Mobile Virtual Network Operators

MVNOs are revolutionizing the way communication or media companies market wireless services, target specific communities with personalized services, establish new partnerships, and experiment with WiFi.
I recently read about Sky Deaton and his new MVNO Helio, a partnership between Earthlink and SK Telecom. The launch in spring will include an exclusive deal with the popular social networking service MySpace and some interesting Korean handsets. One of the phones (pearly-white case) is named YT, after the female skateboarder in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, a good indication of the targeted audience :-)
We can expect creative outlets and partnerships since the Helio's executives looked at SK's TTL zones/lounges for inspiration. This would truly bring differentiators to the new virtual operator.

Today, Sun is helping MVNO deployments around the world by focusing on the following elements of the value chain:

Innovating on the device
The magnitude of Java services growth is remarkable as operators are expected to
increase these service revenues to $15 billion by 2008, according to industry
analysts. Java offers new business opportunities to mobile operators by
increasing network traffic, encouraging use of premium services, and allowing
revenue-sharing with content providers. Specifically, Java is breaking down
device fragmentation barriers for MVNOs:

• Virgin Mobile USA uses Kyocera's phones running Java to provide subscribers greater access to games.
• ESPN's Sanyo-made CDMA 1x EV-DO clamshell running Java offers automatic push service, the ability to personalize content delivered to the phone, one-touch access to sports news and real-time game updates.
• Four out of the six Boost Mobile phones are Java enabled to offer a wide array of application/ringtone choices that provide a little of everything to satisfy all tastes.

Building the converged IP network
An IMS-enabled network that allows seamless roaming and
terminating of IP services over fixed and mobile networks will generate an
increase in MVNO initiatives. Amp'd, Disney, and other MVNOs are looking at incorporating WiFi into their offerings.
At Sun, we have been relentlessly working at integrating Solaris 10, Java Enterprise Systems, and ATCA carrier grade servers into IMS solutions. The value of integrating Sun's identity management suite with the Home Subscriber Server (HSS) was recently highlighted in a whitepaper.
The HSS stores key subscriber information, and application information, allowing
users to locate and communicate with other subscribers. To integrate IMS
infrastructure with the existing network, operators will need connectivity
between the HSS and heterogeneous legacy systems, and this is what Sun's
identity management suite does extremely well.

Managing the back end

• Billing and CRM are fundamental business processes of MVNOs (and MVNEs).
  Order entry, device management, provisioning, and service assurance are other
  elements of the OSS/BSS infrastructure that require integration and web enablement. Sun is driving NGOSS implementations, leveraging our community efforts with the OSS/J initiative (using SOA and Java).
  
• With branded content from both inside and outside the organization, proper
  billing of services internally and externally will be extremely important to the
  MVNO business plan. Highdeal's Transactive engine provides pricing flexibility and is IMS ready to support payment convergence. Highdeal is also an OSS/J community member.
• MVNOs will also need to interface their BIDW systems with other organizations. According to the 2005 Winter Corporation TopTen program, Sun platforms run 6 of the 10 largest data warehouses.

3GSM Barcelona, Spain

The annual 3GSM conference took place last week in Barcelona. The change of venue was welcome by most of the 50,000 attendees. All the good French food in Cannes couldn't compete with the hotels, public transportation, cellular coverage, and the Fira of Barcelona. This year's participation surpassed all previous years (2005: 34,000, 2004: 29,000, 2003: 26,000, 2002:24,000).

Convergence between fixed telecom, internet and entertainment was the main theme of 3GSM. Software makers, device and network equipment manufacturers were all touting their support for convergent technologies (SIP, IMS and UMA among others):

• Nokia introduced new phones including the 6136 supporting UMA connectivity.
• Motorola received the award for the best 3G phone and presented the new A910 used by BT Fusion.
• Vodafone selected Ericsson's IMS.
• NTT DoCoMO showed their new HDSPA phones from Motorola, NEC and Fujitsu.

Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) represents a clear opportunity for convergent service providers to offset the loss of revenue due to Fixed Mobile Substitution (FMS) and new competition from VoIP service providers. At 3GSM, I presented a service roadmap for carriers to provide a fixed mobile convergence experience to their subscribers while transforming their network to fully support the above technologies. The key take aways were:

• Java is the de facto standard for FMC service development and deployment
  
• Identity is the common, most critical component across converged services, service delivery platform and IMS.
  
• Participation is key to address the device, services, network, data center, DRM and OSS/BSS challenges created by FMC.

Content was king at 3GSM again this year. A complete hall was dedicated to all forms of content for the mobile industry. I really wonder when Google, AOL, Yahoo and other traditional internet outlets will be actively participating to the annual wireless fest. In their absence, the world’s largest operators, China Mobile, Orange, Telefonica, TeliaSonera, TIM, T-Mobile, Turkcell, Vodafone and a few others announced their intention to launch Instant Messaging interoperability using the "calling party pays" principle.
This is certainly going to increase traffic (and revenue) between the participating carriers but what about the interoperability with Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft IM services who were clearly not invited to participate?

Industry analysts and the convergent network

The annual Sun Analyst Summit took place this past week at the St Regis hotel in San Francisco. This is
another great opportunity to share our vision, strategy and most recent successes with the analysts from Gartner, IDC, Yankee, Forrester, Tower, and other firms covering the telecommunications and media industries. One comment I've heard a few times during the 1-on-1's was: "Sun, you have a great story, you need to tell it more!". So here's the 30 seconds message.

As we are entering this new age of participation, Sun is innovating to enable service providers to acquire, retain, and monetize subscribers in the converged network world in three different ways:Sun's innovation with Java on the client side is increasing the consumption of IP based services and content (>700M Java phones in 2005, OCAP's recent announcements, HANA, OMC, OSDP).

• Sun's products are building the IP convergent network with our partners (Solaris 10 for carrier grade OS, ATCA for NGN, OSS/J for NG-OSS, Java Enterprise Systems middleware for NG-Services).
• Sun is transforming the business of managing and delivering digital content (ILM, Media Asset Management) with Java end-to-end.

And now for something completely different and for those who missed them: all the Superbowl Sunday commercials will be re-broadcasted on Sprint's mobile network.