A mobile multimedia world
Ericsson’s recent announcement of a realignment of its business units provides insight into the next phase of developments in the cellular industry.
Ericsson, the world’s largest telecoms infrastructure company, will reorganize into three business units: its core business of network infrastructure (it holds 40% worldwide market share in cellphone networks), a professional services unit (that already manages networks with a combined total of 65m subscribers and supports networks with 725m subscribers) and a new unit under the multimedia banner.
Announcing the restructuring, Ericsson president and CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg quoted research that said that last year the multimedia market – networked TV, music, gaming, video, radio and print over fixed and mobile networks – was valued at just under 20bn and is expected to exceed 100bn by 2011.
After years of depressed market conditions that saw Ericsson trim its workforce from around 120 000 to 50 000 and large-scale consolidation in the industry – Siemens and Nokia recently announced the merger of their networks businesses, which will make then number three after a combined Alcatel and Lucent – the Swedish company also expects to hire 500 new engineers for its multimedia division.
Svanberg says the new division is a business enabler and that multimedia does for telecommunications what Windows did for the personal computer. Closer co-operation between Ericsson and its handset joint venture partner, Sony, is also envisaged under the multimedia division.
Currently there are 2,5bn cellphone subscribers worldwide, of whom a growing number is being upgraded to mobile broadband, says Svanberg. Traffic on mobile networks is expected to quadruple over the next five years. Traffic volumes will be boosted by continued subscriber growth, with the worldwide number expected to exceed 4bn by 2011 – with more than 80% of new users coming from developing markets.
Fixed to mobile substitution for voice is another driver – in countries with developed fixed line infrastructure only around 15% of calls are made on mobile phones. By contrast – SA and particularly the rest of Africa – cellphone voice traffic exceeds that on fixed lines.
However, the biggest increase in traffic will be thanks to data services, including what Ericsson terms “mobilized enterprise applications,” such as ERP systems and VPN’s, entertainment downloads and streaming and the use of mobile networks for Internet access. After years of stagnation and overcapacity, fixed line network traffic is also set to increase with the uptake of IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) or, as Ericsson dubs it, Interactive Personalised TV.
A number of cellular companies – including Vodacom in SA – now offer bundled offerings of mobile Internet access and laptops. Hardware manufacturers are increasingly embedding mobile access through 3G and its faster upgrade HSDPA (WCDMA) into devices. SA recently also opened it first 3G only centre, with all communications running on Vodacom’s mobile network. Data will exceed voice traffic on mobile networks by 2010. The same happened on fixed networks at the turn on the century.
3G networks in Europe currently still run at only half their capacity. So what’s behind the better outlook for mobile data? In a word: speed.
Mikael Back, vice-president of WCDMA networks at Ericsson, says there was disappointment when 3G was first introduced in Europe, but that “with HSDPA users are now getting what they expected from 3G”. HSDPA, currently available at 1,8Mbps in SA, is already running at speeds of 3,6Mbps in other markets, and Ericsson will start shipping laptop cards with 7,2Mbps download and 1,8Mbps upload capabilities next year.
Says Back: “That puts it on par with ADSL and makes SA and the rest of Africa – with limited, expensive and slow fixed line services – the perfect market for HSDPA.” Not surprising that SA was one of the first markets in the world to introduce HSDPA, also called Super 3G or 3G evolved, as the cell networks spotted an opportunity to take up Telkom’s slack.
Mobile broadband use among customers, including wireless solutions from iBurst and Sentech, is fast approaching the numbers of Telkom’s installed ADSL base of 150 000. There are now 59 commercial HSDPA networks worldwide, with as many in the works.
Back believes operators have learnt from the mistakes of the past, such as the introduction of WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) on 2G networks, which failed in all markets except Japan, and the nitial confusion about GPRS is or can do.
“When you introduce a new service, it’s better to imitate an existing one.. If you have t produce a brochure before people ‘get it’ you’re already dead,” says Back. Marketing HSDPA as “broadband everywhere” or as an ADSL equivalent should stand equipment vendors in good stead.
Operator 3 Italia markets an “ADSMobile” service (at 9 Euros/month) while Kanguru, a Portuguese company, offers a 5Gb mobile broadband service for 39 Euros a month.
The uptake of fixed broadband, now in 250m homes, has been even faster than cellphones, with the former growing at a rate of 94%/year versus historical cellphone growth of 32%/year.
Finweek
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