Page 6 - Mobile World Daily - Day One

NEWS
NEWS IN BRIEF...
Carrier Wi-Fi
heading for
backhaul
bottleneck in 2019
The number of carrier-grade
Wi-Fi hotspots will exceed 31
million by 2019, says a report
carried out by Real Wireless
on behalf of Bluwan.
However, the study also notes
that the rising densification
demands a fresh approach to
overcoming backhaul
limitations and preserving
network quality of experience.
Data usage highest
in residential and
industrial locations
A new report from JDSU
examining the geographical
distribution of mobile data use
found that half of mobile data
is being consumed by just 0.35
per cent of the geographical
area covered by the network.
Nearly three quarters (73 per
cent) of the data being
consumed in the most
extreme data consumption
hotspots is in residential and
industrial zones.
WeDo unveils RAID
Telecom
WeDo Technologies unveiled
its new RAID Telecom software
as part of the re-defined RAID
Enterprise Business
Assurance (EBA) family. The
new software is designed to
enable operators to track
relationships, identify issues to
reduce wasteful spending and
improve the bottom line.
Spirent enables
verification of
cellular to Wi-Fi
handovers
Spirent Communications is
helping mobile operators to
validate the experience of
subscribers as they move
between mobile networks,
carrier Wi-Fi hotspots and
private wireless networks.
Spirent Landslide tests the
performance and scalability
of the Wi-Fi access point, Wi-
Fi offload gateway and the
mobile core network.
TDC chooses
TEOCO to improve
network
performance
TDC has picked TEOCO’s
performance management
tool, Optima, to improve the
performance of its mobile
network in Denmark. The
Danish operator will use the
tool to reduce the cost of
managing the mobile network
while benefiting from new
features and functionalities.
PAGE 6 Monday 2nd March
Nokia Networks promises
end to poor click-throughs
By Paul Rasmussen
Nokia Networks claims its
new predictive marketing
software will bring an end to
the low uptake of marketing offers
sent to consumer handsets. The
company says operators adopting
its new technology could see
campaign click-through rates rise
from today’s 4 per cent to around
25 per cent.
The infrastructure vendor has
been conducting a trial of its newly
announced predictive marketing
software for some months with a
large US-based operator and is
basing its click-through improvement
rates on real usage data.
“This new software is a
combination of data analytics about
user behaviour together with what’s
happening in the mobile operator’s
network, such as the user’s location,
what device they’re using, etc.,” Phil
Twist, Nokia Networks VP of
portfolio marketing, told Mobile
World Daily.
“Putting user behaviour and
network data together enables the
operator to make personalised and
completely relevant offers to the
end user closely associated with
what they’re trying to do.”
Another highpoint of its
predictive marketing product is that
its cloud based offering allows the
Ericsson CEO determined to push
ahead with transformation plan
By Paul Rasmussen
Ericsson CEO, Hans Vestberg
(pictured), is unwavering in
his view that Ericsson must
continue with its 10-year
transformation to stay relevant to
the industry.
“It’s a massive transformation for
the company. We could stay where
we’re dominant, but my job is to
ensure that Ericsson is relevant in
the long-term, not just for the next
two quarters.”
Vestberg told Mobile World Daily
that the company is only making
acquisitions in sectors where it’s not
the number one player today. “It’s a
high-risk approach and we’re
betting on new areas which, of
course, require fresh investment to
become the number one. And the
competition in these new business
sectors is very different from where
we started from five years ago.”
As evidence of this change,
Vestberg pointed to Ericsson’s 2014
revenue where hardware sales
contributed 35 per cent of the total,
with software making up the rest.
“And that’s on a $35 billion
business. We’re a totally different
company from what we were 10
years ago.”
operator to put together an offer in
a few hours, claims Twist (pictured).
“But the key message is it’s
opening up a channel to customers
using information known to the
operator in a manner that hasn’t
been done before. It’s an opportunity
for a new source of revenue using
network and customer data. It’ll also
move the operator’s business model
away from being a highly efficient
connectivity provider into gaining
new sources of revenue and
enabling better co-operation with
OTT providers.”
The company confirmed that its
predictive marketing product
should become available in the
second half of this year.
The CEO is expecting these new
software-based ventures - IP,
OSS/BSS, services/integration and
the cloud - not only to gain a market-
leading position, but to excel
financially. “In the last eight quarters becoming one of the world’s three
we’ve seen improvement in our
overall profit margins because these
new investment areas are starting to
generate improved revenues.”
“We believe that the worldwide
infrastructure market will grow at
between 3 per cent and 5 per cent
annually. The new investment areas
will grow at 10 per cent, or more.”
However, Vestberg indicated a
level of concern with revamping
the world’s largest infrastructure
supplier. “The speed of our
transformation is the greatest risk.
Too slow will mean we miss out on
new investment opportunities; too
fast and we risk damaging our areas
of strength. The allocation of
capital across our businesses is the
biggest challenge I have today.”
MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS DAILY 2015 | www.mobileworldcongress.com
ZTE’s Grand
S3 uses eye
biometrics
to eliminate
passwords
By Joseph Waring
Chinese equipment and
handset supplier ZTE has
released a new Grand series
flagship smartphone that uses eye
biometric authentication to unlock
the device, eliminating the need for
passwords.
Incorporating Eyeprint ID from
EyeVerify, ZTE said its Grand S3
offers an enhanced level of security
and is one of the first smartphones
in the world to support Eyeprint ID.
Rather than scan the iris or retina, smart projector with a touchscreen
it works by imaging and then
matching the pattern of the blood
vessels in the whites of a user’s eyes
for highly accurate and fast identity
verification. Using a device’s front-
facing camera, it takes just 800
milliseconds for authentication,
EyeVerify said.
“We are delighted to partner with
EyeVerify to bring Eyeprint ID to the
Grand S3,” said Adam Zeng
Xuezhong, CEO of ZTE Mobile
Devices. He said Eyeprint ID will soon
be integrated with its mobile payment
option and other applications.
The 4G model has a 5.5-inch
screen and is 9.8mm thick. It
features a 2.5GHz quad-core chipset
Alcatel OneTouch aims to
become top 3 handset player
By Joanne Taaffe
Alcatel OneTouch is upping
production by approximately
30 per cent with the aim of
largest handset manufacturers.
Part of China’s TCL group, the
company shipped 80 million units in
2014, which it claims makes it the
fourth-largest device manufacturer
globally. “Two or three years ago we
were number 11,” said William
Dowie, portfolio director, global
marketing and products center. In
2015 the company aims to
manufacture 110 million devices,
said Dowie.
Yet unlike competitors such as
Xiaomi, Alcatel OneTouch’s growth
has come from outside its home
base of China, where it has a market
share of below 10 per cent. “We’re
relatively small in the whole of Asia-
Pac,” said Dowie, who added that
Alcatel OneTouch is the Chinese
OEM that ships the most devices
outside its home market.
Instead Alcatel OneTouch so far
has focused on Latin America and
and runs on Android 4.4.
Prior to its debut at Mobile World
Congress, the Grand S3 was
released in China on 17 January. It
is available online in China for
CNY2,999 ($487).
ZTE is also showcasing its Star 2,
which features voice-activated
controls; its Blade S6, which has
‘Smart Sense’ gesture controls and
was released in Hong Kong in late
January; as well as the Spro 2, a
Android OS that was announced at
CES in January.
The company will release the
Star2 on 12 March at CeBIT in
Germany. The Blade S6 will launch
via its channel partners in Germany,
Spain, and France at the end of the
month. This follows recent online
launches via AliExpress globally, as
well as via eBay and Amazon for the
UK, Germany, France, Italy and
Spain.
Eastern Europe, and now claims to
be the number two player in Russia.
It also has built up market share in
the US through carrier partnerships.
However, the company, which sells
mid-priced smartphones at below
$300 that come with high-end
features, needs to succeed in
Western Europe, where it is currently
weak. To this end it will open new e-
commerce channels, aim to build
relationships with operators and
launch its latest Idol phone globally.
Yet the company recognises there
will be challenges in a market that is
in flux. In the lower range of
smartphones “there will be a bloody
war on pricing,” said Dowie.
Meanwhile “the top-end of the
market is slowing down and we will
face more competition as people
step into the mid-range,” said Dowie.
“But we still see growth in the $200
to $300 range,” he added. And to
prevent price erosion it is counting on
features such as front-end speakers
with a hi-fi chip from Clarion and a
reversible screen which features on
the IDOL 3 phone it unveiled at
Mobile World Congress.