to popular belief the word "consult" is not a contraction of "con" and "insult" (joke courtesy of Dilbert). Nonetheless, many an unscrupulous consultant makes his living telling prospective clients how incredibly complicated the world is. The only thing that can keep the hapless client afloat in this roaring ocean of complexity - says the shrewd consultant - is to hire some very smart people a.k.a. the consultant himself or to buy expensive reports that go on for hundreds of pages in sleepy repetition. Clever marketing, say you? Possibly. But personally, I've had enough of that. The truth is that the mobile business need not be that complicated.
That's why my excellent colleagues and friends at Ventura Team and myself have decided finally to take swipe against the grain. So we are in the process of developing an ultra-concise model and service package for strategic business case evaluation including technology strategy. Our mission is to reach out to many more prospective clients and to render even "difficult" technology slash business decisions simpler than before. Simpler in this case also means projects that are less time consuming and thus less costly. We will be sending out more information shortly.
Meet me in Barcelona
As usual I will be at the MWC in Barcelona for the full duration of the event, 15.-18. February. So don't hesitate to drop me a line at claus@hettingconsulting.com if you want to meet up for business, networking, interest, or just for fun. It's always good fun to exchange ideas over a cup of gut-wrenching Spanish espresso and the classic jamón serrano sandwich. See you there!
With the very best regards,
Claus Hetting
Date: 07-02-2010
Author: Claus Hetting
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